Tuesday 26 April 2011

Vocabulary is the Key to Self-Expansion


I always thought that Economy was boring and that I just had to stay away from it.

In my first year of High School there wasn’t much choice in terms of what you could study. The main course most of the students would go for had economy – I did Latin. I heard that Economy was stupid, boring and that it had math.

In general I had already created the idea that everything money related ‘out there in the world’ – was very complicated and boring. Mainly because whenever I had gotten into contact with it, I simply did not understand it. So my main reaction was: just stay away from it.

In later years I never went on a pursuit to understand our economic system or how our world operates, I had closed that door with my judgments.

Only later as I got involved with Desteni and the Equal Money Proposal, it got to me that I do not have any clue of how or money system works and how the world operates.
Yes I could see that something was wrong as I could observe poverty on the news, homeless people in the city. But I had no actual idea of how these manifestations came about. I saw them as one of the many ‘facts of life’ which I did not question at all.

So when Desteni came up with the Equal Money point, I got a bit grumpy because now I had to go and investigate money. I saw myself as very ‘money illiterate’ – I had only recently gotten my own bank account and bank card which I only has used like once lol. Throughout my life I was always taken care of by my parents and received some pocket money that was mine to spend.

I thought of myself as being incapable of researching a point like this and whenever I made an attempt I could not understand what was being discussed because the terms they used was not part of my vocabulary. I simply gave up.

We fast forward a bit more.

I am now living at the Desteni Farm and all the girls have decided to study at University.

It was kind of tacitly agreed upon that all of us were going to study psychology. Then when registration came closer I asked myself “Is this really what I want to study?”. I went to the university’s website and checked out what other curriculum they offered. One of them caught my eye. It was a study in Politics, Philosophy and Economy. Politics and Economy were very unknown to me but I could see the importance of Politics and Economy within the context of establishing World Equality and an Equal Money System. I had gotten Philosophy in High School and Gabriel, my elder brother had studied philosophy at University and I was always enjoyed what he had to share about what he had learnt over the weekend.

I had already read quite a bit on Psychology and whenever I had gotten Religion in high school it was more psychology than anything else.

I also figured that just because I had allowed myself to see myself as ‘not an economy person’ - that this should not hold me back. I saw that money was important to research so I willed myself to be interested in it lol.

From that perspective this course seemed quite challenging and it was something ‘new’. The description for the study said that it would equip the student with critical thinking skills within the area of politics and economy and work towards identifying problems and providing solutions. This seemed perfect for me in relation to the establishment of an Equal Money System.

I discussed this with Maite (my sister) and she said she was actually also not much interested in Psychology and seemed happy that I had found this other course. So we ended up both registering for this one instead.
Whereas I had previously always loved philosophy, it was an absolute pain in the*ss. The module was one big mess that made no (common) sense at all and I realized how delusional I had been in the past towards philosophy. Politics and Economy on the other hand are the subjects that I’ve enjoyed the most!

I am very glad that I decided to push through my resistance of getting to know our money system better. In a short period of time I’ve enabled myself to grasp and process such much more within my world.

Even now I can see how when I was small I got scared looking at certain things just because I didn’t understand, I did not have the vocabulary to grasp what was going on.

I remember very clearly for instance, that when I was still a toddler in school (and all we did was play all the long) we had to go into a classroom of the kids that were6-7 years old. I was standing in front and started looking at one of the books that was lying open on one of the kid’s desk. It had some weird figures on it and number and I went “WTF whas that!” inside myself. I looked at the kids whose book it was and he had a very sad face. I went into anxiety as I was thinking about how one day I will be sitting in that kid’s position having that book open in front of me and having to understand it.

Later when the moment came and I was that kid – we got to the particular page in the book that I had seen a few years back and the figure and numbers were completely clear to me! I thought it was very funny that I had been so scared, as it was just a matter of learning new words (and figures) to be able to understand what was going on. Then throughout primary school I was scared of high school because what I had seen my brother and sister study was completely unknown to me. Again when I got there myself it all made sense.

Then throughout high school I feared university and now that I’m at university I see that there’s nothing to be scared about lol (again).

In essence – the difficulty level of primary school, high school and university = are exactly the same. The only thing that changes is vocabulary. Anyone can learn anything as long as you learn all the words, it’s really just that simple.


3 comments:

Anna Brix Thomsen said...

Awesome Leila! I've also started to study math and since I left it when I was around 11, I decided to start at the basics. And I also believed my entire life that I could not learn math - that I was not 'a math person' - and now I've decided to embrace math as myself, with open eyes and open arms and I am enjoying it. I am also going to study the sociology of economy next year, which I've been a bit nervous about - so cool with this post and cool with the experience of walking into math open-breathed - and embrace it as myself.

Thanks a lot for sharing this!

(by the way - there is an error in the beginning of your post where it says that you do not live on the Desteni farm instead of now.)

Anna

Ruben said...

Really cool reminder. My brother pushed me with learning (word) definitions for a chemistry exam that I had to study in very few days and I managed to pass it - certainly that was the key for success.

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

I have always believed Vocabulary is the key because words hold meaning and it clicked when I was younger... If your grammar or colloquial is for lack of better words, dumb, then you, yourself cannot think past that... This also explains why I have been so apt to learn. Grammar was taught to me at a very young age. Like 3 and 4. Understanding - is now like 2nd nature and has been. This is a very Cool post. A Favorite! I just wish I had the education opportunities you had growing up :P and now! bahaha. Great Article!