| To move out from what we've been used to and risk living without knowing what ought to happen is difficult. But along the way we find those who will encourage and stimulate us. Share mine and keep your senses alert to those you'll find for yourselves. And never look a gift horse in the mouth. |
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Trevor Pateman gave me the idea of letting old stuff go to make room for the new. He writes "I would like to stress the importance of the fact that we do unlearn, so that a start can be made on restraining the imperial ambitions of learning theory to colonise the mind." His "loss of fascination" can help us get unhooked from the tyranny of the ideal. Read more |
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Dostoevesky in the Brother Karemozov has the Inquisitor say to the returned Jesus that the gift of freedom he brought to mankind was too much so he had rewritten the script to one of myth magic and authority. And we all know that sells well. |
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Adam Phillips in his introduction to Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored writes "the good life is either the successful negotiation of a more or less preset development project OR it is something we make up as we go along, according to our wishes; and there is nothing wrong with anybody". Try living with that. |
And now five men, in no order, all professors at the time at the University of Sussex, who willingly or unwittingly encouraged me to explore their world. |
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Michael Eraut in an educational seminar on 27 th October 03 entitled Towards a Theory of Learning in the Workplace gave me the idea of emotional labour. Later I learned he had supervised Debbie Mazhindu in her thesis. |
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Richard Wilkinson in a professorial lecture on 26th January 99 on Health, Social Environment and Inequality mentioned loss of status affecting well being. How was he to know that I had lost my status on getting divorced, and fussed about it for years, but now, thanks to him, I understood it. |
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Chris Freeman, Emeritus Professor after whom the new SPRU building is named was fascinated by my connection with Manfred Max-Neef and Latin American thought; in every way he could he encouraged me. |
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Graham Davey in his professorial lecture on 16 th June 1998 emphasised the validity of my struggle with worry which I turned into the Worry Workout. This centred around the way we can take what seems a simple worry through to a catastrophe. That sounds dramatic but look at some of "what can't be said" in your own life. |
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Charles Abrahams in seminars with nods of recognition and brief conversations sealed my interest in social psychology. This made real sense when I was able to ask Katherine Hughes, a social psychologist if ever there is one to take me under her wing at Ruskin in the Ransacker project. |
Now two men whose help I did not, could not at the time, make good enough use of
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Dipak Patel came to help in 'my' business. He showed me that whilst efficiency is doing the thing well being effective is doing the right thing. He showed me how and tried to help me cut our losses. That was twenty years ago and at that time I could not hear this unassuming man and I wasted much of what he brought. |
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John Mackinnon Jardine who died some twenty years ago was like a god father to me. He must have loved me. He gave me a lot of his time. At heart a poet he countered my depression with you've got a wife who has not left you and two hands, what more do you want? |
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And there's Carlos Casoni seen here with Maximilium. He's a Chilean and an artist. He is a real man. His fifty cartoons brings us into the whole gambit of feelings. These prompted me to devise sore feelings which most people saw as negative. The years I spent in that wilderness will make sense to anyone who is now ready to go with Plato who suggests an unexamined life is not worth living. For a useful contribution to Carlos we'll email them to you. |
With such friends, and they're out there to be found, and new ideas and a growing confidence that we're not stupid we edge our way out of our arid zones and find that we are survivors. |
| Response, what's on your mind |
