certified sustainability freaqk

i don't know when i lost my cool, i don't need to know how much of it i imagined in the first place, i do know i feel more compassionate and more like a supernerd each day

its like going to Chicoutimi, Quebec for a month and a half and the only language spoken there is French, wondering when someone is going to crack the rule, and break into English, and it doesn't happen, the mindshift that occurs is the first step towards fluency

here, the immersion is in sustainability, a way of thinking, a way of life, an optimistic worldview, and ultimately a fluency in this new language is beginning to emerge.

its been a weird year and hard to describe, a lot of personal growth has taken place, some subtlely and some in huge spurts like latent potential suddenly given the right conditions. its OK that others are far ahead because my stuntedness has been about quality refinement not growth. i tell myself. and it's OK that this program has allowed so much personal growth, the investment will not be wasted in the longer term.

>laura

Comments

[kevin]

I like this.

For me too this has been a year of intense introspection. So much so that I often feel I am missing opportunities and my efforts are not as valuable as others who may be working more on an on-the-ground level. I have to keep telling myself too that it doesn't matter that I maybe didn't learn as much as I expected about industrial ecology, or urban transport, or all those things other people seem to know so much more about. I often feel that I am spending too much time asking the big, fuzzy questions, and not enough working on solving the problems, or learning the details.

But in the end, as you say, the personal growth that has happened here, and the refining and time spent on trying to understand the bigger philosophies as much as possbile will be of great help "in the real world", where I will not, perhaps, have the time to go back and contemplate on such things as I have this time. The investment will definatly pay off.

[amy]

"quality refinement not growth"

...i think you're in the 'quality refinement' stage because you've perhaps attained a level of growth that some of us have yet to reach. ...and if yours is stunted, then i fear i may be the runt of the litter ;-)