I started work about 3 weeks ago, shadowing my father, a C.F.P, and in the process also becoming a sort of office-manager. When I don't have my head in the books, I'm either debating with clients about (T)he peak-oil crisis/metals/China/Google/the-next-big-thing, I'm shuffling from room-to-room, running critical updates on Windows and Linux (I've brought some Berkeley activism back, to say the least), designing future office arrangements (and my own), fixing printers, installing TV's and admin stations, and of course, providing legal counsel (I can use Rhetoric 110 for something!)
Every once in a while though (mostly after drinking with my few friends who are going to grad school, and leaving me soon enough), I have wondered if that route is the one I should be (need to be) pursuing. Per usual, I'm still as indecisive as ever.
However, I recently had the opportunity to watch a video of a professor from Carnegie-Mellon (I recommend watching the entire version here: mms://wms.andrew.cmu.edu/001/pausch.wmv).
To begin to weave this together, you'll have to forgive me as I back up. If anyone has kept up with my facebook account, you'll notice that my religion is of the New Wittgensteinian kind. To quickly paraphrase this way-of-going, I'm borrowing a quote from the wiki:
But something that I picked up about this man was that he was not an academic. Sure he was a professor, he worked at the university; however, he never saw himself as an academic; he was just a regular kid from a working-class family who thought that helping others realize their dreams was something that just came with being. Being, as in, just living.
Watching this video of a man on his deathbed, lecturing to his world about the virtue of truly listening to others, and helping them through their confusions, allowed me to appreciate all that much more, the position that I've been given the opportunity to fill.
To make my point a bit more obtuse: I think I've realized the potential for therapy beyond the classroom (if you're ever truly out of it).
Every once in a while though (mostly after drinking with my few friends who are going to grad school, and leaving me soon enough), I have wondered if that route is the one I should be (need to be) pursuing. Per usual, I'm still as indecisive as ever.
However, I recently had the opportunity to watch a video of a professor from Carnegie-Mellon (I recommend watching the entire version here: mms://wms.andrew.cmu.edu/001/pausch.wmv).
To begin to weave this together, you'll have to forgive me as I back up. If anyone has kept up with my facebook account, you'll notice that my religion is of the New Wittgensteinian kind. To quickly paraphrase this way-of-going, I'm borrowing a quote from the wiki:
Wittgenstein's primary aim in philosophy is – to use a word he himself employs in characterizing his later philosophical procedures – a therapeutic one. These papers have in common an understanding of Wittgenstein as aspiring, not to advance metaphysical theories, but rather to help us work ourselves out of confusions we become entangled in when philosophizing. – Alice CraryThis was the Berkeley-rhetoric kool-aid I've been drinking for years. And for a long time, I thought this sort of thing was served only in the Academy. Now, to begin my transitions: the above video of Randy Pausch, to me, exemplifies this manner of teaching (patience and learning as a therapy: "If someone makes you upset or angry, it's only because you haven't given them enough time to really surprise you--just be patient").
But something that I picked up about this man was that he was not an academic. Sure he was a professor, he worked at the university; however, he never saw himself as an academic; he was just a regular kid from a working-class family who thought that helping others realize their dreams was something that just came with being. Being, as in, just living.
Watching this video of a man on his deathbed, lecturing to his world about the virtue of truly listening to others, and helping them through their confusions, allowed me to appreciate all that much more, the position that I've been given the opportunity to fill.
To make my point a bit more obtuse: I think I've realized the potential for therapy beyond the classroom (if you're ever truly out of it).
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