Editing the self

November 19, 2007 – Libby Davy – Print

Just out of interest.. I added the bunny ears around “thought leader” in between sending the last post out as an email to some current students, and putting it up publically.

Why do that? Why tell you I did it?

I was editing myself. I was thinking carefully about how I wanted to communicate. I was listening to myself. I was learning, as I am right now in this moment, very very deeply.

In the first version I was uncomfortable with calling myself a thought leader due to the perhaps pompous nature of appointing yourself as that, yet is has some meaning. But I knew I was in a more closed conversation with people that had intimate, direct experience of any credentials I might have in that way.

I was uncomfortable with the use of it for two reasons. One - it makes me sound like a tosser to include myself in that category. Two - in context, it was ironic due to the inherent hierarchy implied. My authentic self sees everyone as potentially thought leaders, and that’s a part of the potential blogging offers. That’s the deepest part of the conceptual space we are developing here. Lead your own thinking. Listen to yourself first.

In the second version -  I used the bunny ears for “thought leader” to suggest the questionable use of the expression, as if I was quoting some else in using it. Which I was. Earlier I spent some time (on an off day when I should be in bed recovering from a cold) looking at some of the world’s top, self appointed “thought leaders” who might want me to join them at the top.

I guess I’m not quite ready to go there.  I think the view and sense of interconnection is better from the earth, not up on the mountain looking down. I hate heirarchies.

There. Lesson to self finished. If anyone else gets anything from it, that’s a total bonus.

Comments

No Responses to “Editing the self”

  1. Libby Davy on November 19th, 2007 4:20 pm

    The quote that really does it for me right now:

    “Alone, each of us is a visionary, but working together, we become a force of unimaginable power.”

    — Michael Gurian

    http://www.gurianinstitute.com/

  2. Libby Davy on November 19th, 2007 9:54 pm

    Gra has just reminded me of how we are all contributing to the interconnected global consciousness through blogging and generally being online. Thank goodness then, that projects like the One Laptop Per Child exist.

    http://laptop.org/

    Give > and get!

  3. leahlandau on November 19th, 2007 11:05 pm

    hierarchies
    take you higher and higher
    to the top of the mountain

    blogging online is democratic
    round and round and
    interweaving
    interdependent

    unity in diversity
    and lighting up
    connections
    in the brain/mind

    we are perhaps all
    thought leaders
    and “thought leaders”
    and where do our thoughts
    lead us?
    I wonder…

  4. Biff on November 20th, 2007 8:50 am

    I like that feeling when something lights up the connections in my mind, and I don’t often get that from “thought leaders.” I prefer thinkers. A thinker that can light up the connections in your mind is better than a “leader” who merely leads you into theirs.

    ~biff~

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