Well, it wouldn't be a theme week without a video from TED.com to cap it off. This one features the prominent author Amy Tan. She talks about her childhood and creativity, but some of the most insightful parts of her lecture come when she shares from her travels to the East.
-Taylor
I read recently that one of the writers for Lonely Planet faked the book about Colombia. He said he didn't have the money to travel there, so he used his girlfriend who was from Colombia to write most of the content of the book.
Lately, I've been doing my travel research on blogs, and I've been finding that these are veritable goldmines of first-hand information. Many of these travel sites are focused on one thing: the bottom line. They are willing to send the cliché America tourist to the cliché tourist spots, where the prices are all jacked up, while the rest of world lies in relative obscurity, undiscovered by the typical traveler. Many personal blogs, however, are devoted to their authors' personal discoveries while traveling. I have been finding many of these personal travel blogs to be extremely interesting and helpful, as well.
The following are some travel blogs I enjoy reading:
http://www.gadling.com/
http://www.planeteye.com/
http://thetravelersnotebook.com/
http://realtravel.com/
This last one is really interesting in that it lists traveler's trips with journal entries and photography. One of the coolest ones features 80-some stops as the travelers hugged the entire coast of South America.
-Taylor
I was a jazz pianist at local fine dining restaurant about 5 years ago when a wealthy couple slipped me a business card and asked me to sit with them while I took my break. They introduced themselves as the Wecksteins. The man was the president of J.Q. Hammons Companies, and his wife had her own business. They apparently liked my music and had previously sat near me at the bar while I was on my breaks. Over the next few months they would show up to the restaurant and ask me to sit with them. I heard stories of their travels around the world. A little younger and a little more shameless, I would ask questions like "What's the most you ever spent on a dinner tab?", and I think they, having worked hard to earn their wealth and power, kind of enjoyed answering the question: "$1000 for two at restaurant on the water in Hong Kong."
I would literally sit there, enthralled at the stories of their experiences. Finally, one night as they wrapped up their meal and I was to return to playing, I said, "I hope one day I'll be as privileged to travel the world like you do." And the lady discerning the subtle defeatism in my attitude leaned in and grabbed my attention with her eyes. "You can do anything you want," she said, "if you make it a priority. It doesn't matter how much money you have. It'll always have somewhere else to go if you don't set it aside for the things you want. There are rich people who can't spend the money to get to Hong Kong because they won't. But you will go there if you make it a priority."
-Taylor
Chances are, if you are reading this blog, I know you, and you are already acquainted with the concept of mini-retirements. The recent popularity of author Tim Ferris' book The 4-Hour Workweek has brought the idea of mini-retirements to the masses. In his blog, he actually continues to write quite frequently on the topic as well.
The idea behind the mini-retirement is that the typical plan of working hard through 40-some-odd years to only then be followed by a relatively long vacation seems little backwards. First, to save your retirement for a time when the rest is generally accompanied by a certain amount of restlessness, sending you right back to work of some kind, or when you are too old to enjoy many of the things you would have liked to do when you were younger, all seems a waste. Ferris' idea is that we should take mini-retirements throughout our lives, where over the course of a few months or even years, we change the scenery, even the work, and recharge our batteries for new eras in life.
Some other interesting perks to the mini-retirement concept include that many times it ends up being cheaper to rent an apartment and buy food for a few months in another country than if you were to retain a residence in the your own country. Ferris includes blog posts that talk about getting much of this travel for free by simply volunteering for humanitarian organizations. The experiences alone can give you great new ideas and expanded knowledge leading to new goals and all this in addition to the character growth from volunteering. Consider this guy's post on the topic.
I also decided on this topic as it makes for a nice introduction to this week's theme: Travel.
-Taylor
I suppose I'll do another bonus post this Saturday. Again, this video comes from TED.com and is one of the most interesting and exciting talks I've heard on the site. So in keeping with the environmentalist theme, here is William McDonough surmising on what it will take to create a greener future.
-Taylor
As the earth heats up, the vanishing of humanity has become something of a hot topic, a preoccupation shared by directors like Steven Spielberg (“A.I.”), Francis Lawrence (“I Am Legend”), M. Night Shyamalan (“The Happening”) and Werner Herzog. In his recent documentary “Encounters at the End of the World” Mr. Herzog muses that “the human presence on this planet is not really sustainable,” a sentiment that is voiced, almost verbatim, in the second half of “Wall-E.” When the whimsical techies at Pixar and a moody German auteur are sending out the same message, it may be time to pay attention.The idea of consumption is actually made to be so ridiculous that it might at times seem difficult to see ourselves in that mirror. There are instances when evidence of the past consumerist societies and their incredibly large shopping centers flash across the scene. The apparent all-encompassing retailer of the time also has its own website to go along with the plot.
I just finished reading this book by Jared Diamond. The book goes into such depths to make its point (which wasn't even clear to me until near the end) that I'm not sure I'll be able to hash out even a satisfactory overview here. I'll see what I can do, though.
Diamond takes us on a journey through past failed civilizations, explaining the circumstances surrounding their collapses. Approaching this book, I was expecting there to be some kind of correlation between cultural traditions and the onset of collapse. I had, after all, heard stories that Rome's fall was preceded by and due in large part to a moral degradation of society. What I found instead was initially uninteresting, so I put down the book. For about 8 months (my disinterest, a symptom of my selfish ignorance).
I was going through my audiobooks this summer, trying to rationalize purchasing another, when I came across this yet unfinished book. So I promised I'd finish it before I allowed myself to buy another one. As the book details (and I mean details) the societal climate of these past civilizations, one quickly finds that they all have something in common. It's not the degradation of morals that unprops a society into utter collapse but the degredation of their respective ecosystems. The effects of deforestation, chemical contamination from mining, depletion of our ocean's seafood from overfishing, and irresponsible farming techniques all contributed to these society's downfalls.
Diamond ultimately lists eight factors that were a part of past failed societies and four more factors that might contribute to the weakening and collapse of present and future societies.
1. Deforestation and habitat destruction
2. Soil problems (erosion, salinization, soil fertility loss)
3. Water management problems
4. Overhunting
5. Overfishing
6. Effects of introduced species on native species
7. Human population growth
8. Increased per-capita impact of people
1. Human-caused climate change
2. Buildup of toxic chemicals in the environment
3. Energy shortages
4. Full human utilization of the Earth's photosynthetic capacity
I can unfortunately do for you little more than recommend the book or point you towards one of Diamond's articles in the New York Times. I can give this thought, however: Next time you find yourself in your local bookstore, pick up a copy and read the closing chapter. These growing concerns must be addressed. All one has to do is a simple thought experiment, considering what our society would be like with drastic food and energy shortages, to foresee the impact of a degrading ecosystem. These types of shortages contribute to the war-like conflicts we see throughout parts of Africa and the Middle East, not to mention China, India, and even Japan earlier in the last century (though they addressed their problems as is discussed in the book).
If nothing else, keeping in mind these factors and how our actions either create or support chain-like series of events that lead to them, we could probably do a lot of good just by making some small changes in our habits. In our society our mindset needs to change from the selfish ideals of consumption to that of stewardship and respect for our environment. We must focus on these factors now because even today evidence slowly mounts for a future collapse.
-Taylor
