Conclusions

You're there at the end of a long work or workout session. Your body hurts, but you know it would be worse if you weren't doing this. You are, after all, only human.

Mentally, things seem a bit scattered too, because you're thinking along a lot of different possible timelines. What just happened? What was supposed to happen? What's right or wrong about what actually happened? How might things be improved for next time? Is there gonna be a next time?

You decide that you better stick with it - after all, what you're doing is a matter of conditioning the body and mind, making some outcomes more likely than others. But stick with what, precisely?

Things can always be refined, in some dimension or another. Maybe you do continue with how things have been, because you're making steady progress. Maybe you have to switch directions or change tactics, change modalities. Why? Because you're tired. This has been a brutal struggle. So much of the struggle has been in your mind, but it's no less brutal for that.

You have some stories you can tell your grandkids about though, if you ever have 'em, if the scars you show off in the bars impress well enough. If nothing else, you've gained experience, and that ought to count for something, somewhere, somehow.

Maybe out of all of this, you've established a better connection with yourself. (And how does that work, precisely?) You've explored some possibilities, and some possible ways of being. Because everything you do here is a way of being: maybe a pose, maybe an attitude, maybe an embodiment of some underlying Platonic form, who knows, but it feels like an exploration of a possible society, a possible life for yourself therein.

Of course, it would be easy to say to yourself that you haven't done enough. I suppose that if you haven't reached the goal you had in mind, it's a natural thing to say. But do you say it cruelly, or kindly? And why?

Or, now, let's switch the perspective, and make all this prospective. You're just at the beginning of planning a project -- how do you want things to wind up? Do you want to be celebrating, or crying? Are we talking about the glee of an endorphin rush? Or is the conclusion not so happy -- dead in a ditch by the side of the road, perhaps. Of course this is not your ambition. You'd rather have the right kind of adventure, something where you come away knowing your capabilities, you come away perhaps a bit stronger.

Here's the tricky thing, though.

You're neither at the beginning nor at the end of a project. You're somewhere in the middle -- and it's tempting to just fix yourself a cup of tea with milk, look out the window, maybe take a walk around the block looking for inspiration. So much depends on this. Are you feeling defeated as you go, or are you in love with life? If you want to go back to bed, why is that? Not enough rest lately? Working too hard? Or is that not it at all? Too much conflict perhaps, making it impossible to rest. You lie down, you sleep, but it doesn't do much for you anymore. Maybe the problem is that you're not eating right. Maybe you don't have enough people around to talk to about your concerns. You're walking around that block and you're kicking at a rock. What ever got you into this game in the first place?

You figure you better get rooted. You can't keep approaching these days blowing around like a leaf in the wind. These days had better be about something. You're not yet ready to retire. So it's not just about whether or not you're moving forward, it's your whole approach.

You're back inside now, you sit down and you start writing. You fill a page or two of your notebook. Things are looking different. You've got some prospects, you figure. You're through with all of that "maybe tomorrow" stuff. After all, it's just noon, the day is not yet -- well, just -- half over.

"We explored connections between paragogy and peer production, and paragogy and learning analytics, and showed how paragogy can intertwine with these to open new avenues for productivity, learning, and evaluation."

It was a good attempt, certainly. We would improve on it later. This afternoon, there are other things to be done, quite a full agenda, really.

= Recommended reading=


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_human_needs : The above "poetic" text is meant to go in the direction of getting the reader thinking about "what purpose do the activities that I am engaged with serve?" Max-Neef's list of fundamental human needs provides a good place to start.  For example, for me, work helps to serve my need for "participation", for "subsistence", and for "creation", whereas rest helps to serve my need for "protection" (in the sense of immune systems), and the things I do for entertainment take care of a lot of the others.  Keep in mind that the Max-Neef needs are, in fact, needs -- they all get served in different ways.  It's interesting to ask "how do I think about the things that I do".  I sometimes kick myself for getting so involved with "entertainments", but actually, they seem to do a lot for me.  It's useful when thinking about a given piece of research to say, what purpose does this serve?  For example, does it shift the relationship between a given activity (work, say) and a given need (e.g. identity)?