TEDxFurmanU, a week later

I told myself that at the end of the series of speakers at this past weekend's TEDxFurmanU, I would sit down and write a blog post about what all happened and how impressed I was with the work that everyone put into creating it.

If you want to get a taste of what everyone had to say about the event as it was happening, please refer to this nifty widget. (I'm afraid these things are going to become a little bit of a cliche around here, but I promise I'll think of new shiny things soon! Also, if this is viewed a good amount of time after time of posting, there may be new tweets not from the 2014 event.)

Tweets about "#TEDxFU"

This year, the theme was "Stories: The Common Thread of Our Humanity". This, of course, meant that the curation team brought storytellers to the Gunter Theatre to speak, but it also meant a much wider range of speakers one wouldn't initially place under the theme. For instance, a Furman student spoke on how to develop one's unique voice, both in writing and in speaking. The Vice President of Liberty in North Korea, an organization concerned with the North Korean people and refugees from the country spoke on how harmful focusing the narrative of NK on "Crazy Kim" cheapened the everyday lives of those living under his regime. Another Furman Student, the author of a fashion blog at Furman, spoke on how clothing and personal style tells a story. A folk musician told stories behind some of his songs then played a few for everyone in the theatre.

Here's a list of the speakers they featured this year. It was actually VERY impressive for any organization, let alone a student-led and student-run one!

A couple of moments have stuck to the back of my head since the event.

One is from a TED video that was beamed in (as per TED's requirements). The video chosen was "A Thousand Times No" by Bahia Shehab, an Egyptian activist. Watch the video below and you'll understand the power of it.



Another moment was when Lisa Cron, author of WIRED FOR STORY. She discussed the evolutionary value of stories. This one line shot me: "Opposable thumbs gave us the ability to hold on, but stories told us what to hold on to." Stories are what gave meaning to our actions and allowed us to develop into the human beings we are today, but they also continue to allow us to reinterpret and reinvent our shared humanity. Cron did a phenomenal job outlining this point, and did it really powerfully.

Finally, hearing a story of forgiveness and acceptance from writer/producer Felicia Pride also made a large impact on me, even now. She talked about how she hated her dad for being a liar, a drug addict, and an absent father. She realized, partially through binge-watching the tv show Shameless, that she needed to contextualize and situate her father within his own story to be able to accept the mistakes he has made. She and her father now share a great relationship, and that's pretty incredible, if you ask me.

It has been five days since I attended the day-long conference, and it's still stuck with me. If there's any indicator that a speaker conference went well, I believe that's it. Bravo, TEDxFurmanU team.