Stephen Downes

I want to leave a promissary note here to finish some thoughts, knowing I might not ever get to fulfill it, but at least to flag the intention as something important. Let's start here (and yes, we've visited this place a lot): "When we peel back the modernism, let go of the separation, the interdependence is everywhere, and the pathways to rediscovering it are many and varied - and surely that's the point." That should sound so familiar. A lot of people today see the path forward as a path backward - letting go of modernism, as though it has all been a big mistake. I too, think abstraction as an ideal was a mistake, but I see the path forward as reaching into a future, one where we don't lose who we are even while understanding our interconnection with everything else. Indeed, the whole concept of interconnection makes no sense if it is not connection between individuals - distinct, autonomous, and indispensible. And the promissary note is that I want to say this without appeal to mythology, whether to the idea of the will or to mysterium, tremendum et fascinans. Via Kate Bowles.