THIS PAST THURSDAY, the final day of April, turned out to be a relatively average day at school. Twenty of my fellow classmates and I showed up in room A103 at 8:00, as usual, until our teacher made this announcement: "Today we'll be taking the science CST's." After a collective groan and a mini Baltimore reenactment, we settled in and took yet another dreaded standardized test. And that was it.
That is, until about half the class finished 20 minutes early with no other work to do. So, the teacher started distributing his somewhat forgotten, classroom-cupboard-hoarded collection of National Geographic magazines.
And I stumbled upon a gold mine.
At first, I glanced flippantly at the cover, assuming that it was an outdated issue circa 2008. But my eyes lit with excitement once I realized that my prediction was 22 years off. While my friends were reading '07 and '09 editions, I landed one from February 1986.
To a 2000s kid, this wasn't just outdated. This was historic. The cover boasted a photo of an African woman in traditional dress, along with short descriptions and titles of articles within: articles called things like "Dilemma of Independence for South Africa's Ndebele People" and others such as "'Grizz': Of Men and the Great Bear."
And after less than an hour of reading, I'd come to some serious conclusions. Here's how.
THE FIRST SENTENCE THAT CAUGHT MY EYE in Douglas H. Chadwick's essay on the bear was his claim that, "Their reputation as a fearsome predator is overcooked. The grizzly, in truth is just a big opportunist."
I, of course, immediately gleaned philosophical wisdom from this statement: how, in essence, our capitalist economic system is centered around this very principle. It's drilled into our secondary education brains the importance of education and experience in order to be competitive in the workforce. When, in fact, the basic pattern that's been followed for generations--regardless of the letters after your name or your social status--is an arguably, depressingly simple process: 1) experience childhood & try to take full advantage of its entitled freedoms, 2) grow up, find a skill and work a job, and 3) get older, providing for a family and wishing we'd taken more advantage of the comfort we had up until age 18.
Granted, this comes with more emotional ties than a 3-step plan, but the idea is the same. We westerners, though, tend to desperately grasp any chance to become better, so we'll have more security--thus our opportunist nature shows. We generally aren't out to deliberately hurt the competition, but we'll certainly take advantage of any opportunity to get a better deal.
And that's not a bad thing. That's nature. It's important to keep in mind, though, the question also posed by author Chadwick: "Are we willing to accept nature as it is, or only as it suits us?"
Chadwick went on to write, "Yellowstone grizzlies don't have names--they have numbers." I found this particularly striking. On the most elementary level, American citizens are identified by our Social Security Numbers. The government establishes a mere nine digits to set us apart from the other 300+ million people trying to make their way in our society.
It's very easy to get lost in the shuffle.
SO WHEN DOES THIS CHANGE? The simple answer: it doesn't. Our perspective changes. In an excerpt prior to the body of David Jeffery's article, "Dilemma of Independence for South Africa's Ndebele People," found in my treasured (and borrowed) copy of February 1986's National Geographic issue, editor Wilbur E. Garrett explained: "For most Ndebele the immediate struggle is survival, a daily battle. Their prospects in South Africa are no clearer than South Africa's own future." It was with these words alone that I was touched by the power of perspective, realizing that competition in North America's economy is nothing compared to competing for life itself.
Later in the series, author Jeffery went on to explain that, even among the horrors of Apartheid in South Africa, global investors were willing to give goodwill a chance. He considered this fact, "...despite the severe recession in South Africa. Among those signed up are two corporations from Israel, two from Hong Kong, and two from the Republic of China (Taiwan)."
To the naked eye, these businesses' decision to support the economy of an apparent black hole of political issues was an extraordinarily irresponsible thing to do. I don't know why they did it. I don't know what became of their stock value after they made this move. But I can infer that these six companies alone managed to keep perspective, and held onto hope for Pre-Mandela, segregation-ridden South Africa.
This is where goodwill trumps good business. Paradigms are shifted, and risks are taken. We like to think that opportunism rises from this sort of moral boldness.
WHETHER IT DOES OR NOT, in civilized society, it shouldn't be survival of the fittest.
That is, until about half the class finished 20 minutes early with no other work to do. So, the teacher started distributing his somewhat forgotten, classroom-cupboard-hoarded collection of National Geographic magazines.
And I stumbled upon a gold mine.
At first, I glanced flippantly at the cover, assuming that it was an outdated issue circa 2008. But my eyes lit with excitement once I realized that my prediction was 22 years off. While my friends were reading '07 and '09 editions, I landed one from February 1986.
To a 2000s kid, this wasn't just outdated. This was historic. The cover boasted a photo of an African woman in traditional dress, along with short descriptions and titles of articles within: articles called things like "Dilemma of Independence for South Africa's Ndebele People" and others such as "'Grizz': Of Men and the Great Bear."
And after less than an hour of reading, I'd come to some serious conclusions. Here's how.
THE FIRST SENTENCE THAT CAUGHT MY EYE in Douglas H. Chadwick's essay on the bear was his claim that, "Their reputation as a fearsome predator is overcooked. The grizzly, in truth is just a big opportunist."
I, of course, immediately gleaned philosophical wisdom from this statement: how, in essence, our capitalist economic system is centered around this very principle. It's drilled into our secondary education brains the importance of education and experience in order to be competitive in the workforce. When, in fact, the basic pattern that's been followed for generations--regardless of the letters after your name or your social status--is an arguably, depressingly simple process: 1) experience childhood & try to take full advantage of its entitled freedoms, 2) grow up, find a skill and work a job, and 3) get older, providing for a family and wishing we'd taken more advantage of the comfort we had up until age 18.
Granted, this comes with more emotional ties than a 3-step plan, but the idea is the same. We westerners, though, tend to desperately grasp any chance to become better, so we'll have more security--thus our opportunist nature shows. We generally aren't out to deliberately hurt the competition, but we'll certainly take advantage of any opportunity to get a better deal.
And that's not a bad thing. That's nature. It's important to keep in mind, though, the question also posed by author Chadwick: "Are we willing to accept nature as it is, or only as it suits us?"
Chadwick went on to write, "Yellowstone grizzlies don't have names--they have numbers." I found this particularly striking. On the most elementary level, American citizens are identified by our Social Security Numbers. The government establishes a mere nine digits to set us apart from the other 300+ million people trying to make their way in our society.
It's very easy to get lost in the shuffle.
SO WHEN DOES THIS CHANGE? The simple answer: it doesn't. Our perspective changes. In an excerpt prior to the body of David Jeffery's article, "Dilemma of Independence for South Africa's Ndebele People," found in my treasured (and borrowed) copy of February 1986's National Geographic issue, editor Wilbur E. Garrett explained: "For most Ndebele the immediate struggle is survival, a daily battle. Their prospects in South Africa are no clearer than South Africa's own future." It was with these words alone that I was touched by the power of perspective, realizing that competition in North America's economy is nothing compared to competing for life itself.
Later in the series, author Jeffery went on to explain that, even among the horrors of Apartheid in South Africa, global investors were willing to give goodwill a chance. He considered this fact, "...despite the severe recession in South Africa. Among those signed up are two corporations from Israel, two from Hong Kong, and two from the Republic of China (Taiwan)."
To the naked eye, these businesses' decision to support the economy of an apparent black hole of political issues was an extraordinarily irresponsible thing to do. I don't know why they did it. I don't know what became of their stock value after they made this move. But I can infer that these six companies alone managed to keep perspective, and held onto hope for Pre-Mandela, segregation-ridden South Africa.
This is where goodwill trumps good business. Paradigms are shifted, and risks are taken. We like to think that opportunism rises from this sort of moral boldness.
WHETHER IT DOES OR NOT, in civilized society, it shouldn't be survival of the fittest.