Multi-You

As this blog continues to stray from a narrow development economics path, I feel compelled to consciously justify my choices for blog topics. As many of you out there, I am not immune to having many interests and keeping up with several of them. I am thoroughly, truly, madly, and deeply fascinated by people who manage to specialize in a certain field and follow through with it, making it their career and life calling. My own inability to control my self-diagnosed ADD has given me an insight into the multi-layered, multifaceted ways to even begin to discuss development economics. People always ask me what DevEc means to me. To me, it is a blend of cultural, social, basic micro- and macroeconomic, environmental, political, military, scientific, humanist, purposeful, engaging and informative understanding of the world on an individual, case-by-case, as well as global scale. How can we begin to search for solutions if we don't even grasp the nature of the problem? What if the problem is only a mere difference in all of the aforementioned characteristics derived from an artificially created divide we have drawn between OECD and non-OECD political entities?

Well, what does it mean to you?

Life is beautiful, albeit overwhelming

Data surrounds us. We swim in it, breathe in it. We socialize with it, share, discuss, fight over it.

The question is, how do we organize it? Information, just like life itself, can be very beautiful if looked through a reflecting prism, at a particular angle. Moreover, overflowing stats taken aside, organization can be creative and liberating.

With the following TED talk I hope that you will leave this blog inspired and start looking at the usual daily news chewed and thrown at you in a brighter, more color-coordinated light.

Dolce far niente is a pain

August has been tough. Not even the seemingly endless summer nights, the pleasant idleness, the purposeful detachment from the outer world. Not only the life-changing, mind-boggling (or so everyone keeps on saying) decision to live with someone, to work somewhere and to dream, want, need something completely different.

Whatever that something may be, I am yet to find out.

I have contemplated canceling the blog probably at least once a month since its creation not too long ago. I have waited long enough for a revelation of sorts in what direction I should take it. I suppose no one has higher expectations from a 22 and 1/2 year-old college graduate than the graduate herself. I have decided to continue writing albeit more rarely than desired. I almost cannot believe I am admitting it, but I miss this medium of expression in a twisted way. It reminds me of my masochist paper writing during the nth all-nighter I have managed to pull off, caffeine and drug free.

The current post serves as a space-filler, as a re-evaluation if you wish. Feel free to let me know how disappointed you are I haven't covered the Gulf oil spill or that I have been silent in regards to my Dantesque experience reading Jeff Sachs. I may even be open to criticism.

Quote of the Day (QotD) #1

I am starting a new rubric enigmatically called Quote of the Day.
Today's blurb is about Malthus and sustainable development.

The sage Mahatma Gandhi once said, "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."

How to Deal with Street Charity Collectors

Cynicism may be one of the few ways to remain sane in this starving world. Looking through the prism of a skeptic allows us not to fall for cheap and empty promises, to question how much of donated materials and effort reach their intended destination, and to consider more effective options for aid and assistance.

Personally, I am not easy to convince when it comes to charity. I'd much rather volunteer time and effort. Yet, I can't stop wondering if harm reduction is all we could do at the moment. Charity collectors in the streets of Boston have not failed to amaze me with perseverance and cheerfulness even in the freezing single-digit temperatures of winter. Great actors those guys and gals. Not long ago I decided not to stare down at my feet while passing by one such "hustler" by being so naturally distracted that I failed to notice him coming my way and to act distracted. Too late to pretend, I was left with two options and I didn't have the guts to run. And I am glad I didn't. What I learned from a pretty lengthy conversation was that the person I had feared would sweet talk me into doing something I had been careful to avoid was actually clueless. Not only was he the worst salesman I have ever met, lacking the type of magical charisma that would turn a stone-cold, heartless person like me into Mother Theresa, but he barely knew anything specific about the organization he was supposed to represent. I guess it didn't help him much that I had previously casually researched it, not to mention my educational background and interest in aid. He ended my monologue with a sincere regret that he had wasted his time with me, because "[I was] a good person and knew a lot." Those were his words, not mine for mine would have been something along this line: "You can't expect to easily persuade anyone to do a thing, for which they have made it their life goal to find a reliable substitute."

Democracy Is Not a Spectator Sport

Best things in life are free and my current favorite T-shirt proves it.

I kept hitting my head against the wall trying to put Howard Zinn and Massive Attack in one sentence. Oh, I guess I just did...

Professor Zinn's presence in and around my alma mater was too sentimental and I felt as if I had lost a mentor when the world lost him in January of this year. He was one of the main reasons why I attended BU, being introduced to him during a high school World History class. I took my first college date to his annual lecture in 2006, after which we turned the occasion into a special ritual to commemorate our anniversary.

Then there is Massive Attack who are still here, still rocking steady. Music has been my preferred medium for expression of radical ideas for a long time and last month's show was a sweet surprise. When the video installations rolled Howard Zinn's pearls of wisdom, something inside me shook so violently that at last, I was able to find outward expression of the dormant hunger for justice. All that was left to do was to act on the impulse to create, to destroy, to seek and to simply to do, act, work towards something meaningful. So I danced. I danced even more fiercely, and I hoped. I hoped that I wasn't alone in the crowd packed venue, ripping by the mad force that were the fanatic, maniacal Massive Attack fans. I hoped that they read what I was reading, that they saw what I was seeing. And that they knew what they needed to do more than I understood then or can fully comprehend now.

Synthetic, Artificial, Sci-fi and Cool

On a regular basis, I go back and forth arguing with friends on the impact of today's discoveries. We brush aside the much-publicized moral dilemmas and focus on the juggernaut, the coolness aspect of each innovation. In the end, whether we speak of genetically modified fruit in our insipid mango juice or the creators of the first synthetic cell, the new rock stars you may say, we seem to agree that the mass consumer will embrace the new as easily as they brush aside the old. But there's a catch. There is one condition - how to prove that the synthetically created, cloned or artificially modified product is just as good if not better than the natural, preservative-free, untouched one? Marketing helps, but preconceived notions are not easy to shake and for a reason too. I, as a consumer, could not care less where or how my food is produced if I couldn't tell the difference; moreover, if I knew for a fact that the new product is enhanced with vitamins without a single side effect much like its good old naturally-born prototype, I'll be the first one in line at the grocery store (a place I still dread to this day). To elaborate, I feel constantly cheated when I shop and know what food labels hide from me as if I were a character from Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" consciously choosing to ignore the truth. There are too many things that are wrong with our society and I need to pick my battles after all!