"Coming home from very lonely places all of us go a little mad; whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen..."--John LeCarre
I'm going to indulge myself a bit on this posting...it is simply a kedging anchor, a symbolic effort to halt the rushing tide of events that have swept me so far away from the joy of creating this blog. It is also a place to haul myself forward again, towards resuming entries.
There is much to catch up on. The work of the Learning Centers has been quite a 'learning experience' for all involved. There is a wealth of stories to tell, information to share, but though a blog for them has been started, the shape of how to tell it is still unclear. So nothing yet has been posted.
It has been a dynamic time, these past several months; a personal venture of cultural exploration--my own as well as Filipino. For all of us, at different times, the journey has felt lonely. The landscape has been unfamiliar, the terrain uneven. Yet, we can see it is a fecund undertaking.
There is much to catch up on. The work of the Learning Centers has been quite a 'learning experience' for all involved. There is a wealth of stories to tell, information to share, but though a blog for them has been started, the shape of how to tell it is still unclear. So nothing yet has been posted.
It has been a dynamic time, these past several months; a personal venture of cultural exploration--my own as well as Filipino. For all of us, at different times, the journey has felt lonely. The landscape has been unfamiliar, the terrain uneven. Yet, we can see it is a fecund undertaking.
Michael Learner wrote in the cumbersomely titled book, SURPLUS POWERLESSNESS:
"To the extent that we become actively engaged in consciously shaping our future, we are simultaneously rejecting the teaching that we have neither the power nor the right to take history in our hands. The experience of making choices in concert with many other people is an experience of the possibility of freedom that dramatically counters all we have learned about the inevitability of our passivity and powerlessness."This past year has been quite pivotal. Intense highs and lows with regards to the work here at the school. But, as 2008 creeps into its final hours I am laughing and will add this one last quote, from F. Scott Fitzgerald:
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."
