The group experience
In the spirit of making up for lost time... let me describe for you a new enclave or network of people I've unwittingly become part of.
It's a kind of research group, a kind of network of people who (so far) know each other by email . It's a group thing, it's a book group novel waiting to happen, or speed dating for research nerds.
Emma asked us to send around an email to everyone else describing who we were. Someone went first and defined their rank, hierachy, scope and intentions. Others including M followed, describing research hopes against a backdrop of work drawbacks (redundancies, work re-orgs etc). Only T differed by describing how much they were looking to the upcoming workshop because the live music scene looked promising that week.
More emails come, all of which ignore T's self-declared interest in drinking and live music ahead of research goals. Many explain one's foisted career hopes. Finally I make my contribution, detailing the conventional stuff, skipping over the (assumed) foisted career hopes and concluding with "Glad that T is looking out for the live music scene; I love music, visual art and the anonymity of city life."
This completely breaks the seal. The remainder of the group pours their heart out from this point. M sends a new email, confessing to being in it for the socialising . L pours his heart out about the heartbreak of being a manager and never getting to do anything he wants to do; whilst Fab says "You're all scaring me with your level of ability: my only research experience is in regards to Coopers Ale appreciation... I'd love to tell you I'm a Johnny Depp lookalike: but I'm not".
All very Toby Litt.
It's a kind of research group, a kind of network of people who (so far) know each other by email . It's a group thing, it's a book group novel waiting to happen, or speed dating for research nerds.
Emma asked us to send around an email to everyone else describing who we were. Someone went first and defined their rank, hierachy, scope and intentions. Others including M followed, describing research hopes against a backdrop of work drawbacks (redundancies, work re-orgs etc). Only T differed by describing how much they were looking to the upcoming workshop because the live music scene looked promising that week.
More emails come, all of which ignore T's self-declared interest in drinking and live music ahead of research goals. Many explain one's foisted career hopes. Finally I make my contribution, detailing the conventional stuff, skipping over the (assumed) foisted career hopes and concluding with "Glad that T is looking out for the live music scene; I love music, visual art and the anonymity of city life."
This completely breaks the seal. The remainder of the group pours their heart out from this point. M sends a new email, confessing to being in it for the socialising . L pours his heart out about the heartbreak of being a manager and never getting to do anything he wants to do; whilst Fab says "You're all scaring me with your level of ability: my only research experience is in regards to Coopers Ale appreciation... I'd love to tell you I'm a Johnny Depp lookalike: but I'm not".
All very Toby Litt.
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