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Food for thought

  • Ahimsa

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    One curious thing about nonviolence is that, in most languages, there isn’t an active term for it: the concept exists only in opposition to the main one: violence.

    Ahimsa, in Sanskrit, is a compound word: himsa, meaning “to cause harm,” and the prefix a, meaning “not.”

    It seems like a small detail, but what if language is a thermometer of our priorities as a society?

    “If we lived in a world where there was no word for war except non-peace, what kind of world would that be? It wouldn’t necessarily be a world without war, but one where war would be seen as something aberrant and insignificant.”

  • Do Things, Not Countries, Dieguito!

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    “My friend has done South America…”

    – Old Diego

    Definitions for “did” include: carry out, undertake, discharge, act, behave, suffice, to serve a purpose, prepare, make, organize, create or produce, decorate, style, present, grant, pay or render, work out, calculate, solve, to be employed at, manage, cope, succeed, move at a particular pace.

    Lessons from Do things, Not Countries by Jennifer Sutherland-Miller

  • Real World Problems

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    Every subject in any course should deal with real challenges from organizations that need volunteers, focusing all the students’ energy on a bigger purpose than just filling the teacher’s drawer.

  • The speech is either very current or we haven’t learned anything in 100 years.

  • Ashamed!

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    This was originally published on my old blog BackpackBook (Livro de Mochila), a project that blended literature and travel, sometimes just traveling in my lucid dreams. It ran as “Envergonhado!” on January 8, 2011.

    Like any good Brazilian I was having a look through public sector exam notices and that sort of thing, and it’s been a long time since anything made me this sad. In the competitions for Lontras and Navegantes, where they need more than 100 teachers, the salaries run from R$ 290 for a 20 hour week to R$ 900 for a 40 hour week.

    What a sad thing.