bfulk

Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from “elsewhere.” It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.

"Learning" is such a black box. We generally know that some people have more aptitude than others. We also generally agree that everyone should regularly practice. But after that there just seems to be a lot of grey area. In talking to people who’ve tried to learn a language and quit, I’ve come to believe that nailing the optimal method is not as important as continuing to put one foot in front of the other. In other words, I think, above all, you’ve got to find some method that keeps you practicing regularly over a long period of time. And you’ve just have to wait.

In the last 50 years alone, we have been witness to one of the most profound and important bursts of human exploration in history: the Space Age. People have left the planet (some are living off-planet right now!), and a dozen have walked on the Moon. Using robotic proxies and giant telescopes — some launched into space — we have been able to see, up close, the alien landscapes of all the classically known planets, visit asteroids and comets, and view the cosmos in all its glory. All of this has been made possible because we have, as Sir Isaac Newton put it best, “stood on the shoulders of giants.” No appreciation for the wondrous discoveries of modern astronomy and space exploration would be complete without a thoughtful consideration of the foundations of modern science and experimentation that were built by our ancestors. Many of their achievements were attained at great personal or professional cost, and many others were not recognized as important until decades — even centuries — later.

There's nothing really wrong with escaping to the boonies. But individuals unplugging is not actually an answer to the biggest technological problems of our time just as any individual's local, organic dietary habits don't solve global agriculture's issues. These are collective problems that will require collective action based on serious critique.

…why is it that most of the children in the juvenile justice system are poor? Why are they nearly all from families that are living at or below the poverty level? As a parent of adolescents, I know that it is surely not because kids from low-income families are the only ones who violate the law, as my own (relatively well-behaved) daughters have committed many of the same types of very minor assaults, larcenies, and disorderly conduct offenses that have led to my young clients being criminally charged, ending up with delinquency records and (sometimes) detained. I also have come to conclude, based both on my own practice experiences as well as longitudinal studies of children exposed to juvenile court, that when kids are processed through the system, the impact is not benign — even when the disposition is arguably beneficial. Instead, the research shows that these children have higher rates of recidivism and are stigmatized in the process. In addition, potential negative consequences of juvenile delinquency adjudications may be seen in such areas as housing, employment, immigration and higher education as well as enhanced penalties for future offenses.