Below will be an outline of multiple topics that I feel very fortunate enough to have knowledge about to convey in this informative essay.
Philosophy - I could write a view of philosophy from my readers on different authors over the time from the historic Socrates to the modern day philosophers like Kant, Mill, Sartre or Foucault. It'd be interesting to try and explain so many different aspects of such a diverse topic but may be a bit much for a 1000 word essay. This may also overlap too much with my personal essay so I'll probably skip over on this topic.
Cosmology - I've been reading and watching a lot of things as of late related to Space and the Universe so I would love to try and explain what I've learned personally. I would write about the extraordinary frozen methane lakes on Titan or the frozen water that clouds Enceladus. I could go further and do a bit on Black holes and their mystery but also expound on their seductive distortion of the laws of physics. I could explain how Nebulas are light years long, stretching out across the sky, acting as a massive forge producing stars for the galaxies. I could do a little write up on how our sun will burn out in the future and turn into this giant of a star then a nebula itself. I could write how the Andromeda galaxy is on par for a collision course with the Milky Way and the billions of stars and planets in each of the galaxies will pass seamlessly through each other. This is probably one of the leading topics I'd love to write about.
Geopolitical Issues of China - This sounds extremely boring but I found it interesting how China developed from this isolationist, Japanese occupied territory in the 40s to a modern day economic powerhouse. I read On China by Henry Kissinger a couple years ago and while I despise the man, he sure can write. Of course, I wouldn't write about the evolution of Chinese politics from their Heavenly Kingdom days but the interest in Mao Zhedong and Lin Biao and how they developed early China using policies such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Then after purging and stabilizing their inner policies, they let Nixon and Kissinger into the country and opened it up for such amazing opportunities that developed the country to owning 1.2 trillion USD of our debt. They also turned into this investing machine in third world countries as of late selling military equipment and economic equipment to African states and Pakistan. They also carved out their own little power sphere, akin to NATO, called Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with the Russians. This would probably be the second most boring after the philosophy topic.
Middle Eastern Turmoils - As Syria is a hot topic, the Middle East would be something riveting to write about beginning from the 50s when Israel was formed through the Reagan-Era to funding Iraq which ended up biting us in the ass later on in the future. We were involved in overthrowing Iran's democratically elected government which put it on the path to putting the Khomeini in charge as of today. We gave the chemical weapons to Hussein which he in turn used in the Iran-Iraq war which gave us a reason to invade...quite questionable if you ask me. Saudi Princes and Americans were involved with funding Al Qaeda in it's infancy and some kept supporting them up until 9/11. It's very interesting to see how American meddling caused these affairs but the Russians also had a hand through the Cold War and afterwards up until now (supporting the Assad Regime, etc) but in turn, we did support Mubarak in Egypt.
So, what do you think I should write about that won't put you (Mr. Lister) to sleep within the first 300 words?
The philosophy paper would be super interesting to read, but you'd be writing a Master's thesis to properly inform readers on all of that. Perhaps if you were passionate enough, you could tackle a single topic or philosopher.
ReplyDeleteI'm not much of a science guy, but the way you described some of the topics under cosmology makes me want to read more.
The Chinese topic could be interesting, but I think there's again a LOT there to cover. You'd maybe be better off historically looking at the middle eastern topic. Then again, there is a LOT there, too. You could focus on one country, but there are things that might weave from one country to another.
I'm really torn. I'm pretty interested to see what you do with this topic in general. This type of essay seems very well suited for you. Either of the first two broad topics, parsed down, might be the most exciting for me to read.