Brian makes a good point about our oh-so-human reaction when something receives an unexpected negative response… and the thought his words provoked in me are important enough to be brought to the front.

I realized that I took a number of recent events far too personally. I assumed a certain perception of who I am and where I’m coming from, things like my shared belief that there is much about our learning environments that can’t be taught, that I don’t want to create new monoliths to replace the old ones, etc.

When that understanding turned out not to be the case, it felt very personal, as if this group of people that I barely feel qualified to be considered a peer with in the first place was reacting with disdain… not just to something that I’ve been giving a lot of thought to and sincerely want help with, but to me personally. It triggers all my deep-rooted emotions of insecurity and powerful and painful feelings of being alienated from the most important part of my network of friends and colleagues.

It’s enough to despair of ever being able to communicate at all.

Unfortunately, in that state of mind, even– perhaps particularly– my attempts to set things right haven’t come across as clearly as the mea culpa they mostly are. Which makes it hard to lighten up (or what passes for lightening up with a philosophically inclined person like me… finding clarity).