QUESTIONS FOR WRITING ONE

I'd like this course to be an exploration of how to accomplish something "insanely great," should you decide to do that.  To do that, you'd need to have some answers to the following:


PERSONAL QUESTIONS:

Who am I? Where do I came from? Where am I (should i be) going? Is my personal history (eg pyschological/ developmental [genetic?]) an influential factor? For better? worse? both? How do I accentuate the positive?

What are my gifts? Where/how should I develop/use my gifts? How can I optimize my creativity/happiness/contribution to the world/field? What is my ultimate goal/dream? Will I need to acquire skills or allies to do that? What/who/how? Who are my heroes who can provide guidance?

Is my writing good enough to pull off my life's work?

Is my family history (multiple generations?) influencing me? Is geography important? (history of block, neighborhood, city, state, region country, hemisphere?) The history of my field?

Is my race, nationality or ethnicity a significant part of who I am/what my options are? Are the barriers/opportunities grounded in the past? how so? Who in the past has faced a struggle/path similar to mine? Can I learn from his or her success/failure?

CREATIVITY/INNOVATION/GENIUS:

What is creativity? Does everyone have it? Is it general or limited to a given domain? Can it be augmented? extended to different domains?

What is genius? are they different from "normal" people? Are they crazy? Why do so many of them have unhappy/chemically altered lives?

GENERAL/WRITING QUESTIONS:

What is good writing? How do I achieve it? Is my process idiosyncratic, and/or can I learn from how others do it? Can I be a good judge of my own writing? while I'm doing it? in retrospect?

Can learning about creativity make me a better writer? Can I use the writing process as a way to investigate how to be creative and then transfer that knowledge/attitude/process to my chosen field/medium?

What is my optimal way to learn?

HISTORY:

Was it a dead or live subject for you in school? When/how? If dead, how could you resustitate it now? If live, how would you like to explore it now?

Does history have value? as a predictor? personally? [a-]"vocation"-ally? professionally? politically? (in its own right, not for any "practical" reason?)

How has/is history being used/abused? Does it matter? why? What could you do about it?