What is your problem?

We had an interesting conversation today. While we struggled to get our hands around an agenda, Afshin asked (quite out of the blue) "What is your problem?"

Took a few minutes to get it. What he was asking me was somethign basic - what were my basic concerns and thoughts about life as I saw it around me. And just to make sure I got the point, he explained what his "problem" in life was (at the moment).
For Afshin, there is not enough fine art for fine art's sake happening in India at the moment. All art he is seeing is function driven. He wonders if Indians ever appreciate beauty in art for its own sake. Of course, we ended up debating the point a bit, before we did a round robin on "what is your problem?"

My problem I'll say ( since I keep coming back to it everytime) is the purpose and nature of education. To sum it quick, I currently believe the purpose of eduction is to enable people to

1. think for themselves,
   
2. observe causes and effects,
   
3. experience, understand and deal with emotions,
   
4. think critically
   
5. take action...

As usual, I got carried away after a while. So we stopped and asked Joya, what is your problem? (I'll let Joya, and then Christie blog about that!)

A refreshingly direct approach, touching the core of our beliefs and research interests ... I liked it. Thanks Afshin!