The Greater Ecology

It is time I paid greater attention to college toastmasters again because in a buzz by Sara Jacobovici it reminded me of desire to recognize the greater ecology of each system that I am either a member or a part of.  At the college level this means recognizing the ecology of the college beyond the club I belong to within that college.

One can readily know this ecology if it is a natural extension of how one lives their life but it is far more rare to find people living this way, unless I find someone who either has retained village values instead of urban values or if they have a special interest in one part of ecology or if they are highly successful in an urban environment, the very resilience of their success often shows me this awareness of greater ecology. 

I will note at this point that the word ECO means HOME.

The students in my Toastmasters club understand the purpose of a college but not the ecology of a college or its "ecollegy".  Since studying is a thing students have to to do, learning inhabits that same psychology and so introducing something entirely new to regular college students is simply multiplying and adding to the bandwidth that is already being used up, not just by the way colleges and schools educate or lecture, but by the draconian use of student debt, to milk students as financial instruments rather than nurture students as learners.

I have touched upon the ecology of our college before but not in a way that addresses this as a way of life.  While it may be a way of life to me, imparting this to club members is simply adding to their knowledge but not their practice.  Unless they too see this as a way of life, then there is practical wisdom from understanding the greater ecology.  There is one group however where this way of life has resonance and that is the environmental movement. 

The irony of the environmental movement is that the lights go on when we think of the Earth as a greater ecology but these students still return to a way of life which is not based on learning to see the greater ecology of a particular life state.  This should not be surprising because we do live in the parts rather than the whole.  Life is segmented like a marketing analysis rather than a synthesis of wisdom.

More to the point if people have a certain way of being, then it is not my intent to show them another way.  I must live my way and then make my case at the club level why club members should pay greater attention to the ecology of the college.   Like the environmental movement, that is simply learning to see in the parts, but unlike the environmental movement I am not advocating this an activism.   We are comforted by the familiar and having something disturb that means we are doing things to people, instead of being with people.

As we move forward as a college club, it will be interesting to see which students with our club begin to see the greater ecology that operates in different facets of their life or at least identify with the most immediate ecology that come to study in.  This is the beauty of an open mind, and why my learning journey is individual.  In this way we respect the way everyone learns and the way of life that is there's.  The greater ecology is my way of life and this is what I share here.

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