Today I learned...

that Gandhi and Nehru could have agitated the British further during the beginning of WWII potentially executing their campaign for home-rule while attentions were distracted with fascist regimes in Europe.  Not the case - They decided, along with the Bengali intellectual contingent (Tagore, Coomaraswamy and Nandalal Bose) that the fight against fascist regeimes was more important at the time than independence. 

Others such as Subhas Chandra Bose did not agree.  He wanted to take advantage of the weakened British state to gain independence.  He spent time with Hitler looking to connect on the "aryan" thing - meaning the Aryans origninated in the Indus river valley civilization, thus Bose saw himself as an Aryan, yet, Hitler didn't know what to do with him - he had dark skin and didn't fit the bill.  Hitler sent him to Japan.  Japanese didn't know what to do with him, so they sent him in to Burma to fight the Brits.  That lasted for a bit and then he was killed (more info needed).  There are some that think he is still out there in a cave somewhere waiting until the time is right when he will emerge as a messianic figure to lead India on to global domination.

The dangers of developing a national identity - seems Gandhi and the Bengalis had their feet on the ground and were able to balance their inspiration from the Russian and European idealist identity writers (Hegel, Tolstoy...) with the understanding of human empathy and Truth.  Bose missed the boat on that one. 

One can draw an argument here from looking at the development of the nation-state theology in the late 18th c. and take Hitler's third reich as an example of how destructive (yet mesmerizing) developing national identity can be.  The other example are the Indian nationalists in the middle of the 20th c. 

hm.

Obstacle, Inspiration

“If being a woman is an inspiration, use it.  If it is an obstacle, try not to be bothered.” – Khandro Rinpoche. 

“If being a woman is an inspiration, use it.  If it is an obstacle, try not to be bothered.” – Khandro Rinpoche. 

Just saw 'Avatar' Last night....

Media consumption is interesting to me... access to what and how, who benefits from hollywood's stable industry and how much, and what we humans are interested in in terms of entertainment (and the existential dilema of why we need to be entertained at all, of course)

Here's a statistics-rich Economist article about the release of the largest grossing film to date "New Moon" and the recent release of "Avatar."  Toward an understanding of human entertainment consumption patterns...

At the Crossroads...

"At each point in our lives, we are at a crossroads. We are the fruit of our past and we are the architects of our future. When we ask, “Why did this happen to me?” it is because of our limited view. If we throw a stone up in the air and forget about it, when it falls down on our heads, we shouldn’t complain, although we usually do. We have this notion that what happens to us is somehow independent of our own actions. We can ask, why did this happen? but the more important question is, what we are going to do about it?

If you want to know your past, look at your present circumstances. If you want to know your future, look at what is in your mind. If we know that our fate is in our hands, then the quality of our actions becomes a central issue. The whole point of karma is to recognize how our actions determine our future, so that we can begin to act properly. It’s not just a cosmological or philosophical matter. It’s entirely practical. The main point is not to get in trouble again."

-Matthieu Ricard, Karma Crossroads

PhD You Say???

What would these possible topics of study for a phd look like:

ecology and conflict

international diplomacy and systems thinking

political science and community building

an ecological approach to conflict transformation

I'm thinking that if I do, indeed want to pursue a phd somewhere I need to understand first what my motivation for doing so is.  Do I want to be AD of SIT Nepal?  Do I want to teach in the US? Do I want to work as a practitioner in some field of study here in the Himalayan region?  and of course, where can my skill set be of most benefit and relevance to others?

Most importantly - what would a phd give me that I don't have right now?  credibility?  The insistance that I am 'not just a kid' trying to fumble her way through the professional world.  Would some time spent studying and focusing on one topic really do that for me?  or am I approaching this issue from the wrong angle?

What kind of life experience do I need between now and potentially starting a phd in, say, Fall 2011 or Fall 2012?  More work with an NGO?  Management?  Field work?

The Story of Stuff

This video is one of the most important teaching tools I've found for taking a systems approach to talking about responsible consumption. Have a look.
"You cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely."

Also some good resources to put global consumption into perspective:

That book about comparing the world's stuff
Cradle to Cradle - William McDonough

Easier Said...

"Freedom means being able to choose how we respond to things. When wisdom is not well-developed, it can be easily obscured by the provocations of others. In such cases we may as well be animals or robots. If there is no space between an insulting stimulus and its immediate conditioned response—anger—then we are in fact under the control of others. Mindfulness opens up such a space, and when wisdom is there to fill it one is capable of responding with forbearance. It’s not that anger is repressed; anger never arises in the first place."

-Andrew Olendzki, "Calm in the Face of Anger," Tricycle, Fall 2006