Thursday, April 26, 2007

Conversation Piece

I had an interesting afternoon today. A coworker of mine started off a great conversation that lasted like a kite you cant believe is still flying, a yo-yo that just keeps coming up, or a hoola hoop that wont quit— into the late afternoon.

We were talking about Anthropology from all sorts of perspectives. It started out and we were talking about how we are not particularly interested in recent history, but once something is millions of years old-it captures our attention unconditionally. We joked about putting stickers on every day items that said “3 million years old” just so we would be more interested in them. I think I should put a sticker like that on my laundry, and then I will take an interest.

I wont bore you with all the details but some of the highlights were: that we are biased about Anthropology because we are human (which I thought was very funny) and it is much much easier to figure out what you dont want to do in life than it is to figure out what you do want to do.

We also touched on a very important point that was coincidentally mentioned in a comment made on my blog today on the post “The Little Picture” by SIL, an avid reader of PD. Your career is not the only way to make a difference in the world, you can do it person by person in small interactions. What she wrote was very well written and apt, so take a look. And keep talking, you never know what might come up.

2 comments:

  1. I think for anthropologists, we take interest in millions of years instead of present time because what is a million year compare to 4 billion years in the life history of the Earth and the trillion years of the universe?

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  2. Absolutely honored to be mentioned in PD...

    Homework for 2007... look around in your life for three people who lift you up and spend more time with them. Then become somoeone who lifts others.
    ;-)

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