Sometimes its in the details...

Chris asked the class to do a simple task of inviting people to our learning journals. It turns out this not a simple request to this hairless monkey. I must of eaten enough bananas as a kid 'cause I'm doing laps around this blog trying to find the invite function and function is available that I can find.

Humbling when I feel perfectly comfortable navigating out my door to any destination on land and make sure everyone can follow. The deeper I go into the web, my vision blurs and my brain flattens out due to unseen pressure I can't seem to address. The functions seem to elude my understanding and my eyes fatigue when too much time is spent spinning around and around the web.

I understand why delicious is relevant, it takes and extraordinary amount of effort not to consume a large bottle of fermented beverage to calm nerves and avoid scaring my dog, toddler and cat in that order. The simple truth that I struggle with is where do people have the time to be present on the web as much as they to be effective and influential in this environment?

I must admit for reasons of bias, I am an anarchist, not in the co-opted punkrock, skater sense, but in the original meaning,

'a political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which consider the state, as compulsory government, to be unnecessary, harmful, and/or undesirable, and favors the absence of the state (anarchy).^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

With this in mind, I am aware that structure is often subjective and confining. I have struggled with the notion that this 'new organization of information' was a radical notion from Silicon Valley, actually it made me slightly ill. The source of this virus is the simple fact that much of the videos and blogs I watched owe their ideas to a Chinese Taoist philosopher, Zhuangzi, who lived*(some question about who actually wrote his ideas down and when) 2,400 years ago,

'In general, Zhuangzi's philosophy is mildly skeptical, arguing that life is limited and the amount of things to know is unlimited. To use the limited to pursue the unlimited, he said, was foolish. Our language and cognition in general presuppose a dao to which each of us is committed by our separate past—our paths. Consequently, we should be aware that our most carefully considered conclusions might seem misguided had we experienced a different past. "Our heart-minds are completed along with our bodies." Natural dispositions to behavior combine with acquired ones—including dispositions to use names of things, to approve/disapprove based on those names and to act in accordance to the embodied standards. Thinking about and choosing our next step down our dao or path is conditioned by this unique set of natural acquisitions.'

Among the concepts he put forth was linguistic chaos, such as the creation and definition of words was like the flowing water following gravity where ever the path of least resistance led. What I found interesting was how most of the argument about the need for less hierarchy came from a very centrist point of view. It seems the internet is not staying current with philosophy which has long questioned the underpinnings that the Web 2.0 architects are just now dealing with using Social Media.

Within Social Media, the flattening of organizations, definitions, and dispersal of sources of information opens up an enormous volume of information coming from almost infinite sources, upending the 20th century paradigm of limited media outlets. Needless to say, this gives me hope in the face of other more pressing challenges.

Where I get on the bus in the quest of better understanding is how to approach this new media and what audience it is addressing. What I learned from the reading is no matter what you do be authentic and passionate, otherwise you are just taking up unnecessary room in cyber space. I also appreciate there is now a place where I feel at home without an imposed structure, Amen!