“Apology”, Plato, Dialogue 4 – D58

At 9:30 a.m. we continued reading The Apology by Plato. It was an interesting dialogue where we discussed the true meaning of humility and whether or not and why was Socrates humble. We also talked about the meaning of death.

Here are my notes of the dialogue and also some intriguing questions:

Dialogue 4 (10/12/12)

• Fear of death
• When we consider death there are a set of assumptions that don’t have justification.
• The only thing we can say is that we don’t know what death is.
• What is death?
• Risk aversion
• Does correlation tell us causality?
• If the future, by definition, is unpredictable, why don’t we live in fear?
• Pablito: We maintain a structure of beliefs, expectations, and imperfect information.
• Your actions are based on faith, well or not well founded.

• Socrates’ claim
• He doesn’t know, but he hasn’t made a claim that we cannot know.
• The notion of the scientific ethic is that of constant doubt, an openness of refutation.
• Religion is the only aspect where there are absolute truths.

• Wilson sees the universe as something of the same matter in which we can study all as the same
• Contrary to human action, anti-Austrian.

• Socrates the gadfly
• His teaching is annoying to the state.
• Jesus is another example.

• What is humility?
• Understanding that you don’t know everything.
• Capacity to recognize our errors and mistakes.
• Openness to learning. It doesn’t mean you don’t have expectations.
• Was Jesus open to learning?
• Teaching by questions and parables.

• Socrates: Do you have the right to judge me before judging yourself?

Majo’s Morning Meeting – D57

Today’s facilitator for the morning meeting was Majo. She showed us this campaign called Acción MOB, originated in Guatemala that tries to create consciousness on the power of each one of us to change the people that surround us one action at a time. It’s really cool! We also watched some videos, all of them very motivational. Here are the following links:

Facebook Page of Acción MOB, Youtube Channel of Acción MOB, Life Vest Inside: Kindness Boomerang, MOVE, EAT, LEARN

Also, just for you to have fun, I’ll leave this video called El Estilo de Peter la Anguila. It’s hilarious!

Euclid? Big Discussion – D55

Everything appeared to be normal, just a regular Euclid class, until Ingrid mentioned a new standard calling for exact precision on our drawings, making them with previous propositions. She tried to make proposition 4, but didn’t succeed in doing so, showing that that exercise is not practical in the future propositions. We did agree that we would do them as precise as possible using our tools like the compass. The discussion evolved into finding a solution for a better learning process of Euclid. What we concluded is that we should divide the class into three groups, chosen by affinity, and to have standards for all of us for presenting and documenting the propositions, but each group will have its own rubrics and objectives, although the general objective for everyone is to finish up to proposition 30 for this semester. My group is Pablito, Alejo, Gabbi, Chacho, and Isa. This is our rubric:

We also talked about excuses and “getting real”, and how we have been interacting as a group and giving each other feedback. There were different views on the topic, some (Gabbi, Alejo, and some other I don’t remember) were saying we should have a third person, like a moderator or psychologist to mediate with each of us, and others (Carmen, Lucía, Kata, and some others) were saying we don’t need that and that it should be a personal approach with each other, that it has to be within us and not to wait for other person. I agreed with both sides by saying that the change and proactivity to solve problems comes within us, and that it could help having a workshop on how to work better as a group. I also tried to keep calm and mediate the opposite views, trying to reach an agreement on what should we do next as a group. I think I did a good job doing this and proposing solutions to these problems. At the end, we advanced in our organization and I take something positive of the discussion.

The most real debriefing so far – D47

As I mentioned before, one of the reasons of this hot debriefing was the disrespect towards Kata on the earlier tour. She told us she felt really bad and that we have been the worst group she has ever guided. Isa, Mabe, and Kata wrote a letter that they read and this led to further discussion of many topics. I will not detail them since it would be too long, but the main topics we discussed were the influence of Bert in the group (some are still seeing him as an authority), the lack of commitment, the lack of a common ground of things to do and principles and values, the lack of trust we have in the group (although we like to think of us as a family, clearly we are not there yet), the lack of standards and the confusion some have regarding this, the lack of good communication and the nonconformity with “the rules of the game” that Bert omitted to tell us when we entered the MPC, and the lack of bonding we have as a group. We discussed many things in a deep sense, so the debriefing lasted for more than 1.5 hours, all leaving around 8 p.m. Long and productive day. I think almost everyone and I can surely talk about myself, that we left the MPC with more energy and without a weight in our chests because we liberated things that needed to talk. I’m not saying its perfect now, it’s far from that, but it improved our process of culture building.

Programming class (Sinatra) – D47

For the programming class, Kyle showed us how to build a web app using a program called Sinatra. We didn’t finish building it because there were some details Kyle didn’t know, but it was a good start. I have to say that the class was a little disappointing because of the disrespect of almost all of us to Kyle. At first I have to admit that I was distracted viewing dog photos with Isa, but then I engaged in the class while others were very distracted and kept holding back our progress in the class. They were doing something else and not paying attention to Kyle, so they got frustrated because they didn’t understand and basically they were kind-of whining. The MPC’ers were Marce, Gaby, Chacho, Lucía, Lore, Mabe, Isa, and I. I felt a little embarrassed with Kyle because of our behavior so I apologized with him at the end of the class. By the way, at the middle of the class Dylan interrupted and started to talk with Mabe, and Kyle, well, he basically told Dylan to go.

Visit to the Popol Vuh Museum – D47

Today I had physiotherapy so I lost the performing arts and arrived at 2 p.m. just before Kata’s tour to the Popol Vuh Museum. Everybody seemed excited about it, but within the first 5 or 10 minutes some lost interest and went on their own way, disrespecting Kata’s effort of giving a good tour. I tried to stay with the Kata and most of the time I achieved that, although I must admit that at some times I got distracted, mainly because I didn't like the rhythm of the tour since it was a little slow. Nevertheless, only like 5 or 6 people stayed with Kata, an action that was going to be discussed later at the debriefing.

Tigers or Sheep? – D5

Today, we watched a video called "Vida, Libertad y Conciencia" by Fredy Kofman. It may seem very long, but believe me; it’s worth every second. The message is basically if we are willing to take control of our life, if we believe we are capable of being responsible, and make our own decisions. Only by this, you may say: “Of course, who doesn’t know that”, but the truth is that not many people dare to live like this. These people prefer to be guilt free and by consequence they are not responsible for their actions. Those are called sheep. Beeeh, Beeeh. If you are not willing to let that happen to you, you must be responsible for everything you do, how you speak, how you live. If you want to be a tiger, you are out of excuses from now on! You can take responsibility of your life and live by your actions, whether they end up in success or failure. Roar!