Zooming between levels of abstraction is an important part of systems thinking. Activity 2.32 involves doing this in terms of systems and sub-systems within an area of practice.
My situation of interest, which involves the number of library visitors sits within ‘A system to support education and information’. This sits within a wider area of practice around community development and wellbeing, and alongside systems relating to health, social support, community engagement, and recreation.
What I found interesting about this is that it helps reinforce the tension that increasing visitors to the physical library is not necessary for supporting lifelong learning. However, given that I’m composing this article from the library, and am surrounded by other students, I have a feeling it certainly helps.
I’m currently reading a book entitled Jimmy the Kid, in which hapless criminals decide to kidnap the child of a wealthy man after being inspired by a novel. As you’d imagine, things don’t exactly go to plan.
It’s reminded me of the futility of complaining that things haven’t turned out as you expected, when ‘what you expected’ was your life to replicate someone else’s. Rifling through pages in an attempt to find answers, as the protagonists of the Jimmy the Kid do on a number of occasions, doesn’t work. Nor does it’s modern-day equivalent of scouring social media, videos, and even blog posts like this one.
Even the same person in a similar context is unlikely to replicate the exact steps that previously led to success. As Heraclitus, the Ancient Greek philosopher noted, you can’t step into the same river twice; not only has the river changed, but you have changed. So it’s not possible to uncritically take advice from people who have achieved success and apply it to your own context.
I think this is why I’m finding the work on my MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice so useful. It’s not the academic side of it that I’m finding so difficult (and interesting) but the application of it to my professional and personal life. The danger, of course, for any reflective person is in over-thinking everything.
Ultimately, there may well be an optimal strategy and approach for every situation. But identifying and implementing that in the moment is difficult based on the incomplete information we are likely to have on hand, distorted by our biases and previous experiences, and approached through the heuristics we have developed.
The only solution to this is to keep learning. Or, in the words of Alvin Toffler, to “learn, unlearn, and relearn”. Unlearning is difficult, and until I came across this free e-book from Casco Art Institute (a rather hefty PDF) I hadn’t seen many specific exercises for doing so.
So, no, life has no instruction manual. But that’s a fact that can liberate us to create our own futures, together, without being hamstrung by previous ‘best practice’ or ‘what worked last time’.
Imagine one of those old-school snowglobes. You know, the ones you shake and the resulting intense snowstorm settles over a twee scene. Now imagine that happening inside your head six times over the last couple of weeks, coupled with intense aversion to screens and other people.
Yeah, it hasn’t been fun. I’ve only had migraines this bad once or twice before in my life, and in both cases I was extremely stressed from work. Go, as they say, figure ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
On Friday night, we watched the England Lionesses’ game vs France at St James Park, Newcastle. I took the above photo 1.5 hours before kick-off, because my wife insists on getting to this kind of thing super-early. Once everyone filed in, it was a great atmosphere and almost sold-out.
It was a shame they lost 2-1 after throwing away an early lead. I semi-seriously think our 13 year-old daughter with her 60+ goals this season could have finished some of the chances spurned by the England forwards. Who knows, maybe one day she’ll get the chance to prove me right.
This evening we’re back at St James Park for our son’s club’s awards ceremony. His current team is disbanding, but he has one more year of junior football left (U18) so he’s joining a local team. I think that’s a good decision because, although he can definitely ‘body’ me off the ball easily, men’s football can be pretty brutal. Plus, he gets to play with his mates before (probably) heading off to university next year.
Guess what? We’ll be at St James Park again on Monday night for the England men’s game vs Bosnia & Herzegovina. Unlike the women’s game, which was a Euros qualifier, this one is a friendly. Still, it will be good to see them in action.
With Monday being a Bank Holiday, Thursday being a complete wipeout due to the worst of my migraines, and my our two being on half-term, I haven’t done much actual paid work. In any case, WAO hasn’t got that much on other than our collaboration with MIT DCC. I did manage to get study done for my MSc in Systems Thinking by going over to my parents’ house on Friday morning, but I’m still behind so have already asked for an extension to my first assessment.
The thing which is absolutely doing my head in at the moment is having my temporary home office in the utility room of our new place. It’s between the kitchen and garage, and the washing machine, tumble dryer, and fridge/freezer is in here. Cue family members just popping in to get something to the fridge, or putting their head round the door while getting something to eat/drink.
There’s still lots of things to get done to this house. The painting is largely done, although the perfectionist in me wants to white gloss all of the skirting boards and radiators. We’ve moved on to getting venetian blinds for the windows at the front to replace the pull-down ones which aren’t much use.
After that, we need to prioritise a bunch of things including extending at the back to create a new kitchen which could include my office. But equally we could convert part of the garage, extend over the garage, or invest in a garden pod. The latter may or not be a good idea given the amount of clay in our back garden; I don’t want to come back into the house like I took a detour via the Battle of the Somme.
Next weekend, my wife and daughter are heading to Barcelona for a football tournament. My son and I aren’t going because we didn’t know the dates of his exams at the time when the flights and accommodation needed to be booked. In the event, he’s actually already finished his exams, but we can do our own thing while they’re away. I definitely want to go and see Furiosa if it’s still showing at the cinema.
In a parallel universe, I’d be going to the PublicSpaces conference in Amsterdam, watching my daughter’s team in Barcelona, and then heading back to Amsterdam for MozFest House. Ah well.
