0 Final Journey 1
What is the most powerful thing you've learned in this course?
I'm not sure if this is a cop out, but I would have to say that there are two extremely powerful things I have taken away from this course.
The first, and what I based this journey search off of, is the concept of always asking questions about the history we're told. One of the most powerful readings from this semester was the poem "Questions From A Worker Who Reads" by Bertolt Brecht and this was the first introduction I had to really digging in and asking those questions like who is behind the camera of historical photos, who had their stories prioritized in the preservation of records, what bright minds did we lose due to bigotry and closed-mindedness?
This idea pivots into the second most powerful takeaway of this course; having a personal memex. I remember how satisfying it was for me when it really clicked. It was a quote from Alan Turing’s Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science that made me truly understand the importance of note-taking and documenting my research, no matter what the subject. If someone one day wants to pick my brain, I don't want for all my ideas and work to be lost. If I myself want to go back and look at the sources I've accumulated, the writings I've done, the things I've thought of - having it all organized in my own personal memex (as coined by Vannevar Bush) makes it much easier to track and keep record of.