Okay, I need help thinking this through. For years, I have said that I love teaching. Why do I love teaching? I love that moment when the light bulb goes on (ding) and a connection is made. It could be a realization, new confidence, problem resolved, or the ability to do something new.
Based on this, I have recently written that I really enjoy seeing learning take place, whether it is me doing the teaching or not. I also like riddles, problem solving, and research. When I was a kid, I LOVED watching science documentaries - mostly oceanography (Jeaques Cousteau), physics, and space. My guilty pleasure was Leonard Nemoy's "In Search Of..." Okay, so that makes me a big nerd. I can deal with that.
But mostly, I was curious about how the world worked. I shouldn't say "was curious", since I still am. If I'm flipping through the channels and I see something about the formation of the solar system, plans for slowing global warming, or the search for cold fusion, I get sucked in. "In Search Of..." what? Knowledge, truth, answers, new ways, solutions, excellence, deeper questions.
I like to share what I know, with the assumption that other people are also curious and enjoy learning how things work. When I share something, I offer a gift. When it is accepted and appreciated, it's like getting a gift back.
Playing politics seems like the antithesis of all of this. Twisting the truth is like sharing a tainted gift. Putting your support behind something or someone you don't believe is dishonest and disrespectful. Discoveries are kept secret. The reports of government scientists are "edited" to fall in line with administrative beliefs. What is obscured with politics? Knowledge, truth, answers, new ways, solutions, excellence, deeper questions.
Based on this, I have recently written that I really enjoy seeing learning take place, whether it is me doing the teaching or not. I also like riddles, problem solving, and research. When I was a kid, I LOVED watching science documentaries - mostly oceanography (Jeaques Cousteau), physics, and space. My guilty pleasure was Leonard Nemoy's "In Search Of..." Okay, so that makes me a big nerd. I can deal with that.
But mostly, I was curious about how the world worked. I shouldn't say "was curious", since I still am. If I'm flipping through the channels and I see something about the formation of the solar system, plans for slowing global warming, or the search for cold fusion, I get sucked in. "In Search Of..." what? Knowledge, truth, answers, new ways, solutions, excellence, deeper questions.
I like to share what I know, with the assumption that other people are also curious and enjoy learning how things work. When I share something, I offer a gift. When it is accepted and appreciated, it's like getting a gift back.
Playing politics seems like the antithesis of all of this. Twisting the truth is like sharing a tainted gift. Putting your support behind something or someone you don't believe is dishonest and disrespectful. Discoveries are kept secret. The reports of government scientists are "edited" to fall in line with administrative beliefs. What is obscured with politics? Knowledge, truth, answers, new ways, solutions, excellence, deeper questions.
Wouldn't you extend that distrust to religion, nationalism, racism, any number of skewed belief systems that have too much invested in preserving their institutions? Anytime anyone struggles to make sense of something within their larger perspective they run the risk of willingly deluding themselves into misinterpreting their own observations, reinforcing the careful foundations that have supported them thus far through their journeys in the world.
As I'm always learning more of my own difficulty with determining truth, I also have less concern with the mis-truths held and told by others. But to the extent that I do object (and I do object) to tainted truth and its promulgation, I look well beyond playing politics for the greatest offenses, and well inside myself for my own mistakes.