WRIT340 ramblings

  “Today we are redefining the geography of community and accepting shared accountability for common human values. We have the chance to extend the notion that all men are created equal to every human being on the planet. This will require global structures and products we are only beginning to imagine… Each of us in his or her own way can contribute something by thinking – and acting – like a true global citizen. We have only one world for all of us on earth, and the future really is ours to create, in a world we dare to imagine together.” Interconnectedness. To me, this quote speaks to the interconnectedness of our world, the people that inhabit it, and all of their systems. We can’t afford to forget that the actions of one group can affect the livelihood of a whole other people, across the globe. As the spread of technology and globalisation has facilitated our interconnectedness, the notion of a singular, isolated, and inconsequential action has disappeared. From this I extract...

  New York: 3 places This Wednesday, following our writing class, I left for New York. I have been to the Big Apple before, but only as a child tourist who cared more about M&Ms world than the Chrysler Building. Things aren’t the same anymore, so I go to New York with a new approach, and definitely more independence (unlike my parents, I don’t want to go to Times Square again, and again, and again). It is 3 of my discoveries , over the past few days spent in NY, that I would like to share with the class. Use them as you will, and if you know me, stay away from them. One Vanderbilt I arrived in New York on Thursday morning. We’re talking 7 am, ready to start the day. After checking into our hotel (not without trouble, turns out you need an over-21 to check in, but not to book), walking around the area, and grabbing lunch, I went my own way to one of New York’s hottest new attractions. ​​The Summit at One Vanderbilt is a recently opened observation deck at One Vanderbilt skyscrap...

As mentioned in my first post on The Wayfinders, Wade Davis shares the unsung wisdom of unsung heroes; “from warriors in the Sub Saharan plains, to matriarchal pillars to their communities and Polynesian wayfinders.” The first remote people we are introduced to is The San. Commonly called Bushmen, they are the members of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, with territories spanning some 84,000 square kilometres over Botswana, Namibia and southern Angola. Amazingly, Davis explains that they could be referred to as the oldest culture in the world; “ if the Irish and the Lakota, the Hawaiian and the Maya are the branches and limbs [of the human genealogic tree], the San are the trunk.” To me, this ancientness, the living antiquity of a people who, unlike many before, around, and after them, have disappeared, is mind boggling. Here, on our Earth, we have a community which has ridden the wave of time, unchanging and ever present, unbeknownst to the clueless Westerner...

For my second book, I chose Wade Davis’ The Wayfinders. I’ve always been in search of wisdom, which to me is knowledge relevant to anybody, anywhere, at any time. In other words, it is knowledge we can use in and for life, whether to improve our relationships, better ourselves, or find meaningful fulfilment. Not only would The Wayfinders offer me such wisdom, lessons I would be able to apply to and recognise in areas of my life, this wisdom had also gone unnoticed to Westerners like me. Davis shares what is essentially, to us, unsung wisdom from unsung heroes; from warriors in the Sub Saharan plains, to matriarchal pillars to their communities and Polynesian wayfinders. After all, until a few months ago, I’d lived in Europe my whole life, and eurocentric voices had always been the echoes in my chamber. This book gives me the opportunity to discover the ways and teachings of lives so remote, whether temporally, culturally, or geographically, that simply seeing a sign of their existence ...

  From: Thomas Beaudet, Research and Development To: Clark Hansen, CEO Subject: The Dirty Dozen Date: February 22, 2023 Summary You asked me to recommend a business worthy of receiving a divestment from Anima Mundi Development Partners. After extensive research, I recommend AMDP divest from 12 megabanks, commonly referred to as “the Dirty Dozen.” This dozen includes Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, Toronto Dominion, Royal Bank of Canada, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi, Mizuho Bank, BBVA, and Credit Agricole.  I call for the divestment of this set of assets, for the reason that they do business with a destructive disregard for the “planet” strand of the triple bottom line we do business by, which will also lead to a fall in their “profit” over time, so our returns, to refer back to the model. For your convenience, I go into more detail below, starting with the terminology. Terminology Triple Bottom Line: The triple bottom line is a method o...

Brel, the Monument I still remember my 8 year old self regularly waking up to the sound of my father’s “old french music”. Once awake, I’d get out of bed to go and listen to these antiquated songs. Calmly stood in the kitchen, enveloped by Jacques Brel’s “chansons”, my father would absorb the weight of the lyrics, and then watch my reactions to them. If I was indifferent, which too often I was, he’d try to reason me. “Listen carefully” he’d go, “these words are pure poetry”. If this failed, which too often it did, he’d invoke history, culture, and fact. “This is Brel” he’d add, “a francophonic master”, “a wizard of words”, “who inspired Bowie”, and “made a young me fall in love with music, performance, and french.” Selfishly, I thought my father was living in the past. I was growing up, looking towards the future, and here he was, telling me about this old music no one had ever heard of. I dismissed his infatuation as melancholic nostalgia, and paid no attention to these dated tunes. A...