I've never blogged from school before so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I just got out of English class early after getting a paper back that I wrote a few weeks ago. Instead of posting the whole paper, I'll just post the opening and closing paragraphs, because the middle is a bit long and time is short.
The assignment was to discuss with a problem facing my generation. I elected to tackle the question, Where are we going?
Shrinking though it may be, the world today remains big enough to contain more ideas, more passions, and more beliefs than any one person could ever hope to digest. Behind this wall of intellectual noise we may find the questions humanity poses for itself. Behind each of these questions there resides a deeper question and behind that a deeper question still. Curiosity cannot be sated in such a system. And yet, humanity seems to possess the insatiable curiosity necessary to continue probing no matter the depth of the mystery. It would behoove us then to break momentarily from seeking answers and instead to simply seek the deepest question. Collectively, where are we going? I will attempt an answer by dissecting the juicy question into it's three main parts. The first task will be deciding the location of "where." The second task will be examining just who is "we." And the third task will be a brief contemplation of what it means to be "going."
....yada yada yada....
And finally, we now have a clear idea of what the question facing my generation means. Where are we going? My answer is charged with irony, but appropriately so. We, a group of thinking and thoughtful contributing individuals, are moving towards a deep embrace of our collective curiosity where we may finally seek the answer to the oldest question of all: Who am I?
The End.
About
- Zac
- Portland, Oregon, United States
- I'm blogging exclusively now at www.zacbenjamin.com
1 comment:
i'm not sure i agree with where our generation is going. don't you get the feeling sometimes that curiosity has diminished in our generation? that we're heading *away* from an embrace of collective curiosity. i can't help but think of generations of thinkers and philosophers and fear that thought like that is not a part of future generations. even our school system raises a flock of drones who learn to memorize and not to think. also, an identity these days almost seems to be more about something you "buy into" and not something you find within yourself. think about all the self help books that tell you who to be and how to get there. the changes in technology (ease of travel and communication, etc) have made satisfying one's curiosity more accessible than ever and society's relative acceptance of individuality and laws protecting against social oppression don't hurt either. in fact, it almost seems to become an evergrowing fad to be something different (but essentially the same??). so i think this makes it appear as though we are heading toward an embrace of collective curiosity, but the majority of our generation seems to be just plain scared of this. along with the freedoms and modern conveniences at one's disposal for sating one's curiosity and identity crises, have come an even bigger wave of books and drugs and therapists to help us all avoid the bombshell of being able to find an answer. i think this rapid acceleration of technology is making it too easy too fast to *keep* us from having to think and we, as a race, haven't adapted to handle it. maybe that's what the future generation needs to learn that will enable them to pursue deeper thought...
just some thoughts. let me know what you think.
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