I love my job at the library. I love being around books, I love the research, I love watching everyone come in and out of the library. I love the vantage point and the work.
But today I was talking to one of the international LLM students who is a regular at the library. He had an accent so I asked where he was from. Chile. I said I'd always wanted to go there. He said I should come. He and his wife would show me around. I asked him what the best part about Chile was...he answered with this and my jaw dropped:
Torres del Paine National Park. I want to go there someday.
I've been thinking today about the word "ignorance." I guess maybe because I just finished To Kill a Mockingbird.
ignorance
nounig·no·rance\ˈig-n(ə-)rən(t)s\
: a lack of knowledge, understanding, or education : the state of being ignorant
Embedded in the word is the smaller locution "ignore." In fact, the construction of the word "ignorance" taken at face value would suggest, rather than the above definition, an actual species of refusal to pay attention to something.
When you ignore someone, you intentionally to do not attend to them. There is intention involved:
ignore
verbig·nore\ig-ˈnȯr\
: to refuse to show that you hear or see (something or someone)
: to do nothing about or in response to (something or someone)
Obviously, the word "ignorance" has taken on the meaning that it has now. The Online Etymology Dictionary has little to add about how this happened.
c. 1200, from Old French ignorance (12c.), from Latin ignorantia "want of knowledge" (see ignorant).
But I guess my point is less about the origins of the word and rather what it has to teach us now. In an age when technology gives us knowledge and information at our fingertips to the vast (and admittedly overwhelming) extent that it does, we have a responsibility to not ignore knowledge and ignore others. I'm no saint in this aspect. There's so much I've chosen not to know--whether it is an active or passive choice. And of course I'm not saying that we cannot be responsible to know all there is to know.
What I am saying is that I think that the technologically progressive nature of the society in which we lives places on us, as partakers in and citizens of it, a greater responsibility than past generations to be informed and to not be "ignor-ant" of what is going on in the lives, communities, countries and globe around us.
Today, I think ignorance is a choice. Perhaps it has always been to some degree, but I think it's even more of a choice now that it has ever been.
Let us not ignore. Let us be reasonable about the knowledge and the extent to which we pursue it, but let us not ignore.
I don't know how this novel ended up being omitted entirely from my education till now, but this was assigned reading for a class in law school and I'm so glad. The story is amazing and I found that I resonated with this story and the way it was told on so many levels (including but not limited to):
-As an American that still witnesses grievous vestiges of racism today;
-As a woman who lives in the blessed (thought still imperfect) aftermath of a feminist revolution;
-As a person who still remembers what it was like to be a child, and learn both beautiful and ugly things about the world around her;
-As a student of the law;
-As a sister;
-As a daughter;
-As a human.
Atticus' love for his children, household (Calpurnia included), community and his respect for human dignity is consistent throughout all areas of his life in this story, whether or not this love and respect was consistent with societal--even legal--norms. I think it was this consistency that I found the most admirable. There are some people that just seem to "get it." Atticus' character is of that breed. But he's not perfect, we see some of his weaknesses too.
But apart from the beautiful treatment of the main social issue that the book aims to address, the other thing I think I resonated with the most was the way Atticus interacts with his daughter: he lets her be her. And she begins to grow up able to think for herself as a result.
That said, I love the voice of his daughter telling the story, it deepens the narrative in so many ways, though one of the most poignant may be that we never know the change we are affecting and who is watching us and being molded by what they see in us. Our actions shape future generations more than we know--even if change comes far slower than we hoped.
I could say so much more, but I'll save it for class on Wednesday. Suffice it to say this is a must read and I'm sorry I hadn't experienced this amazing piece till now.
As I stated yesterday, Shakespeare inspires me. He inspires me to command my language better and expands my paradigms on the meaning of individual words and sometimes phrases.
This is my favorite of his sonnets. It's talks about true beauty. It talks about how "beauty" is made truly beautiful for the truth, integrity, and for me I read transparency into it as well.
This the kind of beauty I strive and desire to possess...that sweet ornament which truth doth give.
SONNET 54
O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.
I hate how our society tends to laugh off inspiring moments after they pass. Obviously, not everyone does this and no one does it always, but in my experience the general trend is that when we hear or see something amazing, we agree with it, we resonate, we move on with life. Little seems to change and then later we sort of chuckle at the experience.
I hate that. Are we scared to take those moments seriously and actually live up to them--actually live for more? Obviously those inspiring quotes, pictures, moments or whatever resonate for a reason. Are we scared to let them actually change our lives?
I think so.
I love to get inspired. But I have a faith that inspires me, too. I have a faith that reminds me that, yes, in fact there is so much more to live for. And yes, thank God, I can start doing that now.
I think it takes courage to allow yourself to be inspired by someone, something and let it actually change you--even if the change is initially imperceptible. And then the more that you choose this the more you change, and the more you become who you want to be.
I think it takes courage to rethink our priorities and actually rearrange our life. And I think it takes a constant willingness to be reminded of what's important, what we really want and a constant humility to decide to stay on a trajectory toward health and wholeness and change--not just for ourselves but for the world. And that means that it takes courage to be inspired.
I love to be inspired.
Shakespeare inspires me.
Moses inspires me.
Samuel inspires me.
Bob Goff inspires me.
International justice inspires me.
Hearing a foreign language on the street inspires me.
A well elocuted lecture inspires me.
The future me, what I can become inspires me. Jesus inspires me.
I never want to quit being inspired. Nor do I want to treat inspiration as a fleeting phenomenon. I find that to be cynical and cowardly.
I'm only writing this because I made a commitment to write every day for a month and I will follow through with it.
It's hard because I don't always have something of substance to say, so I find that I end up writing more benign and banal thoughts and while I do so I rue the words I string together.
I don't want to do that tonight, so I'd rather just explain why I'm not saying much of anything at all.
International Development Law Organization (IDLO) has been on my mind since we went there on a "class field trip" in Rome. I was entirely impressed with all I learned about the organization and what it stands for. Of course, I told myself that day that I wanted to work--or at least intern--there. But then of course, I also told myself that it would wear off and that I always say that when I get inspired by something.
But this one hasn't worn off, I just keep thinking about it so today I finally wrote them.
I don't know why I'm so nervous about it because it was just an email, it wasn't even an application of any sort.
But then, maybe I do know why. It's because there's this pattern in my life of whatever I really want to do I don't get to do it the first time I try: Alaska, France, working for the State of Alaska, the LSAT, I even put of law school applications a year...all of these were essentially career moves too.
I really, really want to be a part of this organization and learn all it has to offer me. What's more is they seem to essentially be a Compliance & Ethics-centered NGO and I am all about their mission.
But all sorts of feelings of inadequacy rise up in me. My French isn't native, my Italian needs work. (Yes, I know, I'm a perfectionist...) I'm just a small-town American girl, I lack the culture of so many others that are so much more "international" than I and so much more qualified. All those terrible internal voices of insecurity. My head knows their not true but then the same head seems to be feeding me the filthy lines, too. Regardless of the caliber of skill I possess I unequivocally have this going for me: an unquenchable drive to learn whatever it is I need to do what I'm passionate about. I will work and not tire. I know what I love and I know what I'm passionate about. I'll be interested to hear what they have to say.
I want this. I kind of wish I didn't want it so bad--I know the process of disappointment all too well. But I have to know now if I even have a chance, otherwise I need to start thinking about other opportunities for next summer. Probably here, too.
So many questions. But I keep coming back to that thing I heard this summer: "Don't give up on the international side of you, Darling. I haven't." I'll live and act on that. I know He hasn't forgotten--even if it totally feels like it sometimes.
