You travel hundreds of years into the past. You find yourself in the midst of redundant conversations - the brightest people on the planet are fiercely debating the infinite attributes of God.

It is liberating and challenging experience. You have entered a 'smooth space' intellectually: because you realise that these conversations are nonsensical, you are not bound to participate. You do not have strong views on trivia. You are not attached to a particular position in this 'space'. You - dear reader - are untroubled by the infinite attributes of God. Transported back in time you realise that the space in which you are attached to a position has yet to open up.

But what do you do? What would you do? Almost certainly you wouldn't go around challenging people.

Growing up, it was normal to make fun of people for being fat. People did it on TV, we did it in playgrounds, doctors and louts alike would have a go at people for being fat.

Today, I wouldn’t do that – I would consider that to be rude, hurtful and likely to be described as ‘fat shaming’.

People sometimes imagine that ‘woke culture’ is all about inauthenticity – about people hiding what they really think. I don’t believe that to be true.

It’s almost impossible today for those of us involved in ‘Education’, ‘Learning and Development’, or ‘Training’ to think about learning or to do anything that encourages learning - and that’s a shame because we are generally people who care about development and helping people grow.

What stops us thinking about learning and development is all the nonsense we have put in the way: imagine that you were interested in personality and the prevailing view was astrological.

Research is often misleading if you don't have a theory that you're testing. As Karl Popper pointed out science begins with a theory, which we systematically put to the test. Reckless empiricism is the greatest threat to science today, in my view. 

But people get attached to silly ideas and I tire of prising their sticky fingers from them.

Nietzsche says that man is a bridge, Heidegger uses the word 'clearing' to say the same thing in reference to Dasein (humankind).

But in both cases it is a qualified definition: that is the essence of what we are, the most we can be. The few. The rest are 'herd' or 'fallen' - consumed by triviality and popularity. Flotsam & jetsam. Dwelling in the here & now, like grazing sheep.

This I know for sure:

When someone has stopped laughing, when there is no playfulness left in them, then they are already dead.

They are not dead in the literal sense - you will see them breathing, their mouth moving. But they are like a book or a fossil. They are already historical artefacts. A thing of the past.

You may learn from them, you should turn their pages and see what is written there - but any discourse will only be in your mind. They have ceased to change.

Instructional design is useless.

Image: Yogendra Singh

"I would only belive in a god who could dance,

and when I found my devil I found him serious, thorough, profound and solemn:

it was the spirit of gravity - through him  all things fall."

- Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

Dance is a central theme for Nietzsche. It’s rarely recognised as such because generally the folk who dissect Nietzsche consider themselves thinkers - and thinkers don’t dance.

I have sometimes said ‘there is no content’ or ‘the word content is a red flag’ – indicating that we are likely doing education and not learning.

I appreciate that this may seem perplexing to some people, so I’d like to explain why I say these sorts of things.

Let’s start with a naïve realist’s view of the world – by which I mean there is stuff out there happening – trees falling, teacups shattering and so on – which we pick up via our senses in a process that we call ‘experiencing the world’.

Imagine travelling three hundred years into the past and trying to convince people that there is no such thing as soul.

They would laugh at you. 'The notion is preposterous! Without a soul I would be dead!' they would scoff 'I am intimately acquainted with my soul. I sense its presence even as we speak'.

Dualisms are as old as western thought and have served a single purpose: to elevate us above the natural world. To provide the foundation for a narrative in which we are 'special' and divine.
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