About

Welcome to my home page. For now, I have opted to dedicate this entire website to a part-time social venture of mine that I refer to as an 'Enlightenment Project'. If you have studied the renaissance, you know about the original Enlightenment Project, and yes, I have consciously borrowed the term because it seems to fit. My own 'Enlightenment Project' is an ongoing initiative designed to help teach young people around the world how to think.

The primary tool I have used in my efforts to date is an essay competition. The essay competition asks young people to think about issues or problems that are important to them, and express their thoughts about these issues in writing. In particular, the essay competitions reward young people for presenting ideas that are fresh and often contrarian. Why? Because the Enlightenment Project wants young people around the world to discover the value of thinking for themselves, as opposed to letting others think for them.

Angel's Enlightenment Project is based on the following assumptions and principles:

1. Most major problems facing our planet, be they social, political, or economic, can be traced back to a single source: a failure (on the part of us humans) to THINK well.
   
   
2. As such, the single most significant issue facing the planet today is the widespread inability to THINK
   
   
3. Young people represent the demographic most able and likely to benefit from lessons on HOW to THINK.
   
   
4. Young people (by definition) are perpetually the demographic that will play the most significant role in shaping the future
   
   
5. The primary tool required for 'better THINKING' is rationality, or 'reason'.
   
   
6. Therefore, the single most effective way to help the planet is to teach a young person HOW to think (not WHAT to think)

When a young person learns HOW to think, they can free themselves from limiting beliefs and counter-productive behaviors. Many limiting beliefs exist because young people 'inherit' the life philosophies of their parents or culture at large - instead of using rationality to arrive at their own conclusions about what to value and how to behave. These are often referred to as 'hand-me-down beliefs' or 'Second-hand beliefs'. Some examples of 'hand-me-down beliefs' include :

• The belief that women are second-class citizens and can be thought of as physical property -to be used (abused), bought, and sold at will. The Enlightenment Project would aim to change this kind of belief system by sponsoring essay competitions in countries where the abuse of women is widespread and often unchallenged.
  
  
• The belief that status symbols are a direct measure of self-worth. Using an essay competition, The Enlightenment Project would seek to help children arrive at their own conclusions about how to value themselves, as opposed to allowing culture or mass media to define it for them.

We want young people to discovery the value of questioning everything, no matter how taboo.

It is important to note that the phrase "enlightenment project" is a borrowed term. The original 'Enlightenment Project' began with the Renaissance age and was based on the central idea "that the source of truth and of moral, social, and aesthetic values is to be found not with some external authority, whether sacred, the pope or the clergy, or secular, the emperor or the nobility, but rather within ourselves. "

The primary tool for finding these values was rationality.

Please note: all content on this website is based on my personal opinions and philosophies. If anything about this website is offensive, you can be angry at me but no one else.

Thanks,

-Angel Mehta