"Read and Respond"

Anthem

by Ayn Rand

"I look upon the history of men, which I have leaned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit of which moved it was the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. This is freedom. This and nothing else."

Respond.

"For the word "We" must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within man's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men, and of an unspeakable lie."

Respond.

Reference to Prometheus.

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Goal

I have a new goal: to write everyday about something I'm passionate about. To become passionate. And if there isn't something readily available that I'm feeling passionate about, to turn on the radio or tv, walk outside, read the news, or figure out what I'm feeling and write on the emotion. But unlike my unproductive brooding, write on what's causing the emotion, rather than my reaction.

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SPEW: Second Thought

"Every time you abolish an institution, it is replaced with whatever is surrounding it culturally."

So then, instead of demolishing, we must be consistently creating. Maybe the act of creating the culture serves as demolishing the institution, in that it will become obsolete.

Create a community system of barter, trade, and gift, and the better it is created the more obsolete money becomes.

Create a rehabilitation structure that involves community and society, and proves itself at rehabilitation, and let prisons become obsolete.

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I am watching my grandmother be deeply affected by a man who stole from her and a number of people in her church community. A man she trusted and supported, alongside her community, and who betrayed her trust. This reinforced her ideas about addicts, and brought up a lot of old feelings. I hear it in her generalizations and the conviction in her anger. She wants this man punished for her ex-husband, her parents, god knows who else. She's afraid, angry, sad, and resentful. There are other members of her community that feel similarly. One woman had her engagement ring stolen, and felt deeply wronged. This is a common and ideal situation, because it provides an opportunity to create. This is my idea...

Blatantly reminiscent of Re-evaluation Counseling, Radical Honesty, and Nonviolent Communication, the offender would sit with his victims while they express themselves, reducing their accusations to feelings, and were encouraged to own their feelings. The offender would, in turn, be given space to respond, with the same guidelines of recognizing his feelings and owning them. The group would be counseled, in effort to help them relate to one another, and to recognize the origins of one another's actions and emotions. When everyone feels fully expressed, the victims would be given the chance to communicate needs and make requests of the offender, and the offender would be given then chance to do the same with his victims. The process would not need to follow a specific format, but the end goal stays the same: that a resolution is created that the victims and the offender feel is just. Maybe this resolution involves courts, trials, and the possibility of probation or prison. Maybe it involves dropping all charges.



spontaneity
dave-creating [spontaneously] w/o aim of destruction

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SPEW

Every time you abolish an institution, it is replaced with whatever is surrounding it culturally.

This is not what I'm trying to achieve. My idea is that we will all quit school and then we will be revolutionaries--that the act of quitting school itself is so radical that, well, how could you not be?
This may not be true. What does it mean to quit school--will everyone have different motivations?

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SPEW: Unschooling Activism

my goal:

to personally affect at least 3 people to leave school within the next year, and pursue their own passions and educations.

how to get student's attention...

1. by posting flyers. (advertising what?)

2. by being a hip presence, in a big way, and personally (non-verbally) advertising unschooling.

what to do with their attention...

1. preach: talk to them and tell them about the ways school is harmful/ineffective, about successful unschoolers (lifelong and dropouts), about how college is still an option, about how exciting life as a non-schooler is and about what people who don't go to school do with their time.

2. refer: to a library of unschooling books and zines, thereby inferring legitimacy.
(task: put together a full library of unschooling books)

3. network students and their parents with dropouts/unschoolers and their parents.

4. reference: unschooling icons (einstein, mark twain, etc.)
(idea: unschooler trading cards... famous unschoolers/proponents of unschooling, create your own, etc.)

5. second hand: interest them in unschooling as a secondary/covert goal.

--skill shares. get them there, then possess a strong presence of proud unschoolers (without being alienating). show them that learning is an exciting process. introduce them into a new and interesting community.

6. infiltrate currently existing groups of students who are currently pursuing interests outside of schooling (environmental, humanitarian, etc. non-religious and non-sport oriented)

(thought: maybe the idea shouldn't be [yet] to reach more people, than it should be to reach fewer people effectively. One on one conversations are important. It will be key to be completely prepared at all times. To have a mental database of books, zines, people to contact, figureheads in support, local networks, places to use as resources, )

(thought: is there a way to hook up, somewhat undercover, with guidance counselors? like: if you're struggling in school, potential drop outs contact xyz. an undercover drop-out counseling service!)

student's concerns to address:

parents (won't let them)

friends (will leave them. no socializing.)

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SPEW

Disclaimer: This post is an unfinished draft. It has not been fully thought out.

I am initiating a conversation about god.

I believe that if you ask, the universe will provide you with whatever it is that you seek. But what does this mean? First, I guess 'ask' must be defined. For a time, I 'asked' by 'casting a spell' within the Wiccan practice. To illustrate, I'll use the example of 'asking' for a romantic partner. The first thing I did was make a list of the qualities I wanted the person I was seeking to possess. Strong, I listed, courageous, funny, intelligent, fashionable--on and on. Then I performed a ceremony. Lit candles, set up a kind of alter where I represented multiple elements, chanted a phrase that embodied my request, and cut off a lock of hair. There wasn't a lot of science behind what I was doing--I wouldn't have been able to explain why it was important to create an alter, to have elements represented, to chant, to sacrifice my DNA. The list was important but I knew not to make it too specific, that by keeping it vague I was allowing the universe to fulfill my request sooner, easier. But by doing this, is all that I am really doing, making myself aware of what I want and making it a priority in my life? Once I have a list of the things I am looking for, it is that much easier to recognize them when they present themselves. By keeping things vague, once I meet someone I am attracted to, it's easier for me to look at them and apply these things to them. Now I've heard rumors about people 'asking' (be it casting a spell, visualizing, thinking positively, or meditating) for something extremely specific. Say one woman asks for a blond haired Korean man who owns a bank and a private jet. After having performed whatever ceremony this woman prefers, I should like to suggest that this action has, in fact, inspired confidence in her. She knows that the universe will bring her whatever she wants, and that all she has to do is let it happen. Now, when she one day does meet that blond haired, bank and private jet owning Korean, she already knows that she has him--that the universe brought him to her, and so on some level, she is relaxed, and that relaxation translates into confidence.

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