What does it mean to be a member of SpiritEd?

It's not about signing up, or carrying a card in your wallet. It's about the way you choose to encounter life. We have choices all day long to zone out, check out, sleepwalk, etc. Having a choice means there is an alternative, though. It means that you can also engage moment-to-moment. You can tune in on what's going on around you on a tiny scale, and in the big picture. To be a member of SpiritEd is to choose to wake up, hour by hour. To claim your freedom and your responsibility. To question things like common sense, cliché, and ethics. What any person does makes sense to them in the moment if she thinks about it, but is she thinking about it? What kind of life would you have if you lived with spirit, instead of merely responding to other people's expectations? Is it worth it to you to find out?

The "Ed" in SpiritEd is acceptance of the fact that we have already learned how to follow directions from others well--this comes with being a kid! If we want to direct ourselves, especially if it means doing the unexpected or countercultural, we're going to need to learn how. 

I'd been trying to teach myself guitar for a little more than a year using YouTube, apps, sheet music, and sheer determination, and I think I learned 7 or 8 chords. I could play some stuff, but it sounded choppy and it was annoying to practice. I took 6 guitar lessons with a teacher and I was able to play some tunes along with the radio, at normal speed! I had to fix some things about my guitar, and I would've never known it without someone sitting next to me. Honestly, people learn to direct their lives and make choices on their own all the time--this doesn't change the fact that it's easier with someone sitting next to you. 

Want to be a member of SpiritEd? Participate. That's all there is to it. 

First question:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt

What is the most daring thing you have ever tried? Why did you bother with it?