If you are reporting on the party, then you are not really part of the party.
You are just an amateur journalist with a smartphone.
source: Douglas Rushkoff from The Knowledge Project
Tag: learning
- Theme: Growth
Participating or reporting?
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1–2 minutes - Theme: Growth
Trained to be creative
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1–2 minutesWe are trained since childhood to be users, and by this I mean owners… not necessarily makers or thinkers.
We are prepared by "choice architectures" designed to train us how to be, how to fit pieces together, and how to enact roles. Even "creativity" is an act designed for us, a role we play.To be creative we must see the role, and move beyond it.
- Theme: Self
Participating in our own erasure
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1–2 minutesIt seems a constant erasure of our past is buried under new scribblings.
If we are driftingly content to dismiss our own lived experience (that is to change our memories to fit the new lines or repress the dissident noise) then we are not only shaped by history and culture, but we fortify the very shape that writes us out of existence.
- Theme: Systems
Methods make Followers
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1–2 minutesWe rely on method: we expect results and discovery without needing to understand. Simply follow the rules.
In building the “how to” checklist we democratize complex techniques and knowledge, but do not make innovators. We produce very good followers.
- Theme: Growth
Imperative vs Declarative
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1–2 minutesImperative pointing says “I want that” or “gimme that.”
Declarative pointing says “Let us consider this.”
Interestingly, Chimpanzees can point imperatively, but only humans point declaratively and share their attention of the world. We work together to shape how we see the world.
- Theme: Self
Moment Mori
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1–2 minutesToday I envision myself being killed in a traffic accident during rush hour. My only concerns were that my wife knew that I loved her, and that I had not spent enough time enjoying the rich beauty in nature.
Literally two minutes later I found belly button lint in my actual belly button! It somehow seems profound in a lighthearted way. Is this the first time the navel gazing actually generated a result?
- Theme: Growth
The reward is reality
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1–2 minutes"Attention is rewarded by a knowledge of reality."
To be led away from yourself towards some alien thing is to encounter something independent of your consciousness. You cannot take it over, deny it, or swallow up.
(Quote and paraphrase of Iris Murdoch.)
- Theme: Self
Anachronistic Physicality
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1–2 minutesThe physical buffets the intellectual. Attempting to remain isolated and engaged with itself, the mind is constantly interrupted by reality in the form of the body and objects.
This physicality of external pressures, seeming of the old world as we hurtle into the new, is not a curse to be thwarted. It is our medium by which to filter, process, and exercise concepts into reality. - Theme: Growth
Flexible Systems
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1–2 minutesSystems are good, but if your system doesn’t adapt you are wasting time and energy.
You don’t need to treat a fluff book like a research paper, or a practical guide like a deep novel.
However, with people we should fight the willingness to categorize and treat them in efficient, prescribed ways. By listening we can almost always find value, which enriches us both.
- Theme: Growth
The question is the answer
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1–2 minutesIf the question arises on it’s own: should I do this? Then it is probably the answer. The cue is the context, the question itself is the guide.