Category Archives: discussion

10 Things I Know to be True

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Cleo Abram posted an interesting “conversation starter” on TED.com conversations, here’s a link to the thread: We can learn by exchanging and discussing our own lists of “10 Things I Know to be True.”

This post, as the author mentions, is inspired in this TED talk: Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter …

In this post, she says (as the title states) that we can learn if we share those few things that we KNOW are true. Yes, nitpickers will say “knowing” is subjective to beliefs and blah blah. I’m not interested in those comments, if you want/like just share 10 (or whatever number) of the things you know to be true, and let-be or learn from the few things that other people know.

Here’s MY list, in no particular order:

  1. Anyone can learn something even from the least expected people/things.
  2. Not everything that’s useful is fun, and not everything that is fun is useful.
  3. Action trumps words and thoughts.
  4. My perception of the world probably isn’t 1:1 to reality, but probably neither anyone else’s.
  5. Everything in the course of this lifetime, good and bad, has an end.
  6. You can’t describe a taste or a smell very effectively.
  7. Happiness doesn’t depend on what you have.
  8. The greater the expectations, the greater the effort you have to put into; you get what you put into something.
  9. “Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is” from the song: Tougher than it is by Cake
  10. The veracity of a statement does NOT depend on the who’s uttering it.

The post by Cleo Abram reads:

After listening to Sarah Kay’s beautiful speech and poetry, I tried to write my own list of “10 Things I know to be True.” I learned one thing immediately: I don’t know much. I learned a second thing more slowly: that’s okay! I tried to distill my limited understanding of the world into this list, without being overly philosophical nor literal.

One thing I know to be true, but that is not on my list, was that Sarah Kay was right when she said that if you share your list with a group of people you will find that someone has one thing very similar, someone else has something totally contrary, another person has something you’ve never heard of, and still another has something that makes you think further about something you thought you knew.

So let’s share ours, and find out! What do your lists have on them?

Here’s mine:
1. Fiction can, at times, feel more real than fact.
2. One person, with a good idea, can change our world.
3. There are things about our universe that we will never understand.
4. #3 is not an excuse to stop trying.
5. Everyone has a story worth hearing.
6. There is always another side to the story they tell.
7. Questions can sometimes teach more than their answers.
8. Children can sometimes teach more than their parents.
9. Everyone should travel.
10. No one’s truth is universal.

Memento

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I have always marveled at the fact that I can’t, most of the times, form a habit. As annoying as it is, I just don’t seem to have the mind or memory for that. Even when it’s something beneficial, or that I really like, I always have to consciously think about doing it, and a lot of the times forget about it. It is almost as if the only habit I have is breathing, and well, I forget about doing that too. Lucky me that I continue doing it regardless.

So yeah, one of my favorite movies is Memento (as old as it is). I have sometimes thought about creating a system to follow, but I always seem to forget what it is, or even that I have one :) .

A lot of my long time friends say that I’m just overloaded with work (or monotony, or just not stimulated enough), since I wasn’t always like this. I hope that this new job (first day is today) helps me on that. I also hope school starts loosening me up a bit since that could also be part of the combo.

A piece of advice

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For some time now, I’ve been working on my “Listening vs. Hearing” when I’m receiving constructive criticism and advice from someone. This experience in working my ways has given me the eyes to see how Ill-tempered a person can become when you are giving them advice yourself, or just pointing out an aspect in which they could do better with a slight variation of their ways.

Beats me how people can, not only disregard whatever you are saying, but try to cover the fact that they can improve, by either saying: “but you do it too” (if the case applies), or just toss you into oblivion. I would love it if people understood that I’m NOT judging when I bring something to someone’s attention, specially when I tell him/her in a private, one-on-one, and in a kind manner.

Another thing is, I’m expressing my love (or friendship, or appreciation, pick one…) towards that person when I bring those things to his/her attention (and not anyone else). I just want said person to be better; to help. We all need to be mature enough to listen, and humble enough to accept that we need to improve. I’m currently working on polishing those two.

On Luke 6:42, Jesus tells us:

How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

So, while I’m working on fixing my problems, won’t I be able to bring similar issues to the attention of others? And what about the problems I don’t have? A lot of the times the (constructive) criticism and advise will be frowned upon and disregarded.

I guess I need a piece of advice… both on the lines of improving my own listening and my dilemma of others not listening to me.

Advocacy

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One of the questions I found quite interesting in the last few days was: “What happens when a certain population does not know (one or more) of their rights?”.

The answer I found to that question was that they will not be able to exercise it or enjoy it, let alone defend or fight for it. And there is an interesting thing about this case.

According to Wikipedia:Citizenship and forgetting the political shades in there:

Purely ethical and moral duties tend to include:

  • …
  • respecting the rights of others
  • defending one’s own rights and the rights of others against those who would abuse them
  • exercising one’s rights

We usually see that the rights of one person/party are tied to the duties of another. So if a certain population, person or party does not know one or more of their rights, they can NOT defend their right, nor enforce that the other party complies with their duties. That can lead to exploitation, which is definitely not right (no pun intended).

Something interesting I got as a response from one of the people I was talking to about this was: “Having the right to do something doesn’t mean that it is right”. Coupling that with the duty<->right relationship, and taking into consideration the rights of others, I sincerely think that on most contexts exercising or enjoying one’s rights WITHOUT stepping on another party’s rights, is correct, but this has to be threaded very thin (treated with care/taken with a grain of salt).

Along with that point one should consider the case of the “Freedom of speech”, which is the case I had in mind when suggesting the grain of salt. One has the right to speak freely, but one has to be well versed on what one is saying, and take into consideration a LOT of stuff (e.g. what others think, that one could be wrong, etc…), so that one respects others.

So, I’ll go ahead and leave this point open, and expect comments to know what you guys think, and learn from that.