Month: February 2016

learning blind

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

mylearningplan

What could you never learn?

Make a list.

It’s easy to begin with skills and knowledge – we often equate learning to what we know and what we can do. I for instance would find it hard to ski jump.  I don’t like heights, feeling out of control or physically hurting myself, which all seem to me possibilities with ski jumping.

But explore further. Maybe you could never learn to behave a certain way, or to feel certain things?  Maybe you could never learn to be calm? Or to physically strike someone for example?

Maybe you could never learn to believe something or to value something – maybe you could never learn to be envious of material wealth for example? Maybe you could never learn to love red meat?

Maybe you could never learn to be a different person in some way? Maybe being a racist is beyond your learning capability? Or to take a life?

What we are blind to learning tells us a lot.

Be curious.  What does it say about you?

meta to the meta

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

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Meta tags appear on web pages. They aren’t visible to the reader, they contain data describing the page. Data on the data, if you will. ‘Meta’ can also be described as a concept which is itself an abstraction from another concept.

Going ‘meta’ to a situation can also be a self referential place; stepping outside of oneself to observe oneself.

An example might be to ask “What do I think about my thinking?” Or perhaps to explore, “How do you reflect on those reflections about that?”

Sometimes, creating a different physical perspective can help still further. Try this out…

Sit and think about a problem or issue you are currently grappling with. Notice what you’re thinking and feeling as you explore this difficulty.

Now, get up and stand across the room, looking at the original chair or place you were just in. Here you are no longer thinking about the original problem, instead you are considering the thinking about the problem.

Ask yourself “What do I notice about that thinking?”  Ask yourself “What do I think and feel about that thinking and what do I hear in that thinking?”

Notice what comes to mind. Perhaps you think the thinking was a little negative or judgemental? Maybe you notice uncertainty or confusion? Maybe you notice more than one perspective in the thinking – like an internal dialogue? Notice whatever comes to mind?

Now, stand in a third place; another part of the room, still further from the original chair. This time look at the place where you were standing a few moments ago; the second, reflective place. From this new third place, ask yourself “what do I notice, what do I think, how do I feel about that thinking in that place?” The thinking about the thinking, if you will.

Here you may find new insights. New meaning. New significance. New awareness on the original issue… as you go meta to the meta.

 

no touching!

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

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Contactless.

We can now pay for our goods without any actual contact. Payments are made by wafting a piece of plastic, or a mobile phone, next to a reader and money is debited from your account. Not only does the card not have to touch the reader, this is contactless from a human perspective too. No pin keyed in. No signature. You don’t even have to hold the card.

You possibly also enter buildings, maybe at work or at home through a contactless fob waved adjacent to an access pad. Doors open automatically. No human pushing or pulling required.

Driverless cars are now being developed. No human steering, accelerating, braking.

Technologically speaking, it is as if our human contact with the world is being removed, bit by bit.

Sometimes it is easy to forget that the same can be true when we interact with each other. Often without physical or verbal contact we have an impact nonetheless.

Just being near someone can touch their lives.

Contactless.

But not without impact.

 

a new anxiety…

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

unread-mail-number-iphone

I’ve been noticing how modern technology reminds us.

Some of this is helpful, but generally technology reminds us to catch up. Reminds us of what we’ve missed or not done. In this way it unconsciously builds a sense within us of being behind. It gives us an always on reminder; a visual or auditory ‘shove’ to encourage us to catch up.

My inbox tells me how many ‘unread emails’ I have.  It doesn’t tell me how many I’ve read today or how many I’ve responded to, or the hours of effort I have invested in my endless communication with those I interact with. No. Instead it reminds me what I still have to do.

My phone alerts me to ‘missed calls’.  Raising in me a sense that I’ve let someone down or maybe missed an important person or message. It nudges me towards a message, a voicemail the person has left, and then sends me a text in case I ignore the other signals I have been sent. It is like my phone is constantly whispering ‘Come on, come on, keep up’.

Meanwhile all my technology reminds me I have ‘updates’ – even my TV.  I’m always out of date it seems. Missing some vital feature or fix to make me ever more capable, or ever more efficient. Now, my i-phone and i-pad, not only tell me I have updates, but if I say I’m not ready to install them they say ‘shall I remind you later today?’  Nooooo!

The failure. The pressure. The anxiety.

What has happened here?

 

eight out of ten…

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

score photo

How open are you to yourself?

I mean how receptive are you to your truth? How open minded and open hearted are you to who you are, what you stand for, what you are good at, what you are not? How open and receptive are you to your own learning and growth from that place? To what is possible?

If you were to score yourself right now on a scale of 1 to 10, with ten being ‘totally’ and 1 being ‘not at all’, what score would you give yourself?

And what score would you like it to be?
If you scored 7, would you like it to be 9?
5 and want it to be 6?

How might you move your score? What might you do to widen and deepen your awareness and to bring about the movement you seek?

when enough isn’t enough

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

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Information is important. Not having enough, troublesome. Too much?

I once saw an advertisement hoarding at a football match. It named the company and its business then proclaimed ‘find us in the local newspaper’. Now why it wasn’t possible to provide a telephone number or a web address I don’t know, but insufficient information, I suspect earned them little business.

The wall in this supermarket entrance explains to me the meaning of the word ‘reusable’. As a result, I find myself reluctant to shop there. ‘Reusable’ is enough. I judge them for their need to patronise me.

I photographed this image below recently. It made me laugh.

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It was interesting to me that the addition of the tick and cross, the marking of my effort in effect, was the thing that rankled. Equally it gave me no room for alternative, equally erroneous, parking positions or angles. One right, one wrong.

Sometimes enough is a very personal thing. And enough isn’t always enough, especially when it’s too much.

Notice what is missing and what tips you into too much. This is about you, about me, not about the information.

 

bubbly evolution?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

image

There’s a new phenomenon in our world.

The smartphone bubble. It’s a personal space where we get lost. Lost in our own system of connection.

Walking along the streets you can see these people lost in their private bubble.

There are several subtly different forms. The ‘blind communicator’. Here the smartphone ‘bubblist’ meanders in their texting posture, head bent, eyes down, thumbs dancing over the screen. They are oblivious to anyone around them. To the human being walkers dodging them on the pavement, the human being drivers avoiding them as they step into the road in their zombie like torpor – they are communicating through text, and the person 200 miles away matters more than you, stepping aside for their benefit right here, right now.

Then there is the ‘desperate not to miss outer’. These individuals are addicted to their social media stream of ‘news’. These are often one handed bubblists. They use their dominant thumb in an upward or downward stroking motion, browsing their newsfeed; a constantly rolling list of images, messages, videos and news items that, until that moment, they were completely unaware of. But now, this stream of news prevents them from glancing upwards at the real human beings dodging these ‘mustn’t miss out bubblists’ meandering along the streets, through the shops and bumping and bouncing their way through busy thoroughfares.

Then there is the ‘you all need to knowster’. This form of bubblist often has their eyes open and can see the human beings coming. However they insist on sharing their telephone conversation with everyone on the bus, the train, in the restaurant or simply passing in the street. They are hands free. Their conversation deserves to be shared with us all. That’s how important they are. How ‘need to know’the topic is. Meanwhile non-bubblist human beings have to accept that their thinking, reading, private moments are to be disturbed by the ‘need to knowster’s need to share.

Whatever happened to simple respect for another human being?

Come on bubblists, look up, smile, speak, step aside. Open a door for, say hello to… a fellow human being. You once were one.

 

unconsciously patterned

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

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How often do you change what you do?

I don’t mean change job or your career.  I mean change behaviour.

How much of your daily, weekly, monthly routine is just that, routine?

Do you get up at the same time? Wash, dress and eat in the same order? Do you always have a cup of tea? Eat the same things, drink the same juice? Do you go to work the same way, leave at the same time, make the same checks before leaving?  Do you have the same routines on arrival at work? Get a coffee, hang up your coat, switch on your computer, go to your locker…? Do you have lunch at the same time, eat the same choices, go with the same people? Do you leave at the same time, get the same bus or train, have the same routine when you walk through the door at home?

Do you shop the same day of the week? Wash the car or cut the grass Saturday or Sunday? Do you do the washing or ironing on a set day? Do the kids have after school club every Tuesday? Do you go skiing every year, or have a week in the sun?

How often do you deliberately change things?
Do you change more than you don’t?
Do you maintain more than you alter?
What might happen if you changed more?

It’s not that change is intrinsically good or bad, it’s simply that so much of what we do becomes an unconscious pattern, a sloppy given, an unthinking routine. It’s a missed opportunity to experiment, to learn, to improve.