WE/YOU/I
Thoughts on the everyday politics of group work
If we must work to play this project is my kind of game - we discussed the idea of the 'i' vs the 'we' and it got me thinking about this project pertaining to the 'we'. We are within the individually driven educational system that pits us against one another, encouraging competition and providing society with individuals fit for a capitalist system.
Group work can take us away from that. Especially this group.
Your minds and thoughts are making me think. Hard. And I love it. Perhaps this is the alternate side of this vast project. This group has made me feel allllllll kinds of emotion; happy, inspired, angry, frustrated, motivated, challenged. The diversity of human emotion is worth celebrating, no one emotion is more valid or useful than the rest, they require each other to function.
You feel emotion individually, no one can comprehend the way someone feels completely. But sharing the memory of a moment or idea or creating a moment or an idea with an other is vital for human beings. We are social creatures. And our discussing emotional obsession is important, and an interesting paradox. To have to think about thinking about emotions in order to try and not prioritise thinking about emotions. Classic academia eh!
A lovely philosophical musing!
ReplyDeleteClassic yin-yang - without the bad, there is no good - the existence of the bad times in life, those moments we are most discomforted and unhappy, allow us to appreciate the greater times all the more. They are almost necessary in helping us to achieve happiness and comfort.
For me, empathy is the key emotion in coexistence with other humans. To put yourself in someone else's position and attempt to feel their pain and joy in light of their situation is to understand other human beings greater. If we all were to do this more, would we seek out comfort and happiness through goods less? I definitely think so. They more empathy in the world, the greater we will thrive. I feel discomforted and unhappy in light of the disconnected world we seem to inhabit.