Edging Ahead…

…and we’ll ignore the corollary. Doug Johnson mentioned me in a recent Blue Skunk Blog and I’m humbled to have my thoughts given more credence than I had assumed. Weighty responsibility to live up to…

By the time I finished a Comment to Doug’s post,  I decided I wanted to “hold that thought” in my blog too, rather than just as a comment in BSB. Thanks, Doug, for both the nod to my “struggle” and more importantly, for helping me solidify my own sense of personal and professional balance.

Doug’s post also reminded me that I’ve never acknowledged another colleague who does read my blog, and pointed me to a Post from his  back in 2007 where he raised many of the same issues I have about balance and efficacy in the real world out there. Thanks, Dennis, for both being a great colleague in residence, but for reminding me that I’m not alone in my thinking.

And my response to Doug?

“Doug,
…I’ve been wondering if my last couple of posts come across as self-pitying instead of self-reflective, and I’ve really been planning to work on a more…constructive(?) way of voicing my misgivings and outlining my coping strategies. Now you go and shine a spotlight on my inadequacies;( )) Gotta work on that!

But no, your post hits me right where I live. Increasingly in the last two years (coinciding, it seems, with my New Dad status) I’ve become preoccupied with misgivings about the future of not just education, but 21st-century society in general. I’m invested enough in this that I’ve written a novel about it (I’ll get to this in an upcoming post). Closer to where I live - and work - have been those growing questions about finding that elusive balance in an increasingly technology-obsessed work environment. And finally, of course, as a 50-something (first-time) father, I’ve only now begun to truly wrestle with those very personal issues of what, in the end, is it really important for me to achieve in whatever time I’ve got left.

It was on this last level that your posting really hit home. In our headlong rush to embrace the new global networking phenomena, we risk losing the intimacy of family and tribal customs that have been the glue of society from the very beginnings of human culture. As we find the “free” hours of each day whittled away by wonderful, but time-consuming online interactivity, we have to give up something - and too often that is quality time where it really counts. And as we devote ever more time to exploring the fascinating but arcane worlds of web2.0 , social networking and virtual reality environments, we risk letting go of hands-on traditions faster than we can build new ones that will have the same staying power as those weekends at the lake, those shared family traditions, those daily family routines.

So:

• I’m going back to my travel agent to say that that trip home to Canada at Christmas really is important, even if I can’t get there on an award flight.
• I’m rethinking my decision following our summer at the lake to let go of my dream of building a “green” home there.
• And I can’t wait to introduce MY son to Big.

The other stuff is, in the end, not my life. It’s my work, and it will, like my blog, continue to be “Edging Ahead” while I focus on what’s really important.

Thanks!
Rob”