(no subject)
i'm so excited to be teaching this exco. and people keep telling me they're excited about it and it makes me more excited... i'm really happy.
and i don't know what's going on, but i really love everybody in the class. ok that was a weird sentence... ummm... so there's this thing we talk about where it's totally icky and unproductive to be divisive b/w who we (or i guess in this case i) decide are "good white people" and "bad white people." and while this may be on some level obvious, it's also something i lapse into doing. a lot. and i can think about not doing it, i can know all the reasons it's not cool to do this, but my brain is already there. except now, in this space, i'm totally not doing that and it's totally natural for me to not do that. it's crazy and it feels great! maybe it's that i'm a facilitator & that's doing something interesting to my brain, maybe it's just the particular people in the class, but even as i'm trying to push people and hearing people say things that i want to dissect (or "unpack," as people have been saying a lot) and challenge, my head is totally not going, "wow, that's such a bad-white-person thing." it's soooo great! i wish i could do it all the time! i totally need to figure out what's going on and keep that thing there.
anyways i've been crazy in a lot of ways lately... as much as all this is lifting me up, i've also been feeling really fucked up a lot. and part of that is my brain gets spacey and weird sometimes... like i was having this meeting and i for whatever reason couldn't concentrate on what people were saying but only on how they (we?) were talking. and it was bizarre. some parts were really awesome, like people were checking in with each other every other second--- "does this make sense/ does that feel ok/ how are people with that idea?" and people said things back to each other to make sure everything was understood. which doesn't happen a lot, and it's awesome when it does. but it sounds funny when your brain is focusing on it. and then there's the useful but funny vocabulary we use (overuse once in a while?) like "unpack" and "framework" and "invested in" and whatever else that i can't think of. i love having these words but it's really weird to step back and hear them all. and i guess there's other things, but i don't necessarily have names for them. but i think it'd be really interesting, and fun in a lot of ways, to have a conversation about the way we talk. (we being this group of people who i was having a meeting with, and maybe some other people...) cos in some ways the way we talk feels so intentional, but sometimes it's like something we just slip into around a certain group of people. i wanna know which is which, i guess, and if all the things we slip into are elements of the way we talk that we really want to keep... also, is this what "going meta" is? does it relate to the way i just started thinking about typing the word "conversation" instead of thinking through the sentence i was writing and realizing that using that word actually made no sense?
whew. a lot on my mind. another thought about the way we talk... maybe to me right now it sometimes doesn't feel as honest as it could be, like we use weird words and phrasing to be basically honest without feeling the full impact of that honesty. i don't know if that makes sense. or if it's valid. but again, that's not all of it, i definitely love some of it.
all this shit is blowing my mind. maybe i think too much. if i think about everything on at least 2 levels... it's kind of a brain overload. but maybe it's a way to deal... if i'm frustrated by not knowing what someone's talking about i can know how they're talking about it. but then how we talk weighs on my brain too and doesn't always feel great so i guess it doesn't really help. hmmm. this may be an ongoing theme in my life... things that don't really help but that i use to deal.
i need to go for now. i'm exhausted.
and i don't know what's going on, but i really love everybody in the class. ok that was a weird sentence... ummm... so there's this thing we talk about where it's totally icky and unproductive to be divisive b/w who we (or i guess in this case i) decide are "good white people" and "bad white people." and while this may be on some level obvious, it's also something i lapse into doing. a lot. and i can think about not doing it, i can know all the reasons it's not cool to do this, but my brain is already there. except now, in this space, i'm totally not doing that and it's totally natural for me to not do that. it's crazy and it feels great! maybe it's that i'm a facilitator & that's doing something interesting to my brain, maybe it's just the particular people in the class, but even as i'm trying to push people and hearing people say things that i want to dissect (or "unpack," as people have been saying a lot) and challenge, my head is totally not going, "wow, that's such a bad-white-person thing." it's soooo great! i wish i could do it all the time! i totally need to figure out what's going on and keep that thing there.
anyways i've been crazy in a lot of ways lately... as much as all this is lifting me up, i've also been feeling really fucked up a lot. and part of that is my brain gets spacey and weird sometimes... like i was having this meeting and i for whatever reason couldn't concentrate on what people were saying but only on how they (we?) were talking. and it was bizarre. some parts were really awesome, like people were checking in with each other every other second--- "does this make sense/ does that feel ok/ how are people with that idea?" and people said things back to each other to make sure everything was understood. which doesn't happen a lot, and it's awesome when it does. but it sounds funny when your brain is focusing on it. and then there's the useful but funny vocabulary we use (overuse once in a while?) like "unpack" and "framework" and "invested in" and whatever else that i can't think of. i love having these words but it's really weird to step back and hear them all. and i guess there's other things, but i don't necessarily have names for them. but i think it'd be really interesting, and fun in a lot of ways, to have a conversation about the way we talk. (we being this group of people who i was having a meeting with, and maybe some other people...) cos in some ways the way we talk feels so intentional, but sometimes it's like something we just slip into around a certain group of people. i wanna know which is which, i guess, and if all the things we slip into are elements of the way we talk that we really want to keep... also, is this what "going meta" is? does it relate to the way i just started thinking about typing the word "conversation" instead of thinking through the sentence i was writing and realizing that using that word actually made no sense?
whew. a lot on my mind. another thought about the way we talk... maybe to me right now it sometimes doesn't feel as honest as it could be, like we use weird words and phrasing to be basically honest without feeling the full impact of that honesty. i don't know if that makes sense. or if it's valid. but again, that's not all of it, i definitely love some of it.
all this shit is blowing my mind. maybe i think too much. if i think about everything on at least 2 levels... it's kind of a brain overload. but maybe it's a way to deal... if i'm frustrated by not knowing what someone's talking about i can know how they're talking about it. but then how we talk weighs on my brain too and doesn't always feel great so i guess it doesn't really help. hmmm. this may be an ongoing theme in my life... things that don't really help but that i use to deal.
i need to go for now. i'm exhausted.