This is perhaps a curious debut post for my blog, but it’s these types of things that I think about during a 70 mile (one-way) commute. I hope that this blog would provide encouragement and interesting ideas for those interested (and/or immersed) in higher education and educational technology. I make no promises. At it’s broadest level, this blog is a literary presentation of self (as in me). As such, there’s no way to predict where this whole thing will go… and what fun would that be anyway.
Anyway, I am convinced that there is a cosmic conspiracy to reconnect me with the music of Jimi Hendrix. Both my iPod and Pandora insist on playing “Hey Joe” and “Castles Made of Sand” at unnaturally consistent intervals. Someone is obviously messing with the algorithms. Sure, I like Hendrix, but I only have one (plus maybe a few more songs) CD of him on my iPod and one station out of some 15 representing his work in Pandora. So here are a couple of things I believe someone is trying to tell me: 1) it’s time to lighten up a bit and enjoy a good, teeth-grinding electric guitar solo once in a while 2) remember that I’ve fallen but a few paces from the tree that is my father (an avid Hendrix fan) 3) remember that life is short and Hendrix wasted his prodigous (dare I say otherworldly) talents in the bottle and the needle. Thus, here are a few insights related to the above observations:
- Life really is good. Rewriting literature reviews after getting scalded by a prof can seem pretty bad, but life is good and being a grad student is a privilege. There are hundreds of thousands (likely millions) of people much smarter than me who will never be afforded the academic opportunities handed to me.
- We cannot deny the pervading influence of our biological family in every aspect of who we are. The more we revisit and process the ways in which our relationships with our parents has shaped our lives, the closer we will become to being an emotionally healthy human being.
- We all have great potential to create beautiful things. We’ve been given the power to choose whether we will realize that potential.