Goodbye

A lifetime of living
And loving
Just doesn't fit
In the package.

The heart, too full.
The tears, too small.
The words, too few
To contain it all.

The loss, too great.
The grief, too new.
The wait, too long.
Dee, I'll miss you.

Cherice Montgomery, August 24, 2007

Of Blogging & "Knowledge Packages"

What struck me as I read this interview was the idea that blogging facilitates what is, in essence, a continuous process of identity development. It supports the synthesis and analysis of individual topics, facilitates recursive exploration of those ideas, and ultimately results in the production of a series of pre-fabricated "knowledge packages" (to quote Liping Ma) that are relatively easy to incorporate into larger works. My personal experience with blogging suggests that it goes a few additional steps. When I take the time to post to my blog, I find that it seems to function on both an emotional level and a cognitive level as a way of helping me to incorporate thoughts, understandings, feelings, and ideas into my conceptual framework in ways that ultimately support my ability to integrate them into the fabric of my life.

Of Understanding and Becoming

We are constantly creating our own realities, and what we know is the raw material for this creation. Through the recursive and reciprocal processes involved in drawing on that knowledge, it is transformed, becoming a tool (or a box of tools) that we use to carve out both a space and a place for ourselves in the world. As we take our experiences in those spaces and places back into ourselves, we are expanded, making it possible for us to make both space and place within ourselves to accommodate the world . . . In a very real sense, then, we become what we understand!