Hey there!
Two weeks have past since my last checkup post on here and I just wanted to recount What’s Going On!
Papdi Chaat is REALLY Goooood. I’ve been hooked on the dish since I was a young clueless Punjabi boy but it never fails to wow me in the mix of colors and flavors that go in to make a wonder of a dish. If you don’t know what it is, the dish is a yogurt base with crispy fried wafers with added spices and chutneys put on top. It legitimately is a meal that helps a lot when you are feeling negative vibes and at least feels light on the stomach ;).
Something a little more serious – Anti-Intellectualism scares me to my core. I am not shocked by those who deny the clear facts and reasonable evidence. I believe in a reason and cause for an event to happen. I would like to make clear that I am not an expert, nor have I done extensive research on the leading up to the anti-science rhetoric, but I can point to direct cause such as the aggressive nature of certain politicians and the prevalence of conspiracy theories from social media websites. The selfishness withing some people themselves could also be a factor as to why they are not inclined to believe in science. The general premise of these articles is similar to purely working on the cover of a book but never writing a word within it. My point has mainly to do with the ongoing pandemic with so many thoughts prevailing over backed evidence. How do we even help people who without harmful intentions fall to the propaganda spewed out by bloated, contorted, or outright false statements? At least for the youth we can keep and expand education to ensure no student is lacking in skills for critical thinking. We need to fight those trying to limit our power through knowledge. I’ve spent sleepless nights worrying and worrying and anti-intellectualism is a focal topic of my time staying up. A statement many members of Gen Z and even millennials can testify to have been on the receiving end of is that we are the generation that must fix things, that the mantle is in our hands. I’ve been brooding over the meaning of the optimistic statement and I believe I have come to a conclusion – at least for the reason as to why the phrase is so popular. The everyday American who witnesses the injustices of the world wants to and does indeed fight against them. Sometimes their demands are met, in large sweeping legislation (Look towards the 1960s and 50s, two decades known for their turning points in Civil Rights in the United States), but many times the underlying issues are overlooked or even denied by giving half-baked responses to the demands. It has only gone worse, political lobbying and corruption looms (not even – much more direct) over our vulnerable democracy and we have little to no power due to immense wealth disparities. It seems to be that the “divide and conquer” snippet of the past is still present today. I choose to believe many who are fed lies by despicable beings are not filled with self-made hatred and it is not their fault due to how skilled .
Sorry that the heavy block of text has turned out to become a rant (nowadays everything I write has become one), but I believe it is in good faith.
Another topic of note is schooling during this year. Our teachers, staff, and school faculty are in a really rough spot. They have been for too long. I really wanted to do a piece on this but for now the task seems to large for me to handle in weekly posts for On My Mind, yet I felt I could still address it in this message. There are a lot of things wrong with the education system in place in the United States, the treatment of educators and faculty being one of them. Both the underpayment of teachers and staff in public schools combined with lacking rights for them makes their job a tough situation to be in. Negligence to those who willingly and lovingly want to enrich the minds of the youth is disgraceful and yet it is still persisting even today with top officials, both state and federal, wanting schools to reopen with severe penalties if they do not. The state in an ongoing pandemic is never this simple to reopen, and added on to that the state of our nation specifically is pretty terrible.
Going back to my own life – this summer is turning out to be pretty fast-paced. Usually we always comment on how things go by so fast and I never did really truthfully say it but now I can. June went by VERY quickly. I am sure what is going on in the public sphere adds on to the adrenaline-paced summer of Junior year since it nearly matches, if not outdoes, the speed of my personal life. We also have school starting on August 13th. Two things come from that. First, that is little time left for all the things I plan to do that I have set for myself over the summer and secondly our school districts have even less time to do their own planning. Teachers and those involved in education are busy throughout the summer already and many of them are parents who have to face even more challenged this year round. Hopefully we can see the best outcome for the health, safety, and smooth operation of schools running but for now (at least for me) we can only wait and see.
To sum up everything, a lot of What’s Going On for me has been purely idea-based. There is nothing wrong with it; Ideas are great things. However, I feel that I could go over more material and tangible topics at least for my next post. If I want to meet that quota for this post – My carpet in my room was placed on the other side of the bed.
P.S. Some major historical stuff is happening with the SCOTUS decision on Trump and his taxes. He has to release them to Vance (NY prosecutor). We will get to finally see something! Of course WE won’t get to see it but congress and NY prosecutors will! The Mazars case is also significant as it pushes the issue of congressional subpoena to the lower courts for them to argue scope. We will see how this all plays out…
Excite The Mind 