"I love you not for who you are but for who I am with you."
Edward Scissorhands.
This is a declaration of love.
It came to me suddenly as I was drawing diagrams on a piece of paper.
As I was drawing on the paper, I became aware of my deep hybridity.
I am becoming increasingly aware of the hybridity of these spaces, these times, these relations.
From these relations am I born, am I growing, am I I i to die, to live on...
We are become multi-handed, multi-brained, multi-eyed monsters...
How shall we draw this our monster?
He is our shadow...
I am reminded of an earlier post....The Darkness
I am reminded of a Twitter profile, that one of Bonnie Stewart:
"educator, researcher, social media fortune teller - part LEGO, all cyborg."
Cyborg, hybrid monsters...
Capable of monstrosity, of poetry...
I think of how my last month has seen emerging, deepening, unpredictable, complex connections through attachments to those who are become part of a hopeful monster.
Let us embrace our monstrosity, let us have compassion.
I surprised myself writing the word compassion to a student in an email today.
I have no memory of using that word in my work before.
It is a first, a first step.
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
(Philip K Dick)
I was reading 'Five ways work will change in the future."
I am thinking of my co-existence with robots...
I am thinking of my co-existence with corporations...
I am thinking of my co-existence with totalitarian sects...
There is cause for fear.
Cause for hope.
I watched a talk of the Dalai Lama, thanks to connections within the #Workingoutloud group
I fell upon a video, in it the Dalai Lama was talking about ISIS.
I have become familiar with the actions of ISIS via grieving students.
What do we have to lose, all of us who work in education, each and every one of us, in working towards a more hopeful world?
"The twentieth century was a violent one, and more than 200 million people died due to wars and other conflicts. We now see a spillover of the previous century's bloodshed in this century. If we emphasize more on non-violence and harmony, we can herald a new beginning. Unless we make serious attempts to achieve peace, we will continue to see a replay of the mayhem humanity experienced in the 20th century."
"We need a systematic approach to foster humanistic values, of oneness and harmony. If we start doing it now, there is hope that this century will be different from the previous one. It is in everybody's interest. So let us work for peace within our families and society, and not expect help from God, Buddha or the governments."
Dalai Lama
Fellowships of hope.
I think of my diverse, complex, multifaceted friends around the world.
They are helping me to enable those around me to learn, to be enthused, to be valued.
Shall I name those friends?
Shall I give them away by symbols that they cluster around?
#digiwrimo
#clmooc
#rhizo14
#rhizo15
#ccourses
#wolweek
Symbols count.
Tags and banners count.
"The Islamic State’s design of the Muslim profession of faith is different from every other attempt to replicate the prophet’s flag: “No god but God” is scrawled in white across the top and “Mohammed is the Messenger of God” is stacked in black inside a white circle."
ISIS counts.
Lives count.
Deaths count.
Hybrids rising.
Our lives are becoming ever more hopelessly intertwined.
Our lives are becoming ever more hopelessly intertwined with robots...
It is our lot.
What is our purpose here?
Swarm life.
Are we simply to be reduced to worker ants in a datamine?
All signs indicate to me that answers to such questions are inevitably ambiguous, inevitablly hybrid...never fixed.
But at heart of this all, there is a deeper, a much deeper quest.
Metamorphosis.
What sense am I, are we, to give to this our existence?
I am aware of my own essential unimportant importance.
I am given meaning by my friends.
I think for an instant of Hybrid Pedagogy.
Yes.
All learning is necessarily hybrid.
I think of the people that I have met who have compassion.
Then I recognise myself.
We are unfinished monsters....
We are alone, at the mercy of others, helpless...
What is needed my friends is not passion driven learning but compassion driven learning.
"Life is not about creating yourself, it is about finding yourself."
George Bernard Shaw.
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