Distractions Are You

[koganbot]

Tumblr convo among Tom and the Jonathans et al. about a de Botton piece that I haven't read ('cause it's new, and I don't have time).

The division for me isn't between new and old, but between stuff that you all are talking about today on the Web etc. and projects that I pretty much am forced to embark on all alone* (at least initially). So it isn't between new to the world and old to the world but between stuff bouncing up new in my immediate circle (whether new stuff or old, since Jonathan and Tom and Chuck-Scott-George are constantly throwing in my face plenty of items that are old but new to me, or new ideas about stuff that isn't new to me, whatever) and stuff that I'm confronting without the benefit of instant commentary from my buddies.

"Projects" can mean pondering stuff I've known about a long time or can mean seeking out new-to-me info (e.g., just borrowed a selection from Thomas Aquinas from the Denver Public Library) that isn't part of the daily convo. My problem is that embarking alone doesn't give me the immediate gratification that convo with you guys gives me, though if all goes well it will give me something useful to add to the convo in my head, and that may eventually be part of the convo with you guys as well.

*Well, alone with my memories and my thoughts and my knowledge, most of which originated with or was inextricable from other people, obviously.

Comments

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Feeling this, big time. I've felt a little guilty about being so MIA from all of these conversations -- probably more so now than I have been at any other point in the last 5 years. At the same time I see real importance in the new projects and a major part of me is actively searching for ways to build bridges so that I can move back and forth without having to forcefully switch lenses or bodies or consciousnesses.

I feel like I'm in a similar spot, though: though I'm (literally) surrounded by people doing what I'm doing, and having great convos with them in a face to face kind of way, the extended big-picture conversation that I want to be having really isn't there yet in the education theory I'm increasingly immersed in. Which is good for me because I feel like I can slip in the door and really contribute important ideas that, e.g., you (and your friends and our mutual friends, etc.) have internalized but haven't made their way into broader understanding yet. That is, your articulation of the hallway/school split, and its significance, hasn't quite exploded in actual schools, or academic theory about actual schools.

That's a huge part of what I feel I'm doing now, and I'm trying to bring the Great Nomadic Good Conversation I follow and participate in online with me, but it will take time.

Speaking more immediately, could you keep running notes on your individual projects here anyway? Even in a friends-lock capacity where you don't expect a ton of feedback, it might move an inch toward a wider convo, even if those ideas aren't ready for prime time yet. (Friends lock is basic cable at best anyway...)

Also, I'm not sure how much of your individual projects might include reaching back to older conversations left unfinished, but one project I want to really push myself into soon is to dive into the Why Music Sucks "moment" and try to learn from it more directly. I realize that now that I feel well-read generally I need to go back and re-read more carefully. I know even from cursory glances that there are huge ideas that really need revisiting, and I'm not sure what that looks like or where it happens. Right now it seems like I kind of need to return to the kind of "study period" I described in my 2001 overview -- let the words and ideas (and sounds and whatever else) wash over me again and reformulate where I'm at and where I can go from there, and with whom.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Thanks Frank - this is a really useful idea and one I hadn't quite formulated: the social gravity of a conversation already happening against one that might.