Immediate doubts, immediately

Dear Professor Everything,

This is so typical of me. I have really been enjoying your classes so far, and been looking forward to participating to my utmost ability in all seminars. Really, I have been looking forward to being an extraordinary student. Because you are such an extraordinary professor, and this is such an extraordinary class. However, as you may have noticed, my class attendance has been flagging. I feel that an explanation is in order, and maybe you can even help me sort out some of my thoughts (if it is not too much to ask). You see, I enrolled in this particular program under the impression that the material it contains would be of some importance, both to me and to everyone else in the world. I attended to the assignments and to the class materials with a sense of urgency–almost emergency! My ambitions (if I may call them that) to become a high school biology teacher, and to sharpen my skills as a critical thinker and observer of large-scale patterns of human strife, contained within them a conceptualization of the world as in need of, and as capable of recieving and making use of, the skills that I would actively develop over the duration of this course of study. Off and on for a long time now, and especially recently, I see that I may have been laboring under a mis-conceptualization. Is it too extremely naive for me to say that the people of the world simply are and that any “help” I think I may be able to give to them is in fact no more than a balm on my own conscience? And if what I am saying is the case, does that mean that my profession as a biology teacher is no more than selfish striving, a flaccid effort to brink the flood of hatefulness and ignorance that seems to be englufing our nation, our world? Is that flood even real, Professor? Or maybe, as Regina Spektor says, “people” really “are just people.” And, as says Eleanor Roosevelt, “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” All these people suffering in poverty, dying of AIDS, starvation, war, human trafficking, etc. are in fact the only people on Earth responsible for, and capable of, relieving their own suffering.  I project that they are suffering, because I myself would suffer were I in their place.  I strive to understand their suffering because it makes me feel better to do so.  But do I bring them any solace with my efforts?  No one can account for another person’s happiness.  It is only with the broadest strokes, and under the simplest understanding of the human mind that we can paint a picture of suffering on a massive scale and imagine what we can do to relieve it.  I pursue my studies with a sense of urgency, as I said before; I pursue them with a sense of obligation.  But it is an obligation that I bestowed upon myself.  I have chosen to act out my whole comportment, my sense of place in the world, based on this obligation.  I suppose that what I am ultimately asking is, is it right or necessary or possible for me to exert agency over my future, which I have thus far sculpted with an eye to exerting agency over my world, which is really our world, everyone’s world?  Please advise.  If you have any further questions, I am at your disposal, day or night.  Thank you.

Respectfully,

Theadora

Magic Mountain

I went to Six Flags Hurricane Harbor today with my friend Kelly and her two pre-teen charges, and everyone was worked up about how Six Flags is selling all their property to “some developer” and this is the last summer that either the water park or the amusement park are going to be open… after 45 years! On an LA time scale, that practically makes it a cultural institution, at least deserving of historic landmark status. But no, come November, the bulldozers and lumber trucks will take over, converting this centerpiece of every SoCal childhood into yet another nondescript people-house farm. Shock and sentimental disappointment aside, the pending sale invites interesting discussion in a variety of fields. How does the resource consumption of an amusement and water park compare to that of a housing development on the same number of acres? What about the revenue and jobs generated, one versus the other? Probably even more interesting than either of those two questions though, is the much deeper question of whether the potentially increased generation of revenue can outweigh the possibly increased strain on the resources available to any group of humans, anywhere. The facts to find out are: how much money does SFMM make? How much would a development? Who gets that money? and then, Where do all of the resources (electricity, gasoline, water… maybe food and employees, too?) come from? This case is especially condusive to study, because the site has already been developed for almost half a century; we are not building housing on virgin land, nor introducting a resource load much higher than that already present. In the case of housing vs. amusement park, the conscience war is clearly two-tiered. There are housing advocates, who will necessarily side with the devloper, because new housing is always needed, to drive prices down, and allow more people to live comfortably. But it must be pointed out that this is almost never a consideration to the developer. He is only in it for the money. How can we reconcile a developer’s natural acquisitiveness with the needs of lower-income families? And how can we reconcile those latter needs with the needs of an Earth, possily on the brink of ecological collapse?

History Lesson, Orientation

Fourteen months out of college, and I’m starting to realize that my time in school was not well-spent. My friends were off graduating <i>suma</i> and getting into law school, starting internships at major national news organizations, prominent theaters. I got a job as a nanny and moved to Chicago’s Northwest Side with my boyfriend, hoping to work on a screenplay and maybe one day make a little indie flick. It didn’t take long (though it did cost dear) to realize that I want NO PART in the entertainment industry, but the realization left me all at sea. What am I going to do with my life? How will I fill the hours of every long and painful day that I don’t have my job to keep my occupied?! (This was in the winter, in Chicago, so going swimming and running around outside didn’t figure into my thinking).

So, the seasons turned and then it was summer and I left Chicago and I moved back in with my parents* in LA and I don’t have a job and it took less than one full day for the Dread to creep back in: what will I do with my free time?

Theadora University is the answer.

According to whim (because I am incapable of doing anything otherwise… aren’t you?) I am going to choose a theme and explore it exhaustively and rigorously.  Right now I’m working on the dual theme of globalization and dictatorship. I want to explore the impulse to control, dominate and alter, both on an individual level (as in a controlling spouse, or dominating school principal) and on a group level, like the way the capitalistic global economy manages to control and subjugate the behavior of everyone on the planet, seemingly all by itself. Each day, or every couple of days, I’m going to post my thoughts on what I’ve been reading, and I would love it if people would post their thoughts in the comments section and we can have a discussion. Then, at least once a month, I will post a longer and more formal paper on a topic of my choosing, answering a specific question.

As always, NO PLAGARISM! If you like my work and want to quote or draw from it, let me know and give me credit. I suspect some people will want to, because I am very brilliant. But I am unkind as well, and I will eat you if you cheat me.

*This is allowed, because I have not lived at home since I was 13, and now I am only 23 and I’m going to get my teaching credential but I have to pass through a lot of exams and bureaucracy first and GOD FORBID I should have to work a job during that time!