Weeknote 33/2020
For the first time in many months, I can honestly say that was an enjoyable working week. I split my time between work for We Are Open Co-op and Outlandish.
For We Are Open I was working on an introductory email-based course around ‘open’, and then a survey, framework, and toolkit for social mobility organisations moving their programmes online.
With Outlandish, I’m continuing to help with a new push to productise their offerings. This has two strands: a community portal product, and products and services related to Sociocracy. I was pleased that my proposal to create a new top-level ‘Products’ circle with two sub-circles was passed this week!
A quotation shared in an article by Ryan Holiday this week really resonated with me. It’s from the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, he of “you cannot step into the same river twice” fame.
Dogs bark at what they cannot understand.
Heraclitus
The reason I paid particular attention to this, I think, is that it’s only recently that I’ve come to realise that I don’t have to live what I’d call a ‘reproducible’ life. That is to say, people don’t have to be easily be able to follow in my footsteps.
I think it’s the educator in me who feels the need to constantly justify and explain myself. However, that’s becoming less of an issue due to a combination of moving away from the world of formal education, therapy sessions, and being very aware of turning 40 at the end of the year.
There are many people who don’t get what I do, or why I do it. Sometimes I don’t really understand either. What I don’t need to spend time doing is wasting my life interacting with random bad faith actors — i.e. the ‘dogs’ barking at things they don’t understand.
This week I continued to be on hiatus from Thought Shrapnel but wrote a few posts here:
- Climate ch-ch-ch-changes
- Moving Mastodon instance
- Giving consent
- Experimenting with the MAF method
- Keeping it simple
Next week, I’ve got more of the same, which is good. I’m on the lookout for a couple of days of extra work at the moment from September onwards, so if you see anything Doug-shaped, please get in touch!
Image: photo of an oak tree that I encountered on a morning run this week, processed using the Roy Lichtenstein filter in Retroboy.
