Dear Organlearners,
Vana Prewitt <vprewitt@bellsouth.net> writes:
>As a winter solstice blessing on us all, I'd like to try this
>experiment of listing the qualities of those who have
>mentored us, with the intent that we will remember and
>demonstrate these qualities during the next year.
Greetings Vana,
Thank you for reminding us once again of those qualities. We need to
contemplate these qualities continually in order to make sure that we
remain on the path of learning.
Such lists have been reported in educational literature as a result
of questionaires. But your list has a quality between the lines which
do not occur in those lists. Your list has been the result of a
spontaneous articulation, not an artificial prodding with a
questionaire.
>This quite naturally makes me think of people who are
>worth emulating, people who -- by their very nature --
>represent the qualities I wish I had been born with and
>will always strive to imitate.
I have a shocking statement for all of you. No person has ever been
borne with those qualities. It is like wishing for a seedling, when it
germinates, to already have the flowers which it will have as a mature
plant. Those qualities have to be borne within us as we grow older. In
other words, those qualities have to emerge spiritually just as we
have emerged physicially by birth.
I have another shocking statement for all of you. No emergence can
ever qualify as an imitation. Just think of it -- when a baby has been
born, its mother says: " Aha, my newest imitation".
Vana, please accept it that I did not try to make a fool out of you. I
rather sense in your last quoted sentence an intense desire to
articulate your tacit knowledge. By saying that you wish you had been
borne with those qualities, you actually acknowledge that the
emergence of these qualities do not happen automatically. In fact,
every emergence is a highly contingent event. By saying that you will
strive to imitate these qualities, you actually acknowledge that you
will discover step by step these contingencies just as an imitator has
to master every act of the original creator.
It is merely how I observe how you are trying to articulate your tacit
knwledge. You may actually be doing something completely different. I
will only know for sure what is the case if we can learn through
dialog.
Best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>