okay so this was, by far, the coolest therapy to get people out of their personal slump. i thoroughly enjoyed this talk. nature has a way of being the solution to all of people's problems, even though people don't necessarily respect nature until it happens to show its wrath. tangent. sorry. so this talk was about how to reform juvenile delinquents - in the most interesting way. it required both parties - the jd's and their wardens, and the community overall, to forgive. schocken took these kids, gave them their own mountain bikes (at the risk of them being flightrisks) - and told them to explore nature. he gave them the wonderful experience of biking through nature, and connecting with the legacy and energy of the country and its people. i was able to connect to this story myself since i'm undergoing CASA training at the moment, but it really speaks to the idea that one shouldn't walk away from a child, especially given their backgrounds and traumatic experiences. if you do something kind to the child, it may take them aback but you are giving them the pleasure and experience of what true, genuine love means. all their lives, they have been abused, abandoned, betrayed and ignored, and shimon, through this biking challenge, taught these children that people don't walk away, people that really care about you will NOT walk away, which they soon begin to respect. this experience, shimon says, gives them an unconditional acceptance, of their situation, of people around them, of what they've been through, of themselves. i really appreciated this talk as i am trying to figure out what the best way to help kids through CASA is. but this is a perfect example. shimon himself has said that riding these bikes exposes kids to love of country, animals, plants, other team members, and themselves. as much as reason, logic, and drive gets people somewhere, its not enough. the perfect, ideal, optimal world doesn't exist - one needs to be empathetic and flexible to have a stable, happy, healthy life. one must have a vision (i remember this through ssy), and keep changing their vision, because that is what will work the best. focus on what you want, focus on the immediate reward and ignore obstacle and the mountain ahead, because shimon says, we will soon be over it. once you quickly get over that obstacle, that is how one builds self esteem and love for themselves. life is not black and white. one must learn to understand life's complexities and become more tolerant of the issues that face you. celebrate life. celebrate love. celebrate the essence of living life on the edge. it was touching. i love it :)
day 9: TED talk – Shimon Schocken’s rides of hope
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/shimon_schocken_s_rides_of_hope.html
this story began four years ago. the correction facility where they are locked up happens to be right in the middle of one of my usual trips, and it's surrounded by barbed wires and electric gates and armed guards. so on one of these rides, i talked my way into the compound and went to see the warden. i told the warden that i wanted to start a mountain biking club in this place and that basically i wanted to take the kids from here to there. and i told him, "let's find a way in which i'll be able to take out 10 kids once a week to ride with in the summer in the country." and the warden was quite amused, and he told me he thought that i was a nut. and he told me, "this place is a correction facility. these guys are serious offenders. they are supposed to by locked up. they aren't supposed to be out at large." and yet, we began to talk about it, and one thing led to another. and i can't see myself going into a state prison in new jersey and making such a proposition, but this being israel, the warden somehow made it happen. and so two months later, we found ourselves at large -- myself, 10 juvenile inmates and a wonderful fellow named russ, who became a very good friend of mine and my partner in this project.
and in the next few weeks, i had the tremendous pleasure of introducing these kids to the world of total freedom, a world consisting of magnificent vistas like these -- everything you see here is obviously in israel -- as well as close encounters with all sorts of small creatures coming in all sorts of sizes, colors, shapes, forms and so on. in spite of all this splendor, the beginning was extremely frustrating. every small obstacle, every slight uphill, would cause these fellows to stop in their tracks and give up. so we had a lot of this going on. i found out that they had a very hard time dealing with frustration and difficulties -- not because they were physically unfit. but that's one reason why they ended up where they were. and i became increasingly more and more agitated, because i was there, not only to be with them, but also to ride and create a team. and i didn't know what to do.
it took me several such incidents to figure out what i was supposed to do. at the beginning it was a disaster. i tried harsh words and threats and they took me nowhere. that's what they had all their lives. and at some point i found out, when a kid like this gets into a fit, the best thing that you can possibly do is stay as close as possible to this kid, which is difficult, because what you really want to do is go away. but that's what he had all his life, people walking away from him. so what you have to do is stay close and try to reach in and pet his shoulder or give him a piece of chocolate. so i would say, "alex, i know that it's terribly difficult. why don't you rest for a few minutes and then we'll go on." "go away you maniac, psychopath. why would you bring us to this goddamn place?" and i would say, "relax, alex. here's a piece of chocolate." and alex would go, "arrrrggg!" because you have to understand that on these rides we are constantly hungry -- and after the rides also.
i want to say a few words about vision. when i started this program four years ago. i had this original plan of creating a team of winning underdogs. i had an image of lance armstrong in my mind. and it took me exactly two months of complete frustration to realize that this vision was misplaced, and that there was another vision supremely more important and more readily available. it all of a sudden dawned on me in this project that the purpose of these rides should actually be to expose the kids to one thing only: love, love to the country, to the uphill and the downhill, to all the incredible creatures that surround us -- the animals, the plants, the insects, love and respect to other fellow members in your team, in your biking team, and most importantly, love and respect to yourself, which is something that they badly miss.
together with the kids, i also went through a remarkable transformation. now i come from a cutthroat world of science and high technology. i used to think that reason and logic and relentless drive were the only ways to make things happen. and before i worked with the kids, anything that i did with them, or anything that i did with myself, was supposed to be perfect, ideal, optimal, but after working with them for some time, i discovered the great virtues of empathy and flexibility and being able to start with some vision, and if the vision doesn't work, well nothing happened. all you have to do is play with it, change it a little bit, and come up with something that does help, that does work. so right now, i feel more like these are my principles, and if you don't like them, i have others.
and one of these principles is focus. before each ride we sit together with the kids, and we give them one word to think about during the ride. you have to focus their attention on something because so many things happen. so these are words like teamwork or endurance or even complicated concepts like resource allocation or perspective, a word that they don't understand. you know, perspective is one of these critically important life-coping strategies that mountain biking can really teach you. i tell kids when they struggle through some uphill and feel like they cannot take it anymore, it really helps to ignore the immediate obstacles and raise your head and look around and see how the vista around you grows. it literally propels you upwards. that's what perspective is all about. or you can also look
back in time and realize that you've already conquered steeper mountains before. and that's how they develop self-esteem.
i ride with these kids once a week, every tuesday. here's a picture i took last tuesday -- less than a week ago -- and i ride with them tomorrow also. in everyone of these rides i always end up standing in one of these incredible locations, taking this incredible landscape around me. and i feel blessed and fortunate that i'm alive, and that i sense every fiber in my aching body. and i feel blessed and fortunate that 15 years ago i had the courage to resign my tenured position at nyu and return to my home country where i can do these incredible rides with this group of troubled kids coming from ethiopia and morocco and russia. and i feel blessed and fortunate that every week, every tuesday and actually every friday also, i can once again celebrate in the marrow of my bones the very essence of living in israel on the edge.
day 9: Wikipedia article – (william henry harrison)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_henry_harrison
the ninth President of the United States (1841), an American military officer and politician, and the first president to die in office. The oldest president elected until Ronald Reagan in 1980, and last President to be born before the United States Declaration of Independence, Harrison died on his 32nd day in office of complications from pneumonia, serving the shortest tenure in United States presidential history. His death sparked a brief constitutional crisis, but that crisis ultimately resolved many questions about presidential succession left unanswered by the Constitution until passage of the 25th Amendment.
Before election as president, Harrison served as the first territorial congressional delegate from the Northwest Territory, governor of the Indiana Territory and later as a U.S. representative and senator from Ohio. He originally gained national fame for leading U.S. forces against American Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, where he earned the nickname "Tippecanoe" (or "Old Tippecanoe"). As a general in the subsequent War of 1812, his most notable contribution was a victory at the Battle of the Thames in 1813, which brought an end to hostilities in his region.
After the war, Harrison moved to Ohio, where he was elected to the United States Congress, and in 1824 he became a member of the Senate. There he served a truncated term before being appointed as Minister Plenipotentiary to Colombia in May 1828. In Colombia, he spoke with Simon Bolívar about the finer points of democracy before returning to his farm in Ohio, where he lived in relative retirement until he was nominated for the presidency in 1836. Defeated, he retired again to his farm before being elected president in 1840.
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