Why Categorise?

One of the problems with organising things from books, to clothes to cupboards to businesses, to schools is the first thing you have to do is put like things together in a category that unites them, this immediately drops the points of difference the uniqueness of each one because, in the case of a book, it becomes a work of fiction or non fiction, a romance or a thriller. But many thrillers are romantic and many romances are thrilling, so already things have become greyer or changed by classification. The more these categories are organised into sub categories the more difficult it is to stay away from making a judgement - this one is better than that one, because everyone wants to read between the lines when you say this one is different to that one. Because many of us care about the way others think of us, it is important to know if I choose this one it will be seen as OK or right or what would be expected of us and the perception of us. I think this is a major flaw in our intelligence system. But how to undesign it and to what purpose? Charles Darwin has given us a legacy of classifications of our surrounding natural life forms, certainly David Attenborough has now put a catalogue of lifeforms on film so we can refer to things we are interested in. Perhaps we can take these natural classifications where it is entirely impossible to say a black widow spider is better or worse than a snow leopard and put those thoughts onto schools and all agree it is entirely impossible to say if one school is better than another at a category level and perhaps parents can really understand that all schools are really different and each school is very special, just like every child we love.

Power?

If you are head to head with someone else, they are right you are right, you have a stalemate, if someone else joins in and says well actually you have a point and they have a point but really i tend to agree with you, your power increases by 2 to 1 - if more people join the discussion and more people tend to agree with you then your power increases and the other person is proved to be wrong just by the weight of numbers. But if through that period things could be unravelled and the rightness of the arguments identified would things be different? let's say each of you is making 5points and 3 of your points are good and 2 of their points are good you win - but why not just dump the bad points and move forward together? The next person joining says well i'll keep those 5 points and drop those 5 points and here are 5 points of my own and after discussion we agree only 1 point is worth keeping... how would that help keep us together rather than drive us apart? Debate.

Social Networks

There is no language. If we say social networks our mind goes to our social life, if we say business network our mind brings up work commitments. There is no language for what we are doing when we are connecting via the electronic world we have built. Like eagle-mail our ideas and thoughts soar to others that want to receive them. We are building a world of thoughtfulness, full of thoughts, we can choose our direction according to our thinking. People can join up according to their philosophy, thought leaders can get followers irrespective of their social life or their business life. I am not a socialite, a socialist, a business woman, an entrepreneur, i am just me, doing me things, saying me things, i am interested in other people who can help me think better, express better, explore better, i am interested in returning the favour and helping them achieve more, in leaving things better, in laughing and crying with people who seem to share common experiences, who are working towards an open, helpful, kind world. So we don't yet have the language to name this thing we are doing, because social networks and business networks don't begin to describe the activity.

Who wants to be a machine?

Am reading Daniel Goleman's book Social Intelligence at the moment, I am engrossed. It is a book I would like to have written. Although I am also frustrated that common sense has to be proven. why can't heart and love be proof enough. Why do we have to have a study to prove that kids who kill are frustrated and that a lack of physical and spiritual playgrounds are contributing to this. I can't wait for us to fast forward to the time when we see straight again when the voice of reason doesn't have to have a roi price tag or be proven in court. Can we not all agree that we want and are willing for a more just society and just get on with the job in hand?

Intelligent Stands

I have taken this from Andrew Weaver's blog, it is better on his, because he has excellent photos. I don't understand how this all works yet, or the etiquette, so hoping i am not contravening any unwritten laws of blogworld by copying and pasting.

Saturday, February 7, 2009
Why Not Take A Stand?

Tippy Toes
Originally uploaded by littlemisspatricia


I've got 10 minutes to write this...

You don't like taking a stand because it may rock the boat. It can create conflict. Everyone may not agree. It's possible that everyone may not like you after you take your stand. It requires you believe in something. Taking a stand means making a decision. It could mean you are wrong. It seems risky. Someone may challenge your stand and that would require you defending your stand, or worse, if they are right you may have to back down from your stand. It is comfortable to remain neutral, indifferent, and undecided.

These are some of the same reasons I don't enjoy taking a stand either. In fact it's the same reasons most people will choose to do nothing.

Four minutes...

Why not stand up? If refusing to stand means doing nothing, then why would you choose to remain neutral, indifferent, or undecided?

The media likes to make a big deal out of "the undecided" vote in the political realm. In my opinion, in life, voting, or anything else "the undecided" don't matter in the long run. The undecided are the ones who will be reluctant to take part. They'll be reluctant to stand up when needed. When it is critical to show up, the undecided will be missing. How can you rely on those who are going to vacillate and are unwilling to make a decision?

Perhaps the bigger question: Why would you choose not take a stand for something you believe in?

Time's up!

Lady Bountiful vs Impatient Revolutionary

Is it worth patching up a dilapidated house - or social system, world order, or whatever you like - when what is really needed is a new one. The L.B. sends a nice bowl of soup to the poor, and then sits back and thinks she's done the whole of her duty. The I.R., with a sneer of 'Palliatives!', rushes off to reorganise the world, and thinks he's doing the whole of his. Personally, I believe they're both wrong. It certainly isn't enough to send soup and then think no more about it: but it equally isn't enough to reform the world (which can't be done in a flash) and leave people in the meanwhile, soupless.

The truth is, some of us are more suited by nature to be Palliators, or Patchers, and others to be Rebuilders; very few have either the time or the temperament to do both jobs. There ought to be some arrangement by which all people who are trying to clear up the current
mess could label themselves either P or R, and guarantee not to interfere with each other's jobs while continuing to get on with their own. That would enable half of them to go on providing the necessary soup until the other half had finished creating the much better world in which charity soup won't be needed.
Jan Struther 1939

Time will Tell

'This dusty and tedious little patch of time - could she safely label it drab and have done with it, or would she find herself one day living through a period so relentlessly subfusc that this present lozenge would seem by contrast gay? Jan Struther

Besides, Mrs Miniver was beginning to feel more than a little weary of exchanging ideas (especially political ones) and of hearing other people exchange theirs. It's all very well, she reflected, when ideas have had time to flower, or at least to bud, so that we can pick them judiciously, present them with a bow, watch them unfold in the warmth of each other's understanding; but there is far too much nowadays of pulling up the wretched little things just to see how they are growing. Half the verbal sprigs we hand each other are nothing but up-ended rootlets, earthy and immature: left longer in the ground they might have come to something, but once they are exposed we seldom manage to replant them. It is largely the fault of the times we live in. Things happen too quickly, crisis follows crisis, the soil of our minds is perpetually disturbed. Each of us, to relieve his feelings, broadcasts his own running commentary on the preposterous and bewildering events of the hour: and this, nowadays, is what passes for conversation.

The Colour Of My Mind

'I've dreamt in my life dreams
that have stayed with me ever after,
and changed my ideas;
they've gone through and through me,
like wine through water,
and altered the colour of my mind'
Emily Bronte

Sometimes I see the colour of another person's mind and my mind floats in its own sea, lays back and enjoys the sheer beauty and wonder of the experience, sometimes i see a colour that i cannot understand or will not blend with mine.

Meeting New People

I met 4 new people yesterday. I saw myself in different ways - i saw myself as helpful, as an interruptive headstrong nuisance, i saw similarity and difference, a couple wanted to see themselves through our eyes, i didn't - why? Will it help me? I feel not - will it help them? No - I met someone very interesting, and someone who i don't like - but i liked enough to listen to and to learn from - i meet quite a few people i don't like, but they are good for me - because i am not so nice either, i don't think i want to be nice necessarily - i used to be nice to everyone - but no - i hope i am helpful to most people, but i am not nice - i am coming further out - onto the ledge of life - just like everyone else, the world is not about being nice, the world is about being kind, honest, straight and most of all fluid - we met, we crossed, we moved on, no grudges, grudges only slow you down, free spirits can't hold grudges. I learnt how to connect and how to move on through.

Imaginal cells

To meet a new race, to find a voice, how full of wonder is the language?
To work within new instructions, how freeing. If we must experience a teserac
In our life, how happy to be an imaginal cell.

The Bottleneck To Freedom

Every year around about this time thousands of girls take a race. A race they have been running all their lives, and all their ancestors' lives, the invisible race that is the human race. The human race, for all its brilliance, is also still very childish and in its infancy. Utopia is a long way away as is freedom, a long way off. We are going through a period of transformation, where everything is upside down, back to front and confusing, we are the caterpillar turning into soup. As he turns to soup all the structures break down, we can only hold our breath and listen for new instructions, listen to what our dna wants us to be, to reform into. some structures will not listen and they will be effluence, they will be washed from the organism on to another life away from the butterfly days. These thousands of girls go through the clumsy hurdling which is from another age and which is the best we have. I am no anarchist, i love the world and i love people, so how could i be, but i do know revolution when i see it. a revolving world where we may be dizzy for a while. These girls, ably pushed and shoved by their parents, who want them to get through the bottleneck into the possible freedom beyond. If they can be the best, can excel then they can take one generation into the next in a different way, in a better way, and yet we all know that bottlenecks are not about flow, they are violent, they stop more than they allow. So we also know that we may not have been able to get into the paradise beyond, the paradise of hard toil, that teases us with her charm and her grace. that paradise may be for others this time around, our genes may not be strong enough, and if one day the rules change and that bottleneck becomes obselete, as the great mechanic in the sky reorders the machine, and sees an error in his beast, then future material, future wonder and glory may not have to be pushed and shoved into the filter system and shredded or harvested in this curious way.