David Foster Wallace – This is water

David Foster Wallace Commencement Speech to Kenyon College class of 2005.

About the real value of education.

“I’m supposed to talk about your liberal arts education’s meaning, to try to explain why the degree you are about to receive has actual human value instead of just a material payoff. So let’s talk about the single most pervasive cliché in the commencement speech genre, which is that a liberal arts education is not so much about filling you up with knowledge as it is about quote teaching you how to think. If you’re like me as a student, you’ve never liked hearing this, and you tend to feel a bit insulted by the claim that you needed anybody to teach you how to think, since the fact that you even got admitted to a college this good seems like proof that you already know how to think. But I’m going to posit to you that the liberal arts cliché turns out not to be insulting at all, because the really significant education in thinking that we’re supposed to get in a place like this isn’t really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about'”

 

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

 

When you throw a rock into the water, it will speed on the fastest course to the bottom of the water. This is how it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolution. Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world like a rock through water, without doing anything, without stirring; he is drawn, he lets himself fall. His goal attracts him, because he doesn’t let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal. This is what Siddhartha has learned among the Samanas. This is what fools call magic and which they think is effected by demons. Nothing is effected by demons, there are no demons. Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.

Our Lonely Society Makes it Hard to Come Home From War

According to Sebastian, one interesting fact is that many soldiers, after coming back from war and being part of Western society, many of them experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for long periods of time, some of them even feel that they miss the war. Probably not so much war but being part of a tribe. Of course, while in war, soldiers eat, fight, sleep, and create many experiences as a group.
 
Coming back to a Western society, where it’s OK to live in empty apartments, where we are too busy to even talk to each other can be hard to assimilate and even disappointing to them.

On the Shortness of Life by Seneca

But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present and fear the future. – Seneca

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

This book talks about climate change and explains by using examples and facts how humans are contributing to Ocean acidification, over killing species and others events that are leading to a 6th natural extinction; natural scientists argue that there had been 5 extinctions in the past.

A very well written book that describes different types of scenarios and the impact of global warming caused by humans.

I can recommend this book if you’d like to get an overview from a scientific point of view of how global warming is impacting Earth and possible scenarios for the next 100 years.

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