A curriculum for flourishing and survival.

I mean, just imagine what could be happening in the space between these two points; between survival and flourishing; from the very basics needed to just keep going through to the rich nourishment needed to thrive.

A curriculum for flourishing and survival. Our legacy.

A computer dream

We overcomplicate things.

And we certainly overunderstand things.

We oversystemise and overplan and overanticipate

a massive case of overcompensation.

There must be reassurance and validation therein; a satisfaction in believing that the gaps have been found and filled,

and no doubt a cool sense that we still retain dominion over all this mess; that it can be brought to heel

But we are this mess, and it is us.

So let’s not rush to reach for the ruler when a wobbly line will do just fine.

Let’s just open ourselves up and let learning in.

This all came to me in a computer dream.

What if learning doesn’t come in?

It will,

it has to.

Learning cannot exist outside a healthy host.

It needs us as much as we need it.

The perfect symbiosis, we complete each other,

but we need to be vulnerable and we need to breathe through it.

Skeleton Tree

The first time I listened to this 2016 album (by the extraordinary Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds band of aural warriors) actually became the last time I listened to it for about three years. You see, I had a physical reaction to it: I couldn’t breathe properly. I don’t know whether it was voluntary or involuntary, but I found myself holding my breath. While I continued my deep dive into his extraordinary catalogue, I kept this disk off limits; shrouded.

I returned to it in 2019. I’d since bought it on vinyl (and odd decision considering the above), and one Saturday afternoon I put it on while I was sorting out some paperwork. I remember suddenly getting it. Perhaps I let it in by not staring at it directly; not needing so much from it, and I actually felt the connection occurring.

I return to it regularly. It is a truly monumental statement: a desolate rumination on the mess of being us; pre-grief and throbbing, yet for all that, tender and ultimately sustaining.

A record of flourishing and survival.

Heart-breaking, heart-mending.

Let things unfurl

It feels like some of this experience translates into our work leading learning; like there are things here we should be mindful of:

like not staring so intently,

or holding our breath

or seeking something immediate

and being so demanding of it all.

Learning will unfurl

(it has to , it must)

and it will be beautiful when it does;

beautiful and messily human.