Fast changing dynamics of societies have always challenged the “real” gems in the crowd. Some of these gems beat the test of time, some go into the shadow – only to be rediscovered later! But gems remain gems!
In the current generation of Know-It-All, finger tip genertion of experts, it is still harder to find who is real and what is real. Given that now knowledge is almost free, saving grace is that expertise still remains an Odyssey!
We accept prodigies in variety of art and science forms. Now we do extend it to “business”. But social reforms and activism is still gets a naive status! We are in a point of time to challenge this aspect too… Advent of social media, voluteerism, ease of access to knowledge/places & true experts, an inquisit traveler can surely take a journey to develop into social activism!
Beauty of this is lies in the impact it creates to bring the balance in the eco-system. These folks act as bridges between generations, They also become reference points for future shifting! But it will be difficult for them to stay closer to reality, be relevant to their time and bring significance to their interest in the helm of globalization!
Major challenge for these folks like Birke Baehr remains, being real in the real world! See how he is trying to convince those raising voices on checking his “realness”!
CONTROVERSY – Alot of people are commenting on YouTube, blogs and other internet places that I didn’t write my TEDx Talk and that my Mom and Dad wrote it for me. This is NOT True!! I wrote it myself, yes, my Mom looked at it and helped with grammar and stuff but no one wrote it for me. You see, I’ve been learning about all of this stuff since I was 8 yrs. old. I saw a post online over my mother’s shoulder about mercury being in HFCS-high fructose corn syrup. I still went to public school then and had learned about mercury in science. I asked my Mom what HFCS was and she told me it was what made sodas sweet. We didn’t usually have soda at home but my parents let us order it at restaurants. ………We ate conventional food although my Mom did cook a lot but she still bought packaged stuff and we even ate fast food. When I started looking into this thing about HFCS I just got more and more curious, and it led me to discover all of the things I talk about in my TEDx Talk. I was the youngest presenter at the TEDxNextGeneration Asheville event and the time they gave me was only 5 minutes, it’s awfully hard to talk about very complicated subjects in a little time, that’s why I used the fish and tomato it was simple and easy to understand. And yes, there was a GMO tomato that had fish DNA in it, it was called the ‘flavr savr’ tomato. It was not taken out of the stores because of it being a GMO but that it just wasn’t any good and the industry wasn’t making any money on it. I have done a ton of research but to say something about every study that I got my info from would have taken away from the time I spent on my message. As I kept on finding out things about food, how it’s grown and how it ends up at our homes, I kept on my parents not to buy food that I just didn’t feel good about eating. Even before I started on all of this my parent’s friends would always say that talking to me was like talking to a little adult. I’m not sure why I am this way, some people say I am an old soul, I think I know what that means but I will leave it up to you for what you think. I am still very much a kid, I pick on my brother and sister. I ride my bike and play outside a lot. I like to play football still when I get the chance. I just wanted to say a little bit about all this stuff. It sure does get under my skin a little bit when people say someone told me to say this stuff or wrote it for me. It makes me wonder about about a lot of things about why people think that kids can’t think or do stuff for themselves. As I learned about things that’s what got me interested in visiting farms and going to workshops and learning what we can do to change. I don’t know about you but I want to live a long time and be real healthy while I’m doing it. I just hope what I’m doing helps others to wake up a little to that thinking too. -Birke Baehr (11 years old, Oct. 2010)
Being curious is the first step in developing a passion. Nurturing the passion leads into an Odyssey. But being “real” in the “real” world requires a lot of effort and contiuous authentication, while not falling in to market forces!
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