When I first started playing around with code I was 17 and not diligent in learning how to program. I’ve programmed on and off over the years learning it on the go for specific projects. Here are a couple of books I’ve used. I think they are pretty good but superior resources can be found online. I included those resources on the list as well.
HTML & CSS: Design and Build Websites, Jon Duckett
Great book for building websites without experience. I built my own website in the 8th grade and wanted to brush up. The book did just that. I would highly recommend this for beginners and those who are looking to refresh on concepts. It is written very simply and lays everything out clearly.
Eloquent JavaScript, Marijn Haverbeke
I actually first discovered this book my senior year of high School. I was following a VC on instagram and he snapped a picture of this book. I found it on amazon and ordered it. I think it does a pretty good job, but once again, I found more superior resources online.
Eloquent Ruby,Russ Olsen
I’ve always wanted to program in ruby on rails, but an experienced programmer told me to start with the fundamentals in ruby then move on to rails, so I did just that. I liked the Eloquent JavaScript book, so I decided to give the Eloquent Ruby book a shot. It is relatively good, but there were some parts I found rather confusing.
Programming in C, Stephen Kochan
Since the first C programming book was for beginners, I wanted to try something a little more challenging and Malan’s course pointed me to this book. I don’t have too many opinions about it. I think it does a similarly good job in explaining the concepts.
Other resources I highly recommend you check out :
Django ( its excellent, and I’ve been told by some veteran programmers that starting out with python is best)
Code.org ( pretty good for those who are younger and want to pick up coding)
Remember, programming is a learning process. Similar to anything, there is a learning curve. If you keep with it, there will be a day you’ll be happy you didn’t quit. Plus it is really fun 🙂
Each and every VC has their own investment philosophy cultivated through their own experiences and personal truth seeking. I think the best VC investors expand their way of thinking and acknowledge the complexities of each and every factor in a startup and the challenges that a company might face. Philosophy is about thinking in different ways, and I took a particular interest in political philosophy because I was always intrigued by different government structures and wanted to apply that kind of thinking to the study of political science. It also helped that when I was a freshman in college at a policy debate tournament an undefeated Harvard team ran Nietzsche’s “will to power” argument, I was in awe. Below are just a couple of the works I’ve read and had interesting discussions on over the years. (This list started out as political philosophy, but may deviate towards western canonical works as well)
Social and Political Philosophy: Readings from Plato to Gandhi, John Somerville and Ronald Santoni
Includes reading from Plato, Aristotle, Thoreau, Mill, Marx, etc. Great starter book for discussions. Highly recommend as a first book for anyone interesting in political philosophy. The first book I read in my first political science intro course in college.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Hannah Arendt
The first philosophy book I ever read in my life senior year of high school. I was ambitious and read this along a Yale university course titled Moral Foundations of Politics (PLSC 118) taught by Professor Shapiro.
Gender Trouble, Judith Butler
I was really excited to read this book. Masculine and feminine identity is based on that of performance rather the intrinsic nature of a person. Sex is biological and gender is an identity constructed from societal and cultural dictation and validation. Butler is very thought provoking and expansive in her journey to prove that there is no gender identity behind gender, it is purely performative based on the expression of the person.
Sexual Politics, Kate Millett
Millett makes a very interesting argument that sex is often not talked about in the political sphere.She goes through and illustrates how many of the greatest writers and thinkers of our time discuss sex in a very patriarchal and gender discriminatory manner. I was led to this book after a discussion with a fellow debater about how gender is a construct and sex is biological.
The Republic of Plato, Allan Bloom
What is justice? A question that humankind has been trying to answer for more than a thousand years. I highly recommend the Allan Bloom version. I think if Socrates were alive today, he would be an excellent attorney.
The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, Rousseau
A collection of Rousseau’s works. The social contract is a very known underlining the concept of democracy. The nature of a government is to serve the people, and the people are the all powerful sovereign. I highly recommend the Oxford edition. A must read for anyone interested in government.
A Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau
Inequality among men (gendered language), humankind, has been around since the beginning of time in the comparison of physical qualities. Subject of law and property has corrupted this natural cycle and humankind now compare based on wealth. Wealth creates moral inequality that can lead to the likes of despotism. A society that measures value based only on monetary standards is the worst kind of society. Really makes me wonder what Rousseau’s opinion of government and socioeconomic inequality would be if he were alive today.
Two Treatises of Government, Locke
A government needs the consent of the people in order to govern. Same concept, but a must read for those interested in government and politics. I once wrote a paper comparing Locke and Hobbes’ view of government. I highly recommend this book be read with Leviathan by Hobbes. It provides for interesting discussions.
The Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
I often read this book when I am down and disappointed with life. Stoicism really is very humbling and admirable. Marcus Aurelius wrote this book for himself and intended it to be private. Identity is established from the things that we tell ourself. You really can’t live a positive life with a negative mind. This is one of my favorite books.
The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber
This was my favorite book freshman year of college. Weber supports this notion of working and exerting as means of a calling. That working and exerting in itself is the end. This is what God calls us to do, and it is our duty to use our bodies to reach this end. The case he makes with capitalism is that it is not wrong and making money is not wrong as long as making money is not the end but the means. Highly recommend!
The Prince, Machiavelli
Came across discussions on this book many times in my college career. It is very well written, but would love to have a thoughtful conversation on how relevant Machiavelli might be in our Soceity today. I guess the fundamental human nature of politics ceases to change even five hundred and four years later after Machiavelli wrote this on Dec. 10, 1513.
Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
One of my favorites. “…Life of man solitary, nasty, brutish, and short…” Humans are born into a state of war everyone competing for finite resources. Humankind is conditioned to seek a common power to achieve common benefit. An overpowering sovereign would be the only way to preserve order. Hobbes has a very different set of beliefs than Locke, nonetheless still very interesting and an expansive argument. Both works should be read together.
On Liberty,Utilitarianism and Other Essays, John Stuart Mills
One of my favorite assigned readings and in class discussions. Mill’s harm principle was the most intriguing concept to me. “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his (gendered language “his or her”) will, is to prevent harm to others.” The harm principle makes perfect sense to me, but I would have been curious to hear Mills’ thoughts on instances of suicide and physician assisted suicide. If those who suffer from terminal illnesses asked others to harm them and end their pain would that been permissible under his harm principle? Questions for thought.
The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Assigned reading in class that provoked some very interesting discussion. I think it is an important work that all students should read at least once, especially those interested in law, politics, and government. It provides a very interesting argument against capitalism and the process to which capitalism will lead to eventual socialism.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche
A very thought provoking book, and also at the same time existentially depressing. “God is dead, and we have killed him.” Nietzsche makes the argument that modern science has killed God by ending christian belief. Death of God represents the end of humans’ false belief in his significance leaving humans in a nihilistic despair. This reading raised a lot of questions for me such as: how does one seek meaning and wholeness in a world without God? What does Nietzsche mean by deriving significance from the real, someone more than human?
Confessions, Saint Augustine
Highly recommend the Oxford edition. Still looking for time to read City of God. This is very well written. It is not one of my favorites because Augustine writes this for a targeted audience, and it just doesn’t feel very personal. Perhaps, this is what personal was like in 397 AD…
Aeschylus II: The Oresteia (The Complete Greek Tragedies), Edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore
I read this work my freshman year of college in a cultural perspectives course. I deeply enjoyed it and wrote a paper juxtaposing the role of Clytemnestra and conventional female roles in Ancient Greek society. Very quick and interesting read.
Sailing is one of my biggest passions in life. Sailing is not just a sport or a hobby. There are so many things that go into it. Not only are you enjoying the outdoors and feeling the wind in your hair, there is a lot of deep and strategic thinking that goes into great sailing. Aside from strategic thinking, there is also a high demand for awareness on the boat. There is the physical, being athletic enough to raise and lower jib sheets fast enough, hiking out, and other labor-intensive aspects. The mental, sensing the constantly changing direction of the wind, feeling the small movements on the boat and correcting them (balancing the boat for max speed).
I love sailing because experience and chance also play a big part. One never knows what the outcome of a race will be. Some of the best olympic sailors can lose out to rookie sailors in a race because of wind shifts. Racing aside, sailing is one of the most peaceful and calming things, I’ve ever experienced. Below are the books I would highly recommend to those interested in learning more about sailing.
Learning Sailing Right! Beginning Sailing (The Small Boat Certification Series), Sheila McCurdy and National Faculty
I took a sailing course at the Birmingham Sailing Club, and this was the book used in the course. I thought it was very helpful. It is short, and there are graphics to illustrate the lessons and parts of the boat. It does a fantastic job for beginner sailors who are learning the parts of the boat and mechanics that follow. I would highly recommend this book to start for beginner sailors.
Getting Started In Sailboat Racing, Adam Cort and Richard Stearns This book is a little longer than the Learning Sailing Right! Beginning Sailing book. It is a little more advanced. I picked it up because, aside from sailing for fun, I always intended to race. I recommend this for those that have been out on a boat a couple of times and are familiar with the key functions of the parts of the boat and want to take their sailing to the next level and race. It does a great job of going through the fundamentals of racing.
The Essential Sailor, Jim Saltonstall This book is similar to Learning Sailing Right! Beginning Sailing book. It uses real pictures to demonstrate sailing techniques instead of just illustrated graphics. It goes more into detail than the Learning Sailing Right! Beginning Sailing book. It is clearly written and an informative read. I would recommend for beginner sailor to start out with this book or the Learning Sailing Right! Beginning Sailing book.
The Complete Sailor: Learning the Art of Sailing, David Seidman I found this book to be more technical. It is very thorough and the illustrated graphics are explained very well. It does a great job of explaining the basics but the content is detailed enough to offer insight to even some of the most experienced sailors. For beginner sailors I recommend that this book be paired with Learning Sailing Right! Beginning Sailing or The Essential Sailor.
The Annapolis Book of Seamanship, John Rousmaniere This reads like a textbook. I use this as a reference guide and refer back to areas I feel I need to brush up on. It is very thorough and not subject to just small boat sailing. There is a chapter on the magnetic compass, which was very interesting to read. It also goes into detail about formulas for calculating position and how to use navigators tools. It is a very technical guide to sailing.
General Healthcare: NextGen Jane, Maven Clinic, iSono Health Fertility Monitoring: Ava, Kindara, Flo Health Pelvic Healthcare: Minerva Surgical, Athena Feminine Tech, Symbiomix Therapeutics, Elvie Fertility Solutions: Conceivable, Prelude Fertility, Rinovum, Celmatix, Progyny, Nora Therapeutics Pregnancy and Nursing Care: Sera Prognostics, Lucina Health, Totohealth, Bloomlife, HeraMED, ObsEva, Naya, Moxxly, Babyscripts, Mommy Monitor, Univfy Fertility Mental Wellness: Woebot Labs, Fertility IQ
I have known that I wanted to be a VC for quite some time now, but it was not until earlier this year when I was digging down to the why, I had a breakthrough. I wanted to invest in change, and in order to have an impact and make change happen, I had to understand what I wanted to change first. A couple of things came to mind, but there was one thing I was certain I wanted to change. Female Healthcare. Female healthcare in America sucks, and it is widely underserved by tech.
The Problem
Even though women account for 50.8% of the U.S. population and 49.5% of the world population, women’s healthcare still lags far behind compared to men’s healthcare. When it comes to heart disease, women have a 50% higher chance of getting an inaccurate diagnosis, and women also have higher rates of death during hospitalization for heart attacks. When it comes to strokes, women are 30% more likely than men to have symptoms of stroke misdiagnosed and sent home from the emergency room.
Misdiagnosis:Gynecologists estimates that while endometriosis affects 1 in 10 women of reproductive age, it takes an average of 6 to 10 years for an accurate diagnosis after the first symptoms appear. Misdiagnosis in female healthcare is not just relevant to gynecology. Delayed and missed diagnoses are also common for women in heart disease, stroke, and autoimmune diseases. Oftentimes, when doctors cannot come up with a diagnosis for women’s pain it is dismissed as psychosomatic.
Pain:Women’s pain is taken far less seriously than men’s pain, and women’s pain is more often treated with sedatives instead of pain medication compared to men. Women’s wait time for treatment of the same severity of abdominal pain to men is on average 65 minutes while men only wait 49 minutes in the U.S. One study showed that women who received coronary bypass surgery were only half as likely as men to be prescribed painkillers as compared to men who had undergone the same procedure. The idea in society that women are meant to suffer is one of the reasons why girls are still taught that pain is just a part of being female: sex hurts, period hurts, childbirth hurts, so we shouldn’t ask for things that might alleviate the pain. Priority in acknowledgment and treatment of female pain needs to start in healthcare.
Fertility and Reproduction: The fertility treatment process for women is a very difficult one. Fertility treatments are very costly. One round of in vitro fertilization (IVF) can deplete on average two years of household savings. Most assisted reproduction technologies are not covered by health insurance, and any reimbursements are typically capped. Not to mention, the psychological impact of infertility among women is attributed to the same amount of anxiety as having cancer. More than half of female fertility patients regard IVF as the most upsetting experience in their life. Even with the cost and psychological impact, there is no guarantee that a woman becomes pregnant through IVF. IVF success rate for women under the age of 35 is 40%,and the success rate for women between the ages of 35 and 37 is 31%. The IVF success rate was only 3.9% for women aged 42.
Pregnancy/ Postpartum Care: Mothers never fully get the postpartum care they need after childbirth. Postpartum health care normally occurs during the six weeks after childbirth and is considered vital to the mother’s health. However, six weeks is the average number of postpartum visits covered by insurance companies. Studies show that 1 in 7 women suffer from postpartum depression after childbirth and 80% of cases go untreated. Women are likely to develop postpartum depression after giving birth up to a year, and postpartum depression is often missed in the first six weeks.40% of womenwho experience the severest forms of health difficulties both physical and mental did not seek treatment past the six weeks. Studies also showed that two months postpartum,many mothers experienced pain in the perineum, head, back, and cesarean- section incisions. Many do not get help as it is past the six-week postpartum care. After childbirth, women tend to ignore their health problems because there is a tendency to focus on the newborn. Pain is not just a discomfort to mothers, but studies show that it impedes on a mother’s timely response to her child’s care needs. Poor maternal physical health is related to a decline in a child’s general physical health.
The importance of female healthcare is well documented. Women play a vital part in our society and healthy mothers lead to healthy babies. The magnitude of these issues is too large of a scale for any one startup to tackle and the current infrastructure is simply not working.
Why Now?
When it comes to successful families, women play an important role and are key to sustaining healthy families. More often, women serve as a child’s primary caregiver than men. This space has suddenly become very prevalent, important, and exciting because we are on the fourth wave of feminism with the #metoo movement. Now more than ever women are standing up for their rights in the workplace, health, and equality in all aspects of life. With the rise of more career women, women are having children later in life than before and require more medical intervention. More women are delaying childbirth into their late 30s and early 40s,but still deciding to have children at the same numbers as before. There is a demand for the improvement and efficiency of women’s healthcare to meet these demands.
Enters Technology
Startups in the femtech space are projected to increase in the coming years. Five years ago, the space barely came close to $100 million combined. In this year alone, VC funding in the space will collect more than any other year in the last decade. More than $400 million will be invested in the Femtech space by year-end. Femtech is projected to reach a market size of $50 billion by the year 2025.
The number of deals has not increased over the last three years, but the amount of capital invested has grown significantly since 2016. Women as consumers in the technology marketplace represent an enormous market opportunity and account for nearly $20 trillion in consumer spending.
Mapping Out the FemTech Space
With consideration to my limitations in accessing research, entrepreneurs, and other resources VCs might have, this is not an exhaustive list of all the promising startups in the femtech space. I mainly focused on very early stage companies, and I organized the companies into six general categories.
General Healthcare:
Description: Startups that are improving the overall clinical healthcare experience for women through genomics-based personalized solutions for women to track their health, on-demand digital clinic care that assists women through conception, pregnancy, and postpartum, and wearable hardware to monitor breast health.
Description: Using connected hardware for women to monitor their fertility in the convenience of their homes with things like an intelligent bracelet to predict fertile days, fertility thermostat for fertility data and analytics, and simple period tracking mobile applications.
Description: Using medical devices to treat women’s sexual health issues targeting pelvic floor health to pelvic treatment for new mothers after childbirth and postmenopausal women.
Description: Using medical care and diagnostic tools to screen women’s health issues during pregnancy and track risks and complications during pregnancy.
Description: Personalized community insight and fertility experience for the individual. Providing more personalized screening approaches for prevention, treatment, and diagnosis for new mothers.
Investment Distribution: There has been a pretty consistent distribution in femtech investments from both generalist funds and medtech/biotech funds. Femtech startups that have gained a significant amount of traction have been backed by notable big-name funds. The top 13 most active femtech investorsin the femtech space with deal counts are Y Combinator (9), Arboretum Ventures (7), BoxGroup (7), NEA (6), Founders Fund (6), Astia Angels (6), Interwest Healthcare Partners (6), Chrysalis Ventures (5), Catalyst Health Ventures (5), Union Square Ventures (5), 500 Startups (5), Correlation Ventures (5), and Slow Ventures (5).
Location: The majority of femtech startups are located in the U.S. There were a small number of startups located overseas. The geo distribution is relatively skewed in favor of the U.S. About a handful of femtech startups were located in the UK, Israel, Kenya, and Switzerland.
Regulation: The FDA previously dealt with pharma and medical devices on the hardware front and is becoming more open to dealing with digital health software. There is a digital health software precertification program that expedites the process. More companies will follow this strategic move as it might make regulatory approval arrive sooner. For femtech digital health specifically, there needs to be a more efficient regulatory framework.
Scalability and Exits: VCs should look at femtech and women’s health and wellbeing as an at-large play of a much bigger untapped market. Femtech is not just about introducing new revolutionary products but changing the preconceived notions about women’s health and to have honest conversations about fertility issues and women’s health in general. There are a lack of exits in the femtech space with the exception of nVision($275M) and Counsyl ($375M). VCs have largely viewed this space as more impact investing than financial gain, and although, it may be true that in the femtech space the exit that most investors seek will be longer than the 3 to 4 years most startups shoot for, the financial upside is worth the wait. Millions of women around the world face issues with menstrual health, fertility, pregnancy, pelvic health, etc. Technology will play a key role in women’s health for many years down the road. VCs should strongly consider prioritizing femtech startups in their portfolio and actively working with these startups.
Trends
Prevention and Regular Monitoring: Many of these startups are hoping to combine hardware and data analytics to provide the most accurate results while giving women the added benefit of helping them learn about their bodies and function. Continued use will allow the algorithm to learn patterns about ovulation, monthly periods, temperature fluctuations, hormonal changes, and cycle irregularities. Companies like Ava develop smart Bracelets that will also help women calculate fertile window based on physiological measures by measuring skin temperature, perfusion, heart rate variability, and measuring sleep quality through movement. There is a strong trend around providing more monitored care for women with regular pregnancies and those with high-risk pregnancies from conception to postpartum.
Treatment Approaches: A large number of startups analyzed above in the femtech space occupy the pregnancy and nursing care category. However, a few of the companies are focused on treating female pelvic health issues with hardware and data analytics instead of just using them to monitor women’s health. Companies such as Elvie use hardware to help women perform Kegel exercises to strengthen the pelvic floor. Other startups like Athena will use hardware to detect and rehabilitate common physiological changes that occur in older women, and Athena also provides pelvic treatment for mothers after childbirth.
Specific Needs: Many startups in the femtech space are broadly focused on the general wellbeing of female reproductive health such as fertility, conception, and pregnancy. The market for each of those conditions is large enough to account for nearly the majority of the 50.8% of women in the United States of childbearing age, which will be 528,953 of the women in the U.S. by 2025. If a company takes a targeted approach to create specific products that monitor, treat, or prevent a female health condition they will join a community of startups doing the same and create traction for a community of interested users.
Three Startups that Interest Me
There are a number of startups in the femtech space that interest me, but the three that I am most excited about following are Maven Clinic, Celmatix, and Babyscripts.
Maven Clinic is a digital care clinic that provides care for mother’s throughout their pregnancy and postpartum. They offer video appointments, private messaging with the medical practitioner, and their services include: IVF, egg freezing tracks, pregnancy care, postpartum care, surrogacy, loss tracks, career coaching, etc. Maven Clinic has raised $42.4M in total and is backed by Sequoia, Box Group, Female Founders Fund, and Great Oaks.
Celmatix is using genome sequencing to provide genetic insight to assist physicians in understanding the root causes of underlying reproductive conditions. Celmatix paired with Ferring Pharmaceuticals in August 2018 to target IVF treatment. Their most recent round raised $24.5M in May 2018, and they have raised in total $78.4M.
Babyscripts is a doctor delivered health tool that comes with an active mobile app and monitoring hardware that gives specific tasks related to nutrition, exercise, and provides real-time feedback and intervention by a medical provider in the comfort of a patient’s home. Their most recent Series A round raised $7.7M in July 2017 resulting in a total of $9.8M raised overall.
I think these three have the potential to be very effective and impactful, as well as sustainable. They provide real needs for the problems that exist in women’s healthcare. Other startups in this space I am really excited about are Elvie, Ava, Univfy, and FertilityIQ.
Conclusion
I am very excited about this space and where femtech is going in the next five to ten years. VCs are now realizing that this is an enormous market, and there are a lot of problems that are painful that can be treated or prevented. Because we are at a time in history where more and more women are fighting for the healthcare they deserve and speaking up when things hurt instead of disregarding it as merely “female pain” meant to be endured, this space is bound to grow exponentially.
This is a very large space and there are a lot of moving parts to the research and technology that accompany it. Please feel free to reach out if you are working on a startup that fits into this space, and I missed it in the landscape. Also feel free to reach out if you are passionate about this space and just want to have a meaningful discussion. I can be reached at my Protonmail or Samford addresses.
I just finished Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and was very impressed with the writing and the message Salinger got across. The theme that really struck me was about the growing pains of adulthood. Holden, the main character, seems to point this out quite often. At every chance he gets, Holden illustrates the hypocrisy and superficiality of adults, and how they interact with each other. He paints a comparative picture on how childhood is about innocence, honesty, and curiosity and that dividing line between adults and children are very clearly drawn. However, Holden’s conception of adulthood and childhood are not true. Since adulthood is difficult to simplify or clearly understand, Holden writes it off as hypocritical and superficial, and he isolates himself from it.
I can easily identify with Holden’s conception of adulthood. I once attributed childhood or being young with idealism and a hopeful innocence, that everything is honest, good, and real. I wanted to hold on to it for as long as I could because I thought adulthood meant compromising my values, honesty, and integrity in order to make a living and survive. Similar to Holden again, I thought that all adults took part in superficial conversations and hypocritical actions to make a living and survive. This idea simply is not true. It would make it easier if it were, but it isn’t. This is why I really enjoyed reading this book at this particular time in my life. Nothing in life is black and white. It is easy to write something off as all good or all bad simply because we fear it. So we protect ourselves with cynicism and cut ourselves off from that reality because deep down we are really scared. It would be too easy if everything were easily understood, labeled, and eternally fixed, but it is not. Life is complex and complicated just as adulthood is.
I was as frightened as Holden because I feared that I was guilty of the same things that I criticized in others, so I fought that reality. I wanted to stay young, idealistic, and uncompromising forever. Like the metaphor Holden uses in wanting to be the catcher in the rye, catching the children from falling off the cliff, which symbolized adulthood equivalent to death. I thought that adulthood meant death. Not so much in the physical sense, but who you were as a person before that, your hopes, dreams, and passions washed away giving you a standard identity that is no different than anyone else’s. I would never get to be one of the hopeful happy children running around in the rye anymore. I would lose that identity completely. I think that is what Holden fears the most about adulthood too. However, nothing in life is that black and white.
This is evident when Holden speaks with Mr.Antolini. Many quotes in this conversation stuck out to me. One of them was “‘The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one'” (244). This one made a lot of sense to me. I think children feel invincible. From the influence of superhero books and other media, they probably think that in order to be all good you have to martyr yourself to the extreme of defending this one all good cause. However, that is a very childish view as Mr. Antonlini points out to Holden. Once a child matures as an adult, he or she realizes that he or she can live for this noble cause, from a place of humility, rather than dying for it.
The next quote that stuck out to me was “…’And I hate to tell you,…’but I think that once you have a fair idea where you want to go, your first move will be to apply yourself in school. You’ll have to. You’re a student – whether the idea appeals to you or not. You’re in love with knowledge” (245). Similar to Holden, I hated secondary school and school in general. It was not that I was not interested in learning, because I was. I was in love with learning, reading, and writing, but I hated the bureaucratic style school was structured in. However, in order to get to the place where you affect change and make a difference, school is a rite of passage in society. It is a mark to establish credibility and build your skills. Mr. Antolini made this clear to Holden.
The quote that really made me think deeply about life, value, and contributions was this one. “Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry…I’m not trying to tell you…that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It’s not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they’re brilliant and creative to begin with – which, unfortunately, is rarely the case – tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men who do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And – most important – nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker” (246). This quote simply says it all to me. After internalizing his words, I can see that Mr. Antolini argues that a good education provides us with the necessary tools to clearly articulate our thoughts, pinpoint them, and live by them. Without them, we might be brilliant and creative, but we are brilliant and creative at a lost. We can never contribute things of value to others to give hope, inspiration, and become more than just ourselves. To be educated and to be scholarly means that we can understand that we are a part of something greater than just ourselves and be humbled by that idea.
@TheHungryVC 