What Are You Studying In College?

What are you studying in college?

I completed my undergraduate studies in Environmental Policy, with a focus on the International side of things. I had originally started as an Environmental Sciences major because I wanted to study dinosaurs, but I didn't apply under Evolutionary Biology (the naming of majors was a bit confusing, so I figured I'd just change it later). In my first couple years of college, however, I failed my math and science courses pretty badly, and I started questioning whether doing hard sciences was right for me. I met with my adviser a number of times, switching my focus from Environmental Sciences - Biology to Environmental Sciences - Sociology, and then finally to Environmental Policy, which avoided the math and chemistry classes I had struggled with.

On one hand, I suppose I could have kept pushing ahead on my desire to be a paleontologist and studied harder, stayed up later, and basically just fight my way into the industry. But my adviser said something at one of our many meetings that really stuck with me over the years. She explained that as we talked, I was so much more excited and animated talking about people and their relationship with each other and the environment, much more than when I was talking about wanting to be a biologist. She told me that to her, it seemed silly that I would try and push myself to study something I didn't seem that interested in, when it was obvious I would rather be studying people.

Strangely enough, even after I had this moment of clarity, I still had a bit farther to go to fully realize where I belonged or what I wanted to do. At the time I was working with the college newspaper, and drawing editorial cartoons, laying out pages, and doing other production related things. I was drawing my own comics on the side, and felt like I would much rather be an artist than be in school, drawing cartoons and comics for people to enjoy the world over. I had always struggled with this part of myself, because I had this sense of duty to the world, especially after deciding to study Policy. I felt like I would be wasting my potential to just sit around and draw, that I would be selfish by taking myself away from a field where I could really help people.

This all changed after I saw Pixar's Wall-E. To this day, that film holds a special place in my heart because it showed me that I could find a third option, that I could make art and draw cartoons and make the world a better place all at the same time. It dawned on me that other cartoons had been doing it all along and I just never noticed (Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke come to mind), but they had played their part ever so subtly in getting me to this point. I had done a couple internships with environmental non-profits and wasn't feeling especially jazzed about working with groups like that for the rest of my life. I would have switched my major at this point, but to be perfectly candid the art department at my college wasn't that great, and from what I had heard it was better at helping you conceptualize your art than it was at improving your skills.

So fast forward a few years, and here I am, currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in Storyboarding at art school. It fits everything that I've ever wanted to do in my career, from drawing cartoons to telling stories to changing the world. It's been a bit of a winding road getting here, but I think that every step along the way has been necessary in putting me where I needed to be for the next step. This, of course, is part of walking the Path.

Drugs and Daoism

I don’t believe there is anything inherently wrong with the use of drugs themselves, from a purely abstract perspective. In reality, there are a number of ethical, political, and physical issues with taking any mind-altering substance, depending on where it came from, how it got here, and what it can do to your body. But assuming that it’s a fair-trade product that isn’t supporting an evil empire and doesn’t have any extremely dangerous side-effects at the dosage standard, I see nothing wrong with their use. This is why I go out and have drinks every so often with friends, or why I drink coffee on an early (or late) workday. Like anything else in our lives, moderation and living well is the key to staying in line with the Dao.

But the problems start when we move out of moderation, when these substances become necessary for us to function, when we depend on a dose to keep us going. I believe that over-medication has taken a lot of people in my country off their Path, both from the established pharmaceutical industry and from the recreational drug culture. People look for something that can make them feel better without taking the time and effort needed to understand what they are trying to feel better from.

Imagine that your room has gotten quite messy, as rooms tend to do over the course of our lives. The bed is unmade, the laundry has piled up, papers and pens and old receipts have been strewn about everywhere. Things are in quite a state of disarray. However, you decide not to take the time to sort through things, to organize them and put things back in their proper place, to maybe even come up with a more efficient system of keeping things nice and neat for longer, but instead you rent a newfangled cleaning and organizing robot to pick everything up for you. It saves you a bunch of hassle, and things seem at least a little bit nicer than before. But the robot doesn’t know you and doesn’t know how you operate on a day-to-day basis, so things aren’t organized in a way that actually is easy for you to find and get access to. After all, the robot’s only parameters are to make the room clean, not convenient. And since you haven’t actually learned anything from tidying things up yourself, I would bet that the room is going to get cluttered again pretty quickly. So you rent the robot again, and again, and again; each time inevitably going back to the messiness of before, or even making things worse as you constantly fight against the robot’s way of cleaning your room.

This is what happens when you try to medicate yourself with drugs. They push us out of alignment with the Dao, and the more we use them, the more out of sync we will be. If we really want to set our messy room back in order, we need to do it ourselves. We can get help from our family and friends, even help from the occasional robot now and then, but ultimately it is something that needs to be by our own hand.

So, yes, for the fucking love of God, movies matter. TV shows matter. Novels matter. They shape the lens through which you see the world. The very fact that you don’t think they matter, that even right now you’re still resisting the idea, is what makes all of this so dangerous to you — you watch movies so you can turn off your brain and let your guard down. But while your guard is down, you’re letting them jack directly into that part of your brain that creates your mythology. If you think about it, it’s an awesome responsibility on the part of the storyteller. And you’re comfortable handing that responsibility over to Michael Bay.

5 Ways You Don’t Realize Movies Are Controlling Your Brain (via quantumstarlight)

If you can recognize and minimize the effect of your personal social lens, you have taken the first step in seeing things as they are, instead of how the world around you has led you to perceive them to be. I'm confirming the article's message by using this quote, but I believe Miyazaki has gone a long way in using media's influence as a force for good, and has been a major contributing factor in shaping the way I view the world. When the Lady Eboshi asks why the Prince has come to Iron Town, Ashitaka responds simply, "To see with eyes unclouded by hate."

The separation between the two, like the separation between many other things, is but an illusion.

The real trick is to wear those slippers all the time.

Many folks struggle with their meditation and trying to concentrate and learn mindfulness. They get the idea that this is hard and can only be done on a mat sitting in the lotus position. Nothing could be further from the truth. After practice in the meditation room we start practicing mindfulness...

Live in the moment, live in the Dao.