developing my chops

source

“A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.” Nelson Mandela

"I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it.Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good, either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be." Roald Dahl

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." MLKjr

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger is met." Frederick Buechner

"I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you  have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game." Toni Morrison

yesterday at the conferencia, prof said that he sees my trajectory, and he hears my chops developing. he said i should own it, and that i can't say that know what i am doing -- because the thing is, i do know what i'm doing. thanks prof, for believing in me. and because i am gangly and awkward as i grow into activism, here are questions that i am working on being able to eloquently verbalize; inciting people to action is like an acting job.

why are we, the most information savvy generation, also the most politically inarticulate and ignorant generation? why do we consume information being thrown at us in such a greedy, desperate, and uncritical manner? where is our filter? why do we assume things to be truth? why are our hearts so numb and difficult to incite to action? what creates the strange, foggy disconnect between knowledge and action? between individual action and collective action?

the prison system is eerily and disgustingly reminiscent of the horrific system that was "prohibited" in 1865; we can feel the echoes of entrenched historical infrastructures and ideologies looming over our shoulders, disguised and advertised differently - simultaneously more banaly, more insidiously.

let us aggressively and intentionally challenge the ways we think as we dream change, demand change, and make change. [let us be critically examining what change we envision to be the ideal - does the projected ideal coincide with God's heart for justice (restorative and punitive) on an individual and societal level?] i shudder to think of how shameful it would be if future generations look back to see us not only in our ignorance and inaction but in our uncritical albeit eager floundering. let us be people of dogged perseverance, creative fire, and unquenchable hope, and critically sober thoughts.

sidenotes;
intrepid, tireless, resolute

praise: thank you God, for having mom & n.hsieh call me after 5ish hours of sleep so that i can study. thank you for being my personal alarm clock, because everyone knows i can't wake up to my alarms.