Since I forgot to write my post before class, I will write about what I’ve been thinking about since class yesterday. I’ve been thinking a lot about the radical nature of hope, imagination and creativity. Specifically, I have been thinking about how emotions can be used as indicators both of what is working and, perhaps more importantly, about what needs to be worked on. Spaces that crush the imagination and creativity feel hopeless and drain your energy. Those spaces, not the people in them, need to be rehabilitated and reconfigured. In that way, feelings indicate where our action is needed and maybe even what actions are required.
What is interesting to me is that much of this knowledge is embodied. As Audre Lorde writes in “On Activism,” that emotional knowledge is “the hidden sources of our power from where true
knowledge and, therefore, lasting action comes” (p. 36, 1984). Therefore, similarly to the Blackfoot nation’s conception of needs in which self-actualization is a given, Audre Lorde expresses that our attainment of self-actualization is not something to be achieved and strived for, but something that must be tapped into, and for many of us, remembered.
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Hey Kushya,
I too have been thinking about radical hope, imagination, and creativity. I loved the thought you shared around emotions acting as indicators of what needs to be worked on. This is not only something I would pose to students but also to myself. Self reflecting as a act of noticing where my emotions are. Training myself to become aware of the emotions in the room and leaving space for the things I don’t know and/or understand.
Thank you for offering this.