Giftedness Awareness Blog Tour - The Problem with Big

 http://ultranet.giftededucation.org.nz/WebSpace/696/

We all grow up in different eras from our parents and grandparents, that is we did until the Internet was widely used.  When I was growing up, Iowa was my home.  It was the center of my experience, the source of most of my culture.  TV, of course, brought in the outside world, but it wasn't something to interact with.  It was somewhat like a book, in that it could influence you, but the influence was pretty much one way.  You had little effect on the outside world.  

And live culture, for the most part was local.  Most of the arts performances you saw were produced by local performers.  Occasionally a performer from outside came to the state fair, but, for the most part, cultural activities were locally produced, with homegrown talent.  If you performed in a dance recital, it was for a local audience, not the world.  If you sang in a choir, it was for your school or your community group.   
But this has changed a lot now that the Internet is so ubiquitous.  In the course of a few short minutes, I can interact with people from all around the world.  I can Skype with someone in Australia; I can chat with someone in India; I can look at and comment on Facebook pictures posted by a former student, who is visiting southern Chile.  

In general, I think this is great and it feeds my brain good things just about all day.  The Internet is addicting brain food.  

But... (and you knew there was going to be a "But...", didn't you?), there is one thing about the Internet that has recently come to my consciousness that I am still thinking about and trying to fit into my thoughts.  It is BIG.  In the "real" world, as opposed to just my local piece of it, there are lots of people who are really GOOD at lots of things.  

I have recently started performing and writing music.  This is perhaps a strange thing to do, for a 60+ year old person, who has only participated in group performances, such as choruses and who had never written music before, but, for some odd reason, I wanted to do it.  The problem is, in a previous era, you could engage in the arts and you didn't have to be especially good.  You mainly compared yourself to other local performers.  Chances are, those other local performers were also pretty good, but they weren't the world's best.  You might see the world's best on TV, or even once in a while in real life, but mainly the comparisons were with local people.  

So, now, I am wondering how this impacts kids who are growing up now.  How can they dare to write a poem, when there are thousands or even millions of poems available just by Googling "poem"?  How ostentatious it is to write a song, when there are millions of songs on YouTube, available just by clicking?  How does it impact someone who could be a gifted musician, when even when s/he is starting out, s/he has to compare the work s/he does to someone who is an expert already?

I lived in Alaska for a few years and was aware that there is a different mindset in those people who are somewhat isolated from the bigger world.  They participate more.  That is where I dared to participate in Cabaret; where I first dared to write my own song.  

How do we turn off our world-expert consciousness when we are trying something that we aren't yet good at?  How do we encourage the fledgling gifted creators?

Source of Anxiety

It occurs to me that one source of anxiety for me lately is the overwhelming number of things that I am interested in. With the constant availability of the Internet, with the huge availability of the library, though inter-library loans, with the face to face Meet-Ups on a seemingly endless variety of interests, with all the Facebook friends and interest pages, with the magazines and newspapers that I get, with the long list of emails that I need or want to read, I am simply overwhelmed with stuff. If I were like my husband and narrowly focused on only a few areas of interest, even then I would be inundated with information. But I consider myself to be a generalist. It is one of the reasons why I have stuck with teaching. It allows me to be interested in a wide variety of things.

But recently, I have become more and more aware that it also causes me anxiety. I just can't keep up with the constant barrage of things that I want to read and the things I want to do. I actually have more time now than I have had in earlier years of my life - I am not working on a university degree, the kids are grown, I am not working full time. But that also means that I can develop new interests as well - I have started going to Meet-Ups for playing board games and for speaking German. Last summer, I started making jewelry. This past fall I started writing songs. Since I moved here I have been trying to attend regularly the World Affairs Discussion Group at our local branch library, where I am confronted continually with my lack of knowledge about history, economics, and international policy. And I want to remedy that lack of knowledge.

Perhaps this acknowledgement can explain some of the reasons that students know so little about the world these days. There is simply too much to know; too much to be interested in; too much to do. It is much easier to just focus on the easy things - the latest video game; the antics of pop stars; the latest songs. These things are straight-forward and do not require complicated understanding. Let someone else know the complicated stuff; there is too much for me to know - and by the time I learn about it, it will have changed, anyway.

I suppose other people have come to this realization already - so, again, I am confronted with the question of why should I care? Maybe I should just relax and give up even pretending to be a generalist - but which of my interests should I give up?