I suppose its not appropriate to "bump" your own thread... But since it's my birthday, no one would mind right?
Actually, I received a few IM messages from a student last night, and she said "I read your speech again for the bajillionth time, and still, it is very good. Thank you very much". I don't know if she's talking about this long version, or the
short version
I would be lying if compliments like that don't make me feel really really good. The biggest critic of a piece of writing is usually the writer him/herself. I've had to learn that since the first time I decided to write some long messages for Chief Delphi. The writing process is excruciating at best, and it's even harder for something who isn't born in American, who doesn't speak English as the first language.
I suppose the only reason I still do it is I like thinking about my experience growing up in FIRST and I know for sure I am not the only one going through it.
I know FIRST is supposed to inspire students into science and engineering. I know we are supposed to build robot and try to make the world better with technologies and design process. But as I get deeper and deeper into the FIRST experience, the more I realize, it's not limited to just that. We are, after all, trying to make the world better, trying to make the culture better, so it's not the first time someone have done all that.
Science and technology have become one of the main ways to improve the quality of life because so many questions about so many other subjects have already been answered, or at least attempted to be answered. Philosophy, laws, music, art, language, history, sociology, literature, astronomy... They all have to step aside because they've all been discussed and debated for millions of times.
The world and life isn't as strange as it used to be in the past, so we simply stop being curious about those questions and move onto more advanced, unanswered topics. We have, essentially, gone so far up the steps of the foundations we built since the last major revolution that there are little room for doubt anymore. And when the rest of the questions get answered, we will be forced to confront ourselves with this statement: Either this way of life works, or it doesn't.
Fortunately, there are people who think that we don't have to be trapped by our prosperity and knowledge, that it is still important to inspire students on their curiosity and passion, that we do have to go back to the foundation of the world as we know it today and examine the truely important things.
As long as people aren't willing to forget where we came from, as long as people are willing to look at the universal things that won't go away for as long as we shall live, we will be ok. Some battles might be harder to fight than the others, but we will be ok, because we are trying.
-Ken L