Market day and seasons

Today is shaping up to be a cool but beautiful day on the mountain, with a chilled wind blowing patchy clounds across the sky. Large clutches of seeds and pollen pouches dangle from various trees all about as the leafy green of Spring matures into the lush foliage of a temperate region in Summer. To borrow a phrase from a friend this morning, the world is indeed so lovely.

Many things are happening today in Collegeville. A new farmers' market has opened down the street at the bio-fuels station. Herr Senske and I walked down to visit the market after lunch, and while a small operation to start, the Collegeville Farmers' market seemed quite popular, and shows great promise for the future. Such a development warms my heart even as I prepare to leave Collegeville in a few weeks.

After the Farmers' market, herr Senske and I returned to school, where we found the Earth Day festivities in full swing. While Earth Day was a week ago, Ursinus is celebrating it today. Lots of curious little tables, displays, and activities marked the day and braved the wind and cooler temperatures. Free things abounded, making certain people quite happy. It is quite nice to see people enjoying themselves on a Saturday morning/early afternoon in such fashion. Visiting the market, meeting people in the streets, and having a good time outside all have a wholesome feel, as though a community were coming together and giving joy to those who took part. Yes, perhaps joy is another word to add to this morning's descriptors. Wholesomeness and joy; that does sound nice.

Today has been slower than yesterday, thankfully. Bustling here and there can have its moments, but there's something to be said for slowing things down from time to time. A mind cannot rest or improve if it is always moving along at warp speed, just as a runner cannot improve if he or she does not, from time to time, slow down in training and let the body adapt.

So many things contribute to growth, improvement, and harmonious life, and each component lives and grows in its own season. It becomes very important it seems, if we are to live and grow in a balanced way, to be patient with ourselves. A fortune cookie once said, "nothing in nature is rushed, yet everything is accomplished." I thought the quote was pretty neat, and perhaps points us in the right direction for understanding something important about ourselves and our universe. Growth happens without being forced or compelled, but rather simply by the nature of those things of which the growing thing is constituted. In such a way, growth happens all on its own, in its own way, and in its own time. Something to consider perhaps.

Busy-busy

A beautiful morning on the mountain today, with much sun, a cool wind, and much reduced humidity. Could bode well for the men's 10,000m this evening at Muhlenberg. Was hoping I could run that race, but so it goes sometimes. Much luck to Jatin and Sam.

It is also a busy morning on the mountain, the first since turning finishing the thesis. Preparations for the German skit and the Tafelmusik performance are both well under way, and with any luck, each task will flow favorably into the next. The performance around noon is followed by a run (hopefully), a small dinner, a dress rehearsal (playing the Mozart tomorrow, AHHHH!!!), and then a German dinner at professor's house. Busy-busy. Perhaps it was fortuitous that I didn't qualify for the 10k.

Busy times can tax the mind a great deal. I woke up this morning with at least four different lines of thought running at once. On the one hand that's pretty cool, since being able to think about four different things at once seems a useful adaptation for a world which demands so of our time and energy. On the other hand, four lines of thoughts at once rapidly wears a body out, and is about as useful as sprinting in the middle of a marathon. A timely surge can do much in such a race, but an all-out sprint is quite costly compared to its achieved benefits.

So after a busy stretch is finished, sometimes it is helpful to do a little house-cleaning in the mind, and put things back in order. Return to the center of things, as a marble sent whirling about a bowl returns to the lowest point of the bowl upon coming to rest. Just a little cleaning could go a long way :).
Happy Friday, the last Friday of undergraduate studies.

A thought as a cow

A cloudy day greets us on the mountain today, with much gray, wind, and the promise of rain later. The distant hills have a blueish hue to their features, uniformly smudged like a pencil sketch meeting a sweaty thumb. At least it is warm.

Looking out from the top floor of the library often reminds me of a chapter I once read about thoughts, and how is that they can disturb or not disturb you. Actually, the chapter wasn't about that particularly, but that was the conclusion I drew from it, given the needs of the time. In short, the chapter suggested that one should give one's thoughts a big range in which to exist; thoughts are most calm when they are free to roam and expand in space. The usual tendency with difficult thoughts is to limit their scope, and pen them in, like stuffing a cow into a sardine can. But that is brutally uncomfortable for the cow, and can lead to much trouble I should think. What is the cow to do if it should have a scratch? Or if it should wish to take a walk to stretch the legs, or go to the bathroom, or do whatever else cows most naturally do? So it seems with a thought, be it pleasant or disturbing,  that to give it peace--any by extension pacify the mind generally--that a wide space in which to wander is most conducive for transforming difficult thoughts into less difficult thoughts, and perhaps eventually a thought which once disturbed you greatly may become a thougth that disturbs you no more. Is it enough to hope that perhaps difficult thoughts may ultimately enrich your daily life, given the proper attitude and practice regarding them?

These things I do not know, and the understanding continues to wrestle with the issue. But if a thought is anything like a cow, a wide range over which to roam, poop, eat, and rest would seem most conducive for making a thought happy while simultaneously keeping one sane.

Strange post, but so it is. Cheers!

Technological distortion

Sometimes it is difficult to do properly what your heart and mind deems the correct course of action in a given moment. You would think that would not be the case, since doing the right thing would seem to imply an action which posesses the most favorable ratio of advantages to disadvantages. Yet so it often proves that the right choice is also the most difficult.

Why so? Perhaps it is because the right choice is in part "right" due to the long-term advantages that it offers at the expense of short-term costs. In an age where technology has made gratification habitually instant in many things, doing the "right" thing in the long-run could render long-term thinking less natural than simply appraising the present as the only moment that matters. Perhaps techonology has, by degrees, altered a great many people's appraisal of the short-term costs of difficult choices, so that such pain seems unusually great in comparison to some foggy notion of future prosperity and peace of mind. Day after day, more research suggests that the average person's time before becoming bored has dropped from about 30 minutes in the 1950s to somewhere around a minute. I wish I could cite the source, but reviewing some relavent literature would probably bear this out. Waiting two minutes to allow a computer to load has become a burden for some computer-users. Likely this could contribute to raising the perceived costs of making a right choice that would yield long-term benefits.

According to such thinking, the actual cost of doing the right thing is not any higher than it has ever been. Rather, the nurture that technology provides has the potential to alter the ways in which techonology-users perceive and think about such costs, and as a result it can become more difficult to look past short-term gain or feelings for the sake of long-term benefits. Given this, it would seem quite important for people to consider the effect of technology on the ways they perceive costs and benefits in their daily lives. Losing the ability to wisely discern a prosperous course over the long-term could have potentially damaging effects on a person's, a family's, and indeed a nation's ability to provide for its prosperity, health, and general happiness.

One of the founding principles of the United States emphasized the freedom of a person to choose such things as provide for their, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The freedom to choose our course as we deem suitable and right naturally requires that such judgment remains sober and capable through the generations. What shall we do if such judgment is compromised by prosperity and technological development? How shall we choose the right course when modernity increasingly skews the costs? This, I believe, is one of the great challenges of living in a modern society today. It seems likely that our's and our friends' prosperity and happiness will depend on our efforts to see through the potentially distorting lens of contemporary society.

Nothing special

Another warm and windy day has come to Collegeville. Day by day the leaves upon the trees grow fuller in their extent and breadth. The flowers of early Spring fade as the mature mane of Summer foilage gradually takes hold. There remains much growing to be done, but already the signs of life in full bloom are everywhere before our eyes.

I read a chapter of a book this morning by a monk named Suzuki. He was talking about Zen, and why it's stupid to talk about Zen. There's nothing special to it, and especially nothing out of the ordinary. It just points you in the right direction, such as a finger points on in the direction of the moon. Yet shall we confuse the finger with the moon? Nope, there's nothing special about Zen.

So keep it real man, keep it real.

Just a thought or two

Another humid day upon the mountain we have had, and even hotter than yesterday. Yet in its own way it was a beautiful day.

Today was my last German conversation class. I became rather attached to the people there, as well as everyone in my German class generally. We shared so many experiences over the course of two semesters, that it will be strange to finish our current endeavors and begin anew. I do not know where it will go, but I am glad my research compelled me to take up German again. So much I have learned, and so many new people I have met as a result.

The honor's thesis was turned into the dean today, and the article for the school newspaper on the Nazi documents was turned into the editor. Also, we finished reading our first book in German. It is curious that the season of new life in Spring is resulting in the completion of many old projects. Step by step, the trail leading to tomorrow unfolds before our feet.

Moment by moment, we have a choice, if we so choose, to do with it whatever we wish. With the right sort of control, one can maintain the attention upon each successive moment, and do with it what one wishes. One can even do nothing. Or one can try to do nothing, and in so doing so something. Or one can try to do something and ulimately accomplish nothing. I have heard that last one many times, both from myself and from others. Many blame facebook :). For others the time is not good for concentration.

I do not understand much of these things. With the right sort of effort, step by step, we can take the road together :). Happy Monday from the Mountain.

Busy mind

A beautiful, if quite humid, day has greeted us on this Easter afternoon. The moisture in the air clings to everything, and can make breathing the air oppressive at times, but all that aside, the day is quite beautiful.

I walked along the forests' edge and drank some tea during the coffee hour. A forest in Spring is quite busy by the looks and sounds of things, and today proved no exception. Sometimes I will do an exercise where I ask myself consciously what I hear, what I feel, smell, taste, etc. For whatever reason, performing such an exercise brings the mind to the present moment, and removes it [most times] from whatever else might be mulling in the mind presently. Sometimes I wonder if the brain thinks about harmful subjects because it get's bored, and with the way technology is used by many people today, this can happen more often. Perhaps, perhaps.

Perhaps with so much going on, it becomes habitual to become bored with things. A simple day can be quite good for the mind, but it can cause anxiety in ourselves we feel like we should be doing two or three things instead of one. A need to feel productive, as though we are doing something to accomplish something else. Our modern world seems bent on engraining this ethic in ourselves more and more often.

A little effort in the opposite direction may do some good. To sit down for a few minutes and just sit, or to sip some tea and do nothing else; to walk about in the forest or the city for a few hours, or just to listen to some music while doing nothing else. Many modern people have an extraordinary capacity for multi-tasking, but like with yesterday's post, if we exercise this ability all the time it can compromise the consistency and capacity of our efforts as a whole. We run around all the time with a full cup of tea, and struggle to take on any more when circumstance or sudden interest requires.

So in this regard you and I have a wonderful skill, but we must beware of the consequences that come with that skill. We can work on many projects or levels of thought simultaneously, perhaps in ways our forefathers could not, yet with that ability comes the risk that we shall exercise this ability all the time, and by so doing defuse our strength and attention to a million things, thereby doing them poorly. There is something to be said for the medieval monk who had perhaps a dozen books at most to read, yet read and consider them closely he did. A harmonious balance between multi-tasking and single-minded focus could well provide relief for people who suffer from harmful thoughts and depression as a result of the constant connection to the internet and other people.

This is perhaps one of the great challenges of our time, and perhaps the greatest for the individual. We shall need to keep our wits about is if the pressing social, political, and environmental challenges of the century become as great as some predict. Believe in yourself :).
Frohe Ostern!

Cup of tea

Went to church this morning to rehearse some music with Charles for tomorrow's Easter service. The weather outside was quite wet, with a misty sort of moisture hanging about the air. Clounds hung low and gray, giving the tops of distant trees a hazy sort or look. But the birds sing as they ever have these past few weeks, and with the warmer than expected air, lend a nice touch to rainy weather.

While playing this morning I was reminded of a point I first heard a few years ago in a running book. In it, the author suggested that, both in our daily training and during races, it is often the case that less is more. According to one coach cited in the text, one usually runs a personal best when they race and train at 90% effort under given circumstances; that is to say, in a race that the runner would likely rate their effort at around 90% of their maximum capacity, and in training, rate the effort 90% of the targeted maximum. How does that work?

I cannot say for certain, but my experience leads me to believe the claim in some degree. If one trains very hard all the time, the likely outcome is burnout and/or injury. If one races all out, it is likely that one will lose one's head in the heat of the competition and perform less well than had they maintained their wits about them. Many people seem to know this last point, because many coaches tell their runners to relax when they race, because it helps them run faster later in the race. The human body can do amazing things when it is driven by primordial instincts and fight-or-flight responses. But the human body can do even more amazing things when guided by the rational, intelligent mind, of which we are all more or less well-endowed.

And it is on this point that I think the coach cited in the book is correct. When you race at 90%, you keep a buffer of sorts between your rational mind and your animal mind, because there remains an extra gear with which to engage. A 100% effort leaves no room for additional emotional and physical effort to be harnessed during a difficult stretch of a race. It is like the story of the intellectual meeting the zen monk. The intellectual talked and talked and talked about zen, and then asked the monk about it. The monk asked the intellectual if he would like some tea, and he replied that yes, he would. So the monk offered a tea cup, and poured tea into the cup, only he did not stop when it reached the top of the cup, and continued pouring even as tea poured out all over the floor. And the intellectual was quite puzzeled by this, and demanded to know why the monk continued pouring tea even as the cup overflowed. And the monk replied, more or less, that the intellectual's mind was too full to take in the true meaning of zen teaching, and being thus full, his mind would overflow quite easily whenever something new tried to find space in his mind.

For the zen monk in the story, the zen mind was an empty mind, into which the monk could pour whatever he wanted. His mind was useful for him not because it was filled with many facts and ideas, but because it was empty and had a great capacity to take in ideas, facts, and whatever else the monk wished.

When I think of the 90% runner, this story comes to mind. 90% running leaves some room in your cup to add more tea if the race requires it. More tea in this means an increase in effort, for example, at the finishing kick. Some might say such a strategy is "sand-bagging" it, and not exerting oneself to the fullest. In reality, however, the knowledge that one has some room for more tea could well put the runner at ease, and give him or her confidence that their training is good and their strength is available; in short, it can help them forget their ego, and simply exert their bodies without any expectation or negative idea holding them back. You can exert yourself more when you worry yourself less. Less is more.

Perhaps the same idea can find wider application in everyday life. Often times, it is harder to finish an assignment when I think about the importance of finishing it, or have my mind turned toward the end result rather than the work itself. It is not hard to get overwhelmed when so much of your mind is thinking about how great it will be to have finished the project. One's cup of tea is quite full of ideas before one even begins to pour the tea that lets you work on the project.

Sometimes less is more. Sometimes just to think about the project itself--to turn one's mind to the immediate, medium-term, and long-term tasks required to complete the project--allow one to utilize one's intelligence, abilities, and efforts, well, intelligently. Many people are smarter, more talented, and have a far greater potential than their present efforts might suggest or their present self is willing to believe. Yet I think it is true, because most people, your's truly included, walk around with a lot of tea in their tea cup, and often cannot add much more before it starts to spill. Perhaps we should drink more tea from our cup, and allow it to be empty at times, so that when we have a goal in mind to really apply ourselves to something, our minds are ready to receive and wrestle with all the problems such goals inevitably entail. We want, in short, to have our big mind available when life requires, or we feel compelled, to take on a great, big task.

Enjoy your tea on this rainy day before Easter :).

Living a process

Happy Earth Day :). Shame we couldn't have yesterday's weather for the occasion today, but that is okay. Gradually the flowers on the trees give way to the rich and mature greens of Spring and Summer, and onward the march of seasons continues. It is a good day.

The end of the semester is coming, and with it my time as a college undergraduate. It is strange to me that even in the twilight of this final year of college I find myself writing more than ever. It began with all those papers last semester, continued with the thesis, and now manifests itself in copious amounts of letter writing, blogging, and the almost weekly assignments of Chinese politics.

I feel myself improving with the skill, even if it is not that good as yet. When I was younger, I was afraid to write anything I did not think was absolutely perfect. As proved the case quite often (or if we are honest, all the time), I gave up on projects because they did not seem well-enough written. In some respects I still feel that way, but it is better now than before. When writing the thesis, my research advisor required me to turn in some writing every week, even if I thought it was not so good. He often critiqued it harshly, and was many times confused where on Earth I was going with things. It was hard to give him writing I was not happy with, and then to suffer his questions and criticism, but when I think about the process now that it is finished, it may well have proved an important experience for me. Bad writing became better writing, if not entirely to my liking, but that is okay. Through the writing of the thesis, the act of writing became what it is for all good professionals; a process of artistic creation that evolves into its final form rather than flowing straight from mind to paper as a completed text. It was great, and even though I think the thesis could be written better, now that it is largely completed I am proud to call it my own. We did it! And what is more, I have learned so much in the process. This is, I think, a good thing.

More and more, I find the work I do guided by a new understanding, namely that the goal is not the finished product so much as the quality of the process that creates it. Many things I write are no good, but I love writing more today than perhaps at any other time in my life. I do it in spite of the feeling inside me that is unsatisfied with how it sounds, or what it argues. It is like with distance running; you don't have to be good if you enjoy what you're doing. It is wonderful to have something that you love doing simply because it is fun and interesting. Many things you might do do not start out that way, but given a little time and some quality effort, many things can become enjoyable and enriching to one's life. I have been blessed many times over in this regard, and though it is not uncommon to become frustrated with one's self sometimes, returning to the joyful feeling of simply doing is like a warm shower after a hard swim practice that cleans and enlivens the soul once more. 

These feelings are beautiful when I remember them, and the work I do while in their embrace makes me quite happy, and that is good I think.

Happy Earth Day, and Good Friday, and whatever else you might remember to keep this day, like all others, holy and good in your heart. Much love to JP, a source of inspiration for this post.

A brief reflection

It's a beautiful day on the mountain. It's warm enough to sweat a little while walking around campus, cloudy enough just to make the sky pleasantly blue and white, and windy enough to feel the presence of the air as it swirls through the trees and within the folds of one's hair.

The days have been lengthening, and the sun shines longer than it did several months ago. The passing of the seasons has again begun to happen. Something old is coming to an end, and something new is beginning.

Such changes can occur in one's life as well.  Seasons come and go, like fitness, people, and other things. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they do not. Think carefully now.

When it is Spring, be Spring. When it is Winter, be Winter. Whatever the season, do it well. Truly it is a beautiful day on the mountain :)

Sudden creation

The other day I sat on a bench at school because I wanted to think. It was a beautiful day, and after a while the sun began to set behind the trees. The dimming sunlight on the clouds was really beautiful, and I even took a photograph. At any rate, while I sitting there trying to think, I noticed a tree that several times before I thought was very interesting and beautiful. And before I knew what I was doing, I had pulled out a little notebook from the inner pocket of my jacket, and had begun to draw the tree.

I don't often draw things. It's a skill that is not well developed in me. But there I was, drawing something I found beautiful simply because it was there I was really interested. After I finished drawing the tree, I true a little Buddha-man sitting underneath it, just sitting around, a little like I was.

Now a few days removed from the event, I realize that I actually created something I like without even trying to. In a moment of simple thinking, something flowed from my hand to create something new. It's a cool feeling :).

College as community service

A group assembled at my college last night to discuss the topic "Should students have more power?" To my surprise, many in the group took that to me power over the administration of the school as an institution. I suppose in retrospect it shouldn't have come as that much of a surprise, since several people present are highly active in the college community, and consistently interact with college administration. It is not hard to believe that such experiences could influence a person's interpretation of the discussion prompt.

But since we're on the mountain, let's approach the topic from a different angle. I interpretted the question to ask whether students should have more control over their education. This isn't a new question, and the last few years have seen several disciplines and government initiatives consider carefully how we ought to educate our children.

I remember last year asking this question in an economics class. The professor claimed that one way to measure the cost and benefit of education is to consider how much the education costs compared to how much the education benefits the person getting the education. Assuming a rational person, one would expect that the person would value the education the receive greater than or equal to the cost they pay to procure it. Makes sense, yeah? If  a movie ticket is worth 8 dollars to me, I'll pay the entry fee to see the film. A film that looks bad might be worth less, and as a result I won't pay $8 to see it. Say I value my 4-year college education at $180,000. Because I value it that much or more, I was willing to pay that much to receive it.

I don't know about you, but $180,000 is a lot of money for me, and as valuable as I feel that education has been, I can't help but wonder if the cost I and my family bore was worth the benefit received. Many students ask this question as well. Doing so sometimes prompt the point, "Well, if I'm paying so much for this education, perhaps I should have more of a say in what constitutes it. After all, I'm the consumer, and I know or have some idea of what I want to use the education for. Knowing the value of what I want, should I not be allowed to tailor my education to match or exceed the cost of things I want to use the education to acquire?"

Unfortunately, it's been a while since I read the report, but a program employing such logic started in Great Britain within the last few years. From what I remember, it seemed to assume that students know what they want from an education, and should therefore have greater control in making choices to further their aspirations. It all sounded very rational, very neat, and reasonable to the extent that if colleges expect students to pay a fortune to attend, perhaps they ought to have a greater say in how they earn it back.

But the program missed some things, I believe. One particular aspect is one my economics professor talked about during the same lesson. He claimed that education is one of those things that benefits not only the individual, but also society as a whole, what economists call "positive externalities." Externalities are interesting because they suggest ways in which markets fail to achieve optimum welfare. Negative externalities occur when a market produces too much of a given good because the true cost of that good is distorted. For example, a factory making paper on a river pays a certain amount for the material, labor, and machines that go into making paper. The problem that arises is that the factory also produces pollution, which enters the river and renders the water downstream undrinkable without expensive water-treatment facilities. Without intervention, the paper factory will keep producing paper without bearing in mind the cost that it incurs to the community downstream. In this way, the cost of making paper is artificially low compared to what it would cost if the company had to also pay for the damage it did downstream. The market ends up producing more paper than is socially optimal because circumstances created distortion in the paper company's perception of the cost of making paper.

Whew, long paragraph. Stay with me now. The thing about education is that it is a positive externality; markets tend to produce too little of something because the price is artificially high. As a rule, a more educated population tends to commit fewer crimes, have a better standard of living, and a better-quality democratic process than one that is less educated. Some might suggest that greater education tends to increase a communities tolerance of minorities and others who deviate unharmfully from the social norm. Societies with free public education address this problem by making it a community venture to educate local children. Doing so benefits the whole community.

But what about college? One could argue that more college graduates benefits society, perhaps not as much as a basic education as provided by public education, but nonetheless college graduates probably add a good deal to the communities in which they live. Many professional fields, for example, involve and/or require a college education. So it stands to reason that a community attains some benefit from having its memebers go to college. The thing is, unlike public education, a college education is often paid for by the individual, at least in the United States. Depending on the institution, the cost of a college education can range from expensive to astronomical. Simply put, higher education requires a high price, scholarships, grants, and loans aside. We college students pay a lot in terms of money, time, and effort.

And in doing so, we accrue benefits not only for ourselves, but also for our communities. Going to college is like doing a type of community service, even if that isn't the idea. Plenty will argue against that, especially if they live in a college town and suffer from the business of drunken hooligans, but given that, our country would be far worse off were it not for a college education.

Much to think about here obviously.

Motivation

Reading a book for class this morning entitled Factory Girls/From Village to City in a Changing China, by Leslie T. Chang. It's a work describing the world of migrant workers moving from their family villages in the countryside to factory cities such as Dongguan. The working conditions are rigorous, and wages are very low compared to work in America (something like $72 a month is about the average salary). Workers live in dormitories attached to the factory, and work hours according to the seasonal demands of their product. The months leading up to the Christmas holiday are apparently the worst.

It really is an incredible world though. But something in particular struck me, and that was a powerful tendency for some people to work ceaslessly to improve themselves so as to escape the factory life and become a respected and dignified member of society. The tendency seems particularly powerful among certain individuals highlighted in the book, but the presence of hundreds of schools and self-help classes in factory cities suggest a wide-spread nature to the phenomenon.

The section I read this morning talked about a white-collar class in which 200 factory girls signed up to learn how to think and act like so-called white-collar workers.  Everything from attitudes to clothing is laid out in prescriptive terms, with rules governing even the most mundane of tasks, such as dialing the telephone. Ms. Chang described the class in saying:

 "It was the strangest jumble of ideas I had ever encountered, combining the primacy of the individual with rules that were at once New Age and rigid: Purple represents mystery. The message was modern--express yourself, be confident--but it came with traditional assumptions: You will lift up your whole family. And history was not so much missing from the Dongguan classroom as wildly irrelevant. How was a seventeen-year-old factory girl suppose to learn from Chiang Kai-Shek, who flooded the Japanese army and drowned several hundred thousand of his own countrymen" (Chang, 180)?

What really got me about this chapter, among a few others earlier in the book, was the powerful ethic of self-inprovement among so many workers in China. So many people working so hard to learn how to use a computer, or to speak English, or some other valued skill. People go to class after working 10 hour shifts in a factory. One girl slept less than 6 hours a night for years while working 12-14 hours shifts in a factory so she could study more, and improve her position. The desire to get out of poverty exercises a powerful motivational ethic with these people.

The same seems true for many runners in East Africa, where in one corner of Kenya thousands of young men and women flock to training camps to train and attract the attention of an agent. Agents take their runners overseas to big races, and if their runner is fast and lucky both members of the partnership will make money. In both cases, the desire to get out of poverty drives people to work very, very hard. The work is brutal, but the results produced are often great.

We should reflect on these examples, because the desire to raise one's self out of poverty is producing today some of the fastest runners in the world, as well as one of the fasting growing economy in the world. Many people are working very hard in these places, and they are winning. There is no doubt a great cost to all this, but one can hardly deny that Kenyan distance running and Chinese economic growth are both world-class successes in our own time.

Does it take poverty to motivate people to the highest level? Perhaps not. But something might be learned, both positive and negative, from those who give much to improve their station.

A first entry

Today marks the beginning of die blauen Berg (The Blue Mountain), a blog I decided to start so as to write about topics that interest me. It also marks the 50th anniversary of manned space flight (1961), and the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War (1861-1865). In four years, people will mark the 150th anniversary of the end of the American Civil War. People who find such things interesting mark the passage of time, and each year turn their thoughts (if they remember) back to another time, on the same day of some year more or less long past. Like birthdays, marking the anniversary of particular events seems to yield perspective, such as when a person climbs a mountain and sees the whole valley laid out before them. The further the distance between ourselves and the event, the more that event seems to take on new significance to those who mark it. No one alive today fought in the American Civil War, and that simple fact colors and shapes the way that the Civil War enters a person's consciousness and imagination in our time today. In our Historiography class, we discussed many things that affect how people of a later period understand and think about particular historical events. Days such as today are perhaps good days to reflect on such things a little more. But I will leave that for after classes. Have a wonderful day :).