Pense-bêtes...

I was just reading Maha Bali's post 'When public out loud is really quietly in private.' and it struck a chord.



I thought about how I find it very difficult to sort out difficult questions or to create projects without littering the floor, table, wall with bits of paper, card, envelope or whatever which I can manipulate.

I thought about how Pinterest was useful for me to see connections between images rather than text of blog posts or other stuff that I want to get a visual over-view on. Here is an example for rhizo 14.

Funny that, I was just reading a blog post here about Pinterest from Terry Elliott just the other day.


I thought about how useful Twitter is for using as a sounding board or as a 'pense-bête' which is a lovely French term for a 'post it'.

I have transformed and extended most of what were bits of envelope into shared tweets, pins, playlists and whatknot.

People in the network who respond, animate, sort, reorientate and add random (for me) elements to objects giving me a different, enriched perspective.

"A random scrap of information can trigger just the right conceptual collision.  It's hard to know which scrap might do the trick, but that's the beauty of social networks - they constantly produce potential sparks for free."

Seth Godin. 

This for me is thinking outside the box, outside the box.

I thought about how useful Storified is for doing what I used to do on the floor (which drives other people mad at home) with bits of paper and objects used as metaphors.

I remember two Storyifys in particular - one I used for Rhizo14  'Making sense of chaos' and the other for a CCourses spontaneous chat mentioned in a previous post In Tribble Valley.

I don't know about how other people experience this but for me these tools are not two dimensional but they spacialise (is that an English word?) units of information.  In other words, I am operating in vastly extended imagined conceptual landscapes.

I thought about doodling.  

A lot of what I spend my time doing is mindless (or should that be mindful?) doodling. I empty my mind and let my wind wander.  I am not sure if this doodling in this blog is public or private. I am far from sure that a 'stream of consciousness' is anything much to do with me.

When I come to read what I have written or drawn I am constantly surprised by what has come out.

I thought about improvising.

I suppose that I am an extroverted introvert, a private person who has absolutely no difficulty playing in public. I recognise myself in much of what Maha has written and in the comments written by the others on her blog.

As I have written elsewhere, I miss improvisation exercise in theatre in which I can amuse myself with surreal context collapses and roles.  I find it very difficult to take anything or anybody seriously for long, it's that child-like restlessness that I have never outgrown.  I suppose this is why I need to write a blog to enable me to be serious differently at times.

This is recreation, a playground.

I don't know about you but here I race around, changing activities, zooming down slides, spinning around roundabouts with friends and then sit around watching the ducks.

I am not really bothered about anybody reading this, any more than I am bothered about you seeing me riding my bike through the park.

Actually, I could let you into a 'private' moment:  I just came back from the park...

This is an outlet for me to be or to act or to write differently when I need to (most of the time.)

(I don't need to bother people who are close to me differently with stuff that they are not bothered about.)

I couldn't possibly manage it if I was tied up doing 'serious' for too long.

Come to think about it, this is much more serious than serious.

Surely what you choose to do freely is much more serious than what you have to do for peanuts?

I thought about learning.

This is one place (this blog) where I do my learning, it's a sort of purgatory for lost souls, ill-formed ideas and fleeting impressions. They hang around here until they get put together in some alternative 'serious' place (hell?).  This explains, I suppose, why these poor ideas, waifs and strays have a hard time here.

Purgatory, bloody purgatory!!

I thought about rhizomatic learning.

I suppose some people might complain about littering streams with junk.
(Well, some people repurpose junk.)

I suppose some people might complain that some of these 'pense-bêtes' are just stupid.
(Well don't read them they are not meant for you, they are private!)

I suppose some people might complain that a sketch is unfinished.
(I always preferred working sketches, to still lives.)

I suppose some people might complain that improvisation is not a play.
(Life is not a rehearsal - what on earth might that mean here?)
(Oh and this is not a performance.) (much)

I suppose some people might complain that this is useless and annoying, repetitive noise.
(Exactly! That is why I have to write it, so that I can have some peace.)

Well I suppose that nature is full of junk which we can ignore.
(Yes, like trees, insects, plastic bags, foreigners...)

I don't do this on purpose.
(It is not an accident though.)

I do this with a purpose.
(Yes! So that I can have peace.)

This is, I suppose is my nature, which I cannot ignore.
(It is like that....sorry.)

That's it, I have got what is private out in the public.
(Now, I am potentially not alone to put up with it.)

I now have a clearer picture of an aspect of my nature.
(I like to sort out thoughts on paper.)

I can take a few steps back and study it.
(It takes time to make sense. And sense changes with time. And then it's too late...)

I shall shut up now.
(At last.)

Phew.
(Phew.)

Peace at last.
(Oh just shut up.)

OK. He who has the last laugh...
(Ha ha)