I anticipate this trip being a time of great personal growth because of how much I see my world view changing. No matter where I go, I will see poverty on a scale that I would be very unlikely to see anywhere in Canada and I have travelled a fair amount. I have been through Winnipeg and it is certainly a rundown city in parts, but I cannot imagine that even the worst slum in the city is close to the level of those in Africa, India or other developing nations of the world. I will be seeing and in some cases living in these slums and I think this will change me greatly. However, any moment of death culminates in new life being born, like the mythical phoenix from the ashes. Therefore, I think Joseph Schumpeter’s term creative destruction is very applicable.
Joseph Schumpeter was an Austrian economist that moved to the United States in 1932 to escape the Nazism in Germany where he had been teaching. He coined the term creative destruction after Karl Marx’s use of the term in describing how healthy economies would nonetheless encounter times where great amounts of change was underway and through the destruction of established systems came new innovation and thinking. Essentially like the phoenix, a period of destruction would cause new ideas to be accepted into society. Nazism might be a good example of this because after the end of World War One and the amount of financial hardship that Germany endured during the 1930’s came the fascist Nazi movement. Creative destruction can be positive or negative, depending on what is destroyed and why it is. I see myself undergoing a change that leads to positive personal development on Beyond Borders, and indeed I already have. Every year, every month, every day should be a moment of growth and this summer will reflect this attitude.
I will be learning a lot overseas and I think I will be greatly changed because of it. Ideas I might have had in the past will die to be replaced by a global view of the world that will not shove problems that we create in the developed world under the rug, so to speak. That is the outlook I see myself having when I come back, but I will only know when it is over. Until then, I hope to prepare myself as much as I can for the creative destruction that might come to pass.
Until next time,
Conor Brennan
I think I am most proud of you because I see you as someone who is going to launch a career in international development as a result of this exchange. I also think its great that your taking time to do an international exchange because you are in International studies. Living your degree, I would say. I say this because there are ways to get an international studies on a transcript at Waterloo without actually needing an experience to complement it. I wish you well on your placement this Summer and hope you find everything you are looking for.
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Indeed, sometimes it is our "undoing" that is the making of us. Sometimes we have to stop being what we are in order to become what we must be! I have great confidence in your ability to "become"... think about that for a while ;)
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