When presented with the question of what research topic would I choose if I were guaranteed not to fail, I find that I am at a loss.  Being given that much freedom and a guarantee of success is such an unusual situation that my mind freezes at the prospect...Thinking about this obstacle, I started to wonder about my own desire for knowledge.  What would I actually want to know, and why would I want to know it?  Being guaranteed success means that at the end of the reasearch project, I would have succeeded in gaining the knowledge I wanted, but what knowledge would I want to possess?

Being this puzzled and lost feels like a failing of mine.  Why can't I think and act more effectively when I am presented with a problem with this?  Why don't I understand myself better?  Asking these critical questions is why I decided that, to answer to this week's question, if I were to choose a research project in which I was guaranteed not to fail, then I would choose to research myself.

What can I actually reasearch to help better understand myself?  I should, arguably, know everything there is to know about me, as I am seeing the world through my own eyes.  But, that is what makes the topic difficult.  As said in class, "we are fish studying water".  Taking yourself on as a reasearch topic means that you will have to overcome your individual perception and knowledge to try to understand yourself better.

However, one method to better understand yourself is to examine the lives of others.  Particularly the lives of those close to you, or that have had a large influence on your life, such as your family.  My mother once suggested for me to go and visit with my grandmother and document the history of her life.  My grandmother is Polish, and lived in Poland during the occupation by Germany.  She has lead an interesting life and has a great deal of information about her past and my family.  I would like to think that understanding my family's past might help to understand my present self.  This could be a possible avenue of research for me to undertake...