Category: Education

Is there a sense in which growing up “has” to mean breaking away from what went before? Does identity have to be defined “against” what we wish to be free of? It’s one way of creating boundaries – pushing away from what’s around – but is it the only one?

It’s surely a “natural” way of gaining a greater sense of self: separating from what’s formed us to decide for ourselves how we’ll be. Looking to nature, moving beyond limitations also seems natural – life perhaps “being” this path of preparing others to rise above current levels and meet the future well. In all these ways, it could be natural we push back (Notes One).

Whereas in the past young people might’ve lived more under the wing of their ancestors, looking to them for the model and guidance for how to live, we seem to have turned all that on its head. As opposed to respectful engagement and integration with what went before there’s now a great deal of challenge and criticism. And maybe that’s “right”, in a way; if how we’ve been living was somehow mistaken (Notes Two).

But defining ourselves by rejecting what’s around us also seems quite strange and divisive. Identity’s a funny concept – this place where inner meets outer and something gets created. Our own unique blend of who we feel ourselves to be, formed out of the options society’s currently offering. We pull some bits toward us and push others firmly away, taking our place in reality that way.

It’s where private realities encounter the world and we get drawn into its play with form – a place of labels, assumptions, and all the ways we claim to know who someone “is” from what’s on the outside. A life-consuming game, and not one that everyone’s interested in playing. It can’t be the only way to be human?

The sense of where we stand in life and what life “means” surely matters? Having some idea of what it is to live “well” – what our freedom represents within the bigger picture. Doesn’t that come from what’s passed onto us? All the things previous humans felt were important for further generations; the skills, values, facts and activities deemed essential (Notes Three).

Education must be a fairly crucial process for a thinking species if we’re to successfully pass on that capacity and all it’s gained for us over the years. Isn’t rejection and disrespect for learning – for the people and paths coming before – a strange statement within the “conversation of society”? If, with our words and relationships, we’re forming links in the chain of humanity then what does it mean to break with that process?

How is it we come into life and take our place in the adult world? Isn’t life largely our attitudes to one another, to society and the thinking behind it? Isn’t “that” what we have to engage with, somehow? Anticipating rebellion surely carries a strange sense of contradiction: why impart important truths if they’ll only be discarded?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Complication of being human
Note 1: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 1: What it is to be human
Note 1: Masks we all wear
Note 2: On whose terms?
Note 2: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 2: Old meets new, sharing insight
Note 2: In the deep end…
Note 3: True relationship within society?
Note 3: Knowledge, capacity & understanding
Note 3: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 3: Meaning within it all

How is it that ideas – these little beings from the realm of thought – ever make their way into the world and into our heads? Is it that we find them evidenced around us and, seeing them there, create them within the confines of our mind? Or that we’re told what to think then see life through the lens of received thoughts? Perhaps some blend between the two.

Does it matter? Surely a large part of being human is that we perceive the world with our minds, form thoughts about it, and let them shape how we’re living (Notes One). The way we’re able to discern patterns, find meaning, hold onto ideas and have them inform our choices seems pretty unique. That we communicate our ideas and coordinate ourselves around them seems the whole premise of society.

Understanding the world – forming a thorough and comprehensive sense of what’s contained here – has been the driving force behind much of human activity, particularly in the centuries leading into the present day. This idea of discovering, cataloguing, delving into and systematising all that can be known of “reality” having been the quest that’s pushed civilisation forward to the point we now find ourselves.

All we now know is incredible, really. The human mind has wrapped itself around the globe, digging down and peering up to uncover all there is to be found, examined, picked apart, labelled, and assigned its place within the library of human knowledge. Knowledge now essentially placed at everyone’s fingertips through the instrument of technology (Notes Two).

Everything’s there: the entire wealth of human insight. Discoveries many people dedicated their lives to, if not gave those lives for. Individuals grappled, persisted, persevered, and sometimes risked everything in pursuit of new or deeper understanding. There was perhaps this sense that to be human was to overcome the world with our mind, conquering all there is to be grasped and offering it up for the wider community.

How humans applied themselves in moving beyond their limitations to travel, uncover and understand is a fascinating picture of our collective history. Almost everything must now have its label? It all sits within a body of thought; in the place it’s been assigned. Our words, thoughts and ideas have brought so much to light and into relationship – thinking perhaps echoing reality with all its connections (Notes Three).

To be the humans on the receiving end of such an inheritance is a daunting task. We didn’t earn this. We’re just the latest in a long line of people born into the realities of their time, place and culture. We’ve simply been handed this vast set of ideas, beliefs, theories and the social realities that come along with them. “This” is what those before devoted themselves to: the fruits of their finest endeavours.

What are we to make of being some of the most well-informed humans ever to have existed? How well-prepared are we to handle the immense responsibility of all the power that knowledge imparts to us?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Ways thought adds spin to life
Note 1: Caught in these thoughts
Note 1: Knowledge, capacity & understanding
Note 1: Ideas that tie things together
Note 2: All that’s going on around us
Note 2: Information as a thing, endlessly growing
Note 2: Social starting points for modern ways
Note 2: The difference humanity makes
Note 3: Detaching from the world around us
Note 3: Thoughts of idealism and intolerance
Note 3: The value of a questioning attitude?

Ideas around where we now stand and why it’s not easy were also the subject of Life’s never been simpler…

Youth, in so many ways, must provide us with this foundation of feeling, familiarity, values, skills and patterns of behaviour that we’ll later rely on or, perhaps, fall back on. These base notes of how we are and how we see life. The lessons that, effectively, carry us through our days.

It’s this time of preparation, of planting seeds and honing skills as we revisit, rework, reimagine and stretch out our capacities. The attitudes of mind fostered, modelled or encouraged through it all. So, by the time we’re entering adulthood, we’re hopefully ready to grasp life’s responsibilities, understand its risks, and make of it what we will.

Foundational experiences surely give us our footing for the world we’re to be part of: a sense of ourselves, of others, of how things work and what it all means. This fundamental understanding of the ways things are and where we stand within it all; what matters and doesn’t; how we might spend our time and energy; the things we might choose to invest ourselves in or happily walk away from.

How exactly we go about preparing the young psyche for life in this world is a fascinating question (Notes One). What should be placed there? Of all the timeless and contemporary pearls of wisdom on offer, which do we need? Can we throw in a little of everything, just to be safe, or might that drown out the essential and dilute the message?

In a way, we’re training people in how to see and how to act – how to interpret the world and respond to it. We’re told what things mean, the ideas with which to label everything; labels themselves directing us to see life a certain way. In youth, we’re learning how to engage with life – the thoughts and conclusions with which to think; the basic emotional tone of our existence.

Then things slip into the subconscious, serving us from there without the ongoing trouble of active awareness: times tables, grammar, movement, social ethics, self-esteem all becoming this underlying skeleton of knowledge we build upon and live our lives within. The deep sense of agency, certainty, confidence on which we stand – the mastery of self, surety of our wisdom and worth, and happy integration into social realities.

But it also seems entirely possible we could be primed with uncertainty, doubt and confusion – shaky foundations, mixed messages, an unclear sense of our own value and the importance of human existence. Questions can be buried under the veneer of admirable success, leaving fundamental insecurities within the inner structure of our being. Fear, sadness and anxiety could easily take the place of well-grounded strength.

Establishing a basic muscle-memory for living seems an intriguing idea: how balanced and realistic are we in understanding our place in life? Do we have solid emotional and practical foundations to lean on, later or whenever we need to? Is our imagination filled with helpful, hopeful thoughts about living or are we letting more fearful, powerless images take their place?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Learning to be human
Note 1: Knowledge, capacity & understanding
Note 1: Writings on Education
Note 1: Do we know what we’re doing?
Note 1: What it is to be human

Being human is quite strange. We’re so influenced by environment, by one another, by ideas that might take root in the mind and grow. It’s truly as if “life” in all its forms enfolds us, leaves its mark, then sends us on our way (Notes One). How are we to deal with that?

Because, surely, there’s not “one way” to be human? We’re all so unique and no one narrative can yet encompass the whole world – any story told could be retold from any number of perspectives. Somewhere, maybe, there “is” a story that can handle us all rightly, but for now it’s not seeming so close to being told.

In the meantime, education’s apparently this place of correcting and shoring things up. We all have ideas of what society should be, the people and attributes needed to fill it, and that’s seemingly finding its way into the realm of learning (Notes Two). So many plans, projects and priorities shoehorned into this space, clamouring for attention. All being human, we – perhaps rightly – all have something to say on the matter.

Of course, it makes sense from a planning perspective: models of industry, social structure, and healthy human function all lead us to work back toward childhood to plant our seeds there. Taking current personal or collective struggles as starting points, we deconstruct them to develop theories of “what went wrong” and “how to redress it”.

But do the same conditions ever repeat themselves in life? Are we quite sure our analysis identified all the variables and our conclusions safely encompass all possible individual scenarios? Might we not, with the best intentions, actually be creating a raft of other problems by jumping into things this way?

These are questions without foregone conclusions. We all have “concerns” that truly do matter: we want to help others not experience the difficulties we’ve had, to eradicate suffering or prejudice from society, to have the world filled with more considerate, harmonious, inclusive wisdom. But is this the way to achieve that?

It’s essentially the question of education and what we hope to achieve by it (Notes Three). Now that external knowledge is easily accessible, expending energy memorising limited, ever-changing “facts” is perhaps a misuse of time. Looking to a future where mechanisation will likely outstrip human capacities in any number of fields, what will our lives become?

Maybe modern life’s simply shaking up all it means to be human? Knowing where we’ve come from, paths taken, challenges we’ve overcome and those we still face, seems undeniably valuable though – the sense of keeping in mind this journey from limitation to insight, as we’ve sought the best ways to organise our lives together.

Beyond “fitting into” the world as it is, seeing how and why it came to be that way is surely part of all it means to be human? Understanding enough of where our paths have left us, yet somehow feeling confident enough to pick up those reins to make good decisions for the future.

Notes and References:

Note 1: What it is to be human
Note 1: Personal archaeology
Note 1: The sense of having a worldview
Note 1: The struggle with being alive
Note 2: Do we need meaning?
Note 2: What you’re left with
Note 2: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 2: Different places, different ways
Note 2: Can others join you?
Note 3: The world we’re living in
Note 3: Can we manage all-inclusive honesty?
Note 3: Complication of being human

It’s almost strange how, as humans, we so quickly grow into capable, intelligent, independent beings navigating the undeniably complex world around us with innocent confidence. We come into this world and immediately find ourselves within the weird machinations of modern society, all it offers or forces on us.

Children, in a way, are so trusting: whatever’s around them, they’re curious, accepting, and want to make it theirs. They’re essentially jumping into life, pulling it apart, excited to find what’s here. We submerge ourselves in what’s around us, using it to develop our understanding and discover ourselves.

It’s a given; we accept it and trust it holds meaning. Adults wouldn’t occupy a meaningless world then leave us to navigate it unmediated. We must be “right” to trust that if there’s something we needed to know about all this, then we’d be told. That truth would be conveyed to life’s new members.

Except, what if it’s not? What if we’re mainly living unexamined lives of quiet desperation, to merge the words of Socrates and Thoreau? Ourselves trusting that there’s greater wisdom and concern within society’s modern structures than there might indeed be. What if we’re entrusting our lives mistakenly? (Notes One)

Of course, society isn’t really a choice. There’s not a contract we consciously sign and its terms are effectively a little vague, subject to interpretation, and evolving alongside the battles of society itself (Notes Two). Yet that’s the environment we live within, where we find our options and our meanings.

Which, I suppose, is why we also now live in a world of activism? Seeing the false meanings, the damaging outworking, the flawed application of perhaps fine-sounding theories, people cry out in indignation at the way we – humans – are being treated and the wider fallout of this world we’re creating.

If we’ve lost faith in social structures and those in positions of power, how else are we to respond? If we see money stepping over other ways of valuing “life”, it’s surely right we don’t simply stand by and let that happen. How to go about affecting widespread systemic change isn’t easy to answer.

And adults trusted, too. Isn’t it that wool’s been pulled over almost everyone’s eyes? Coming to see you might’ve been mistaken – let alone deceived – is almost inevitably confronting: it’s this sense of having to admit to flawed judgement, perception, understanding. It’s hard to question yourself on that level (Notes Three).

Where am I going with this? Perhaps, that we’re all, in our own ways, waking up to how the social world around us isn’t what we might’ve believed, hoped, or been told. Some, of course, may have always doubted; others might’ve woven their lives very closely into it.

Questioning reality and your place within it is never going to be easy. Accepting imperfection, discerning deliberate from unintended harm, letting people and systems emerge from a flawed past, surely demands clarity, courage and compassion? Rebuilding around the values we’d hoped were there all along is a big task.

Notes and References:

Note 1: One thing leads to another
Note 1: Trust in technology?
Note 1: Stories that bind us
Note 2: In the deep end…
Note 2: Contracts, social or commercial
Note 2: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 2: “Quest for a Moral Compass”
Note 3: The value of a questioning attitude?
Note 3: Right to question and decide
Note 3: Do we know what we’re doing?

Related to all of this, there’s also The difference humanity makes.

Is it possible to mix up our countries’ educational methods? As if all that’s going on in that realm is in some way separate from the rest of society, something that can be lifted up and transposed elsewhere as with other products and services.

I’ve talked before about education growing out of and within the history, customs and practices of any given society (Notes One). How the task of educating sits within its community, drawing upon the attitudes, knowledge and outlooks surrounding it to form the foundation on which understanding is built and the environment into which that understanding then finds its way.

Any process of education must serve its community: helping people to see where they stand, what’s expected of them, how we came to this point, and the main challenges that society’s facing. It’s perhaps a process of acclimatisation or enlightenment where we’re revealing what’s going on and all that’s gone into it? Handing over that social, cultural and human insight to those who need it.

But then, every community’s experiences and lessons are presumably different? Even within fairly homogeneous societies there must be countless perspectives, interpretations and agendas at work: different ideas around what things mean, how we should act, or what ultimately matters most within our world (Notes Two).

That relationship between what’s taught and the world we’re living in must matter. As do the attitudes with which we approach the task of education and the authority of those imparting it. Do we trust what we hear? Do we respect those within society who’ve decided to spend their lives bringing knowledge and awakening understanding in coming generations? Do we feel that’s an important and worthwhile endeavour?

We seem to live in a time where there’s not a great deal of respect for authority or the opinions of others, which must be problematic for both education and society as a whole. If we don’t trust those handing down humanity’s lessons or value that process of social, generational interchange, where does that leave us as people?

Of course, times change. And I suspect there’s a certain wisdom to the doubt and questioning of authority that’s been seeping into Western society (Notes Three). But still, it’s reshaping things: what does it now mean to step into community and relate yourself to what’s gone before? It often seems we’re losing the capacity or inclination to really listen, to relate respectfully to others.

Back to the point, though. Surely educational systems from, say, Finland or China cannot just be placed into another location. If teaching grows out of social attitudes, realities and experiences then all the countless assumptions and principles underpinning those methods “must” build on the world those involved are living within. Taking aspects elsewhere, inevitably, places them out of context.

Not to say there’s not a great deal we can learn from one another, just that this must be more complicated than simply adopting particular techniques. As with any cross-cultural pollination, understanding how everything relates seems so incredibly important.

Notes and References:

Note 1: The social metaphor of education
Note 1: Respect, rebellion & renovation
Note 1: What we know to pass on
Note 1: Meaning within it all
Note 1: Can we manage all-inclusive honesty?
Note 2: Freedom, what to lean on & who to believe
Note 2: Things change, over time
Note 2: What really matters
Note 3: How important is real life?
Note 3: Interdependency
Note 3: Right to question & decide
Note 3: Making adjustments

Are we repositories for ideas and experiences? Storehouses for all that life, society and the people we meet have placed there. Education, culture, social realities all having played their parts in furnishing that space and attempting to guide its arrangement.

That sense of what we need in order to live well (Notes One). The awareness, understanding, knowledge, capacities, confidence with which we approach life and others. The fullness of that picture, perspectives from which it’s told, and underlying assumptions or expectations that might coat the actual content of our worldview.

It’s often a space of great intention and care: parents, wanting the best, give all they’re able from their understanding of life. Society, too, has vested interests in the parts coming generations will play in its future. But then, other things also get lodged into the receptacle of our minds: lies, partial-truths or careless remarks cast our way that might stick in the psyche. Damage can be done, despite the best intentions (Notes Two).

Life can then become a battle to let go of what doesn’t serve you or might’ve been mistaken from the outset. Those patterns of thinking, reacting, relating that come to define us by shaping all our interactions. Impressions made that might take years to bring to awareness as we seek the psychological certainty from which to discard them.

Youth – and, life itself – can be a place of healing or wounding. We might meet nurturing, balanced, realistic messages that affirm who we truly feel ourselves to be, or find ourselves in a place where everything jars, nothing fits and you’re left with a jumbled mess you could spend a lifetime reworking. Ways life impacts people and ways they, in turn, respond are endlessly fascinating and inspiring.

Because, if the experiences of youth are foundations we build our walls upon then things not being quite right, metaphorically, creates problems we’ll be living with, suffering through, working around, unpicking and rebuilding for years.

What if nothing’s without consequence? If it’s all going to reverberate back around us as people’s ways of being and relating, their sense of peace and agency in life, the feelings they harbour toward others and society itself. Foundational experiences becoming these undercurrents guiding our encounters, the recognition or rejection we all feel, and the countless impacts we’re having (Notes Three).

All this becomes the fabric of our inner lives and outer realities: the views people have of themselves, their value within society, what they have to contribute or overcome. Learning who we are, understanding society, relating to it, managing inwardly, and walking a steady enough path to our goals is perhaps a description of life itself? An integration of self within community.

People being left with mixed messages or contradictory, unhelpful ideas about society and their place within it is a problem both for them and the world around them: social interactions, policing, healthcare, every area of life would presumably be strained. Finding ways to affirm human worth and agency seems a beautiful, complicated challenge.

Notes and References:

Note 1: What we know to pass on
Note 1: The social metaphor of education
Note 1: Meaning within it all
Note 2: Living as an open wound
Note 2: The dignity & power of a human life
Note 2: We’re all vulnerable
Note 3: What if it all means something?
Note 3: Does anything exist in isolation?
Note 3: In the deep end…

Of all the challenges facing modern society, I wonder if one of the biggest might be honesty. Often, it seems we’re inclined to conceal, to hide our motivations, or justify them somehow over and above the interests of others. Personally, socially, politically, economically, on every level it seems telling the truth isn’t easy or commonplace.

So, it’s interesting how, surrounding that, technology now seems to be demanding it of us. Well, perhaps not technology itself, but the uses we’re putting it to and functions it’s serving. The internet, providing both a permanent record and a multifaceted reflection of global interactions, seems to be holding people to new standards of accountability in a world where little tends to stay hidden (see Notes One).

Faced with that interconnected web of information, it’s hard to imagine how anything short of complete awareness and relentless transparency can quite stand up. Which is both daunting and exhilarating. It’s hard to speak when your ideas will likely be met with every possible alternative interpretation or perspective. It’s hard to navigate that space when you don’t know what’s going to be thrown at you or how best to respond; and when those responses might linger forever to haunt you.

Ideally, I suppose, it’s through talking that we bridge the gaps between us? Now we’re in this situation where we can come to hear and understand all these different perspectives, we can begin piecing together that bigger picture to understand how our shared past and present impacts different people and places. This sense of communicating, of sharing what we have in common.

But that’s never easy. Even between a handful of people you’ll likely find almost insurmountable differences. The global impacts of history aren’t going to be easily resolved; countries, and the disparate groupings within them, having taken very different paths, reaching different conclusions and feeling vastly different ways about our one, shared reality.

Within all that, where does honesty lie? Is there going to be a simple path, a dominant narrative that succeeds in squeezing out the others? Or is this going to be a more complicated dialogue where we acknowledge mistakes or consequences, put ourselves in the shoes of those who’ve been affected by conflicting priorities, and somehow reach a degree of compromise that might be considered respectfully ‘honest’?

With this new awareness encompassing us all, we perhaps can’t avoid difficult conversations; but how best to approach them is surely still working itself out (Notes Two). Imagining those realities we’re exposed to through the slightly inhuman medium of technology; stretching our sense of self enough to accommodate the divergent experiences of others; evaluating complicated situations wisely are all huge challenges.

Even more so, then, is how we bring young people into that environment (Notes Three). If we’re sweeping away the complex realities that are becoming increasingly apparent, don’t we risk youth losing trust in our logic and sense of responsibility? Broaching such conversations seems so important in a world where we perhaps can’t avoid the truth.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Does anything exist in isolation?
Note 1: History’s role in modern culture
Note 1: What if it all means something?
Note 2: Value in visible impacts
Note 2: Apparent difficulty in finding a voice
Note 2: Listening, tolerance & communication
Note 2: What’s neutral?
Note 3: Ideas around education & responsibility
Note 3: Mirrors we offer one another

Looking to education, it’s often said we should be drawing out what’s in the person – their unique talents, insights, experiences, concerns. Which, of course, must be an important part of that process. But is it all there is to it?

It’s a comment often arising alongside reflections on the root of the word, educare: to lead, bring out or develop potential. But what’s the picture there? Is it of children living as in a dark cave, needing to be led into the light of day? Is that a picture of ignorance into enlightenment? Or are the child’s capacities metaphorically in that cave, to be coaxed out and strengthened?

Doesn’t the picture we have in mind make a world of difference? It’s this age-old debate between innate capacities and the need for socialisation into the adult realities of environment; which, in practice, leads to compromises as we effectively hedge our bets (see Notes One).

Even if that’s the case, could the answer actually lie in that middle ground anyway? Yes, we bring ourselves with us as we navigate life; but we must also understand how our world came to be as it is. Maybe we need that balance of integration there.

Just as young people aren’t blank slates within some hypothetical environment, there’s a backstory to society. We bring our complexities to life, the product of our formative interpersonal, emotional, and physical development; and likewise, the world we’re in has its complex, imperfect, but valuable past.

Much as education works better if we engage the experiences and interests of each child in the process of learning; surely, we need to honestly unpack the world’s realities? Knowing how we got here: decisions that were made, their foreseen or unforeseeable consequences, the aims in mind, and an impartial appraisal of where things stand must give a surer footing for deciding what’s next? (Notes Two)

At times we seem keen to discount the past; sweep it away and walk forward with what we have. Personally, I’ve always tended to look for meaning: to understand why things happened, what lessons are there to be learnt. But that’s tricky. With an individual or society, the convergence of factors at play is almost impossible to gain certainty over. Yet we all emerge from such a past.

While it might be tempting to just forget that, put it in the ‘too difficult’ pile and get on with the relentless demands of life, what does it mean to do so? To forge on with what we have, working our way into the best spot we can then battling to hold our ground economically, socially, emotionally and psychologically.

What is it to detach from the past? To take the good, forget the bad, and cast aside the intentions, insights and experiences of previous generations. It’s not quite a picture of people emerging into a full, compassionate, yet evaluative understanding of their world; learning to relate authentically, respectfully and considerately to what surrounds them; then working together in making that better.

Notes and references:

Note 1: Education with the future in mind
Note 1: Ideas around education & responsibility
Note 1: The social metaphor of education
Note 2: Able to see what matters?
Note 2: The idea of self reliance
Note 2: Dealing with imperfection
Note 2: Common knowledge

Thoughts around attitudes to the past, among other things, were the subject of Respect, rebellion & renovation.

Do we know what’s important in life? Say, the ten most essential things we really must know? Or even, with regard to any given piece of information, whether it’s important for others to know it as well? Whether each little fact, insight or comment actually counts much at all. We must all carry a lot of baggage in life, a great deal of information and resources of various kinds, but does it even matter?

Diving right in there, we’re clearly inundated with advice. Pretty much as soon as we’re born, and potentially every single day since, we’re being told things: expectations; warnings; instructions; little hard-won pearls of wisdom; random tips about zips; more thorough guidance on how the world works; whole bodies of knowledge imparted through formal learning. All this, and more.

As if everyone’s filtering through all the stuff they’ve been given and chucking a tonne of it at you, just in case. We must do it on a personal level, almost without thinking: all the statements, judgements and choices we make forming this stream of information about how we see life. Then it’s happening in this more coordinated fashion through media, education, government, and entertainment (see Notes One).

It’s fascinating really, this massive intergenerational conversation between all these interested parties. Each one having their own agenda in terms of how they view “you”, the hopes or expectations they have for your existence, and all they plan to achieve through communicating with you in these ways. Then there’s the whole global, instantaneous, commercial edge we now have on top of it all.

What are we supposed to do with that? How are we to discern the essential from the non-essential? If we’re presented with twenty facts and one of them is crucially important – a piece of information that, if we live our life by it, will make everything so much easier – but the other nineteen flashy, appealing ideas dancing round it are almost completely useless, how are we to know?

And if we’re the ones passing on information, how do we compete with a world that’s acting this way? If we’re trying to communicate something that seems really very important and life-changing, but we look around and see this crazy, screaming world of distracting commercial novelty, what can we do? Do we start yelling, or dressing up our ideas so they stand out better?

Of course, we all think ‘our way’ is right and we’re the ones who should be heard. It’s just getting a little overwhelming, both in terms of volume and then what’s apparently ‘required’ to operate effectively in that space (Notes Two). And if this is information to live our lives by – knowledge, advice on well-being, awareness of current affairs – is it not also risky?

Who knows where the answer lies. Possibly with personal discernment in evaluating our own contributions. Maybe in disengaging slightly from channels offering little more than distraction. Perhaps by focussing in on what matters and shifting a calmer conversation to that place?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 1: Able to see what matters?
Note 1: Respect, rebellion & renovation
Note 1: What’s a reasonable response?
Note 2: Concerns over how we’re living
Note 2: The need for discernment
Note 2: Testing times