Leisa Michelle

Nerdy Monologues of an Autodidact

Speak What You Think

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About a week ago, this quote popped up on my Twitter feed. I absolutely fell in love with it.

“Let’s start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?” –Paul Graham

It’s a little bit embarrassing how excited I got. But the thing that I liked most about this quote was that it reminded me how important it is to form your own opinions and speak what you think – even if you feel like you have an unpopular or “the wrong” ideas and opinions.

Having unpopular opinions is relatively much safer today than it was one or two or three hundred years ago. A couple hundred years ago, if you said something bad about your king or the Church, you were imprisoned or exiled at best. Today in the US, it’s pretty safe to say that you won’t be assassinated like Cicero, or exiled like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or even thrown in jail like Oscar Wilde or Bertrand Russell.

It’s not that things are perfect today. You might lose your job or be barred from certain professions for publicly holding certain beliefs (if you’re an avid creationist, most people won’t to hire you as a biology professor). Jail time is still a possibility (though usually only if you act unlawfully according to your beliefs). But I think I’d rather lose my job than face exile or an assassin in the night.

Where would we be today without all those intellectual radicals?

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A “Hypothetical” Plan For Learning Latin

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This post is a part of my Personal Development Project for May 2016.

I got hit by a new wave of language lust the other day. Every other week or so I get an itching to study some new language, usually unprompted and without a sensible reason. This week’s sultry provocateur: Latin.

I try to trust myself and give in to these weird cravings as often as I can. And so within moments of being overwhelmed with a sudden desire to learn Latin, I was browsing Amazon to see what resources they had available.

I saw lots of textbooks, workbooks, grammar references, and parallel readers. Same old, same old. But there were so many things to choose from, and each book seemed to have its own pros and cons. And so it made me wonder (hypothetically, of course!). What exactly do I want in a Latin textbook? Or rather…

What does “learning Latin” mean to me, and how do I do it?

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Productive vs Valuable

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This post is a part of my Personal Development Project for May 2016.

“I was so unproductive yesterday.”

“I couldn’t get anything done all week. What a waste!”

“Man, I didn’t do anything today!”

The number of times I’ve said or heard these things is too high to count. We (people in general) like getting things done. We like seeing the results of our labor, creating tangible things. We’re obsessed with being productive.

Clearing your inbox is productive. Finishing that assignment is productive. Cleaning the house, taking the car into the shop, uploading the pictures from that vacation you took two months ago, doing the write-up for that meeting, being able to check something off your to-do list — all productive activities. Productivity means producing something tangible, something concrete, something completed.

Unproductive tasks, then, don’t produce tangible results. Taking a walk, for example, is unproductive. Going to the beach is unproductive. Watching a movie, getting on the internet, hanging out with friends, reading a few pages of a book, taking a nap, brewing a good cup of coffee, sitting in silence and just thinking about life — all of these things are unproductive. You usually have nothing tangible to show after you’ve engaged in these kinds of activities.

Somehow, the word “productive” has come to be “valuable”. And by extension, “unproductive” has come to mean “not valuable”. But this is a huge shame (or rather, a huge sham!) because a lot of unproductive tasks are actually quite valuable. Taking time for yourself is valuable. Building meaningful relationships is valuable. Slowing down and enjoying and appreciating life is valuable.

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Being Like Water – Reflections on Dylan Thomas, Lao Tzu, and Hermann Hesse

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This post is a part of my Personal Development Project for May 2016.

Usually when I finish a good or truly awesome book, I’m immediately gripped by the need to write about it. I have to spend a couple hours just pouring out my thoughts and feelings in an Evernote document before I’m able to feel any sort of peace. And actually, it’s not uncommon for me to have to go through this process multiple times before I even finish the book. It doesn’t matter whether the book was a treatise on economics or religion, or was a Shakespearean play or a YA novel. I always have something to say or note or think about afterward.

But most unusually, when I finished Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, I didn’t have anything to say. I didn’t have anything that I actively wanted to write about. I felt the weight of the work and was consumed in simply remembering it for days on end, but I didn’t actually feel that prickling need to write about it or record my thoughts. It was bizarre. But I just trusted myself and went with it, assuming I would never write anything about Steppenwolf and how much it affected me (I wanted to say “how it changed my life”, but that’s a bit too dramatic).

While on a walk the other day though, I realized there is indeed something I really want to say. And the novel Steppenwolf is largely responsible for the insight that I had:

We can’t alter or control the world as much as we would like to.

It’s just not possible. And it’s okay. Good, even. If we were all-powerful, if we had the insight or ability to make everything “just work right”, then we’d miss out on a lot of beautiful things in life. We’d miss out on community and camaraderie and love. These things require trust, vulnerability, and a lack of control.

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Let’s Talk About Clothing

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This post is a part of my Personal Development Project for May 2016.

I can’t believe I’m writing an article about clothes. Really, truly, I’m embarrassed. But bear with me because I have something to say. About clothes.

You are what you eat. Your words reflect your character. The things that we love tell us what we are. Insert more cliches and proverbs about how our essence is reflected in our actions here. But most obviously, our clothes give others an idea of who we are. What’s that old saying about first impressions? Yeah. You are the first thing that people notice, not necessarily your words or works. How you look and what you wear matters.

Keeping good hygiene is important. Maintaining a nice haircut can go a long way. Taking care of your skin is rewarding in both the short term and long term. Stand up straight. Walk with purpose. Not only will you look different, but you’ll feel a lot different if you make the tiniest adjustments. You’ll feel better, stronger, more confident. It’s worth the initial discomfort of breaking bad habits and setting aside time to take care of yourself.

But there’s something there in the clothes themselves too. Something subtle, but important.

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