I'm finished for a while, and return coming Monday (26 February). Please be welcome for reading and commenting, but I promised to myself and my family not to touch the blog for a couple of days. Thanks for understanding.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007
Gnothi seauton (know yourself)
Gnothi seauton
A tribute to Charles Horton Cooley, the inventor of the "looking glass self".
O, thou white bathroom, thy spirit of honesty reigns
When thou invitest sincerely thy guests to denude,
After which many feel vanity slacken its reins,
In thy pure cleanness, with laundry and towels bestrewed.
Look, how the merciless looking-glass mirrors the real,
Look, how the bather distorts it because it is his,
How he will care it, anoint it with perfervid zeal,
Till he is blindfold with selfish and satisfied bliss.
After the bathing the mirror is damped with mist,
The real is enrobed with fresh-washed cloth;
Thou lettest in mercy these untrue enjoyments desist
And swalloweth manfully left-behind broth.
O, thou dear weblog, thy spirit of honesty reigns
When thou invitest sincerely thy guests to denude,
After which many feel vanity slacken its reins,
In thy pure features, with postings and comments bestrewed.
Look, how the merciless screen-glass mirrors the real,
Look, how the blogger distorts it because it is his,
How he designs it, and fills it with perfervid zeal,
Till he is blindfold with selfish and satisfied bliss.
After the session the screen is turned off and shows mist,
The real is enrobed with fresh-washed thought
Thou lettest in mercy these untrue enjoyments desist
And swalloweth manfully ev’rything, anything wrought.
O thou white bathroom, prepared to receive me,
I keep on my clothing, to hide whom I am,
Oil and hot water, let them not deceive me!
(But I am not sure if this stanza will not be a scam).
When thou invitest sincerely thy guests to denude,
After which many feel vanity slacken its reins,
In thy pure cleanness, with laundry and towels bestrewed.
Look, how the merciless looking-glass mirrors the real,
Look, how the bather distorts it because it is his,
How he will care it, anoint it with perfervid zeal,
Till he is blindfold with selfish and satisfied bliss.
After the bathing the mirror is damped with mist,
The real is enrobed with fresh-washed cloth;
Thou lettest in mercy these untrue enjoyments desist
And swalloweth manfully left-behind broth.
O, thou dear weblog, thy spirit of honesty reigns
When thou invitest sincerely thy guests to denude,
After which many feel vanity slacken its reins,
In thy pure features, with postings and comments bestrewed.
Look, how the merciless screen-glass mirrors the real,
Look, how the blogger distorts it because it is his,
How he designs it, and fills it with perfervid zeal,
Till he is blindfold with selfish and satisfied bliss.
After the session the screen is turned off and shows mist,
The real is enrobed with fresh-washed thought
Thou lettest in mercy these untrue enjoyments desist
And swalloweth manfully ev’rything, anything wrought.
O thou white bathroom, prepared to receive me,
I keep on my clothing, to hide whom I am,
Oil and hot water, let them not deceive me!
(But I am not sure if this stanza will not be a scam).
The beauty of decay
This morning it was rather misty, but there was just enough light to make some impressions in the park during my dog-duty. I'm grateful that the local authorities leave blown-down trees on their place instead of tidying up the park constantly.
I must have a better camera.
Mist sieves light
On a fallen tree
Moss, moist and green
In darkness unite.
Decay in dark,
Life in light,
Its rotting bark
Yields its might
Day and night
Alternate
So it is right,
So they create.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Geese, meece, a dog and two ducks
In the park where I often walk with the dog, I meet often peculiar birds, such as the "Ijsvogel" ("common kingfisher"" ), and since a week or three some "zaagbekken"("common merganser"). I only had my mobilephone and these birds hate human company so I couldn't get closer, but a got a nice picture anyway.
Easier to put on a photo are the geese around our school. The building you see is part of our school hotel where students practice for their future work in "real" hotels. This is also a real, 4-star classified hotel, where "real" guests are staying. Being served by students they find often attractive. I wonder if the geese don't make too much noise to wake them up too early. But they are good guardians against possible attacks by our competing school at the othe side of a small river that separates our premises from theirs :-).
Then here we have Menno, cleaning the cage of his 3 meece. Joris, the dog, is taking care that no mouse will escape. The desk and the table I discussed earlier in a post called "father's furniture". Under the desk cover is my computer where I use to blog.Saturday, February 17, 2007
Three billion matches
When we returned from our holiday trip to Denmark I noticed on the dashboard of our car that we had driven more than 3,000 kilometres. For one reason or another I wondered how many millimetres this was. A match’s diameter is about one millimetre, how many matches have to be laid down next to each other in order to obtain this distance? Three billion. A seemingly nonsense question suddenly appears to give insight into the quantity of “one billion”. Three billion is in millimetres twice the distance to North Denmark plus a number of drives in the environment. In the same time, one gets an idea of:
The number of Euro’s the government wants to save in expenses (x billion)
The number of people on earth (8.5 billion)
How rich a billionaire is
The number of stars (suns) in the Galaxy (somewhat more than 100 billion)
The number of years ago that life started to develop on earth (3 billion)
To elaborate on this last point: humanity was developing into existence about one million years ago. Translated into distance in millimetres this is 1 kilometre. This means that returning from Denmark I could see the sign with the name of my village appear alongside the road when our first ancestors walked on the earth. Up to then, during the whole trip to and from Denmark the earth could live perfectly without this natural plague. And what about my own age? This is comparable to the width of the stopping line before the traffic light, as a part of this whole holiday journey.
But what can I do with this information? As a matter of fact: nothing at all, and that is exactly the point: this kind of knowledge should in fact guide my whole behaviour. Almost anything you strive for seems to become totally unimportant when one is aware of one’s little tiny ego. This ego is only big in our own experience. Outside it, it means nothing. It can only cause damage when 8.5 billion nothing-meaning ego’s want to strive for “results” on this small, tiny planet (not even a star) in this Galaxy with its 100 billion stars.
This is what I thought of when I watched a broadcast on TV about a Dutch ex-UN soldier visiting Lebanon. In this broadcast the two big cultural differences between West and East that seem to cause so much conflict and misery in our century, became unintendedly visible: the value attached to individual freedom of the West and the value attached to community loyalty of the East. The soldier was visiting a Lebanese village where he had been during his peace-keeping activities in the eighties. Of course, now he was wearing civilian clothes. I saw how a small group of men ordered the camera crew to stop filming in the streets. The soldier got very angry, because there was no law prohibiting filming in public streets, but a Lebanese man told him: government is far away; here the decisions are taken by our chief. The “chief” appeared to be an elder member of the community, informally endowed with much authority. He also added: “when you were here as a military, we had to obey you, now you have to obey us”. I could imagine that the ex-soldier was outrageous, because this was just the situation he fought for: for giving these men the “freedom” to make their own laws and let each other live in “freedom”. Now they obeyed a local old man and didn’t ask themselves if his wishes were in line with national laws. Although less extreme, it resembled the situation of American “liberators” in Iraq and Somalia. Western politicians think they can achieve a Western state model in Eastern countries. Eastern politicians and clan leaders think they have to challenge Western influence in their countries. The concept of the modern, parliamentary ruled state is a Western phenomenon, intended (roughly speaking) to unite millions of individuals with their own strivings, opinions, situations, etc. Millions of ego’s are thus bound together to preserve everybody’s right to take pictures in streets. This is not what Easterners want, they want a sense of belongingness in everyday life. Exaggerated by big ego’s, both sides try to impose their view on the other side. This, they think, is their very, very important mission. In the West many people think that co-operation is only recommended when we benefit individually from it. In the East people think that individual activities are only important if they sustain and support group values. This way ego’s build caricatures of values that are really worthwhile in themselves. The Lebanese man added: then we obeyed you, now you obey us! He showed his offended ego and his pleasure to take revenge. The soldier got angry because his ego had told him that he had “helped” these people to “return” to free speech and movement-values. How important are we? How to change this battle of the ego’s?
The number of Euro’s the government wants to save in expenses (x billion)
The number of people on earth (8.5 billion)
How rich a billionaire is
The number of stars (suns) in the Galaxy (somewhat more than 100 billion)
The number of years ago that life started to develop on earth (3 billion)
To elaborate on this last point: humanity was developing into existence about one million years ago. Translated into distance in millimetres this is 1 kilometre. This means that returning from Denmark I could see the sign with the name of my village appear alongside the road when our first ancestors walked on the earth. Up to then, during the whole trip to and from Denmark the earth could live perfectly without this natural plague. And what about my own age? This is comparable to the width of the stopping line before the traffic light, as a part of this whole holiday journey.
But what can I do with this information? As a matter of fact: nothing at all, and that is exactly the point: this kind of knowledge should in fact guide my whole behaviour. Almost anything you strive for seems to become totally unimportant when one is aware of one’s little tiny ego. This ego is only big in our own experience. Outside it, it means nothing. It can only cause damage when 8.5 billion nothing-meaning ego’s want to strive for “results” on this small, tiny planet (not even a star) in this Galaxy with its 100 billion stars.
This is what I thought of when I watched a broadcast on TV about a Dutch ex-UN soldier visiting Lebanon. In this broadcast the two big cultural differences between West and East that seem to cause so much conflict and misery in our century, became unintendedly visible: the value attached to individual freedom of the West and the value attached to community loyalty of the East. The soldier was visiting a Lebanese village where he had been during his peace-keeping activities in the eighties. Of course, now he was wearing civilian clothes. I saw how a small group of men ordered the camera crew to stop filming in the streets. The soldier got very angry, because there was no law prohibiting filming in public streets, but a Lebanese man told him: government is far away; here the decisions are taken by our chief. The “chief” appeared to be an elder member of the community, informally endowed with much authority. He also added: “when you were here as a military, we had to obey you, now you have to obey us”. I could imagine that the ex-soldier was outrageous, because this was just the situation he fought for: for giving these men the “freedom” to make their own laws and let each other live in “freedom”. Now they obeyed a local old man and didn’t ask themselves if his wishes were in line with national laws. Although less extreme, it resembled the situation of American “liberators” in Iraq and Somalia. Western politicians think they can achieve a Western state model in Eastern countries. Eastern politicians and clan leaders think they have to challenge Western influence in their countries. The concept of the modern, parliamentary ruled state is a Western phenomenon, intended (roughly speaking) to unite millions of individuals with their own strivings, opinions, situations, etc. Millions of ego’s are thus bound together to preserve everybody’s right to take pictures in streets. This is not what Easterners want, they want a sense of belongingness in everyday life. Exaggerated by big ego’s, both sides try to impose their view on the other side. This, they think, is their very, very important mission. In the West many people think that co-operation is only recommended when we benefit individually from it. In the East people think that individual activities are only important if they sustain and support group values. This way ego’s build caricatures of values that are really worthwhile in themselves. The Lebanese man added: then we obeyed you, now you obey us! He showed his offended ego and his pleasure to take revenge. The soldier got angry because his ego had told him that he had “helped” these people to “return” to free speech and movement-values. How important are we? How to change this battle of the ego’s?
Chewing gum for the mind
Here's some old stuff of May 2004, published in our school magazine CHNtimes (I"m a smoker again):
From the first of January on, I am quitting smoking. I discovered that “quitting smoking” is a process, not an act, not even a non-act. Since I know the effects of tobacco by experience, I always remember and like this effect. So, dear reader, this is why so many ex-smokers are the fiercest propagandists of non-smoking: they are simply jealous and want the smoker to undergo the same tortures as they went through in their non-smoking attempts. Just like converted heathen who wasted their lives with doing what they liked to do. They always preach that you have to live their sober lives, too: in secret, they regret their conversion and want to go back to their previous way of life, but they know that if they do this, they will end up in hell, and that’s what they didn’t know before their conversion.
Anyway, this spiritual battle of mine against the seduction of smoking is fought with the aid of nicotine chewing gum. They allow me to have a normal daily life. I seldom used chewing gum before, and now I‘ve noticed its peculiar features. At first, you think: what for heaven’s sake entered my mouth? Like for instance, that cheap wine I tasted recently: at first the wine feels as if an angel moistens your tongue, but a second later it is overwhelmed by a biting, bitter sour. With chewing gum, it’s the other way around: at first, you feel the urgent need to spit it out, but then you notice the soft and flexible substance and how it moves around in your mouth almost erotically, like… especially if her teeth are freshly brushed and she is a non-smoker. Until the piece of gum gradually becomes a nuisance, or a sense in your mouth that you almost unconsciously maintain because without it you would miss “something”, until somebody tells you how impolite it is to chew in the presence of other people, and you get rid of it until you are alone again for a new, fresh gum. I have to take care that I won’t get addicted to nicotine chewing gum.
The same holds for so many other things, such as theories and concepts. They are chewing gum and tobacco for the mind. At first, you either don’t notice or hate them. Then you have to read or hear them, starting the chewing process. You won’t read them because of curiosity, like you would start an interesting novel or “dirty booklet”, or some reading about your hobby. No, you have to chew, because your job (health) requires it, or you are afraid you can’t keep up with colleagues (non-smokers) or miss career opportunities, etc. But behold, a miracle occurs! After having read for a while, you get interested and eventually you end up as an enthusiastic expert or expert critic. Until after a while you discover that the concept or theory has lost its taste. When you start about it in a conversation or meeting, then you hear people around you sigh and look disinterested, or a roaring laughter bursts out: throw your concept or theory into the nearest bin a.s.a.p. In Dutch there is a word for it referring to chewing: “uitgekauwd” which means literally “chewed out”, “feeble”. It’s also a problem that many theories are launched, and you don’t know in advance what theory or concept will survive, because not all of them get feeble and chewed out, there are a few that persist. Now what I suggest is: I repeat this column after five years (my retirement year is 2009) and see what concepts have survived the chewing process and are still fresh: Values and Norms, Competencies Management, Development Lines, Balanced Score Card, Experience Economy, Portfolio, Own Responsibility, Interculturisation, PBL, CBL, Learning Routes, Identity Concept, Yield Management, Education Renewal, Computer Aided Education, Knowledge Management, Zero Tolerance Approach, POP, 360 Degrees Feedback, SWOT, Training on the Job, Learning Styles, Customer Oriented, Integrated Communications, Implementing Strategies, Target Groups, Market Segmentation, Synergy, Media Inflation, Stakeholders, Self-Review, Project Education, Fair Share, Intra-Organisation Integration, Target Audience Integration, Learner Reports, Short Answer Questions, Girl Power, POS, Cross-Cultural Education, Social Acceptabililty Management, Self Management.
.Examples of concepts and theories that recently got “chewed out”: Total Quality Management (TQM), Management by Objectives (MBO), Organisation Development (OD), Self-managing Teams, Education Renewal, Empowerment, Interdisciplinary Approach, the Learning Organization, Business Re-Engineering, Change Management, Assertiveness Training, Sensitivity Training.
Maybe a solution could be borrowed from the stop-smoking parallel: stop inventing new theories and concepts. But then you will miss really important theories and concepts that survive over time, such as: gravity theory, relativity theory, symbolic interactionism, scholastic theory, game theory, evolution theory, logic, post-modernism, service management, etc. Not inventing new theories and concepts, or ignoring them, would mean shorter study duration, and less staff needed, because we don’t waste time with chewing anymore. Do we want this? Or are we too hooked on theories and concepts?
From the first of January on, I am quitting smoking. I discovered that “quitting smoking” is a process, not an act, not even a non-act. Since I know the effects of tobacco by experience, I always remember and like this effect. So, dear reader, this is why so many ex-smokers are the fiercest propagandists of non-smoking: they are simply jealous and want the smoker to undergo the same tortures as they went through in their non-smoking attempts. Just like converted heathen who wasted their lives with doing what they liked to do. They always preach that you have to live their sober lives, too: in secret, they regret their conversion and want to go back to their previous way of life, but they know that if they do this, they will end up in hell, and that’s what they didn’t know before their conversion.
Anyway, this spiritual battle of mine against the seduction of smoking is fought with the aid of nicotine chewing gum. They allow me to have a normal daily life. I seldom used chewing gum before, and now I‘ve noticed its peculiar features. At first, you think: what for heaven’s sake entered my mouth? Like for instance, that cheap wine I tasted recently: at first the wine feels as if an angel moistens your tongue, but a second later it is overwhelmed by a biting, bitter sour. With chewing gum, it’s the other way around: at first, you feel the urgent need to spit it out, but then you notice the soft and flexible substance and how it moves around in your mouth almost erotically, like… especially if her teeth are freshly brushed and she is a non-smoker. Until the piece of gum gradually becomes a nuisance, or a sense in your mouth that you almost unconsciously maintain because without it you would miss “something”, until somebody tells you how impolite it is to chew in the presence of other people, and you get rid of it until you are alone again for a new, fresh gum. I have to take care that I won’t get addicted to nicotine chewing gum.
The same holds for so many other things, such as theories and concepts. They are chewing gum and tobacco for the mind. At first, you either don’t notice or hate them. Then you have to read or hear them, starting the chewing process. You won’t read them because of curiosity, like you would start an interesting novel or “dirty booklet”, or some reading about your hobby. No, you have to chew, because your job (health) requires it, or you are afraid you can’t keep up with colleagues (non-smokers) or miss career opportunities, etc. But behold, a miracle occurs! After having read for a while, you get interested and eventually you end up as an enthusiastic expert or expert critic. Until after a while you discover that the concept or theory has lost its taste. When you start about it in a conversation or meeting, then you hear people around you sigh and look disinterested, or a roaring laughter bursts out: throw your concept or theory into the nearest bin a.s.a.p. In Dutch there is a word for it referring to chewing: “uitgekauwd” which means literally “chewed out”, “feeble”. It’s also a problem that many theories are launched, and you don’t know in advance what theory or concept will survive, because not all of them get feeble and chewed out, there are a few that persist. Now what I suggest is: I repeat this column after five years (my retirement year is 2009) and see what concepts have survived the chewing process and are still fresh: Values and Norms, Competencies Management, Development Lines, Balanced Score Card, Experience Economy, Portfolio, Own Responsibility, Interculturisation, PBL, CBL, Learning Routes, Identity Concept, Yield Management, Education Renewal, Computer Aided Education, Knowledge Management, Zero Tolerance Approach, POP, 360 Degrees Feedback, SWOT, Training on the Job, Learning Styles, Customer Oriented, Integrated Communications, Implementing Strategies, Target Groups, Market Segmentation, Synergy, Media Inflation, Stakeholders, Self-Review, Project Education, Fair Share, Intra-Organisation Integration, Target Audience Integration, Learner Reports, Short Answer Questions, Girl Power, POS, Cross-Cultural Education, Social Acceptabililty Management, Self Management.
.Examples of concepts and theories that recently got “chewed out”: Total Quality Management (TQM), Management by Objectives (MBO), Organisation Development (OD), Self-managing Teams, Education Renewal, Empowerment, Interdisciplinary Approach, the Learning Organization, Business Re-Engineering, Change Management, Assertiveness Training, Sensitivity Training.
Maybe a solution could be borrowed from the stop-smoking parallel: stop inventing new theories and concepts. But then you will miss really important theories and concepts that survive over time, such as: gravity theory, relativity theory, symbolic interactionism, scholastic theory, game theory, evolution theory, logic, post-modernism, service management, etc. Not inventing new theories and concepts, or ignoring them, would mean shorter study duration, and less staff needed, because we don’t waste time with chewing anymore. Do we want this? Or are we too hooked on theories and concepts?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
