Looking Back in 2010

2010 would always remind me lot of good as well as bad things.... my friend graduated, secured a job, moved from Dayton, I came across lot of different faces of people around me and made new friends as well; I got a publication in Developmental Biology,2010 in general would always be remembered as year of recession recession for world economy, the mind blowing storms and the year of Ayodhya verdict..... etc etc etc.......but when I look back, I find that I am nowhere close to goals of my life....goals...which are defined and separated from my career goals by a fine line....I don't know how long more it'll take me to achieve but 2010 has definitely made me realize that I need to get closer and move faster; but is this really the life?

So this post is in continuation with my previous one....each day I struggle to find out something or the other, being a PhD student and I always think, what the hack I am doing here? Is PhD goal of my life? Sometimes answer pops up as yes and sometimes No. Doing a PhD here at University of Dayton is basically an educational requirement and I am just getting well educated/trained by doing a PhD.

I am sure most of you must be thinking how is it related to my previous post at all....

Basically I am getting to a point where am bound to think how culture and education are separated by a fine line from each other; Does everybody need to be well educated to understand the native culture and then follow the other culture? I think No, its a systematized thought process which is required to understand our and other cultures.

How to develop this thought process? By learning new things, exposing ourselves to several aspects, experiences of life; how to get this exposure? Education can definitely be a TOOL for this but not an essential requirement I believe.

Education provides us with the understanding and power to accept the views of other people around us, it gives us understanding and appreciation for accepting good aspects of other cultures and try to ignore shortcomings of our culture.

Comments on this post will be highly appreciated since its not an organized blog,(I am a novice in blog writing); and I believe all of us have our own views on culture/education. This will broaden up the definition and would help to develop the new horizons of thinking about the subject.

I don't have a title!

I always think that we need to learn and understand our native culture first to appreciate other cultures around the world and for that we need to understand the fine points a culture would include. So, I culture is an array of diversified norms of different dressings, music, food, living styles and most important religion and the literature. For me, ancient and authentic cultures would have rich but flexible religious norms and extremely rich literature. I wonder when people are engrossed into reading, understanding or start following some different culture than their own. Most of the times I watch people following some other culture blindfolded without understanding their own and the culture they are following. My idea of adopting a new culture would be to understand my parental culture and then follow some other culture.