Tag Archives: revolution

rut

Update on some thoughts post-tutorial, which is post-post-lecture.

Whilst I enjoy the lecture-that-is-not on a Tuesday afternoon, I’m beginning to sympathise with my classmates (which is a tale in itself); it does seem a little “stuck”. The last three weeks have covered why we should attend. I’d like a few more exhibits of the why part. Give us the in-lecture debates and discussions, let us bring the symposium to life as it was said to become.

For a learning curve on fast-moving networks and constantly changing media, it seems less “double-loop” revolutionary and more like a broken record-player.

mog out

The Village

Why should I let someone talk at me about uninteresting things when I could be spending that time elsewhere? My room could have been cleaned by now. Or not. Regardless, I’d rather not be here.

“Here” is a lot of places. “Here” is here on my cruelly cold chair, instead of my bed. “Here” is a classroom, instead of outside. Next to the smelly kid at the pub, instead of the beautiful specimen in the gazebo. In Melbourne, instead of home. Alas, it has come to my notice that you mostly cannot choose whether you’re here or there.
As it is, I am mostly “here” in the Village. If a village is what the Village is, then this city is the jungle surrounding, and I am just another feral tribe member in the midst of it all. Not a native but a travelling shaman of some sort, dipping my hands in all sorts of Mogly mischief. Since moving to the new neck of the woods, I have forged strong bonds with my new tribe members and recognise the local rites and rituals that govern us.
For example, the nearby watering hole must be visited religiously each Monday evening. I also follow the ritual of travelling many times per week with like-minded members of other tribes to an elders’ meeting place, so that they may pass on ancient knowledge through song and dance. We will become the new generation of movers and shakers. We will adapt the knowledge to suit the ever-changing, ever-growing jungle. We may lose some shamans along the way; it is a necessary culling, we are told. It allows the rest of us to better spread across the pathways forged and forging.
Back at my village, and even in other places throughout the jungle, my path of choice sometimes feels wrong. Other ferals feel scorn, anger, superiority, even pity, towards it. This unsettles me – did I make a mistake? Should I have chosen a direction more “useful”? I haven’t even had the chance to fully explore the path myself. Then I reaffirm my decision by learning more songs and dances and beating further down the path.
Today’s meeting with the elders was particularly cheering; one elder saw a vision in the fire. He spoke of a revolution to come where the skills we all have been developing could be made use of. We then all danced a dance of joy. It is nice to have someone wise tell you that you’re doing okay. That you’re on the right track, you’re not in the wrong place, your place is here.
That’s swell and all, until the next meeting with other elders. I have a meeting tomorrow that is sure to completely convince me that my life is a shambles and I’d be better off becoming  a wife to one of the Village’s more dominant tribe members. If all meetings with elders were as interesting as the one today, my fellow shamans and I would probably make our way through with boundless enthusiasm. Maybe we would even feel indifferent towards being neither here nor there.

Day in, day out.

by mog