By heather chaplin, via cathy Davidson
My head is swimming as well. So many wonderings about all of this. Thank you for sharing.
My current thinking...
Having new ways to acknowledge the different interests people have is great. Believing we need that acknowledgement, might be to our demise. Or maybe not a demise, but a delay in getting at what is already available, alluring, brilliant… a quality of life our souls are craving.
There are countless research projects and examples of a credentialing system compromising intrinsic motivation. We live in a culture of consumption and the desire to get in, to fit in. Badges would up the antie in this culture, no doubt, but it tarries our efforts to move beyond that culture, to a gift culture, a culture of trust, where the focus isn’t in earning but in sharing and giving.
The web is modeling and teaching this amazingly well. If a person is to focus on being the best they can be… they can’t hide it. Transparency is a new currency.
When I look up wilderness in Wikipedia – it talks of the human spirit and creativity craving wilderness. Perhaps we just think we can’t experiment in the abstract… because we haven’t been doing it since we were five. We think we find comfort in definition and recognition… but maybe it’s because very few have experienced spaces where they were free to define and structure themselves… no end in mind.. no agenda, other than at the end of the day.. was it awesome, did it matter…
Oscar Wilde’s quote runs through my head daily… most people are other people.
I’m wondering if it’s the proof aspect of our lives, the having to prove ourselves, that drives us to be other people. I’m wondering if we could just decide we value people, period, and go from there, what would we be about doing/being? What brilliance, what quality of life might we see?
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