Category Archives: Meta

How Have I Done So Far

Let me be blunt!

I have not made the progress I thought I might, not even close and will not document much that has already past.

The goals are still mine but my path has diverged rather dramatically over the past 3.5 years and I do not have a lot to show for developing expertise in any of the areas mentioned in my initial post.  My divergence, to the extant I document it, will be reviewed in my private journal.

No other excuses. Just recognition that I did not go where I had intended at that time.

And, yes, I am still of a mind to pursue these and other goals. However, I know that I have a multitude of learning and action goals and that I struggle with having the laser focus needed to really master any one discipline. I’ll have a lot of fun but that so-called expertise will be elusive.

I will continue to keep this as my personal learning space and keep my political action oriented stuff on other sites. No, I do not plan to link to those at this time.

There are a couple areas of progress.

I started studying Spanish again (last time was in the 9th grade) earlier this year and have been keeping at it much more steadily than any of my other educational projects. I look forward to reading, understanding and comprehending, inter alios,  Borges and Marquez in Spanish.

Soon I will put up a Spanish page and perhaps start documenting the work I am doing and the resources that I am using.

I have taken a couple online courses dealing with the basics of Complexity from the Santa Fe Institute.  Good stuff and an area that we all need to understand!

One area I might incorporate into this site is stuff related to urban development.  This can bleed over into politics and philosophy but there is much that ties to complexity as well as the way we live in this world. This will be the hook and will likely lead to some more politically oriented stuff finding its way onto this site.

‘Nuff said for now.

Why I Am Here?

Hello!  Welcome to Resilience.

This will be my home for documenting an exciting journey.  A journey that is both an experiment, albeit with a subject count of 1, and a challenge.

My goal: to acquire an experts level of knowledge in some fields that I find fascinating: Biology, more specifically for right now: ecology……; Economics; and a couple of games: Mancala and Go.  Mancala and Go will probably be documented on another site but I will make this decision a little later.

Quite an armful, right.  Will, let’s make it even more interesting.

For my purposes expertise will be defined as public recognition that I am an expert in these fields.  It will not be based on getting PHDs from the legacy education system.  I am not looking for the institutional certifications that traditionally lead to teaching or research positions in government or academia.

While I do not plan to take related classes from brick and mortar or online ‘for profits’ I will make use of resources that may be available such as MIT’s Open Courseware, iTunes University, textbooks, and so forth.

I do look forward to exploring, participating in, and encouraging learning environments outside of our legacy education systems.

I do want to demonstrate that it is possible to become an expert in more than one field in a lifetime, even in the 21st century.  I contend that if we are not actively maintaining our current expertises and also seeking expertise in new areas we are wasting a fundamental capability of our humanity.

All of this will be a challenge.  I have never been truly an expert in anything.

I’d like to achieve this before my time is up and in doing so set an example for others.  Time will tell how this goes.  I’m already running far afield from basics on a daily basis.  Eating up time that should be more focused.

Oh yea, there will not be much political stuff here.