my literature challenge!
I was just telling Hubs that quitting social media made all the blood flow to my brain --- It is potent stuff! And I am now back to surfing the internet, like the millennial teenager that I was.
This means that the rabbit holes that I fall into are deeper and wider than the social media ones... the questions feel bigger and the answers are longer.
What questions, you ask?
Well, there were a few things that were gnawing at me.
It all started with the talk about "personal curriculums". I absolutely love the idea. I love planning for it. I wanted to dip my toes into it - and so I tried it at the end of last year.
Maybe it was just a bad time for me to start such endeavours (as I was in over my head with wedding stuff). But the actual execution of the plan? Not so good...
Firstly, I felt that the readings I was choosing were kind of weird and scattered... admittedly, I'm not an expert in the subject that I want to study. The paradox here is that if I want to craft a syllabus that answers a GOOD question, I have to actually be somewhat familiar with the terrain. Admittedly, I did use Chat GPT to come up with a reading list for me (one of my first forays into the AI) - but perhaps it's just a confluence of lack of interest in those particular recommendations and/or a lack of faith in the credibility of the list? Either way, my interest was decidedly not piqued... and I decided to just keep it limited for the time being and read the relevant primary texts closely (for now).
Secondly, I asked myself what it is that I really wanted. I took some time to journal about it. I was tempted not to post about it and just go ahead and action it. But I thought it would be good to write it here - for some accountability.
Anyhow, I realized that I was craving depth and something solid. I wanted to challenge myself to train my attention, in the hopes that my mind would be engaged and my spirit / intellect ignited.
I also had a 'eureka' moment recently, when I read this blog post by Meadow Mind, which referenced Bloom's Taxonomy. I realized that my obsession with information management/organization had to do with the fact that I wanted a way to apply what I was learning to my life. I was tired of hoarding information around me like a sleepy dragon. I felt like it was time to make something of that knowledge that I had collected over the years.
Another thought that kept coming back to me - in an uncomfortable way - was that I felt such deep regret at not fighting my case when I was an undergrad and switching to a literature major instead. All my life, I'd chosen the safer option - in secondary school, in JC, in uni and at work. It was never the option that made me go "heck yeah!" - it was more like, hm, it'll keep me comfortable. See: sleepy dragon. I was shocked to find myself feeling a sense of anger, and a sense of injustice. I was tempted to blame it on my parents, my brother, for pressuring me to take such steps... and I felt sad for who I was at the time and the choices that I made. But the reality is that: I made those choices. And now I have the power to make another choice.
So.
I want to try and take back my time. Try and take back my life. To do the things that I wanted to do, that I feel like I was made to do.
I'm going to try and get me the education that I've always wanted. This is what I want:
Expansion of my reading mind: I want to learn about different worlds, worlds that preceded this current world, in order to learn more about our current societies and selves. I want to read texts that I would not typically read so that I can learn about the actual world around me, not the one that I construct in my head.
Structure: What I am referring to here is that I want to be able to explore certain topics in ways that make coherent and logical sense. Perhaps there is an argument to be made for setting my own path... But I'm no professor, and I am curious about how the "experts" would do it.
Depth: Perhaps by way of close/active reading. Also, I would like to engage in a process of evaluation and maybe even create something to show for it.
Interaction/Community: While I have always been drawn to the idea of Personal Curriculums for the fact that we can plan these things on our own, I've realized that community makes a huge difference. The accountability that comes with showing up forces one to take responsibility for the intentions that were set. Also, I think there is something to be said for working on communication skills that come with conveying an idea to a group of people, whether in writing or via speech.
Researching the available options led me to fall into the aforementioned rabbit hole, and I actually feel that the rabbit hole is still moving me places? But for now, this is what I've come up with:
MIT Literature Challenge: I read about the MIT Philosophy Challenge as put forward by Meadow Mind (you can see her version here , and I'm hoping to do a similar challenge for the literature course. This consists of ten units - for the most part, all available on MIT OpenCourseWare. There are some units on Open Yale Courses that I'm interested in as well, so I might supplement this accordingly.
St John's College Reading List: This list fills me with awe and trepidation, but it does address my desire to read widely and systematically. I intend to read through the list and supplement this with (hopefully) live discussions via adhoc courses or book club discussions. Close readings would be great, but if I can't stomach it, then just a normal reading will be fine, haha.
I expect that this is going to take me more than a few years, but I'll just take it one step at a time, according to my financial/time constraints. I am kind of scared because I hate failing... But I guess, it's not a failure if I pick it back up again :) And... if I really do fail along the way... at least I got to read some books.
I'll do up a separate page to track my MIT Literature Challenge and link it on my Now page. I'll also think about where to put information about my attempt at the St John's Reading List along with resources that I'm thinking about using... right now, the list is empty, hahah.
If you are doing something similar, I would love to hear. You can email me at thequarterlight AT gmail DOT com.
Until next time- N