Fireside Chat

I have been realizing over the course of this last semester that I have maybe a bit of an odd belief. It is still something that I am figuring out and has been somewhat problematic to me. This is the belief that, at least for now, I really do hold that I do not nor cannot truly know anything. The experience of the fireside chat was good for me to reflect on this belief and think about how I came to believe this. 

In communicating this belief it was hard for me to think of artistic way of doing so since I thought the best way to communicate it in a clear way was through saying it. But there is the element of showing rather than telling that we talked about earlier in connection with the concerned citizen project. Because of this it forced me to dig a little deeper into this idea and think about how exactly I came to believe the way I do. I believe it has a lot to do with math and a lot to do with my mission; meeting so many different people and listening to so many different ideas it felt ignorant to me to say that I knew what I believed was right. But this was a good experience for me to think about how I have come to believe the things I do and also to see that this can often be a more powerful way of demonstrating what I believe. 

I guess it isn’t 100 percent about showing rather than telling but in looking back to where my idea came from I think I was able to demonstrate clearly that I really believe this without having to try very hard to convince people of that. That is what I noticed in many other performances too. When people told their story the beliefs or themes came through as well as where those beliefs came from which makes it more powerful and honest.

I suppose a little bit of explaining about the piece of art that I made is due as well. I took the proof that 2+2=4 and drew two fish + two more fish = four fish. What I wanted to represent here with the colored elementary school looking fish is that sometimes ideas seem so simply correct but really things are a lot more complicated. My experience with math has been believing a lot answers to be correct that have turned out to be wrong and it has taught me to reserve jumping to the conclusion of knowing something. 

On others performances, I think everyone did a good job and a quite a few people did a fantastic job. I was impressed by the creativity and talent that exists in our class. It was interesting how people’s different personalities and talents led them to present their chat in totally different ways. Many people presented their chats in ways I would have never thought of. I guess I say this just because I think that was the main thing I came away with. I had noticed this before but with everyone sharing, and with this type of assignment peoples unique styles and ideas came through and it was cool to see.