Marcus Petz and Andrius Kulikauskas are investigating
Can we develop a language for helping each other get what we truly want?
As a related data question, we are collecting examples
What did we get that we truly wanted
and who helped us get that
Grow into a community with that want, embrace that want, and have the right conditions
Andrius: I wanted to free Lithuania. I wrote that aspiration in my senior ambition for our high school year book. Our parents raised us in America to be Lithuanian. We believed that by living our culture alive we were keeping alive our hopes that our country would be free one day of Soviet-occupation, even though we could not imagine how that could happen. I organized for myself the opportunity, and then had the good fortune, to be studying in Lithuania in 1988-1989 and variously contributing to the independence movement, which was successful.
- So I grew into a family that happened to want this, that participated in a diaspora community, that supported a broad movement that crystallized, and that was enabled by geopolitical events.
Andrius: I wanted to learn how to read. I remember leafing through my mother's magazines, trying to decode the meaning. And I remember being alone, by myself, in a cabin up in Big Bear, where I sat with a children's book, and finally figured it out.
- My parents created a loving environment, and valued my learning but didn't push me, and had books around, and basically left me to my own devices.
Navigate a partially supportive environment
Andrius: I wanted to present my philosophy at the World Congress of Philosophy in China and take the opportunity to stay longer and explore the cultural heritage. I had to apply to the Congress and also for EU funding from the Lithuanian Science Council. I had to think through my itinerary, taking the fast train from Beijing to Nanjing and Shanghai, and then stopping back at Confucius's Qufu, the Daoist mountain at Taishan and the Buddhist temples of Jinan. But I had a lot of problems with the Lithuanian bureaucracy.
- I was able to go because of the organizers. And I received some funding from the Lithuanian government, and some bureaucrats, like it or not, helped me get as much as I could, given their resistance at my staying so long. My parents also gave me money to support me on my trip.
Receive approval
Andrius: I wanted to ride my bike to the seashore because I imagined I could do it, and I had never gone for that long, and I would enjoy the sea and the adventure, and summer was ending and I needed to get out before winter came.
- Jere had just provided me funding. I checked with him. But he was very understanding and supportive. I felt he gave me permission.
Delegate broadly
Andrius: I wanted to be student body president. So I asked one cheerleader Debbie and she suggested her friend Heidi be my campaign manager as she needed such activity to put on her college applications. She nominated me at the convention. Carlos agreed to be my assistant campaign manager and he printed 1,000 stickers "Andrew For Pres" that got plastered on all the lockers. Douglas was an older student, I think an undercover policeman, and he wrote my speech. I asked teachers and they let me talk to their classes about my platform, the separation of powers, strengthening the Student Court and Student Congress. And at the cafeteria I would canvas at all the tables, especially where not so popular kids sat, including Mexican immigrants. I won.
- I approached people who were popular or talented to be on my team, who could appeal to the older students, but I also included anybody interested, and sought the votes of those who weren't usually approached.
Andrius: I wanted a choo-choo train...
Andrius: I wanted to build elaborate structures...
Andrius: I wanted to discover regularities...
Andrius: I wanted to be recognized as brilliant...
Andrius: I wanted to apply myself optimally... thus to know everything...
Andrius: I wanted to educate myself...
Andrius: I wanted to be in a class of my own, incomparable...
Andrius: I wanted to think in Lithuanian...
Andrius: I wanted to wake up early in the morning and do my homework...
Andrius: I wanted to get sick...
Andrius: I wanted to be physically stronger...
Andrius: I wanted to lead a chess team...
Andrius: I wanted to go to chess tournaments...
Andrius: I wanted to stay for the summer in Lithuania...
Andrius: I wanted our chess team to play in the US National Championships...
Andrius: I wanted to be a chess expert... and then a chess master...
Andrius: I wanted to complete my senior year of high school...
Andrius: I wanted to be farther from parents, live independently... and be in a Lithuanian environment...
Andrius: I wanted to know something absolutely...
Andrius: I wanted to have a friend...
Andrius: I wanted to transcend segregation...
Andrius: I wanted to stay the summer in Chicago so I could see her...
Andrius: I wanted to define myself...
Andrius: I wanted to create Lithuanian rock songs and publish a cassette...
Andrius: I wanted to study independently my philosophy in Soviet-occupied Lithuania...
Andrius: I wanted my true love to visit me...
Andrius: I wanted to live with my grandmother...
Andrius: I wanted to support myself working part time...
Andrius: I wanted to have a block club...
Andrius: I wanted to hear from God...
Andrius: I wanted to have a way to hear God...
Andrius: I wanted to belong to a gospel choir...
Andrius: I wanted to live in Lithuania...
Andrius: I wanted to be accepted as a local...
Andrius: I wanted to make a living serving independent thinkers...
Andrius: I wanted to live with my friend David...
Andrius: I wanted to travel to India...
Andrius: I wanted to draw...
Andrius: I wanted to do an art show...
Andrius: I wanted to present my philosophy with a video...
Andrius: I wanted to be an artist...
Andrius: I wanted to live amongst the independent thinkers in the Lithuanian countryside...
Andrius: I wanted to marry her...
Andrius: I wanted to see her in Turkey...
Andrius: I wanted to stay in the countryside...
Andrius: I wanted to stay in Lithuania...
Andrius: I wanted to present my philosophy at an academic conference...
Andrius: I wanted to understand God's dance...
Andrius: I wanted to create a video introducing Math 4 Wisdom...
Andrius: I wanted to eat a Livonian treat...
Andrius: I wanted to understand Bott periodicity and how it relates to the divisions of everything...