Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Spanish homework turns philosophical

...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903
in Letters to a Young Poet

Las Palabras Interrogativas

¿Por qué no es posible cerrar mi cerebro?
Why is it not possible to turn off my brain?

¿Cómo podemos cambiar la infraestructura de la energía?
How can we change the energy infrastructure?

¿A quién necesitamos matar?
Who do we need to kill?

¿Quién es responsable?
Who is responsible?

¿De quien es el mundo? ¿De quien es el agua?
Who's earth is it? Who's water is it?

¿Cuánto cuesta nuestra inacción?
How much does our inaction cost?

¿Cual es el problema de los Estados Unidos?
What is the problem with the United States?

¿Qué hace que nosotros pensamos que vamos a poder vivir así por siempre?
What makes us think that we are going to be able to live like this forever?

¿Dónde esta mi juicio?
Where is my mind/sanity?

Todo depende de a dónde vamos en los próximos diez años.
Everything depends on where we go in the next ten years. (NASA's lead climatologist gives us 10 years to curb emissions at their current level before we reach a tipping point.)

¿Cómo no soy yo mismo?
How am I not myself?

¿De dónde vino la idea que podemos crecer sin fin?
From whence came the idea that we can grow without end?

¿Cuál es la diferencia entre uno Americano, que se ahogó, y uno Chino, que se ahogó? Nada.
What is the difference between a drowned American and a drowned Chinese person? Nothing.

¿Cuándo es aceptable castrar a los hombres?
When is it acceptable to castrate men? (My Spanish teacher, Carolina, came up with two situations 1) too many people 2) violence towards women.)

¿Qué es necesario para una vida buena?
What is necessary for a good life?

¿Para que tenemos los niños?
For what do have children?

¿Cuántas personas son demasiadas personas?
How many people are too many people?

Carolina thinks that the last three questions are inherently related: What is necessary for a good life is to propagate the species and pass on our knowledge to the next generation, but people should stop after 2 or 3 babies. We agreed that all men should have mandatory vasectomies after the second or third child. Or alternatively, since vasectomies are minimally invasive and reversible, all boys should be given vasectomies as soon as they hit puberty and should continue shooting blanks until they turn 26. This would eliminate teenage pregnancy, reduce the number of children by shrinking the window of fertility, and insure that people having babies were older and better educated. And there is a strong correlation between education and lower birth rates. Everybody wins! (My Spanish teacher clearly rocks.)

1 comment:

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