Threads
My partner has embarked on her graduate degree and I must admit, I have been a little jealous. She is finding opportunities to challenge herself, to think deeply about issues that are important to her and engage with a tribe with similar interests. The entire process is inspiring. So inspiring, that I am committing to my own studies.
I do not (currently) have any interest in returning to formal academics, but I am interested in continuing my liberal arts education. So, I've picked a number of topics that have plagued my mind for the past few years and I am making an ongoing commitment[1] to involve myself with them somehow. Honestly, I will probably follow my previous post-secondary training and research, reflect and write about my findings, but mystery has always been a space for magic, so who knows what I might do with my accrued insight.
Here's a short list of some of the topics I have been thinking about recently:
- Performative identity
- Friendship
- Ubiquitous computing
- Post-capitalism (post-consumerism?)
- New aestheticism
- New modes of expression
- Modern spirituality
- Constructivism (meaning making)
- Death and legacy online
- Internet era archaeology
- Globalism and internet politics
To organise my work, I'm going to keep track of these topics in what I am going to refer to as “threads.” It's a simple taxonomy, not unlike tags or categories in a CMS, but I'll reserve and expose these only as a narrative or thread of defined thought begins to emerge from my research.
The likelihood that I'll have anything definitive or valuable to say about any of these topics, let alone all of them, is slim. The goal is not to conquer, rather to explore and—to borrow an idea from Rebecca Solnit—get a little lost.
I refrain from using the term ”resolution” here and elsewhere because I believe what ever value I'll generate through my projects will only be reaped in a long-term and ongoing commitment. Call it hair splitting but I stand behind my choice. ↩︎