Reply to: RE>Emergent Learning LO1973
To Doug Seeley, about the "great turn-on of this list"
Doug, thanks for responding to all of us in your thoughtful piece. There
was something delightful about how you really wove so many people into one
reply posting. Very humane, sending questions back, giving us the sense
in your questions to us that you care for our thoughts and wish to
continue a dialog.
So, I wish to take a moment to continue your observations on the very
phenomenon of this list and others like it. When I see someone responding
to my own thoughts, I feel a very strong--and deep--sense of
accomplishment, pride, communication. I also feel like a little boy whose
words someone is listening to.
My feeling is different from face-to-face interchange or dialog. Is this
because we are typing, because we are in black and white? The somewhat
stretched linguistic irony here is that we are "taken at face value" when
we contribute a posting!
And our roles as change agents in our organizations? Informal
communication and dialog play a critical role in my way of thinking. How
that informality is achieved or fostered (albeit passively if it is to be
"informal") is a greater question. I'm not taking about colloquia,
workshops or the like, but about being stretched on the grass, or sitting
on a bench, or briskly striding at noontime, or meeting by a post board.
In the meantime, I am honored in my heart to be able to participate in
this list; touched that others read and reply; moved that even in this
"still-frame" dialog, we synthesize new, personal observations which
assist our living. My deep thanks to you all.
A secret turning in us
makes the universe turn.
Head unaware of feet,
and feet head. Neither cares.
They keep turning.
-Rumi
-- Barry Mallis bmallis@markem.com