naïveté

what is it about me and seeing everything in black and white? and caring about everything, and wanting everything to be perfect? where did i learn it from?

yesterday's argument over reading varsity mail got me thinking, and not just about how easily i upset people with my tone of voice when i'm bothered.

in 2000, i left south africa and came to israel with intent to study, serve and then somehow conquer the world by getting involved in the global push to get off the planet. i'm not the most mathematically-minded of people, and i struggled through my undergrad. even so, i had this purist attitude towards studying that meant that i had to pass my exams because i actually knew what was going on, and the only exam that i passed on sheer luck (i think i was the only person who didn't try to cheat) had me feeling really down and out. i was shocked to discover how many people there were in my class who received that final piece of paper that will adorn their walls for the rest of their lives in spite of having done everything in the power to avoid actually learning something along the way.

military: in spite of being emotionally abused for six years, and in spite of everyone and their mother (literally) telling me to stop taking things so seriously because nobody else does, i kept on doing the right thing, trying to fix the system and to teach the people around me about working ethically and professionally. the distress this caused me, especially as a non-violent hedonist aware of the need for our tiny country to defend itself, combined with that of ten months of interrogations that sharpened my understanding of the value of every minute of freedom, was the primary motivator for taking a couple of years off my aforementioned plan for saving the world to study something selfish.

partying: the disappointment i felt with chc would have been isolated if not for the uncovering of the fact that most of my party friends go for the drugs and not the music. i don't have any qualms with taking drugs, but i definitely have a hard time understanding the logic of "if i don't want to take drugs, i'm not going to go to a party with powerful music and great people".

and here i am, loving the studies and trying to suck out every bit of the marrow. i'm being horrified by the number of students who are studying english literature because there are mandatory inter-disciplinary courses, or because it's easy*, and even more so by the embarrassingly bad management of the faculty. or of universities in general. some of these things are stressing me because i do so want everything to be perfect... because i believe in the need for humanities studies and i believe that our society is crumbling under the weight of its own political and industrial hubris. i wanna fix all this. because i'm completely bat-shit insane.

* xkcd tells me so. the truth is, you don't need a degree in literature to be able to provide valid insight into literature, philosophy, psychology or theology... but it helps.

a weird equation popped into my head this afternoon:

naive = believe = achieve

you can't really achieve much if you don't believe in what you're doing, and to do so you have to ignore all the facts that point towards the impossibility of success...

the definitions of "big" or "small", "important" or "stupid" when discussing achievements is entirely subjective, as is the "level" of impossibility.

there is no "hardcore" - if you believe something can and should be done, then you'll do it. you may struggle, but it's worth it for you if you believe in it.
and that belief, no matter what's being discussed, is naive... because it's very easy to convince someone either that they can't do what needs to be done, or that what needs to be done is wrong. that's cynicism. and that "someone" can - and usually is - reflexive.