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Welcome to these regular musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings by Wendy Priesnitz. Archives - January, 2005 Are We
Feeling Stressed Yet? – January 30, 2005 Of course, there is eating well, which I’ve
always done. And there is exercising, which adds to my life in so many
ways once I talk myself into leaving the keyboard for a half-hour.
Perhaps the thing that changed my life the most is learning how to slow
down and live in the present moment. It’s also been one of the hardest
things I’ve taught myself, because I was genetically and/or parentally
programmed to move quickly and multi-task, as well as to rehash the past
and fear the future. But as master meditator Eknath Easwaran writes in an article in the upcoming issue of
Natural Life, “When you bring the rushing process of the mind to a healing
stillness, you rest completely on each moment. You give your very best to each moment, without any loss of vitality to past or
future.” I wish I’d had his wisdom to guide me a few years back as I
was practicing slowing down and paying attention,
but right now it is good to have a reminder. Pens
and Bytes – January 10, 2005 I love the portability of my journals, but not being the backpack sort, have always sought one small enough to fit in my pocket when I walk. And now I may have found one. I was recently given a little handheld computer. I’m using it to write this piece, sitting in my favorite café, picking out letters on a miniscule screen with an equally tiny stylus. Nestled soundly in my coat pocket, it let me stride full out on my eggnog whittling power walk. And when I get back to my office, I’ll be able to upload my musings directly to my computer, giving me a head start on the editing process. I won’t be throwing out my journal anytime soon,
because I am already missing the scratch of pen on paper. Perhaps
I’ll end up separating my therapeutic, documenting type of journaling from
my more professional type writing. Regardless, this will be an
interesting experiment in wordsmithing, with the handheld device no
doubt helping my prose become more concise and precise. And
perhaps it will also get me back into that most pared down form of writing,
which has been blocked over the past few months – poetry. One thing is
for sure: I will write, no matter what tools I have at my
disposal. Reaching
Our Potential – January 9, 2005 And besides, all this emphasis on performance seems to be sidelining goals relating to family, love, community, having children, being happy. Instead, it’s fostering anxiety and self-absorption. And are these parents really motivating their children or setting them up for failure? If success is defined by the parent and not the child, are the goals even relevant? Will these kids ever be able to meet the standards set by their parents? And if not, won’t they feel that they’ve failed? And if they do meet the goals, will they feel they’ve done their best? I worry a lot about people who feel they are accepted only for what they have achieved, rather than for who they are. Sure, our children need to achieve their potential. We all do. And they will,
if they are given the support, respect and trust that they deserve. If
we keep out of their way and let their own innate motivation guide them
to heights we can’t even imagine. Disrupting the Flow – January
3, 2005 Aside from the practice of focusing so maniacally on test scores as a predictor of anything meaningful, test preparation is not real learning; it is, rather, practice for regurgitation. In addition, it is cruel and destructive to limit children’s absorption with their play in such a way and for such a reason. As psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has described so eloquently with his “flow” theory, people enter a flow state when they are fully absorbed in an activity where they lose their sense of time and have feelings of great satisfaction. Children’s capacity for concentration is huge and that is precisely how they learn. Fortunately,
many private schools and, dare I say, most families whose kids learn without
school avoid subjecting children to testing. Unfortunately, the rest of society
is a very large market for the Time Tracker. A
Year of Walking Paths of Joy and Sorrow – January 1, 2005 One of my joys this year has been my family, including my two 30-something daughters. I have an easy relationship with the youngest and a more challenging one with her sister. One was here for the holidays, the other was not. But one of the cornerstones of their father’s and my parenting style has been to nurture and respect their independence, so I’m proud to see them trodding their own paths so successfully and happily. I’m also grateful for the opportunities I’ve had this past year to share my ideas about parenting and learning with so many people, through my writing and speaking. It is a rare privilege (not to mention an awesome responsibility) to be able to touch lives in this way. I’m grateful for your eyes and ears, as well as your enthusiastic feedback. Our children are our hope for turning the world around, and we need each other’s inspiration and support as we walk alternative parenting paths. While this may not be the worst time in the history of the world, things are certainly feeling dark as the new year dawns, with the horrible natural disaster in southeast Asia, with wars and other conflicts continuing between and within nations, with the focus on fearing the enemy and offence as defence. Some days, I find myself wanting to avoid the news feeds, media releases, newspapers, radio, television and Internet news that are the tools of my journalistic trade. Turning off and tuning out is attractive, perhaps giving in to the urge to hibernate like a bear until Spring. But as well as the doom and gloom and despair, my in-box is also abundantly full of good news, good works and examples of people making a positive difference or at least helping us understand. And for that I am grateful. Take Michael Moore, for example, the controversial and often over-the-top activist filmmaker who is, to my mind, a breath of fresh air. Check out his essay (currently posted on his website), “It's Time to Stop Being Hit”, which encourages progressive Americans to walk away from the cycle of violence perpetrated by the political right, in the same way that abused women must admit to being victims of something unacceptable and take action to end the abuse. “Any battered woman in America, any oppressed person around the globe who has defied her oppressor, will tell you this: There is nothing wrong with you. You are in good company. You are safe. You are not alone. You are strong. You must change only one thing: Stop responding to the abuser.” Like many around the world, our New Year’s Eve celebrations were tempered by the enormous tragedy that has hit the coastal towns and villages around the Indian Ocean, in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami. As I write, the death toll is pegged at over 150,000 people, with tens of thousands more affected in a variety of ways. But even in this dark time, people are coming together, as one family of human beings, to help. Personally, we have chosen to donate to two groups – Médecins Sans Frontières (aka Doctors Without Borders), an international organization which I’ve long admired that provides emergency medical assistance to populations in danger, and the venerable development and relief organization Oxfam. I hope that we all remember to continue to help when the holiday season and the media blitz wear off. Today, I can’t shake a pesky and perhaps cynical little thought that this particular crisis is attracting so much Western media space and aid because it is about us as much as it is about them, since so many vacationing Westerners were victims. Unfortunately, Western politics and economics probably contributed to the tragedy. Life Learning writer David Albert (see his piece “Stickers” in the current issue of Life Learning) wrote me a few days ago to say that he and his eldest (formerly unschooled) daughter Aliya have left for the tsunami-hit areas of South India. The trip was already planned, so they decided to go and try to help. David is quite familiar with this part of the world and says that while the tsunami that hit the Bay of Bengal was caused by a large earthquake, much of the suffering was actually caused by industrial shrimping interests that have stripped the coasts of protective mangrove forests. “These are the places that World Bank-financed multinational projects in aquaculture have stripped the area of all natural protection. The wall of water went further, and as it receded, there was no break on what it carried with it. Homes, children and livelihoods were all carried out to sea because of the lack of attention to mangrove conservation by companies out to make a quick buck.” David has edited a new book written by Laura Coppo The Color of Freedom ( Common Courage Press, 2005), which details the work of Gandhian land-reform crusaders S. Jagannathan and Krishnammal Jagannathan, who are his adopted parents. By the way, you can follow David’s and Aliya’s trip at www.shantinik.blogspot.com. Yes, it takes some extra inspiration and determination to stay positive this January 1.
But I believe that we can all work in our own daily lives to make things
better. And I know that we can enjoy each precious moment we walk on this
incredible planet. I wish you a peaceful, productive, prosperous, passionate,
progressive 2005. Return
to current weblog copyright © Wendy Priesnitz 2007 |
Topics & Passions: natural learning ~ What I'm reading:
Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1997, Perennial) ~ What I'm Listening To:
Solo
by Yo-Yo Ma (Silk Road/Sony)
~ Fav Bookmarks:
Deep Fun ~
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