There are a couple more of new joiners, I don’t remember the last update prior to this but I updated the list in the invitation yesterday with the permitted profiles. Talked with Saiful about the openness of this project and then everybody’s role. Had also chatted briefly with Ahdini… and maybe some others.
I reflected and revealed that I’m surprised by the group dynamics. Admittedly, I knew all of the collaborators, several quite very well, until yesterday when two people I don’t know from before signed up. But put all these people I know together, the group dynamics changed and people are less outgoing than I had thought and this was a surprise and point of reflection for me. The awkwardness, how much I hope for people to interact or not…
I was asked if I should set a goal for the initiative or if I’m to facilitate more interaction or whatever is it. But I am mindful that the invitation was for collaborators and not participants so I try to let it be.
I have trouble of my own too, here I am, I’m trying to steer my life my practice and remember what it is that I like to do with my life and what I like to study if I have the choice to do whatever it is that I want to do, and if I don’t remember, I try to do whatever and see if it fits, and I am looking for something to do for myself. In indie studies, maybe I’m looking for people who are also trying to do this together with, not to write a story together, but to self-study together. If there’s anything I’m hoping for is that the collaborators find their own story to write, and be authentic and full of individuality and we become a group of people with the commonality of enjoying our own authenticity and individuality and differences and complexities. Why hope for that? It’s this hope that is helpful to me, in my quest.
Lynx wrote a note: https://www.facebook.com/notes/interdependent-studies/contact-1/664633534017884/ I enjoyed reading it very much.
The admission is, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being passive doing things because I get myself into situations whereby I don’t have “choice” and I’m reading the books I’m told to read and my life gets sliced up and a culmulation of being part of others’ narrative. I was talking with a friend “I”, about indie studies and studying with institutions, and how institutions look at alumnus, graduations, as if we are books passing through, and maybe if we became “successful” then we might be included to their “libraries” and “list” of “notable” alumni and their legacy, otherwise then we’re forgotten and become what? This is what is publicised in the media and mainstream. But I must also remember that… as i work out my CV, that these institutions are also books in the tiny library or maybe just a book shelf that is my life. Institutions, teachers, people I speak with, friends, and experiences… and action.
In my own limited ways, I have some freedom to choose. At least between action or inaction. I’m fortunate, not everybody in the world can sit around idle and think about things like this. I know. But there’s freedom to choose, choose to smile or frown, choose to open my eyes or close my eyes, choose to breathe or die.
In indie studies, nobody really cares, nobody marks attendance, there’s no prize or report card or standard validation by others. At least not yet. If I don’t study for this one month, just sleep, watch netflix, get drunk, nobody will care and it’ll be over. If I study a lot this one month and write a hundred thousand words about my self-reflections and find my raison detre and become a nun today and disrobe tomorrow and go to brazil eat chocolate look for the girl in ipanema and fight the burning amazon and come home and learn how to make hainanese chicken rice… the month will be over too. Nobody will know if I stop writing about it. I can just don’t put up this blog lah. Make it private. This is just one blog in the gazillion blogs out there. It’s inconsequential, really in the grander scale of things.
Lots of people spend lots of months, or even their lives like this. I’ve spent a lot of months carelessly. years. Decades.
At the end, the month or year or life is over, and it’s too late to say oh, I could have done something? I could have done something else, yes, but I’d have also done something by doing nothing.
The question i’m asking is what’s this something else. And if all I do in the end is this “questioning” then I still think that it’s better than “doing nothing” or “waiting” or “not questioning”. But the hope is of course that this questioning will lead to something else. “trying” at least.
Trying to do something is different from imagining to do something.
Like how I was truly unable to imagine the group dynamics, and what will happen with this project, this “in(ter)dependent studies”, this “in(ter)depending” or “in(ter)dependence”.
ST slapped me twice on my lap and reminded me how fortunate and blessed I am and I am. Aren’t you? We choose to be responsible and we choose our values too. Not everybody will do the same in your position. So, you have two kids you need to feed? You choose not to abandon them. There are people who do. You choose not to end your life the next minute. You choose not to let go.
One of the dearest persons to me ever did. She let go. She chose not to live on for another day.
We choose to choose, we choose to not choose.
If you can understand and agree with these, then welcome to the point of no return. If you don’t agree, then tell me why, and help me turn back, please. Or help me choose to turn my back.