• Learn to notice when your thinking and speculating takes you out of the immediacy of your experience. Your mental capacities can be an extraordinary gift, but only can also be a trap when you use them to retreat from contact with yourself and others. Stay connected with your physicality.

• You tend to be extremely intense and so high-strung that you find it difficult to relax and unwind. Make an effort to learn to calm down in a healthy way, without drugs or alcohol. Exercising or using biofeedback techniques will help channel some of your tremendous nervous energy. Meditation, jogging, yoga, and dancing are especially helpful for your type.

• You see many possibilities but often do not know how to choose among them or judge which is more or less important. When you are caught in your fixation, a sense of perspective can be missing, and with it the ability to make accurate assessments. At such time, it can be helpful to get the advice of someone whose judgment you trust while you are gaining perspective on your situation. Doing this can also help you trust someone else, a difficulty for your type.

• Notice when you are getting intensely involved in projects that do not necessarily support your self-esteem, confidence, or life situation. It is possible to follow many different fascinating subjects, games, and pastimes, but they can become huge distractions from what you know really need to do. Decisive action will bring more confidence than learning more facts or acquiring more unrelated skills.

• Fives tend to find it difficult to trust people, to open up to them emotionally, or to make themselves accessible in various ways. Their awareness of potential problems in relationships may tend to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is important to remember that having conflicts with others is not unusual and that the healthy thing is to work them out rather than reject attachments with people by withdrawing into isolation. Having one or two intimate friends whom you trust enough to have conflicts with will enrich your life greatly.

(from The Enneagram Institute website)

I envision a future in which man is judged by his peers and by society solely on his creation – on his music, on his art, on his invention. Where every human life is valued because every human life is the potential for creation. And where people understand the following: Respecting every individual’s ability to create is respecting society as a whole, for stability comes from diversity, and diversity comes from freedom.

There are those who say if everyone received everything they ever needed, then nobody would ever work. That may be true. I also, however,  believe that we need to create. It’s in our blood, it’s in our spirits. It’s human. I believe that if everyone received food and clothing and shelter, we wouldn’t actually cease to make progress — in fact, I believe we would make more progress. You may ask, what incentive is there? Why would anyone waste time creating? The answer is quite simple. It’s not respect from colleagues. It’s not the survival of the human race, even. It’s individual. It’s selfish. It’s the sheer feeling of accomplishment. The very pride in our individual selves that defines us as separate and distinct from others. It’s that happiness in becoming something tangible, something real and solid and definite, that one feeling that no amount of money could ever buy.

You don’t get that feeling? Well I do. But only when I separate myself from the expectations of others. Only when I separate myself from the constant pressure of retaining the ability to survive. But when those needs are met, when I feel completely safe — from financial collapse, from judgment — that’s when I look ahead. That’s when I strive forward. And I believe that every single human being in this world was born with that capacity. The desire to look forward, to create, to be.

Can every man be an artist? Perhaps not now, but I envision a future in which he can. In which manual labor can be done with our inventions alone and our minds are free to wander and wonder. To search the great vastness of this universe, but first, to understand our planet and ourselves. Every man was born an artist. And every man is capable of so much creative ambition, if only he didn’t have to worry about the little things. Those little things that are necessary for our survival, but by no means sufficient for our happiness. Once we can look past the little things, only then will we be able to truly come together and free our minds from the constraints of our bodies. Only then will the sheer brilliance of our ideas, in all their radiant, sparkling color, explode us into the darkness of the unknown. And the starlight emanated from each of us individually, together, will reach the deepest corners of our universe. The beginning, the end, and the spaces in between the lines. Truth will kneel before us, unreservedly, and offer us Perfection. And we will, without hesitation, accept.

Was there a rubric for Exam 2? It seems to me like you expected either (1) certain things to be talked about or (2) answers to be explained in ways, which weren’t actually noted in the question. In other words, it seems you expected more than that for which the questions were asking. Also, if you could explain how you came up with the grades you did, I would really appreciate it (i.e. a rubric, if one exists).

Unrelated, I got my reaction paper back for Arable Farming, etc. by Andrew Patterson with the response “This needs to be redone. There’s no discussion of agriculture.” I was a bit perplexed by this… I had assumed that the only requirement for the reaction paper was to be my reaction to the article (which this was). If there were further requirements I was unaware of, it would have been nice to have been told of them at the beginning of the semester rather than a month from the final. Can you shed any light on this?

Thanks,

b

~~~~

b,

If you feel you have answered the questions on the exam well and have put forth a good effort, we can discuss your exam.  You can make an appointment or come to my office hour.

Regarding reaction papers, I did discuss reaction paper expectations in the beginning of the semester.  I informed students that there was much freedom in writing these papers but they would be returned if unacceptable.  I did said in class that it had to be about the assigned reading.

For the future.  Do not send passive aggressive correspondence to me.  I will be happy to address any of your complaints and concerns, but all of our discussions will be respectful.

Neil

~~~

Let me be frank, then.