Tag: unsquirrel

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#Unsquirrel 6: I Come Back Sounding Strange Even To Myself

ThisMuchWeKnow

Travel remains a journey into whatever we can’t explain, or explain away…I know in my own case that a trip has really been successful if I come back sounding strange even to myself; if, in some sense, I never come back at all, but remain up at night unsettled by what I’ve seen. –          Pico Iyer, “The Place Across The Mountains” in Sun After Dark. I am not sure of the ratio, but let’s say it is 1000:1. One thousand pieces of data and knowledge wash over me; but one of those pieces changes something. Maybe not everything – though … Continue reading #Unsquirrel 6: I Come Back Sounding Strange Even To Myself

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#Unsquirrel 5: Frivolity And Boredom

ThisMuchWeKnow

The frivolity and boredom which unsettle the established order, the vague foreboding of something unknown, these are the heralds of approaching change –          Hegel, preface to The Phenomenology of Mind. How many leaders have you met who laugh(ed) at the rise of social business over old-school-tie-who-you-know business, the power of networks over hierarchy? Do you, perchance, find them frivolous and bored, like the Court of Louis XVI? Off with their heads! ←This Much We Know.→ Continue reading #Unsquirrel 5: Frivolity And Boredom

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#Unsquirrel 4: You Say Benevolence, We Say Malevolence

ThisMuchWeKnow

More on Canada’s psyche: Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well-informed about the United States.” –          John Bertlet Brebner Agree. People here in Canada know more about US politics / affairs than they do their own country’s. We pity them. Americans’ ignorance of Canadians means we get away with a lot… ←This Much We Know.→ Continue reading #Unsquirrel 4: You Say Benevolence, We Say Malevolence

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#Unsquirrel 3: Morphing Is The Canadian M.O.

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“Canada is a land of multiple borderlines, psychic, social, and geographic. Canadians live at the interface where opposites clash. We have, therefore, no recognizable identity, and are suspicious of those who think they have.” –          Marshall McLuhan Morphing is [Canada’s] modus operandi…states the anonymous article. Hear, hear. In an age of constant change, such a situation – perhaps, once, a weakness – is a +1. Those with an identifiable identity will increasingly scurry to update their status and bemoan the[ir] stupidity of youth. Newer nations, unencumbered by layer after layer of history – like Canada –  will be ahead of … Continue reading #Unsquirrel 3: Morphing Is The Canadian M.O.

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#Unsquirrel 2: The Fruits Of Idleness

ThisMuchWeKnow

Dang! I should unsquirrel to myself a bit more often. Here I was, on the last day of 2013, writing about flanerie: How could it be that this word, this idea, this approach to life has passed me by all these years?!… it’s a flâneur’s life for me. And yet, all along, squirreled away, hidden, I had this nugget from printed publication unknown, from the German Marxist commentator Walter Benjamin (from The Arcades Project): Basic to flanerie, among other things, is the idea that the fruits of idleness are more precious than the fruits of labour. Amidst the existential angst of … Continue reading #Unsquirrel 2: The Fruits Of Idleness

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#Unsquirrel 1: Concerning Owls

ThisMuchWeKnow

From The Natural History of Iceland (1758):  The entirety of Chapter XLII, “Concerning Owls.” There are no owls of any kind in the whole island. Sometimes, we need to waste a little energy to move forward. Not everything we share MUST add value. This is a huge get over it! requirement for 80%(?) of us. The very act of sharing, of working out loud, of considering “Maybe, just maybe, someone out there in my community might find value from my knowledge, data, content” – this is the critical transition from ‘Who knows?” to “Who knew!” ←This Much We Know.→ Continue reading #Unsquirrel 1: Concerning Owls

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Explicit! I Have A Need To Share… #Unsquirrel

ThisMuchWeKnow

It is maybe not as exciting as it sounds – apologies – but there is a de facto expectation in the new world order of networks and social business that we make explicit our knowledge, that we unsquirrel our thoughts and understanding, that we attempt to reach and join new communities of learning. So, I have been looking through old papers, at scraps of data I saved for some reason – unknown at the time, but meaningful enough to squirrel away – to physically tear out and put in a folder (very c.20, I know). Over the next few days … Continue reading Explicit! I Have A Need To Share… #Unsquirrel