Category Archives: Identity

Flat Landscapes

Here is a conversation I am having with my friend Ari on Facebook about the nature of…well lots of things really. Feel free to jump in on either side. Please excuse all grammar gaffs and typos. Thoughts were written in the haste of FB commentary:

Ari : i love the internet (meta comment, i know), but i also feel more than a bit unsettled in the landscape of the internet…maybe it’s the virtual-ness or that it’s screen dependant (and thus 1-D)…i dont know. MAYBE IT’S A SPATIAL THING…maybe i dont do well in the 1-D world??

Jabiz : I know we have been having this conversation a lot lately, and that is great, but I guess I don’t see the web as 1-D, but more as 4-D. The screen is just an entry to a world that is very rich and full of depth if you are open to it and explore the people that populate it. People tell us it is shallow but I have learned it really is not if you look beyond the 1 D surfaces.

Ari : with love, jabiz, i find your argument beautiful (and vaguely utopian), but i dont believe it holds up to even the most facile scrutiny. from any objective point of view (that is what we are trying to work from, no?), the internet is 1D. we argue about its FIGURATIVE 4D-ness…but not without our language going on holiday. the internet is consumerd via a screen. screens are 1D. now, moving on: my bigger point was that i dont work well in virtual 1D spaces…like TV, etc…the internet flattens the 3D world into 1D. and thats not an inherent problem. hell, it’s probabaly a good thing. but i just dont well with in virtual 1D environments

Jabiz :I know you would like to simply move on from one point to the next, but when having a conversation you have to wait till both sides can have their say. So i would graciously ask that before we “move on” from the semantics of the screen bein…g the 1Dness, you re-read my earlier point, because either you skimmed it, didn’t understand it or simply chose to ignore what I said. The Internet is not any one thing. So therefore to give to dimensions seems futile. Much like literature, art, and consciousness the Internet is a reflection of the human story. It is about people. Our world wide web of thought and creativity. How can we call that 1-D? As for 1D things like TV that you don’t do well with , I seem to recall you enjoyed books another 1D tool used to explore the human story. The Internet like a mirror is what you see in it. It’s shape and dimensions what you produce not just consume. Going back to your original point of being unsettled, I would recommend an inventory of the self, before assigning blame on the mirror (Internet or screens)

Ari : ha! nice zingers, jabiz! very zesty, indeed. now for some housekeeping: i think you, also, didnt truly read my point–which was a description–okay, fine, a critique–of the “landscape” of the internet…and how we “consume” it (note well ……the two words in quotes…which if you trace back to my earlier comments you will find conspicuously foregrounded). …so: okay, yes, the Internet gestures as a trans-social/historical/political dynamic. i concede the point. but that’s neither here nor there in how we both understand the Internet proper (note the word, proper–i.e., the thing one logs on to, that needs electricity, a screen, some sort of computer-y thing, zeros and ones, et. al). simply put: the internet proper is a virtual landscape. …now, of course, that doesnt mean EVERYTHING that goes into producing, sharing, consuming (insert your own gerund here!) is virtual (e.g., the fingers depressing the letters on my computer’s keyboard–how’s THAT for meta, jabiz?)…but…it DOES mean that, quite simply, the CONTENT–for good or ill–is virtual. maybe it’s for good…but thats neither here nor there, at least for me. it’s not value judgment; it’s an neutral observation: the content of the Net is virtual…and therefore so is the landscape. …and how we consume…strictly speaking…the virtual internet proper is screen-dependent…thus all 3D is FLATTENED into 1D. …why all this matters (if any of it matters)…is that i, personally, dont do well in this flat landscape where all cognitive maps and kinesthetic cues are virtual and flat (in the strictest terms of which ive just spent far too long adumbrating). …now jabiz, you are free to take an oppositional stance toward my argument. and no doubt you will. but as you are an educator and deep thinker, why retreat in an automatic defensive crouch? (have i fired any pejorative shots across the sacred bow of the Internet? no. i’ve conceded your points re: the Net as a social, living phenomena, etc.) and perhaps even more important, as a technology teacher/learner, you will, no doubt, encounter many students who also feel a sense of dislocation in this virtual space that lacks tactile kinesthetic cues and traditional cognitive maps…and i just hope that while you may blithely dismiss my points out of hand…you wont be so eager to pounce on their hesitations so lustily.

Jabiz : I will keep my retort shorter and less snappy. I will start with a concession: Yes the content on the Internet is virtual. My point is that there is more to the Internet than content. I see it as a portal to people. What I am exploring is …the creation and fostering of these relationships in a 3d as possible manner as possible. You are right again that these relationships are flattened to an extent online, but they can be amplified as well. I can understand what you say that you are nor well-equipped in this environment, hence your hesitance to use Skype after five years! I am not arguing for the sake of arguing, but because in a sense understanding the Internet in what ever dimensionality we choose has becomes my career in ways. I am trying to understand how it will works to …help my students and my own kids navigate this new landscape to get the most they can from it. Of course you are right that many things are better when done in real life. I think of swimming in the ocean as one, but finding ways to penetrate these relationships with other people (who are very 3d) seems very important. Final note, books are also an entry way into a 1D landscape that represents a broader deeper world. No? Isn’t prose also a, “flat landscape where all cognitive maps and kinesthetic cues are virtual and flat?” So to wrap up: Internet is not just about content to be consumed, but a place to meet people. Also there is other media that is 1D, but we have been able to imply meaning and depth to it. So the Internet can be what we make it. Yes, the wor…ld is too much for the the Internet to handle and that os a GREAT thing. Go our run yoga, hug, hike, swim, breathe long and deep, log-out and don’t sign back in, but what I am saying is that the Internet is filled with real live people trying to represent those joys and fears and life into this weird new landscape. The web is our collective ongoing novel. Meet the authors, be one, or ignore it all. Final, final point: I am not dismissing your points blithely or in any other way, simply engaging in discussion. As I am having this discussion with people on blogs, Skype, real life and conferences- it is my job. And yes there will be or a…re students who feel as you do, and I am having these talks to try and find ways to help them. I don;t see this as fight, but as a conversation. Maybe if we were together or at least on Skype there would be some cognitive maps and kinesthetic cues, till then I have to rely on my writing skills and hope that I can convey tone and mood though my word choice. Maybe an emotican will help 😉 (Winking face to denote snarky toungue in cheek reply to an online exchange)

Do You Love Me?

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If you blog for long enough, I suppose, you will eventually begin to repeat yourself. It can feel like a never-ending cycle of repetition, but who is to say that revisiting themes is necessarily a bad thing? So I apologize if I have written about this topic before, but my good friend Ari over at We Buy Balloons recently emailed me a link to this article with a request to write on the subject with careful consideration, as the affliction mention in the article is the same from which he claims to suffer. Although, I have linked to the article itself, I will quote it at length below, so please stay with us till then end. In short the post claims:

The Internet measures everything. And I am a slave to those measurements. After so many years of pushing much of my life through this screen, I’ve started measuring my experiences and my sense of self-worth using the same metrics as the Internet uses to measure success. I check my stats relentlessly. The sad truth is that I spend more time measuring than I spend doing.

I used to feel an immediate sense of accomplishment when I wrote an article or came up with a joke that I thought was good. Now that feeling is always delayed until I see how the material does. How many views did my article get? Did it get mentioned the requisite number of times on Twitter and Facebook. I need to see the numbers.

And I define myself by those numbers.

I judge the quality of my writing by looking at the traffic to my articles. I assess the humor of my jokes by counting retweets. My status updates, shared links, and photos of my kids need a certain number of Likes to be a success. How am I doing? That depends on how many friends I have, how many followers, how much traffic.

What David Pell describes in his post, what bothers my friend Ari, and those of us involved in this game called social media is the feeling that our thoughts, our art, our creations, our words, and in turn ourselves are only as valuable as the amount of attention they receive from the network of “friends” we have been able to cull from the web.

Before I try to offer up answers or justifications of why this need for affirmation isn’t as big of a problem as many think, let me first admit that I check my stats. I am pretty stoked to be nearing 3,000 followers on Twitter. I google myself often and enjoy hearing my voice echoed back to me via the web. The question I suppose we are left asking is, is that a problem? Is wanting/needing affirmation a bad thing? Is it vain or needy to place your self-worth in the hands of others? Before we get to that answer, I want to make a claim that this discussion has little to do with the Internet. (*The need for acceptance and identity creation has implications for our students. I will try to touch on this idea at the end of this post.) Sure the Internet has made it easy to see how much attention each pixel of our collective self receives via Re-Tweets, views, Likes and other affirmative statistics, but I claiming that the need to be heard and accepted has always been a part of our human psychology; the Internet has only exacerbated our ability to monitor it.

I think the need to be heard and told we are valued is not only at the core of human psychology, but intricately connected to the very purpose of art. Yes, I understand that much of art is personal and cathartic. Why the artist creates is a question that we will never answer, but we can all agree that while some artists create art for the sake self-healing, many also create art to connect to others. Art is the ultimate act of sharing and openness. Audience is an inherent part of art. It has to be. The dance between creator and observer is what makes art so powerful. Let’s face it most people who create, write, paint, perform are needy. We have a void in our souls that can only be filled when others connect to our creations. We feel alive when our art helps others see who we are.

by Ari Zeiger

I have had this need to share and connect with people for as long as I can remember. Does this make me vain or needy? Lacking in self-confidence? Perhaps. But that is the nature to which I have grown fond. The spaces between a robust self-esteem and crippling anxiety is tenuous at best. The difference between the vain rock star and the nervous introvert can be nothing more than a pair of sunglasses and a bottle of whiskey. What I am trying to say is that, while the Internet magnifies our anxieties about whether or not we matter, most artist have always needed to be told they are relevant. Before the Internet did not authors worry about book sales, artists by number of guests at openings and paintings sold? While stats, numbers, sales, and reviews have always been a part of sharing, statistics have never slowed art down. I am sure the first caveman looked for a round of grunts and nods after he first sketched a picture of the hunt on the cold stonewall.

When I was younger, in my twenties, I would scribble poetry, stories, and other random observations into journals. These thoughts were very similar to my current blog posts, Tweets, and other ideas I share online. Back then I would scatter these journals on coffee table tops and would love when people would flip though them at parties. I would watch them wrinkle their faces in confusion or smile in understanding. I could feel them entering my consciousness through a shared understanding of not only who I was, but who they were. I was just not smart enough to leave a little comment box at the bottom of my journal pages, because I wanted more than anything to hear what they thought.

It is true that the web can enhance our neurosis and self-doubt. It can cripple the act of creation if we allow it to magnify our fears and misgivings. It can force us to place our self-worth in the hands of a fluctuating audience, and yes this can have disastrous effects, but this is not the fault of the web. This neurosis is rooted in our collective human psychology of needing love and acceptance. There are people much smarter than me with more letters after their names, who I am sure can write much more intellectually than me on the subject, but that has never stopped me from offering my opinion.

Each person must decide how their self-worth is derived. Each one of us has to decide what we are worth despite the Internet not because of it. Some days we feel like we can carry the world, while others we need to be told we are special. Understanding this dance and going with the flow is the most important thing an artist can learn to do. This was true before the web and it is even truer now.

It is nice to have a post re-tweeted and shared and “liked” and commented on. It makes us feel like our ideas are important and that others “get” us. It is great to make a film and get a couple thousands hits on Youtube. It feels warm in the heart to watch people connect to you words. It feels great to recieve emails from people who say they get what you are doing. Saying they respect you and your work. It is nice to go to conference and have drunken peers say they admire you. It is great to have fans. It feels good to be loved. How can it not? But the question we must ask ourselves is how much of what we do is for them? How much is for me? And how much is for us?

I could get wrapped up in the numbers, and I admit that I sometimes do, but I am learning that I share and let spill what I cannot hold inside. All I can do is hope that others connect. I have the audacity to write a book about my life and think people will care. That is the biggest cry for attention I can think of and that has nothing to do with the Internet or numbers, but I have found the less I worry about the numbers and focus on creating honest work filled with energy and passion the more the numbers tend to rise; the more comments I receive. Someday this fragile network I have cobbled together could all dry up and I could end up writing a blog no one reads, or scribble back into journals I leave on coffee tables in vacant rooms. A book no one buys. Either way, I know that sometimes I create art to help lighten the load and guide me through the darkness and sometimes I share what I share for you dear reader and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Show me you understand. Show me you love me. Show me I matter. Leave a comment. Re-Tweet. Like me on Facebook. Let this post get a 1000 hits. Let it go viral and get me a book deal. Let it shine a light on all the world and make me a god! Or just skim it, mark it as read, and chalk up to more gibberish coming to you through your informationally overloaded brain. There will be more tomorrow. I am valuable whether you tell me I am or not. How do I know? Just a promise I made to myself as a child. It is not too late make yourself that promise right now….let’s see what you got!

I will save the my thoughts on how young adults deal with the dance between confidence and anxiety and how the new online social reality is affecting their identity creation for another post, or maybe in the comments. But I will say that right now I am listening to the Beatles and this is a great first step to helping young people understand how to deal with the world wide web:

A Letter to James

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I received the following email today from a former student from Doha who is now living in Nigeria:

Hello sir,

It’s been quite a while indeed! I can begin to tell you all I have experienced in Nigeria. I thought you were facing some problems when I sent you a message and you didn’t reply. But, James M. told me you were alright. So, I felt compelled to give it another shot.

Education here is really hard and rigorous and I’m in year 10. It’s really hard keeping up with my blog cause it’s hard getting internet. But, fortunately am on holiday and my dad got a really good internet. So I have decided to go back to writing the way YOU have taught me and not the way they teach me here in Nigeria. They write with FORMULAS for god’s sake. I scream at friends that they should learn to express themselves freely and not like a robot! They just stare at me as if am stupid. But I can’t blame them. That’s how they’ve been taught since they were kids. Anyways, I found a really good website for teenage writers called ”young writers society”. You post your work and other writer’s around the world review it. It’s like a blog but better cause it’s mainly a society filled with people my age. You could search me up on this name ”Temi”. I have also been in touch with James M. and his blog and he seems to get smarter everyday. . It’s sickening feeling. One that if I don’t run away from it would take over all my consciousness. Then I would become a robot too. I can’t let that happen.

I hope you reply, I miss you sir. See you in the future.

My response:

Dear James,
I just sent you a quick email informing you that I could not respond to your note tonight, because I am too busy. It is a quiet Wednesday night and I am getting ready to write for a few hours. I am working on a book, you see, and I have committed myself to at least seven hundred and fifty words a night. As I clicked send, however, I couldn’t stop thinking about you and your words. Realizing that there is nothing more urgent than the words I should share with you at this time, I decided to use my seven hundred and fifty words to write to you, because really what writing could I do that would be any more important than this?

You are the reason why I am here, James. You are the reason I teach, I write, I grow, I learn, I love. I live. I am here for you and every kid like you who has ever felt, “I can’t wait to get out and start feeling like a human being again and not like a robot.” I have been there, James. I was born there, James. I am still there, James. The world is not an easy place for individuals. It is not made for freedom and dreams, no matter what we tell ourselves. We are buried under culture and religion and societal expectations. We are buried under our own anxiety, not to mention the needs of our friends and family.

But sometimes, some of us, see the cracks in the walls. We usually see them when we are young. I think I saw it first when I was eight, but before we know it, we feel like we must scream at our friends when they follow formulas. We want to shake the world awake and express ourselves in whatever form we feel necessary. Adults find spontaneous need for expression this scary. They box it and shape it and label it and try to turn it into a future, a career, security, but the problem is that you cannot confine freedom. It is who we are. It is our nature.

I teach not because I am an expert. I have no answers. I am lost and wandering. I teach because I am attracted to that youthful freedom. It still burns within me, and honestly most adults have long lost the passion that got them through their adolescence. They lie to themselves using words like maturity, security, and responsibility, when really they should be using words like regret, compromise, and loss.

What am I trying to say? Am I just rambling to fill my quota? I am trying to say that you have a gift, James. Insight. Passion. Drive. Talent. Love. Thirst. Curiosity. The world will do its best to chip away at each of these characteristics. I don’t need to tell you that. Look around, you see it everywhere you look. It is not unique to Nigeria. Trust me.

I remember one time in class you said something like, “Mr. Raisdana you see the world in such ugly shades and notice everything that is wrong. How can you sleep at night?” Do you remember that? The answer is still the same: I see the world as it is. Sure it will get us down, sure it is not how we want it to be, sure it will try to turn us into robots who write by using formulas, it will force us to take accounting instead of art, it will tell us to grow up, but we must not allow it to extinguish the fire inside each of us.

That is all we have, James. Those tiny flickering flames of hope and daring. Of love and passion inside of you is the same one inside of me. It is the same energy in every dreamer and artists, every saint and prophet. This fervor of the imagination is what keeps us going. It is why you are emailing me and why I am writing you with tears in my eyes. It is not childish or disillusioned. It is what will keep you sane. It is what will keep you company when everything else is too much to bare. It will sing you to sleep and point out the moon when you are alone. It will write your books, paint your pictures, make your films, and carry you on stage. It will support you when there is no one else, but most importantly…it will help you find the flame inside others.

It is what has brought you here. It is why I teach, why I write, why I share and create. I tend my flame and hope that others will be drawn to it. Because if it goes out…well let’s not think of that. Thank you for thinking of me and more importantly writing to me James. I have been receiving emails like yours from students from all around the world for years, and I can honestly say that these emails are the most important part of my life. As teachers we are often vilified, but to know that our passions are passed on is the most rewarding thing I could ever imagine.

I will look you up on that website and you can always find me online. The future is far and wide. I am sure our paths will cross. You are not a robot, no matter what they say! You are one of the most intelligent and passionate artists I have ever met just hold onto that. I hope you don’t mind that I have shared this on my blog. I am hoping that others will join in and share their thoughts. We are individuals, but there is power in the communities we build. Society is not only what others say it is. It does not control us completely. We have a say. We have a right to share this flame. I hope who ever is reading this will do just that…

Journey Part II

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We, I, have started my journey of “branding” myself for the ADE institute. I recently wrote about my apprehension of using corporate language when sharing my online identity, values, and mission, so I remove my critical hat of the language for the time being (but will continue the thought process and growth on my original post)

In this post, I want to drink the Kool-Aid a bit so to speak and go through the process with an open mind. I have been given a workbook as a guide to investigate and reflect on my values, mission, passions, and purpose. I have been meaning to do this for some time, so the activity seems relevant. I am, at the moment, not concerned about the brand or the product, but a closer look at what it is I believe in. I have spent most of career looking closely at who I am. Identity in general is a passion of mine, but I see the value in consolidating the pixels of who I am into a bite size snapshot. And that is what I will be doing for the next few hours.

I love to write and wrestle with ideas through text, so this is where I have chosen to start. I hope to move into media and more dynamic forms of engagement, but words are where I am rooted and this is where I will plan the seed. I apologize in advance for walking through what may seem like a scripted process, but if it proves to be too restrictive I will, as I am apt to do, fly in a new direction.

Step one: Explore my roles…

Father, artist, writer, educator, open/free-sharer, filmmaker, photographer, storyteller, leader, friend, husband, trouble maker, rabble rouser, revolutionary wanna be, critical thinker, button pusher, observer, inspirer, fire starter, a process…in the end I am an ongoing project that will only end, or perhaps continue, upon my last breath. At this moment in time: I am a father, and educator and learner.

I have been asked to look at these disparate roles through the lens myself as an ADE and a professional educator. I think the three roles that jump out are: open/free-sharer, leader, and artist/storyteller.

Let’s take a closer look at what each role means to me and what that can look like:

Open/free-sharer: I believe that openness leads to empathy, understanding, and authentic human connection. By openly sharing many aspects of our lives with as many people as we can, we connect on a deeper level- we are more than teachers and so we must connect beyond education if we want to truly create a community.

My mission is to lead by example. Prove to people that being open with ideas, dreams, and fears is valuable and liberating. Help others understand that their fears and inhibitions are obstacles. Help students and teachers deconstruct the walls they have built around themselves so we can better see each other- with our flaws and failures, but also to share our light.

This is a passion of mine because I was an awkward shy kid who carried inside me a tremendous weight. I would have loved an opportunity to have access to the global stage now offered digital citizens. The experience of sharing my voice has been a vital shift for me both personally and professional. My whole life I have been hearing my voice, but not able to share it. But that has all changed.

So will this work for others as it has for me? Will it work for you? I am not sure, but I am a believer in these lines from Modest Mouse: I know this of myself
I assume as much for other people. We have to be more alike than we are different, but purpose is to see if I am right

Leader– I believe that leadership is not about pushing or pulling, but by inspiring and modeling. It is about listening and caring. I am not good at this. I know. It is new for me. I am often excitable, passionate, and have been told I am intense. I know what it is right and I want to prove it to you, but I know this method will not work. We need to be humble and kind. As a mentor working with other teachers, I need to meet learners, students or teachers where they are, not where I want them to be.

My mission as a leader is to learn how to slow down. I want to listen more and talk less. I want to understand why teachers fear technology, not make confident assumptions. I want to learn to lead.

I am passionate about being a leader because I am enthralled by politics and the way we human beings interact. A school is a microcosm of our society and if we cannot learn to function within one of our most important institution how will we ever work toward s a more peaceful, sustainable functioning world.

The purpose is easy. World peace! Not too ambitious right? I have been intrigued by human connections since I was a child. My life’s work is to continue my journey toward self-understanding and peace, in hopes that it will open a window to the global stage.

Story teller/Artist– Novels, music, photography, film, poetry, sculpture, dance, doesn’t matter the medium I love stories. I love exploring how we all, in our individual ways and collectively experience reality.

I want to continually fine-tune my story telling abilities while also helping others understand that they too have a story to share.

Feeling a bit repetitive here. So I will say it all in one line: I want to connect people through stories, so we can see clearly our similarities and our differences, in hopes of creating empathy and understanding.

Now I have been asked to ask a friend about how you feel. As a perfect way to model behavior, I want to ask you, my network to share what you think:

What do you notice about what I have written?
What seems important to me?
What do you know about me that is missing?

Time is of the essence, so please just take a few minutes, read skim, browse and jot down a few thoughts. Thanks!

Journey Part I

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Instead of trying to post a post-ADE post (How ya like that three posts in first sentence) I want to just drop a few random post here and there. We are talking about our personal stories using this format:

Everyday…
But one day…
Because of that…
Because of that…
Because of that…
Until finally, Ever since that day…
The moral of the story…

Once upon a time there was a little boy born in a far off land. This land was suddenly thrown in upheaval and he actually once saw blood on the streets, men with guns and anger fill the air. There was cruel king who tortured his people so he could sell his oil to foreign lands. The people had had enough.

The boy’s family needed to leave because the people were so angry they forced the women to cover their faces and the people to shut their mouths and close their minds.

Everyday his mother would drag the boy to the place that would let them leave, until finally one day they ere given a ticked and told to go to a far off land. A place where they hated the people from the boy’s country. The new country loved the old king and the cheap oil, so now they were angry.

Because of that it was hard for the boys parents to fit in. They did not speak the language and had little money.
Because of that the boy often felt out of place and alone. He longed to belong, to connect, to perform, to share, to be in a community.
Because of that he ignited an inner fire that kept him warm.

Until finally he gained enough strength to become the fire and he was ready to spread it on the world and burn down to the grown and recreate both the kingdom he had fled and then one he had fled to, so that maybe there could be one kingdom.

Ever since that day, he feels alive and connected. The moral of the story is to light your own fire regardless of your circumstances, fuel it, stoke it, then let it spill beyond your mantle.

So there you have day one, activity one. More to come I am sure.