theanimal wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 12:19 am
I think the danger in being absolute is insulating one from experiencing any non self created friction and creating a bubble for oneself that provides insulation from any undesired hardships. I see "ability to" as less an opportunity to have camaraderie and bonding than being able to deal with other people/events/places who have very different views, behaviors, interests than you do. I don't think most office environments are a good thing, but I do see them as a good way of embracing and dealing with friction that many people work to completely avoid once they start working from home. Of course you can try to replicate that in some way on your own. IMO, very few people do.
I like this and the shift it brings. Very thoughtful. Thank you, theanimal.
If working from home and remote work is yielded as yet another means of (or excuse for) shielding ourselves from the world, an insulation compounded by the ubiquitous mediation/interference of screens that "disconnect" us from our sensuous, embodied presence, direct experience and human and more-than-human relationships, then it may defeat its "purpose" (of course remote work is mostly done through screens, so the irony is not lost on me).
At the same time, extracting yourself from the constraints of a mostly sterile business/office environment where "human resources" are allowed only limited freedom of movement to interact with each other and which, like school, often encourages reproducing dominant scripts and narratives at odds with personal fulfillment and societal enrichment... Extracting yourself from that and reclaiming morr time, space, freedom of movement and living in your own terms etc. is not the worse you can do.
The reclaimed time can be used for meaningful connections, first and foremost with loved ones, and can also, give a better idea of what life can be out of the rat race.
Outside of the "seamless" colorful and flashing experience of screens, there is indeed friction, there is awkwardness, the risk of exposure and afronts, the danger of closeness.
Fully accepting some risk and danger is crucial.
Introversion does not necessarily mean one can't be open to the world at large and to Otherness. Quite the contrary. How can you really bear the company of others if you can't bear your own?
There is richness in introspection, but also in wordly and earthly connection, in expanded circles of consciousness, compassion and association.
At any rate, I am personally discovering the introvertion/extraversion dichotomy to be an exceedingly false one if one gets too hang up on it.
If a lense makes my/the world smaller, it isn't such a good lense.
Currently, I am traveling while working just a few hours a week and generally sharing living quarters with strangers (hostels and such, public space, etc.)
While I sometimes crave for and do take time alone and especially close to "nature", there is a joy in becoming available to encounters and spontaneous occurrences or even just in being "in the midst". In meeting others, other cultures, experiencing friction, hectic landscapes/soundscapes and allovertheplaceness. In feeling lost and at home in strangely familiar land.
That shield is porous. Like my skin, within the confines of which I already... contain multitudes.