Transform or Sustain: Choose

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

Transformation & Sustainability
 
Dear FacultyL:
 
Here’s the HOPPER, Paula was wondering about—
virtual place to dump ideas 24/7/365: noggin notions,
concerns, anecdotes, and observations; like Poe’s
purloined letter it’s hidden  right in full view before
my very eyes, no free lunch or high tea necessary—
not that there’s anything wrong with that: the
more venues the merrier, true? .
 
Here’s, also,  the distributed & coalescent team
teaching  clearing house finger- tip away, reach
out & touch some bodies, airplane rides to Europe
or  Wisconsin not with standing: our own C Span
interviews
 
(Do remember how “hot” the notion of team-teaching
and  inter-disciplinarity was back in the early 70’s?
A sustain-ability (like merging Chevy, Ford, and
Chrysler, say—or soccer, football, & rugby) an
amalgamation, not a trans formation.
 
There’s a difference.
Sustainability on the one hand.
Transformation on the other.
 
It is all about self-awareness, Sam.
Self-aware, complex adaptive systems
desire transformation, enjoy the thrill
of adaptation, celebrate complexity
and the creativity that complexity inspires.
Sustainable systems are not static, but
dynamic, fluid - insult/adaptation –
input/response.  Well-being - the desired
qualities existence – is that being sustained?  (LL).
 
The next question then may be: how does
one make a system "self-aware"?   That may  
be a  question of leadership  (RB)
 
(Leadership?  As in Just Vote?  Zoomerang Polls and
Strategic Plans?  Assessable goals, measurable aims?
Reinforcement tactics?)
 
Sam: I think transformation can and does  happen, daily.
It's often or usually a chaotic, or at least clumsy process,
and certainly in large systems there will be much resistance
(Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin). Sometimes  changes are violent.
But if the Soviet Empire could collapse with relatively little
violence, if we can get as much attention as we are getting
directed toward climate change, if slavery could end, if a
woman could (almost) be elected president, if Obama could
be elected, if the EU can form and be successful, then it's
hard not to think that transformation can happen.  Of course \
it can be stopped , at least temporarily  (Iran) or for decades
(China's political system; Israel's occupation of Palestine, the \
US fossil   fuel/military/industrial/congressional complex).  (S N)

(I don't lie awake thinking of these kinds of problems, SN--
social gospel concerns, political correctness on a global
scale.   I confess: esoteric salvational issues are my
transformational agenda:  interior environmentalism,
local foodback - local  liberal art.)

“We can't solve problems by using the same  kind of thinking
we used when we created them.”  A. E.
 
Our universities... continue to teach and operate in the
system that is destroying the biosphere. Adherence to the
 old mind-set, the old curricula, obsolete pedagogy, and
shortsighted planning are producing graduates who are
trained to perpetuate the destruction  of the biosphere
Our own R.A

Here’s a link a former student sent me yesterday,  on creativity
& narcissism, idiocy and inspiration.  (Rayna Gellert, wife of
 Jeff of the Rolled-Up-Sleeves)
  
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

Settle down with a cup of coffee. It’s about 29 minutes of testimony.
 
Neither  sermons nor logic convince, says Whitman, but I think
this is witness--neither sermon nor logical.

xxxooo, Sam.