Why I Don't Have a Future.
06 March 2017 [link youtube]
The unexpected sequel to "WHY I DON'T HAVE A PhD".
Youtube Automatic Transcription
topic of this video was really put in my
mind by brief conversation I had with another university professor here in here into home China she had a family emergency it seemed that a younger relative of hers had suddenly died or was dying and she had to go to the hospital so she was asking me at the last minute to teach teach some classes for her and I immediately you know without question said yeah okay great let's you know tell me the time somewhere to go and I was preparing to go and do it now she ended up canceling with apologies she got an update from the hospital turned out this relative of hers although apparently badly injured is not gonna die so she's gonna go and visit the person the next few days instead so good news of course and I wrote back to her in Chinese saying in effect you know all teachers are our brothers I just said in Chinese something to the effect that there's a there's a common kinship between all teachers and it was a nice thing to say at the time of course it was quite appropriate because I was saying look if you need my help I'm happy to help you again but of course it's also sad for me to just pause and reflect on that staring into my mobile phone because it's not true it's not true in Western culture and it's not true in my my experience here in Asian culture there's very little kinship this very little cooperation between intellectuals of any kind between people who work in education of any kind and it's it's really sad because the truth is that any given field of studies any given mandate any given mission any given movement like a political movement like the vegan movement what have you you you really rely on cooperation of exactly that kind you rely on a lot of generosity of spirit and without it the field can't progress I can say specifically in education education is unlike other sectors in that you absolutely have to show generosity toward people who don't deserve it you can't just show generosity towards the students that show the most potential or towards your colleagues who show the most potential you have to take the time and make the effort to reach out to and encourage all kinds of people who don't have any potential or who seem not to have any potential you have to make the effort to help people advance in the field of studies again and again only to later be disappointed only to find out that they're going nowhere that they have no potential at all that they have none of the talents necessary or what have you I think it's a discipline I think that's really part of the role of the educator is to do that again and again to be disappointed again and again and not to let that disappointment cloud your judgment not to become bitter not to become shut down not to closed door against a whole future generation of scholars in your field because of the disappointments you've had in the past whether or not whether those disappointments are a dozen or two dozen or two hundred no matter how many times you've been disappointed by the the people in the field you've been you've been trying to help out there was one woman I guess she's still alive but she's not very very elderly Ella pardon me very very elderly skull our coldest Jaclyn philia set and you know when I met her it was really just too late she had so many times had people approached her who want who said ostensibly that they wanted to develop expertise in her field she really worked specifically on hand written poly manuscripts so we say palm leaf manuscripts poly is the most ancient language of Buddhist philosophical tradition these actual manuscripts are normally just in the last few hundred years but they're part of that literary tradition and you know so when I was talking to her I wasn't the first person to say that I was the last but the truth was even from the first conversation to have with her in terms of where had been living what I've been doing and what I could show her on paper of my own work it was very clear I didn't just have potential it wasn't merely a theoretical Talent what I had was actual I really had what it took to be a to be a significant person in that field now that field I mean in her generation she's one of she's one of five people or something maybe even less you know I'm really for her generation she might be the only one the only specialist and that field the only legitimate specialist at least the only one who speaks a European language you know because sure there will be a few experts in Myanmar who don't speak any English are there a few experts in sri lanka maybe just to mention briefly so I was I was scholar of Pali of tera vaada Buddhism and tera vaada Buddhism has the misfortune of not being supported by any wealthy Western countries and not by any wealthy countries within Asia so the situation for scholarship of Japanese Buddhism is very very different from what the situation has been in Sri Lanka or in Myanmar in the last few decades because those have been countries that haven't just been struggling with poverty they've also been struggling with civil war with all that haven't been said when I met philias at she was not too old to help me she wasn't it was perfect timing and I actually moved to Cambodia specifically so that I could learn from her so I could work with her so I could sit down in an archives in a manuscript or ium and do the hard work by hand and I of studying this kinds of manuscripts with her and never happened it wasn't too late it would have been a perfect time for the passing of the torch she had just retired and she was allegedly at the time she said she was gonna retire to Cambodia from France to Cambodia and she could have passed on the accumulated wisdom of her decades of research and just hands-on experience working with that type of Buddhist manuscript hmm and I really was the right guy to receive it my it's not worth describing the background I had at that point but it was too late in another sense because she had already had her heart broken too many times now fili is at had some other strategic disadvantages for example she was crazy but she had been through some situations I can sympathize with where exist for example one point she signed up with some official government of Thailand funded program that provided her with a few students but these students who were paid to be there by the taxpayers of talent they didn't really want to be there it's not what they were about and she explains she described that whole experience to me and then afterwards she said these students all sent her invitations to their weddings and things like that they tried to stay in touch in a polite way none of these people had any interest or any aspiration and ever becoming scholars of Buddhism much less did they have an interest in doing the exceptionally hard work of working on handwritten manuscripts and you know stone carvings texts that are etched into stone carved into stone what everyone is a chiseled into stone I'm lacking for verbs at the moment that kind of you know archive based research is an even more rare specialization within the broader field so you know she had been disappointed with one wave of students after another who had been recruited through crummy government programs or in some cases through library studies programs people who were getting a diploma in library science this kind of thing yeah well they ain't me I really was the right person to become her student and I was deprived of the opportunity because she had her heart broken too many times before I ever got there and philia is that the last thing I ever got was she sent a sweater to my my newborn baby daughter thanks thanks for the sweater Kelly is that but what I needed from you really was not a [ __ ] hand knitted sweater for my daughter my daughter had plenty of sweaters what I really needed for you to do was sit down at a table with me and show that you have a sincere concern about the future of that area of studies I needed you to sit down with me and help me take nothing and nothing and come up with something I need you to advise me on how I could have a future in that area of studies and thus that area studies would have really benefited from having one more person like me in it because when you get into these obscure fields Polly Cree a jib way and right now I'm gonna talk about the honk die each and every intellectual in that field is crucial makes a big positive difference or makes a big negative difference you know and Polly is only unusual it's only unlike the others that I'm mentioning in this video in that in powell you get a lot of fraud you get a lot of people pretending to be experts who aren't but for the most part all those fields it's a long hard road of developing meaningful expertise and putting your mind and heart into trying to sling positive we expertise you've got but this small number of people whether they are university professors or independent scholars whatever they're their road they walk in life it's crucial that they show that kind of generosity toward people who don't deserve it because they may not be able to discern the very few who do deserve it the very few who can take that advice even if it's just a few emails bouncing over who can take that advice and really make something happen right and if they don't if they don't that feel the studies will collapse and you know I just want to say I had that experience I was involved with pally for so many years I I took the time I reached out to and replied to a lot of other aspiring students of pally and I gave them exactly the advice they needed whether it was about university programs or just about the books which books they need to work with which is very hard and very hard question answer for pally just mentioned where they should go and how they should proceed I provided a lot of advice and a lot of time counseling younger scholars in the field when I was getting up towards having 10 years of experience myself and if you don't then the field will collapse the field of study will fail apart from the devastating impacts it may have on the individual scholar so I went through a surreal situation at University of Victoria where there was one professor there whom I talked to at length and again I'm reminded of some remarks from a rapper female rapper who said that she after a certain point in her life she got older as a woman she was no longer day interested in dating man who had potential she was only interested men who could prove that that potential she's only understand something actual not something potential she want to say it that way with all these professors I was able to show I don't have potential I have something actual my potential is proven it's demonstrated there was a professor at University of Victoria and he did buddhism put his studies and he did Sanskrit in particular Sanskrit language very similar to poly and I had written to him emails over many years over several years trying to get something positive going I said written to professors of Buddhism from coast to coast in Canada from the east coast to the west coast including tiny tiny universities like University of Lethbridge ridiculous to talk to everybody and I couldn't find an opportunity anywhere to work my way towards a master's degree yeah which is ultimately one of the most important reasons why I deceased to be a scholar of Buddhism it was devastating for me it's devastating for me and I'm not boasting to say ultimately it is really pretty devastating for the field it's a small field and it is lacking for brilliance money if you I made a huge impact in that field during my years just as an outsider and as a student and there's no doubt in my mind what kind of impact that could have had positively if any of these people lifted a finger and make it possible for me to stay in the field but they didn't anyway this guy he saw my peer-reviewed articles he saw other essays other evidence of my work on languages and again I didn't just do languages languages history politics anthropology fieldwork visiting the Buddhist temples living there in that situation really you know really deep meaningful engagement with the subject matter I could demonstrate going back over many years and this guy he wasn't insulting to me he wasn't he wasn't an ask to me or anything but he just didn't care he just did lift a finger to make anything positive happen and among the evidence that he recognized that was a talent he asked me to peer-review an article for a journal he was formally involved in so I actually peer-reviewed an article form he said hey look I'm part of this journal can you peer review this this is he said this is more in my area of expertise than it is in his which is true and I did I did a good peer review for him I did a you know detailed discussion of what was wrong with an article okay but then he could not be bothered to answer email from me when I'm offering at my really advanced level I'm in my late 30s I'm way more advanced than any 18 year old student in a BA program I'm way more advanced than a 21 year old student applying to go into master's program and I'm writing to him saying look this is who I am this is my background I'm looking for any ma options long term and I'm willing to do a second BA which is extraordinary very very few people go back to get second pay and that wasn't just willing in the abstract I actually did that twice I enrolled in a new BA twice in Canada and that reflects just have terrible the Canadian education system is and I'm I'm getting that second ba now I'm getting in Asian Studies not in Buddhist studies not anything to do with Buddhism that whole part of my career is now over and you know I finally met this guy in in unique and memorable circumstances I want to see him and he was trying to teach a course on Sanskrit I signed up for this course on the computer with no intention of actually taking the course I thought I would just show up sit in the back of the classroom listen to the guy talk for one hour I thought there'd be 40 other students so that would be a normal University classroom and then I'd walk out I thought I just go and see what this class books is supposed to be Sanskrit for Buddhism was like Buddhist you know Buddhist textual Sanskrit a show-up sit there alone I end up running back and forth to the department office they say this must be the wrong room nobody's there not one other student not one professor professor aventure shows up 15 minutes late I'm literally the only student in the room he never reached out to me and he never reached out to anybody and yes that's devastating for me decisions he made had a devastating impact on me personally professionally educationally I I needed one professor somewhere in Canada to just be willing to talk to me through email for the rest of my career to be possible and not even one would do it and it could have been him yeah was devastating we but guess what it's devastating for him also because the reality of the thing is he wanted to teach Sanskrit and he didn't make any effort to cultivate talent to attract new talent to his program and so he didn't have any Talent alright Sanskrit is not like dentistry people want to make money everywhere so if you put up a sign saying you're gonna give people diplomas in dentistry some people are gonna show up right studying Sanskrit studying Pali studying Buddhism even Asians that even politics of Asia because a lot of what I do is political always has been nobody's making any money out of that you've got to reach out and cultivate talent you know for the good your own career for the good of that individual's career but for the good of the field as a whole for the future of the field is crucial right and he never did that so he had an empty classroom and instead of me sitting there and listening to him do a lecture about what the course gonna be it's what I was expecting the first day of this course instead he and I sat down had a face-to-face and I had to say to him I think was unexpected hey I'm that guy I was writing you for years because I used to be a real scholar of Buddhism I used to live in Laos and Cambodia and Sri Lanka I did all this research until that you know I'm that guy who wrote those articles I'm that guy who peer you you were you asked me to peer review an article for you but when I was writing to you you you couldn't even be bothered to to reply when I was writing to you when I was offering to become your student you couldn't lift a finger so my career is over because nobody opened the door for me every single door was slammed in my face so my career at the end and you were one small but crucial part of that story so we had that conversation I don't know I don't know what he got [Laughter] and you know I don't get the sense that he was intimidated by me some professors are some professors are not used to having applicants they're only used to having supplicants they're only used to having 18 year olds who ask questions and who can't answer them some professors are deeply unsettled by having a student who's at a more confident advanced level but that's not my impression this guy my impression this guy is simply indolence he just didn't care he just doesn't see himself as having any ambition to make something happen for himself for his students or for the field and that indolence in the end it destroys the field of study it destroys the lives of individual would be scholars would be students what-have-you and it destroys the whole field and really that's what happened with pally with tera vaada Buddhist studies on a on a pretty big scale worldwide and last several years so making this video now as I mentioned I just had this interesting conversation with another professor where I immediately offered to help her out when she had a relative in the hospital I also just posted this job and I've been offering to help some complete stranger get this job in the university here just out of the goodness of my heart just as a bits v''e and i know how rare that is to people don't seem to do much to help other people these days we said it's a big difference in Western culture and Chinese culture the culture of guanxi and so on and so forth and you know I had another conversation I don't think I have to read it aloud here about the possibility of becoming a scholar of the Hong died now look I don't want to bore you but talking about other languages of study before when I was saying this other professor this professor of Sanskrit and the oppressor of Buddhism but Sanskrit Sanskrit via Buddhism and Buddhism via Sanskrit he should have recognized me as a talent because I already did all this work on poly well I'm talking to another professor lately and for him the fact that I worked on poly is important but it's also important that I worked on northern Lao I lived in Laos for so many years speaking the language and specifically the northern dialects because I was talking to one of the only white men in the world who has a background in the home dye in the indigenous language sure sorry sorry if it sounds racist said one of the only white men I mean he's someone who speaks English as his first language he has a PhD he's a professor he's in a position to really determine the future that whole field of studies there of course there may be other people with expertise who you know have none of those things going for them we can't communicate with you in English who don't have an institutional position who aren't who don't have a PhD and so on if you meet a kindly little old man in a village who could help you with this area of scholars scholarship but he's maybe a farmer anthropologists often have to work very hard to make an educational arrangement out of that kind of scenario but a very very small number of people will actually have salaried positions as professors and will have PhDs and will speak English in a field like this whenever you get an anything like this Kriya jib way mohawk poly to Hong died I mean I've looked at so many fields where it's you know the whole fate of the field rests with a small number of hard-working intellectuals and otherwise maybe there are a few Christian missionaries you know on that and that's a wrap and ultimately the future of whether or not these languages survive the future of these indigenous peoples and their cultures the future of the literature and philosophy itself so much hangs on a small number of intellectuals having the generosity and the discipline to reach out to and help one another for the future that Fela study anyway I wrote to this guy saying and he's as you can fear who he is he's the only I think in this generation he is literally the only english-speaking man who studied dehang die this this language in this area I said to him I am literally one of only three white men living in the Hong long term no I really wasn't expecting much of an effort on your part but I was expecting you to make more of an effort than you have the indolence of people like yourself has long-term consequences for both scholarship in the abstract and for the lives of scholars in particular suppose I should say this guy's met me in person this is not about talking to some 18 year old student who's whose potential is highly hypothetical okay he's met me I've actually handed him copies of my publications on paper he's seen me eye-to-eye in person he's spoken to me for several hours he's heard me tell anecdotes about my research as well as actually seeing my research he's seen evidence of the kind of self discipline and focus I can have in doing language research he should know me enough to trust me - a real extent and again in my case we're not just talking about potential we're talking about something actual we're talking and I've got the demonstrated capacity to make the kind of discipline self-sacrifice needed to contribute to a feeling of death so he should know and I'd written to him now for several months saying hey I'm moving to your area of study and you know I have the background in terms of language history politics so much scholarship have done I really have the background to take advantage of living in de Hong to really work on this language and make a contribution your field of study but what it takes is somebody with a PhD to at least advise me to at least answer my emails to open up a door for me and show me the path ahead at least to at least answer my questions about which books I need to get which dictionaries need to get and I have answered those questions for so many other people when I was helping out other people in in Pali and I would have done it in Korea in a Jib way if I'd been able to stay in that field and I'm still doing it in a sense in in trying to play that positive role for for poly for terrified studies um so I say to him because I am disappointed that he just hasn't shown any interest for several months the indolence of people like yourself has long-term consequences for both scholarship in the abstract and for the lives of scholars in particular when I was studying poly I worked hard as hell to help aspiring students I reach out to supported helped anyone with a shred of potential for the good of the future of this field of study and only a small minority of those people really had a shot at contributing I can say the same but a number of other rarely studied languages that was involved with even Korean a Jib way etc over the years all of them I was involved with much more briefly than I would have chosen to be but the choice was made for me by circumstances beyond my control obviously I've been facing the very real decision as to whether or not I should be learning to Hong died in the past several months you are one of extremely few people who could have at least discussed that decision with me and who could have seriously influenced the short-term and long-term outcomes of this scenario he's the only expert in this field who speaks English he said he's a crucial figure for the future of this this field my prior work in both Pali and lotion are huge advantages for learning died the fact that I now live and work on a university campus where die is taught as a language formerly in the classroom is a huge advantage and yes I now have good enough availability in Chinese my ability to speak Chinese is good enough after an investment of a lot of time money and effort in that language I was in a position to really take on this direction long term and you couldn't be bothered to talk to me by email let alone by telephone etc I think you are to be blunt the only white man I possibly could have talked to about this specialized field and in all your life really do you think you'll ever talk to another english-speaking student who could have in this scenario made the leap to contributing to your field to becoming a scholar in your field just pause I could say the same to that professor of Sanskrit how many years are you gonna wait there at University of Victoria with an empty classroom literally an empty class we had to cancel that class he had to apologize to the supervisor of the department and cancel the class because he didn't have even one student that's a failure that's a black mark on his record and as a failure he's totally responsible for it's totally his fault he's not just destroying my future he's destroying his own future in a very interesting sense he's you know their impacts on all sides here when you fail to have and vision to cultivate talent for the future of the field to reach out to and possibly support you know aspiring scholars aspiring researchers however you want to put it okay it would not have cost you a dime just to care and just to provide advice to me when I crucially needed that advice and I have done that for so many students of pally so I know exactly what it entails and in the message so look guys most of you watch this channel because you know about my engagement with vegan activism there really is a sense in which this background I have in this type of scholarly endeavor is connected to how I approach vegan activism from day one on this channel the way I was reaching out to other channels positively collaboratively cooperatively I said before in education you have to reach out to people positively generously supportively trying to give them guidance and advice and the materials and tools they need to succeed even when they don't have potential even when they squander their potential even when you've been disappointed a dozen times helping one student after another and each one just squanders the opportunity to be given that you you meet the next student with an open heart and an open mind and the detachment and discipline to see them for what they are to see them as a possible talent you can recruit or you can cultivate in the same way when we're talking about this political movement when we're talking about the future of vegan activism I tell you guys again and again meet people with an open heart and an open mind get your heart broken you'll be disappointed you're gonna try to cooperate with people you can try collaborate people you're going to be disappointed again and again keep having your heart broken until there's nothing left to break and have the discipline to go back with an open heart and an open mind and be disappointed again because if you don't you're destroying the future of the movement you're destroying the future to feel this studies and in a subtle way you may not realize it but you are actually under my your own career you're destroying your own potential by failing to promote the potential of others both in politics and in research there's not much that one man can do alone even if it's just a group of five even if it's just a group of 10 dictionaries are never written by one author you know you at least need to build up a critical mass of like-minded intellectuals who can cooperate 5 10 15 whatever it is and the way you're gonna do that it's not gonna be by meeting someone else who's already your equal it's not to be by meeting someone who's already made colleague in contemporary of yours you have to build the future of your own field of study you have to build the future of this movement you have to start with people who are so to speak raw materials who have nothing but ambition and show them the way for them to educate themselves train themselves to get the experience necessary for them to be your colleagues be your contemporaries for them to work for the future of the field of studies for the future of the movement on their own with you and collaboration however the case may be
mind by brief conversation I had with another university professor here in here into home China she had a family emergency it seemed that a younger relative of hers had suddenly died or was dying and she had to go to the hospital so she was asking me at the last minute to teach teach some classes for her and I immediately you know without question said yeah okay great let's you know tell me the time somewhere to go and I was preparing to go and do it now she ended up canceling with apologies she got an update from the hospital turned out this relative of hers although apparently badly injured is not gonna die so she's gonna go and visit the person the next few days instead so good news of course and I wrote back to her in Chinese saying in effect you know all teachers are our brothers I just said in Chinese something to the effect that there's a there's a common kinship between all teachers and it was a nice thing to say at the time of course it was quite appropriate because I was saying look if you need my help I'm happy to help you again but of course it's also sad for me to just pause and reflect on that staring into my mobile phone because it's not true it's not true in Western culture and it's not true in my my experience here in Asian culture there's very little kinship this very little cooperation between intellectuals of any kind between people who work in education of any kind and it's it's really sad because the truth is that any given field of studies any given mandate any given mission any given movement like a political movement like the vegan movement what have you you you really rely on cooperation of exactly that kind you rely on a lot of generosity of spirit and without it the field can't progress I can say specifically in education education is unlike other sectors in that you absolutely have to show generosity toward people who don't deserve it you can't just show generosity towards the students that show the most potential or towards your colleagues who show the most potential you have to take the time and make the effort to reach out to and encourage all kinds of people who don't have any potential or who seem not to have any potential you have to make the effort to help people advance in the field of studies again and again only to later be disappointed only to find out that they're going nowhere that they have no potential at all that they have none of the talents necessary or what have you I think it's a discipline I think that's really part of the role of the educator is to do that again and again to be disappointed again and again and not to let that disappointment cloud your judgment not to become bitter not to become shut down not to closed door against a whole future generation of scholars in your field because of the disappointments you've had in the past whether or not whether those disappointments are a dozen or two dozen or two hundred no matter how many times you've been disappointed by the the people in the field you've been you've been trying to help out there was one woman I guess she's still alive but she's not very very elderly Ella pardon me very very elderly skull our coldest Jaclyn philia set and you know when I met her it was really just too late she had so many times had people approached her who want who said ostensibly that they wanted to develop expertise in her field she really worked specifically on hand written poly manuscripts so we say palm leaf manuscripts poly is the most ancient language of Buddhist philosophical tradition these actual manuscripts are normally just in the last few hundred years but they're part of that literary tradition and you know so when I was talking to her I wasn't the first person to say that I was the last but the truth was even from the first conversation to have with her in terms of where had been living what I've been doing and what I could show her on paper of my own work it was very clear I didn't just have potential it wasn't merely a theoretical Talent what I had was actual I really had what it took to be a to be a significant person in that field now that field I mean in her generation she's one of she's one of five people or something maybe even less you know I'm really for her generation she might be the only one the only specialist and that field the only legitimate specialist at least the only one who speaks a European language you know because sure there will be a few experts in Myanmar who don't speak any English are there a few experts in sri lanka maybe just to mention briefly so I was I was scholar of Pali of tera vaada Buddhism and tera vaada Buddhism has the misfortune of not being supported by any wealthy Western countries and not by any wealthy countries within Asia so the situation for scholarship of Japanese Buddhism is very very different from what the situation has been in Sri Lanka or in Myanmar in the last few decades because those have been countries that haven't just been struggling with poverty they've also been struggling with civil war with all that haven't been said when I met philias at she was not too old to help me she wasn't it was perfect timing and I actually moved to Cambodia specifically so that I could learn from her so I could work with her so I could sit down in an archives in a manuscript or ium and do the hard work by hand and I of studying this kinds of manuscripts with her and never happened it wasn't too late it would have been a perfect time for the passing of the torch she had just retired and she was allegedly at the time she said she was gonna retire to Cambodia from France to Cambodia and she could have passed on the accumulated wisdom of her decades of research and just hands-on experience working with that type of Buddhist manuscript hmm and I really was the right guy to receive it my it's not worth describing the background I had at that point but it was too late in another sense because she had already had her heart broken too many times now fili is at had some other strategic disadvantages for example she was crazy but she had been through some situations I can sympathize with where exist for example one point she signed up with some official government of Thailand funded program that provided her with a few students but these students who were paid to be there by the taxpayers of talent they didn't really want to be there it's not what they were about and she explains she described that whole experience to me and then afterwards she said these students all sent her invitations to their weddings and things like that they tried to stay in touch in a polite way none of these people had any interest or any aspiration and ever becoming scholars of Buddhism much less did they have an interest in doing the exceptionally hard work of working on handwritten manuscripts and you know stone carvings texts that are etched into stone carved into stone what everyone is a chiseled into stone I'm lacking for verbs at the moment that kind of you know archive based research is an even more rare specialization within the broader field so you know she had been disappointed with one wave of students after another who had been recruited through crummy government programs or in some cases through library studies programs people who were getting a diploma in library science this kind of thing yeah well they ain't me I really was the right person to become her student and I was deprived of the opportunity because she had her heart broken too many times before I ever got there and philia is that the last thing I ever got was she sent a sweater to my my newborn baby daughter thanks thanks for the sweater Kelly is that but what I needed from you really was not a [ __ ] hand knitted sweater for my daughter my daughter had plenty of sweaters what I really needed for you to do was sit down at a table with me and show that you have a sincere concern about the future of that area of studies I needed you to sit down with me and help me take nothing and nothing and come up with something I need you to advise me on how I could have a future in that area of studies and thus that area studies would have really benefited from having one more person like me in it because when you get into these obscure fields Polly Cree a jib way and right now I'm gonna talk about the honk die each and every intellectual in that field is crucial makes a big positive difference or makes a big negative difference you know and Polly is only unusual it's only unlike the others that I'm mentioning in this video in that in powell you get a lot of fraud you get a lot of people pretending to be experts who aren't but for the most part all those fields it's a long hard road of developing meaningful expertise and putting your mind and heart into trying to sling positive we expertise you've got but this small number of people whether they are university professors or independent scholars whatever they're their road they walk in life it's crucial that they show that kind of generosity toward people who don't deserve it because they may not be able to discern the very few who do deserve it the very few who can take that advice even if it's just a few emails bouncing over who can take that advice and really make something happen right and if they don't if they don't that feel the studies will collapse and you know I just want to say I had that experience I was involved with pally for so many years I I took the time I reached out to and replied to a lot of other aspiring students of pally and I gave them exactly the advice they needed whether it was about university programs or just about the books which books they need to work with which is very hard and very hard question answer for pally just mentioned where they should go and how they should proceed I provided a lot of advice and a lot of time counseling younger scholars in the field when I was getting up towards having 10 years of experience myself and if you don't then the field will collapse the field of study will fail apart from the devastating impacts it may have on the individual scholar so I went through a surreal situation at University of Victoria where there was one professor there whom I talked to at length and again I'm reminded of some remarks from a rapper female rapper who said that she after a certain point in her life she got older as a woman she was no longer day interested in dating man who had potential she was only interested men who could prove that that potential she's only understand something actual not something potential she want to say it that way with all these professors I was able to show I don't have potential I have something actual my potential is proven it's demonstrated there was a professor at University of Victoria and he did buddhism put his studies and he did Sanskrit in particular Sanskrit language very similar to poly and I had written to him emails over many years over several years trying to get something positive going I said written to professors of Buddhism from coast to coast in Canada from the east coast to the west coast including tiny tiny universities like University of Lethbridge ridiculous to talk to everybody and I couldn't find an opportunity anywhere to work my way towards a master's degree yeah which is ultimately one of the most important reasons why I deceased to be a scholar of Buddhism it was devastating for me it's devastating for me and I'm not boasting to say ultimately it is really pretty devastating for the field it's a small field and it is lacking for brilliance money if you I made a huge impact in that field during my years just as an outsider and as a student and there's no doubt in my mind what kind of impact that could have had positively if any of these people lifted a finger and make it possible for me to stay in the field but they didn't anyway this guy he saw my peer-reviewed articles he saw other essays other evidence of my work on languages and again I didn't just do languages languages history politics anthropology fieldwork visiting the Buddhist temples living there in that situation really you know really deep meaningful engagement with the subject matter I could demonstrate going back over many years and this guy he wasn't insulting to me he wasn't he wasn't an ask to me or anything but he just didn't care he just did lift a finger to make anything positive happen and among the evidence that he recognized that was a talent he asked me to peer-review an article for a journal he was formally involved in so I actually peer-reviewed an article form he said hey look I'm part of this journal can you peer review this this is he said this is more in my area of expertise than it is in his which is true and I did I did a good peer review for him I did a you know detailed discussion of what was wrong with an article okay but then he could not be bothered to answer email from me when I'm offering at my really advanced level I'm in my late 30s I'm way more advanced than any 18 year old student in a BA program I'm way more advanced than a 21 year old student applying to go into master's program and I'm writing to him saying look this is who I am this is my background I'm looking for any ma options long term and I'm willing to do a second BA which is extraordinary very very few people go back to get second pay and that wasn't just willing in the abstract I actually did that twice I enrolled in a new BA twice in Canada and that reflects just have terrible the Canadian education system is and I'm I'm getting that second ba now I'm getting in Asian Studies not in Buddhist studies not anything to do with Buddhism that whole part of my career is now over and you know I finally met this guy in in unique and memorable circumstances I want to see him and he was trying to teach a course on Sanskrit I signed up for this course on the computer with no intention of actually taking the course I thought I would just show up sit in the back of the classroom listen to the guy talk for one hour I thought there'd be 40 other students so that would be a normal University classroom and then I'd walk out I thought I just go and see what this class books is supposed to be Sanskrit for Buddhism was like Buddhist you know Buddhist textual Sanskrit a show-up sit there alone I end up running back and forth to the department office they say this must be the wrong room nobody's there not one other student not one professor professor aventure shows up 15 minutes late I'm literally the only student in the room he never reached out to me and he never reached out to anybody and yes that's devastating for me decisions he made had a devastating impact on me personally professionally educationally I I needed one professor somewhere in Canada to just be willing to talk to me through email for the rest of my career to be possible and not even one would do it and it could have been him yeah was devastating we but guess what it's devastating for him also because the reality of the thing is he wanted to teach Sanskrit and he didn't make any effort to cultivate talent to attract new talent to his program and so he didn't have any Talent alright Sanskrit is not like dentistry people want to make money everywhere so if you put up a sign saying you're gonna give people diplomas in dentistry some people are gonna show up right studying Sanskrit studying Pali studying Buddhism even Asians that even politics of Asia because a lot of what I do is political always has been nobody's making any money out of that you've got to reach out and cultivate talent you know for the good your own career for the good of that individual's career but for the good of the field as a whole for the future of the field is crucial right and he never did that so he had an empty classroom and instead of me sitting there and listening to him do a lecture about what the course gonna be it's what I was expecting the first day of this course instead he and I sat down had a face-to-face and I had to say to him I think was unexpected hey I'm that guy I was writing you for years because I used to be a real scholar of Buddhism I used to live in Laos and Cambodia and Sri Lanka I did all this research until that you know I'm that guy who wrote those articles I'm that guy who peer you you were you asked me to peer review an article for you but when I was writing to you you you couldn't even be bothered to to reply when I was writing to you when I was offering to become your student you couldn't lift a finger so my career is over because nobody opened the door for me every single door was slammed in my face so my career at the end and you were one small but crucial part of that story so we had that conversation I don't know I don't know what he got [Laughter] and you know I don't get the sense that he was intimidated by me some professors are some professors are not used to having applicants they're only used to having supplicants they're only used to having 18 year olds who ask questions and who can't answer them some professors are deeply unsettled by having a student who's at a more confident advanced level but that's not my impression this guy my impression this guy is simply indolence he just didn't care he just doesn't see himself as having any ambition to make something happen for himself for his students or for the field and that indolence in the end it destroys the field of study it destroys the lives of individual would be scholars would be students what-have-you and it destroys the whole field and really that's what happened with pally with tera vaada Buddhist studies on a on a pretty big scale worldwide and last several years so making this video now as I mentioned I just had this interesting conversation with another professor where I immediately offered to help her out when she had a relative in the hospital I also just posted this job and I've been offering to help some complete stranger get this job in the university here just out of the goodness of my heart just as a bits v''e and i know how rare that is to people don't seem to do much to help other people these days we said it's a big difference in Western culture and Chinese culture the culture of guanxi and so on and so forth and you know I had another conversation I don't think I have to read it aloud here about the possibility of becoming a scholar of the Hong died now look I don't want to bore you but talking about other languages of study before when I was saying this other professor this professor of Sanskrit and the oppressor of Buddhism but Sanskrit Sanskrit via Buddhism and Buddhism via Sanskrit he should have recognized me as a talent because I already did all this work on poly well I'm talking to another professor lately and for him the fact that I worked on poly is important but it's also important that I worked on northern Lao I lived in Laos for so many years speaking the language and specifically the northern dialects because I was talking to one of the only white men in the world who has a background in the home dye in the indigenous language sure sorry sorry if it sounds racist said one of the only white men I mean he's someone who speaks English as his first language he has a PhD he's a professor he's in a position to really determine the future that whole field of studies there of course there may be other people with expertise who you know have none of those things going for them we can't communicate with you in English who don't have an institutional position who aren't who don't have a PhD and so on if you meet a kindly little old man in a village who could help you with this area of scholars scholarship but he's maybe a farmer anthropologists often have to work very hard to make an educational arrangement out of that kind of scenario but a very very small number of people will actually have salaried positions as professors and will have PhDs and will speak English in a field like this whenever you get an anything like this Kriya jib way mohawk poly to Hong died I mean I've looked at so many fields where it's you know the whole fate of the field rests with a small number of hard-working intellectuals and otherwise maybe there are a few Christian missionaries you know on that and that's a wrap and ultimately the future of whether or not these languages survive the future of these indigenous peoples and their cultures the future of the literature and philosophy itself so much hangs on a small number of intellectuals having the generosity and the discipline to reach out to and help one another for the future that Fela study anyway I wrote to this guy saying and he's as you can fear who he is he's the only I think in this generation he is literally the only english-speaking man who studied dehang die this this language in this area I said to him I am literally one of only three white men living in the Hong long term no I really wasn't expecting much of an effort on your part but I was expecting you to make more of an effort than you have the indolence of people like yourself has long-term consequences for both scholarship in the abstract and for the lives of scholars in particular suppose I should say this guy's met me in person this is not about talking to some 18 year old student who's whose potential is highly hypothetical okay he's met me I've actually handed him copies of my publications on paper he's seen me eye-to-eye in person he's spoken to me for several hours he's heard me tell anecdotes about my research as well as actually seeing my research he's seen evidence of the kind of self discipline and focus I can have in doing language research he should know me enough to trust me - a real extent and again in my case we're not just talking about potential we're talking about something actual we're talking and I've got the demonstrated capacity to make the kind of discipline self-sacrifice needed to contribute to a feeling of death so he should know and I'd written to him now for several months saying hey I'm moving to your area of study and you know I have the background in terms of language history politics so much scholarship have done I really have the background to take advantage of living in de Hong to really work on this language and make a contribution your field of study but what it takes is somebody with a PhD to at least advise me to at least answer my emails to open up a door for me and show me the path ahead at least to at least answer my questions about which books I need to get which dictionaries need to get and I have answered those questions for so many other people when I was helping out other people in in Pali and I would have done it in Korea in a Jib way if I'd been able to stay in that field and I'm still doing it in a sense in in trying to play that positive role for for poly for terrified studies um so I say to him because I am disappointed that he just hasn't shown any interest for several months the indolence of people like yourself has long-term consequences for both scholarship in the abstract and for the lives of scholars in particular when I was studying poly I worked hard as hell to help aspiring students I reach out to supported helped anyone with a shred of potential for the good of the future of this field of study and only a small minority of those people really had a shot at contributing I can say the same but a number of other rarely studied languages that was involved with even Korean a Jib way etc over the years all of them I was involved with much more briefly than I would have chosen to be but the choice was made for me by circumstances beyond my control obviously I've been facing the very real decision as to whether or not I should be learning to Hong died in the past several months you are one of extremely few people who could have at least discussed that decision with me and who could have seriously influenced the short-term and long-term outcomes of this scenario he's the only expert in this field who speaks English he said he's a crucial figure for the future of this this field my prior work in both Pali and lotion are huge advantages for learning died the fact that I now live and work on a university campus where die is taught as a language formerly in the classroom is a huge advantage and yes I now have good enough availability in Chinese my ability to speak Chinese is good enough after an investment of a lot of time money and effort in that language I was in a position to really take on this direction long term and you couldn't be bothered to talk to me by email let alone by telephone etc I think you are to be blunt the only white man I possibly could have talked to about this specialized field and in all your life really do you think you'll ever talk to another english-speaking student who could have in this scenario made the leap to contributing to your field to becoming a scholar in your field just pause I could say the same to that professor of Sanskrit how many years are you gonna wait there at University of Victoria with an empty classroom literally an empty class we had to cancel that class he had to apologize to the supervisor of the department and cancel the class because he didn't have even one student that's a failure that's a black mark on his record and as a failure he's totally responsible for it's totally his fault he's not just destroying my future he's destroying his own future in a very interesting sense he's you know their impacts on all sides here when you fail to have and vision to cultivate talent for the future of the field to reach out to and possibly support you know aspiring scholars aspiring researchers however you want to put it okay it would not have cost you a dime just to care and just to provide advice to me when I crucially needed that advice and I have done that for so many students of pally so I know exactly what it entails and in the message so look guys most of you watch this channel because you know about my engagement with vegan activism there really is a sense in which this background I have in this type of scholarly endeavor is connected to how I approach vegan activism from day one on this channel the way I was reaching out to other channels positively collaboratively cooperatively I said before in education you have to reach out to people positively generously supportively trying to give them guidance and advice and the materials and tools they need to succeed even when they don't have potential even when they squander their potential even when you've been disappointed a dozen times helping one student after another and each one just squanders the opportunity to be given that you you meet the next student with an open heart and an open mind and the detachment and discipline to see them for what they are to see them as a possible talent you can recruit or you can cultivate in the same way when we're talking about this political movement when we're talking about the future of vegan activism I tell you guys again and again meet people with an open heart and an open mind get your heart broken you'll be disappointed you're gonna try to cooperate with people you can try collaborate people you're going to be disappointed again and again keep having your heart broken until there's nothing left to break and have the discipline to go back with an open heart and an open mind and be disappointed again because if you don't you're destroying the future of the movement you're destroying the future to feel this studies and in a subtle way you may not realize it but you are actually under my your own career you're destroying your own potential by failing to promote the potential of others both in politics and in research there's not much that one man can do alone even if it's just a group of five even if it's just a group of 10 dictionaries are never written by one author you know you at least need to build up a critical mass of like-minded intellectuals who can cooperate 5 10 15 whatever it is and the way you're gonna do that it's not gonna be by meeting someone else who's already your equal it's not to be by meeting someone who's already made colleague in contemporary of yours you have to build the future of your own field of study you have to build the future of this movement you have to start with people who are so to speak raw materials who have nothing but ambition and show them the way for them to educate themselves train themselves to get the experience necessary for them to be your colleagues be your contemporaries for them to work for the future of the field of studies for the future of the movement on their own with you and collaboration however the case may be