Just discovered an incredible photographer and his website: 365q.ca. Thought I would share a couple of my favourite pictures I find inspiring. Enjoy!
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(No)Where // (Now)Here
Jocelyn Ling
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Aspirational Writing
Jocelyn Ling
“You write in order to change the world…. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.” –James Baldwin
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Why I Believe in Social Entrepreneurship
Jocelyn Ling
Have you ever been asked a question that simply stops you in your tracks…creating that lump in your throat that results in you awkwardly staring at a person for what seems like eternity (but really was only perhaps 30s)? I have. It wasn’t that the question that was unexpected. Only my response. I thought the answer would be at the tip of my tongue, ready to provide that sweet elevator pitch… but my words spluttered and died before I had a chance to arrange them into coherent thoughts.
The question that caused this surprising reaction was: why do you believe in social entrepreneurship?
My brain raced through the reasons, each reason followed by what seemed like a giant red sign that screamed CLICHE.
I believe in a human centred market based solution to poverty.Cliche.I believe in making the world a better place and leaving it better than when I’ve found it.Cliche.My background and journey has led me to believe in the power of entrepreneurship.Cliche.I come from a family whose lives have been changed through entrepreneurship.Cliche.I stumbled into this field unknowingly.Cliche.Social entrepreneurs are the key in unlocking the levers of change.Cliche.Entrepreneurs have the ability to create and imagine. With support and direction, they can be the change we wish to see in this world.Cliche.In my head, my emotions quickly churned from alarm to frustration. Why was it that I couldn’t explain my Why? Was it because I didn’t understand my reasons, or perhaps was it because I couldn’t find the words to say? Why do these reasons seem cliche? Perhaps people have overused them and they have lost their meaning…and then the question becomes: how do you do then convey any one of those reasons with sincere belief? After all, how can you capture passion and belief in 30 seconds. In a paragraph even. It doesn’t seem to even do it justice.
About a year ago, I wrote a post on the beauty of imagination. Although I still believe this reason to be true, I couldn’t quite get the reason of imagination to fit within the social enterprise/international development piece of my beliefs. It seemed to be missing a piece.
Truth be told, I was then suddenly mesmerized by the fact that perhaps, just perhaps my reason WAS the combination of all those cliches. And more. After all, isn’t our understanding of the world a limitation of what we have experienced and inherited knowledge? Maybe my passion is a combination of a mathematical sequence of experiences (I like to think so!):
1) I grew up painfully aware of poverty and socio-economic oppression
2) My family’s story changed because of entrepreneurship
3) Hard work and a stranger’s faith in seeing my potential allowed me to continue my education in Canada
4) I unknowingly stumbled into this field through a “less-than-perfect” volunteer program through my university
5) Tipping point: Working with a women’s group in Lesotho ignited an understanding that identifying change levers in a community can change lives
6) Throughout business school, I have developed a natural bias towards a market based solution to solving problems.
Therefore: 7) Giving people the opportunity (just like it has been given to me) to create and imagine a better life is the key to creating a better world. A human-centered market based solution.
Social entrepreneurship shakes up our complacencies by challenging how we place value on social and economic urgencies. It spins us round in two ways at once: it shows us the sights and social values that we might ordinarily ignore; but it also, and more deeply, shows us parts of capitalism that have grown rusty and need changing.
So what is my answer you might ask? For now, I will have to settle for a combination of cliche answers, my sequence of experiences and that nagging voice at the of my head telling me that it is the right thing to believe in.
I’ll be sure to check in with my answer again as my understanding of the world continues to grow!
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Being a smarter human vs. Being a better person
Jocelyn Ling
“Wittgenstein made the wonderfully enigmatic remark: “I work quite diligently and wish that I were better and smarter. And these both are one and the same.” Really? One and the same thing – being a smarter human being and a better person?
I am, of course, aware that modern transatlantic usage has drowned the distinction between ‘being good’ as a moral quality and ‘being well’ as a comment on a person’s health (no aches and pains, fine blood pressure, and so on), and have long ceased worrying about the manifest immodesty of those of my friends who, when asked how they are, reply with apparent self-praise, ‘I am very good.’ But Wittgenstein was not an American, and 1917 was well before the conquest of the world by vibrant American usage. When Wittgenstein said that being ‘better’ and being ‘smarter’ were ‘one and the same thing’, he must have been making a substantial assertion.
Underlying the point may be the recognition, in some form, that many acts of nastiness are committed by people who are deluded, in one way or another, about the subject. Lack of smartness can certainly be one source of moral failing in good behaviour. Reflecting on what would really be a smart thing to do can sometimes help one act better towards others. That this can easily be the case has been brought out very clearly by modern game theory. Among the prudential reasons for good behaviour may well be one’s own gain from such behaviour. Indeed, there could be great gain for all members of a group by following rules of good behaviour which can help everyone. It is not particularly smart for a group of people to act in a way that ruins them all.
But maybe that is not what Wittgenstein meant. Being smarter can also give us the ability to think more clearly about our goals, objectives and values. If self-interest is, ultimately, a primitive thought (despite the complexities just mentioned), clarity about the more sophisticated priorities and obligations that we would want to cherish and pursue would tend to depend on our power of reasoning. A person may have well-thought-out reasons other than the promotion of personal gain for acting in a socially decent way.”
- Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice