Depression: an obstacle to learning LO11073

John Farago (jfarago@cix.compulink.co.uk)
Wed, 20 Nov 96 07:41 GMT0

Replying to LO11045 --

I am always conscious when reading or posting to this list that
'learning-org' is a very large community joined together asynchronously by
the 'miracle' of the internet. Inevitably (although I am sceptical about
categorising and labelling people) it will include introverts and
extraverts, thinking, feeling, sensing and intuiting types
(Jung/Myers-Briggs?), pragmatists, activists, theorists and reflectors
(Mumford and Honey's Learning Styles); those who talk more than they
listen and those who listen more than they talk, those who contribute and
those who just posture; people who ask, inform, are informed, argue and
engage in generative dialogue; happy people, sad people, depressed people.

The largest volume of messages come from a relatively small number of
participants (as would inevitably be the case if we were all physically
present together) and many remain silent. (It would be impossible to read
or to manage if all were to write regularly.)

I do not know (perhaps nobody yet knows) the group psychodynamics of an
internet community such as this, but we know that, as in physical groups,
emotions run high when we are 'given permission to let our hair down'. And
from my experience in such physical groups, psychological damage can be
done.

So the purpose of this message is to ask all readers to join with me
silently in expressing sympathy/empathy with those in our learning
community who suffer from depression, particularly for those who remain
silent here. (I would call it a prayer if I were a religious man).

Greetings from Wimbledon
---

John Farago
<jfarago@cix.compulink.co.uk>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations
For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>