That’s not to say that I don’t accomplish something every day, but let’s be honest – fewer are the days that accomplishment feels like accomplishment than those that it drifts by as if nothing happened.

Today wasn’t like that.

Today, I can look back, see the accomplishments, and consider them as greater than the time put into them.  Among these accomplishments are:

1. Formal job rejection based on ‘overqualification’ (but at least they were kind enough to let me know – and it seems as though I have finally figured out how to write a cover letter and resume that is attractive to job providers).
2. Discovery of another potential job opportunity that I would like to pursue. I know this may seem like a silly thing to list, but I have to look through a LOT of job openings to find one that would actually interest me and suit my skills.
3. Significant accomplishment on POMED’s website — mostly back-end stuff, but it’s been hanging over me for quite some time while I’ve been inundated with other goings-on.
4. I talked to my baby sister! She’s soooo cute! She said she almost drowned over the weekend (okay, not really – but there was flooding on the farm!)
5. I made significant progress on formatting the final Capstone document. In another couple of days, I may indeed have something that’s worth looking at.

The only thing I have yet to do before turning in is to make a quick review of today’s selection of Lolcats. It’s not a day without it!!!

I have begun working on the Capstone project again – I’m finally ready to finish assembling it for final submittal to the Center for Global Affairs, create and make the video of our final presentation publicly available, and put the whole thing up on the web in a more user-friendly format.

While I am admittedly ever-the-optimist, I do believe this will be an excellent start towards something greater.

I’ve been having a terrible case of writer’s block, and even research block, to coin a term, and I think it’s due to the nature of the subject that I’m working on. As I referred to in a previous post, I feel like this project is moving a feeling that I’ve always carried, forwards towards fruition.

I don’t really know what that means. I mean, I understand the words, but how is this going to come about? How is this notion that I’ve carried, bolstered by knowledge and experience, actually going to get tied down to reality? How is it going to play out? How am I going to make a living while doing it? In the more immediate term, how am I going to write about it convincingly to make it understandable and consequently viable?

I have the research skills. I’ve done rather well in that department, if you judge by the responses from professors. I’ve built tools and knowledge and the abilities to find, gather, assimilate, and re-present data in a cohesive way.

I have the idea. I have the theory. I have the background understanding. I’m not just making it up as I go along. I can see it as reality in the future, but I can’t  quite make out how to get from here to there. But that’s the problem I’m working on, so that’s not really a surprise.

I have a great team that I’m working with. I mean, you can always FIND things to bitch about if you’re looking, but at the end of the day, we all get it, and we all want it to be right. Even more so, we all demand that it be right.

So what’s the problem, you may ask (for I am)? I think the problem is me. Not the totality of me, but certainly from within me. Perhaps fear is the right word. Fear of doing. Fear of being out there. Fear of having my innermost thoughts, ideas, and viewpoints scrutinized. It is certainly easier to criticize than to do, and if I never do, I don’t have to worry about being criticized.

Well, this must certainly be amongst the oldest and lamest reasons for stagnation in human history. Simultaneously, I would have said that it really doesn’t seem like me. I’ve never much concerned myself with what other people thought, quite the opposite in fact. Peer pressure always worked on me in the opposite fashion: “so this is what the cool kids are doing? that sucks!”

“I have my own view of the world and I’m going to live by it,” would more nearly sum up my life, or so I’d like to believe. That’s not to say I don’t take other’s viewpoints into account, it’s just that there aren’t that many areas of my life where I’m concerned about whether they will agree or disagree with me. I’m open to the debate, but not constrained by it. I try to live by the belief that, “part of what I’m doing is probably wrong, but that doesn’t differentiate me from anyone else, and when I realize what’s wrong about it, I’ll just change it.”

I guess I’ve found an area where I’m a little more sensitive. And why not? If I see this as my contribution to the world at large, I guess it’s acceptable that I’m a little concerned about how it will go over. After all, if it goes poorly, does that mean that my innermost views are wrong? That everything I’ve based my life around is a lie? To say it that way makes it sound ridiculous, but I guess fear is like that sometimes.

So if that’s what’s going on, the big question is: what am I going to do about it?

Well, this acknowledgement seems to have helped. I can see the legitimacy of my concerns, but at the same time, I do have a life to lead. I have a thesis to finish, I have ideas to convey, I have a livelihood to find, I have a contribution to make.

And time keeps passing me by…

I guess I better get back to work, trust in the legitimacy of the ideas, support and convey them properly, and take the next step towards being the change I want to see in the world. (Gandhi)

Ya’ know what? I just want to say that that’s not good enough. “Taking the next step” is part of the eternal procrastination that maintains the world as it is today. If I’m going to quote Gandhi, I should not be reducing the impact of his words. Therefore, I amend that final paragraph with the following sentiment:

I am the change I want to see in the world and I will take the next step towards disseminating that change.

It’s gonna be a good life!
Wayne

Powered by ScribeFire.

Danny and Patrick in researching economic development (one of our four original goals for the international system) realized that what we are attempting to describe is sustainable development.

The definition for sustainable development has not been defined quite in the way that we are defining it, but it is not much of a stretch.

We really prefer to think of it as more of a clarification than anything else. This means that we saying that in order for development to be sustainable, it requires economic development, good governance, environmental sustainability, and cultural sensitivity.

This makes perfect sense, and wraps everything up into an easy-to-explain definition. Consequently, we can now define the project as ‘establishing a viable international system that promotes and maintains sustainable development.’

Exciting stuff!

Powered by ScribeFire.

As I study the responsibilities of civil society in maintaining good governance, economic development, cultural sensitivity, and environmental protection; it seems more and more as if the results of my research may be summed up as:

The public must demand what is best for the public!

The question posed above is only the first of many that must be answered in order to create this as a legitimate solution. How is the public to know what is best for it without proper education? Who determines what makes up proper education? Is it also the public’s job to demand education that it finds fitting?

This leads into the need for open discussion and argument amongst the populace in order to facilitate the development and advancement of notions relating to how they are educated and governed, how their environment is cared for or not, how their economy is encouraged to develop or not, and many other factors.

There is much to do and much to learn.

Cicero, writing more than 2000 years ago, stated that “Freedom is participation in power.” This makes perfect sense in that if you don’t participate, you don’t get a voice, and you don’t get to do what you want to do.

So much has changed, and yet, so little…

It has occurred to me that I never posted this prior to now and that it is critical to the focus of my work this semester. This is the proposal that we submitted for our Capstone project at the end of January. While our focus has changed slightly as we have researched, it gives a good overview of our goals and the direction we are aiming for.

There are six of us in the group, all in the final semester of our Master’s degrees at NYU’s Center for Global Affair. We are working together to establish a framework for the international system that incorporates the desirable qualities of good governance, economic development, cultural sensitivity, and environmental sustainability. We believe this is becoming increasingly realistic with the growth of collaboration between governments, businesses, and civil society.

Once this framework is developed, we will then apply it to three global issues to show its utility. These issues are corruption, the illicit drug trade, and global warming.

It seems that the capstone project is about to fully take on a life of its own. This is an historic moment, whether or not we stop to realize it. Perhaps that history will only be pertinent to those of us directly involved, but the feeling, for me at least, is much greater. It is, in one regard, as though the project will run under its own power from this point forward; not unlike a boulder rolling down a hill. It has not yet built up much momentum, but that will come. Naturally, it will still need to be guided to ensure that it travels the right path, but it no longer requires continuous effort just to keep it moving.

On a more personal level, this moment feels like an important marker on the path towards turning a feeling into reality. The feeling has always been with me: a blurry, ill-defined need to make a positive contribution to things, to big things! Throughout my entire life, I have been accumulating skills and experiences that have enabled me to transform this feeling into a dream. In this moment, I feel as though the dream is becoming a vision. This capstone project is the lens through which the vision will become clearly defined.

It seems to me that the end result of this momentum must be the transformation of the original feeling into reality, a tangible result, something that directly impacts the real world, the way in which people relate to one another, their ability to pursue their own goals and accomplish them. It’s still too early to understand how this will play out, but it seems much more clear now that, in fact, it will.

It is critical to understand also that this feelng is not mine alone. It is the work of my entire generation, loosele defined. Perhaps it is also the work of the next generation, as well. It is a feeling that we all have, although some are more inclined to notice than others. It is a perspective, a viewpoint, a framework that many will contribute to, each in their own way. It is a method of relating, a new way to see the world and its people and their lives. It is the future. It is a solution. It is the fulfilled promise of humanity and the universe living as one. It is the promised land and the end of history.

Too grandiose? Too fantastical? Too idealistic? Perhaps, but it’s still only a dream and we just started the ball rolling.

Wow!!