I spent close to a year of my life in tilburg studying at Universiteit van Tilburg; mostly watching documentaries and sitcoms, reading up random articles on wikipedia and cooking. I studied when I absolutely had to in order to pass an exam and rarely ever ventured out. So while it was a satisfactory endeavor intellectually, it lacked a wholesome experience, possibly due to lack of adequate social interaction. Even so, during one of the few social gatherings that I partook in, I was reminded and very powerfully so, of the one(many) thing(s) that I wanted to accomplish when I was younger.
Me: Why did you choose to study economics? (I think this question was borne out of exasperation brought about by realization of the futility of studying the subject)
Chiara: My reason is stupid..
Jesus: Come on Chiara, we were all younger and dumber when we decided. Spit it out..
Chiara: I wanted to change the world....
And then it struck me how often I wanted to change the world when I was younger. I had promised myself that I will never give homework (if I ever became I teacher), fight to abolish exams, dispose of corruption, design the first car to run on water, decipher the theory of everything etc etc..At the point in time when I dreamt up each of these ways in which to change the world, they seemed plausible, even possible. Juvenile and naive as it may seem but for those brief moments (or in some cases not so brief) I genuinely believed that I could accomplish them. Even when I realized that I couldnt put my plans into practice at that time, they were not shelved, but put on the things to do list. Over the years the list grew longer and though doubt and pragmatism were diminishing the value of the list in my consciousness, it still warmed my heart to know that there is so much out there for me to do..But the advance of time and wisdom (as some would have you believe it is) cannot be denied and the list was inevitably lost, residing only in the sub conscious memory centre of the brain.
Why is it that Chiara thought that 'Changing the World' was no longer a rational reason to choose a subject to study? What is it about us that makes conformists out of even the most devout rebels? Does our risk aversion grow over time?
I made a choice soon after leaving school, when I was about to enter college that the days of rebelling and fighting for what I thought was right are behind me. Those days haven't returned since and I think my life is much the poorer for it; for though I might not have made any real difference to anything around me, there is no elixir stronger than hope and no aphrodisiac stronger than a wish to change the world.
Talking about changing the world, can I make a request to you. Please write something about the small nation (less people) economies like Japan (Specifically), Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong et cetera. In a layman's language. Why were they able to progress so steadily and at such a fast rate, comparing the results with other small countries like Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan (I know I'm naming Asian small countries), et al.
ReplyDeleteAnd about changing the world, I guess it was more of saving the self esteem for many than saving the world, before one could put up, and stand for his point!
@Vipul: I will try to write something about why some small countries do well while others dont. Though there is and I believe that there cannot be any definitive answer to this question. Further, as this endeavor will take substantial effort, it might be sometime before I can take it up. But, I assure you that there will be post on this issue sometime soon..
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