| When It Rains |
[Nov. 10th, 2006|01:03 pm] |
| [ | somewhat |
| |  content | ] |
| [ | music |
| | raindrops keep falling on my head | ] |
no I won't write about rain.
I reached this capital feeling last night again as I was sitting in the kitchen with my notebooks scattered all around me, sort of like escaping the world by sinking into intellectualism. ^^ The topic I am presently researching is the influence of Japanese child rearing patterns on the developing personality of the child, and I'm trying to put the puzzle together - trying to find out whether the specific Japaneseness is compatible with the present capitalistic orientation of Japanese society, trying to understand whether those two things can ever be made compatible, et cetera endlessly.
It's all good stuff. Yet you often find researchers trying to prove a point so strongly that they are willing to overlook shortcomings in their own hypotheses, making themselves look funny by not willing to step back from their initial viewpoint (even if they feel it is a bit off). Well, perhaps the reason for such stubborness is to produce something to account for the usage of their research grants :D
but it made me wonder,
Is research really about FINDING things out, or only about PRETENDING to find things so that you could have some [seemingly stable] basis for blurting out your opinions?
Pseudointellectualism, to my mind, is just that. Not wanting to doubt one's own narrow-mindedness, but instead trying to prove that one is right, whatever the cost. Many of us have done it under the pressure of deadlines. ("ah it's okay if I just write something right? no one cares much anyway, but I need the credit like hell")
Somehow people believe that spouting opinions will give them credit. I guess I have believed in it myself as I wrote these lines. Quite amusing, isn't it. |
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| How Perspective Changes |
[Nov. 3rd, 2006|11:50 am] |
| [ | somewhat |
| |  contemplative | ] |
Talking to Asian people online. The Chinese mainly. I tend to complain about my traumatised childhood; I keep back when I'm online though. People don't need to know everything.
So it just came out one day.
"I live with my grandmother", says Yang and I just accidentally type "is it easy?"
He's like, "in what way" and I'm all confused at that point already.
"Well, in general", I try to get the topic through with but - soo iku ka?? is it that easy? no.
So I get to explain. Instead of saying it was a fucking trial with my granny, I say "well, my grandmother is a difficult person".
He's like "don't say that".
And horahora, how my attitude changes. "I know it was my fault mostly." For not being able to understand.
(somewhere deep inside I still believe that Latvian grannies differ from Chinese ones. HOPEFULLY.)
Perhaps the more I talk to the Chinese, the better I'll become at interpreting the mishaps of my existence. "my mother beat me up" becomes "due to my impertinence we had a sad evening".
It's a good direction for development though. |
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| bingo! |
[Nov. 3rd, 2006|08:54 am] |
| [ | music |
| | U2 - Beautiful Day | ] |
sometimes when you like wake up in the morning, it's like, well you know, like why the fuck?
especially when you wake up and kids are gone and they haven't turned on the heating. then you want to make some BLACK coffee and in the cookie box there's no coffee for some reason. I mean, it's always there.
then you go on skype (with ice tea for you're too lazy to make something better) and the electricity just blacks out. perhaps i just live in the wrong region.
and you put your playlist on and it's u2 'beautiful day', and you think, how did they get the point so soon. :) |
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