I admire that people are doing the reverb10 thing and that they seem to be learning from it. My reaction is more Roxie's World than not, though (minus the terrible life events that are mentioned over there, which is why I took down my comment).
My issues, or Issues, if you prefer, are twofold. These aren't meant as criticisms of the people who are doing it, because some of the prompts are worthwhile. But in case anyone was wondering:
(1) I'm kind of allergic to Inspiration and use up my quota of tolerance for it listening to speeches at graduation every year.
(2) The last time I was in a situation where I had to write a prompt not of my choosing was at an Edumacation Workshop. The point was that whatever we wrote was wrong, because--surprise!--we had not asked what we were to assess before starting the prompt. Since I had read the same assessment stuff that they assumed we had never heard of, I was way ahead of the presenters, who were very proud of themselves for this little trick. I didn't write the prompt because I could see where this exercise was leading.
And anyway, if you're going to give a prompt, why not make it something like "are we human, or are we dancer?" and put it to a beat?
This isn't to say that reverb10 hasn't had an effect, though. I've been trying to figure out why I had such a visceral and immediate response against it, even though I've done the occasional meme. My best guess is that even though it's voluntary, it felt coercive (again--to me), and if someone else has an item to add to my to-do list, they're going to have to get in line.
5 comments:
Allergic to inspiration? Tee hee.
Hey, that was me! The
enter button took on a life of its own tehre. I wasn't even done. But now I forget what I wanted to say.
xoxo
Ink
I've been skipping over all reverb10 blog posts because I don't care. Which is weird because I am interested in my regular reads lives and their reflection on what is bothering them, but the forced reflection crap pisses me off. I don't like self-help stuff because it is often a scam.
Ink, it's true!
Tree of Knowledge, I am more interested in their regular posts, too, for some reason.
Oh yes -- that's what it is, it's self helpy! No wonder I hate it.
I thought I hated it because it was so feminizing. It assumes you are not creative, do not feel wonder, etc., etc., and tries to nudge you towards those things. I am insulted by it -- it feels demeaning and also like an interrogation, because I want to be less la-de-da, not more. I cook, I decorate, I do ceramics, I kayak, I pet animals, I do all sorts of things like that and I don't want to be called to account about it.
I would be much more interested in anything less New Agey. It could be really dark. When exactly did your heart break? At whose death did you feel the most relief? Or really scientific, like your professional opinion on something, or some data for the sake of creating a data pool on some question.
All the feel good things have always grated on me because despite my crabbiness I really do have a very puppies and kitties kind of attitude already. Given that I have to spend my days encouraging everyone: yes students, this can be fun, interesting, and funny! Yes, faculty, these things can be done and can even be renewing! Yes, family, the roof is still on the house and everything is fine! The last thing I want to do for recreation is prove that I can be positive in this way, model positivity, radiate even more positive energy for someone other than myself.
I have a friend who loves these kinds of exercises but I now understood why: she rates herself high on cynicism, where as I rate myself high on idealism. So the corrective I actually want would involve darker questions: when did your heart actually break? at what death(s) did you rejoice or feel relief? Or anything involving hard data: a poll on various political or professional opinions, an exercise in which one pooled data, anything.
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