ideas hanging around

G’day to you,

What happens when we question who we are and what we do and why we do it?

A lot.

This year I’ve given up facebook, for one thing.
A simple everyday example of changing something in life after questioning its worth.
I’ve given up facebook and maybe coincidentally I’ve started coming across so many great ideas. Challenging ideas. Thoughtful ideas.
I feel like preaching it or at least sharing it as I sit here in a café in East Brunswick on a Sunday arvo. If café’s are the new temples, and this being Sunday, perhaps this is preaching..?

Some of the ideas?
That the earth is full.
That sharing vulnerability is a true way to find yourself and to unlock creativity.
That schools are killing creativity.
That we each need to face up to our inner shame.
That poems can be powerful.
That both sides of the atheism v. religion sideshow deal in arrogance.
That standardised testing in schools is bad.
That having a go is the best thing you can do.
And many more.

Where to start? I feel like I’ve got volumes to say. I think I’ll post here links to some thought-provoking clips I’ve watched lately.
The earth is full? Well we need about 1½ earths’ worth of resources to sustain the standard of living of currently existing on earth. Given population projections and rising affluence, we’ll soon need more than that. But we don’t have any more than one earth. So the model is doomed to fail. The model built on unlimited economic growth will fail. It’s not a theory. More a statement of fact. So the economic fundamentals are in for a shake-up shortly. There’s no real getting around it. But hopefully we can find a way to house, feed and satisfy 9 billion people on this planet in a sustainable way. It’s possible, but not with the current economic assumptions.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/paul_gilding_the_earth_is_full.html

That’s a nice topic that should resonate with each of us, but is also comfortably distant enough from us to allow us to ignore it. At least for now.

But vulnerability on the other hand, is something to face up to. How do you see vulnerability? As a sign of weakness? What’s your history with vulnerability? Has it been welcomed? Shunned? Expressed? Repressed?
I remember sitting on a flight to Cairns back in 2009, talking with some colleagues about this idea of shared vulnerability as we left Melbourne. By the time we’d landed in Cairns, not only had we agreed on it’s value, we’d shared things and exposed such things that we had become strong friends. Of course. This topic is close to me. Each month I catch up with a great bunch of gentlemen who share things and expose vulnerabilities that inspire.
I can’t explain how valuable it is to have these different outlets for discussing vulnerability. That’s where I’ve found myself to live. That’s where I’m at my best. That’s my thing.
http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html


I thoroughly enjoyed reading Alex Miller’s Lovesong s few months ago. And this passage really grabbed me (p287).
"Looking at John it seemed to her that men are
forever alone. Men, she said to herself, are not like
women. Their aloneness is in their souls. In their
deepest place, men remain solitary all their lives. No
matter how well loved they know themselves to be by a
woman, men are always on their own. We never touch
them in the place of their solitariness. John is alone
now, lying here beside me sleeping. And when he reads
his books, then he is also alone. He looks in those old
dead books for the answer to his own aloneness, seeking
a confirmation of his solitariness in the thoughts of
other men, hoping to hear in their thoughts an echo
of his own deepest aloneness. And when he meets
it, he says to himself with satisfaction, There! I knew
it already. And when he drinks too much wine he
embraces his aloneness as if it were a punishment that
he has deserved. And when he goes out on the Seine
at night with Andre in his boat and they fish together
and share their friendship, then they are alone in their
hearts and they know it and it afflicts them, and they
can't be honest with each other. And their dishonesty
twists their thoughts around each other and around
their friendship and makes them dissatisfied, and they
withdraw into themselves and into their solitariness for
the grain of solace that is there for them. Solitariness is
a man's only truth. And that is the difference between
us and them."

Again I understand the vulnerability and the sharing of that as a thing of strength and of community.

Brené Brown gave us that crackerjack vulnerability talk 18 months ago.
Here she discusses Shame. She talks about not being scared of failure.
And includes Theodore Roosevelt's "man in the arena" quote.
At the 12:00 minute mark. It's a ripper.
http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame.html


As if to underline this learning, confirmed on a flight to Cairns, re-confirmed on the first Wednesday of each month at pubs around the inner north, re-confirmed again via TED talks, during the past months I came across these. Some lines from Brendan Kennelly's poem "The Good."

The good are vulnerable
As any bird in flight,
They do not think of safety,
Are blind to possible extinction
And when most vulnerable
Are most themselves

It made me wonder: who is themself? Truly themselves? Are you? Does it depend on who you’re with? Why? How often do you reveal yourself? How have you learned to be you? Who is the real you? How have you been shaped by society’s expectations of who you should be? Or who you should aspire to be? How did your schooling shape who you are? How were the presence or absence of choices instrumental in shaping you? What choices should we offer to young people today?
What is creativity? How important is it anyway?
All of this becomes really interesting with a couple of young people in your care.
My favourite TED talk is given by Sir Ken Robinson:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Of course our man Ken Robinson would not be much of an advocate of standardized testing in schools, now, would he? We have that in Australia now. The NAPLAN. The myschools website. The insidious creep of management-speak into education outcomes and learning goals. The viewing of children not as members of a community, with brothers, sisters, neighbours, uncles, best friends, dreams, ideas and hopes, but as dots on a curve. The normalizing of students. And woe be you if your child is an outlier on that curve of society’s expectation.
Of course that standarised testing should be a guide only for measuring attendance on the day.
This conversation, both sides of it, is a very hot potato right now.

Outside of school, we’ve had some good old theological discussions lately. There was that rambling Q&A featuring George Pell and Richard Dawkins a few weeks ago. Which I didn’t watch, as I thought the whole spectacle could not advance anything. But subsequently an interesting piece appeared online:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-10/stephens-questions-without-answers-in-the-kingdom-of-whatever/3941740?WT.svl=theDrum

So our day-to-day life goes on.
This year the dance is smooth. S is off to Grade 1 these days. Mondays I’m home with K as CJ works. Tuesdays CJ is home & takes K to afternoon kinder. Wednesdays I’m home & take K to morning kinder. Thursday CJ is home with K. And on Fridays CJ is off to work early while I drop the kids off at school and kinder then go to work. CJ picks them up while I work a bit later. And va voom, it’s the weekend and we get ready to dance again.

It’s a fine life of parenting and sharing and being.
Sibling rivalry, Buddhist approaches to impermanence and living in the moment are all in my mind right now.

To finish – thanks for the ping pong table. It’s Game On.