Some thoughts

It's one week until the Presidential Election. That means that the number of queries (British speak for questions- see, I'm learning!) I've gotten from people about the election has dramatically increased. And I'm loving it. A civil society- the basis of a functioning society- thrives on such debate.

One of the projects I'm working on right now is research for an essay on peace education. In this essay, I'm to develop a peace education program/curricula for use in a school or community based setting, explaining what values, knowledge, and skills I'd be promoting. I was just reading an article for another class- entitled Is Gandhi Still Relevant, and I think I found a perfect starting point for the essay research. Gandhi was one who believed that humans are interdependent upon each other- people become "rational, reflective and moral human being[s] only within a rich civilisation created by scores of sages, saints, savants and scientists." Moreso, Gandhi believed we are 'born debtors' and the debts we are born with are too vast to repay. The author of the article I just read, Bhikhu Parekh, summarized Gandhi's belief nicely- essentially, people should "find profound joy in contributing to the maintenence and enrichment of both the human world and the cosmos." We can't just sit around and expect others to do all the work that must be done. The idea that we should find joy in enriching our own world is something amazingly profound, and yet incredibly simple. Something I wholeheartedly believe in. That's why I'm studying peace. That's why I want to find myself a career in which I can work with likeminded people who are changing the world every day.

I know I've mentioned this in the past, but I'll try to put a new spin on it. The study of peace is really study of the world. It's economics, it's history. It's development, and sociology. Psychology, and mathematics. It's everything. It's simple, it's complex. And Gandhi's belief that human beings are interconnected is central to the study. Any decision that one person, one group, one country makes affects another person, another group, another country. Do we all acknowledge this interconnectedness in today's society? How do we deal with it?

That's what I'm spending the day thinking about. I'm the luckiest person in the world.