Cream Always Compensates

Chicks are fun(ny)

Penny heard this talk on the radio whilst driving somewhere a while back. She’s been pestering me to listen, too, which I have finally done. For those of you who cannot spare the quarter-hour it would take to listen for your ownbadselves, the talk is by a fellow who spent years working with NGO’s to cultivate economic development in developing nations. Yeah, I know: A slippery slope if ever there was one.

But to this fellow’s enduring credit, he soon realized that the standard method of aid – of coming in with suitcases of money and lots of ideas and a particular notion of how things should unfold – was doomed to failure because it was not of the people and region they were trying to help. So he started doing something different.

“You never initiate anything. You never motivate anybody, but you become a servant of the local passion… What you do: You shut up.  You can give somebody an idea (but) if that person doesn’t want to do it, what are you going to do? The passion a person has for their own growth is the most important thing.”

It’s a great talk, and you should hear it. But you know what’s sort of frustrating to me? I just spent an entire friggin’ year writing a 60,000-word book that is in large part about our decision to allow Fin and Rye to self-direct their learning and what that process looks like. And here’s this dude summing it all up in about three sentences.

Ah, well. In other news, the pigs are so fat I’m starting to wonder if I ought feel obligated to leave Weight Watchers brochures lying around in conspicuous places. And Apple freshened, so we have milk. And cream. So while I may have written something like 59,950 more words than strictly needed, at least I’ve got that.

It’s true: Cream always compensates.