Straightjacket

There are days when I ask myself why conduct a learning journey online, when I can write to documents on my computer and then have a small collection of connections that are linked to me by email. These are days when I have not slept well and make decisions on the back of insufficient rest. This morning I charged ahead with writing two posts. The first was a spontaneous response to Pascal Derrien's comment thread, which was fine, and then as time was running out in the wee hours of the morning, I put together a buzz called "The Real Evan Almighty" which was a blitzkrieg gathering and thoughts about one of the Snapchat founders.

When I returned home in the afternoon, I opened up both pieces but I was shocked with what I had churned out for "Evan Almighty" - first the opening was a sidetrack about Milo, a digression that had no place in the buzz and then the stream of consciousness was all over the place, and gut reactive thoughts were littered in a pray and spray way - some of which even I had trouble remembering what I was actually thinking. It was by far the worst buzz I had ever written and it required extensive editing in the afternoon. This is one way of putting myself in a straightjacket. The diffference between me and Harry Houdini is Houdini could get out of his straightjacket as a novelty act, but I need to keep my mind returning to the purpose of being here, which is learning. Otherwise this is a fools errand on my part.

There is another straightjacket which is not of one's own making but a social straightjacket. Here is where early morning breakfast coupled with having HBO on and watching Bill Maher interview Milo. Maher was in full control of the interview and shock jock Milo was nothing like his stage persona. The interview is available on youtube : Now with that video running through my head and in researching Evan Spiegel, and surprised by some personal email leaks that were as shock jock as Milo is - I began furiously connecting pieces for my Orange Learning Hive. This social straightjacket is the danger of multi-tasking and not being focused on one piece of learning at a time. It was Dean Owen who had a few days ago introduced me to some alt-right speeches made by Milo, and they were disorientating when I first watched them. In the Bill Maher interview Milo called himself a "virtual troll" and yet still argued for debate, but the main point was that he was deliberating baiting liberals and enjoying them taking the bait. I actually did take the bait a little bit, because listening to him did distract my focus, not much but sufficient not to concentrate as well as I should.

Yet what bothered me about Milo was not Milo, but a culture that seeks dirt more than it seeks value and the reason people like Milo succeed is because social media is full of these new collection points and when we encounter them, that is a huge social straightjacket. By the time I had his number and saw how effectively Bill Maher managed him, I had led my mind down two paths, when purpose needed focus. Now there is learning to be had in this confusion, so sometimes finding oneself in a straightjacket may actually be a blessing in disguise, but if it is avoidable, it is better not to get caught in one. When my mind is like this I need an antidote :

This antidote is ironically found in the same way we lose ourselves in media. It is there but we need to take our mentall straightjacket off before we can find the less which is way more. Imagine finding a link on you-tube where even the comments sound sensible, this is the road less travelled but the road one finds when the media does not take us to the shock jock drain.

The net result of today's happenings leaves me at this retiring hour - or at least sufficiently comfortable in the bedroom to engage in some last hour thinking - though experts do say that we should ensure we trigger sleep connections with bed rather than use our laptops in bed. That loss of sleep of course then is the very straightjacket that reared itself in earlier on in the morning. The only Houdini tip I have been reminded of today is the golden adage

Less is More.

I suppose it is a good piece of learning to see when my learning journey has derailed a bit.

Straightjacket

Less is More.

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