Yesterday I was at IDS for our final course review of MA GOV 13. All that remains of my year out is a dissertation, which I will write in between all the other things going on this summer, and then my student days are over. It’s a time for reflection, taking stock.
We were asked as part of the review to make a note of what our expectations were before joining the course. Mine I remember clearly: I wanted to figure out what I think about development, and I wanted to figure out what I wanted to do next.
Maybe I haven’t achieved either goal, maybe they were a little over ambitious. Although maybe my ‘what I think about development’ now would be different to my ‘what I think about development’ a year ago. I wish I’d written it down then, to compare with this:
I think development is life. It’s the history of the world as it happens. It’s a huge game in which we are all players, some with strong hands, many with weak. It’s politics and economics and psychology and geography and sociology and history and physics and ecology and art and theology, all at once. It’s dreaming and it's hoping and it’s trusting; that there’s a purpose to it all, that it’s ok not to understand or to know, that it’s possible to do more good than harm, that it’s all worth it. It’s a messy, complex, soup of contradictions. As I said - it’s life, so I figure it’s ok to enjoy it.
Thinking this, I've been singing a mumble-gumble song to myself all day today:
“Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
'Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain't been there before.”
― Shel Silverstein
We were asked as part of the review to make a note of what our expectations were before joining the course. Mine I remember clearly: I wanted to figure out what I think about development, and I wanted to figure out what I wanted to do next.
Maybe I haven’t achieved either goal, maybe they were a little over ambitious. Although maybe my ‘what I think about development’ now would be different to my ‘what I think about development’ a year ago. I wish I’d written it down then, to compare with this:
I think development is life. It’s the history of the world as it happens. It’s a huge game in which we are all players, some with strong hands, many with weak. It’s politics and economics and psychology and geography and sociology and history and physics and ecology and art and theology, all at once. It’s dreaming and it's hoping and it’s trusting; that there’s a purpose to it all, that it’s ok not to understand or to know, that it’s possible to do more good than harm, that it’s all worth it. It’s a messy, complex, soup of contradictions. As I said - it’s life, so I figure it’s ok to enjoy it.
Thinking this, I've been singing a mumble-gumble song to myself all day today:
“Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
'Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain't been there before.”
― Shel Silverstein