What We Do Here And What It Achieves

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Some of you will be familiar with my more expansive, complicated posts that take subjects that seem to have zero connection between them (like semi-precious stone mining in Afghanistan) and connect them to what we do here, as a community, and the effect it has. In some parts of my day job I am still exploring just how it is possible for us, seemingly isolated from one another, cut off from the world and yet connected here; to have a greater impact.

None of us, to my knowledge, is an organized activist. We're all struggling with work and life and commitments (and fitness ). It is difficult for us to keep up with training, let alone measure its impact in any meaningful way. In that direction I have, slowly, developed the idea further. I am sharing it because it is exciting, it bears directly to what The Hive does and means and each of you, has a direct hand in it.

To explain it I need to introduce the theory of Distributed Cognition. Its basic premise is simple enough: "...the coordination of individuals, artifacts and the environment produces a system of practice in which participants work towards shared goals by distributing their cognitive efforts, not just across a system’s members, but through its technologies as well.". Our technologies, here, are the Darebee workouts and books. The system we work within is The Hive (actively) and the Darebee website (a little more passively) and, of course, the countless interactions, greetings, messages of support, information sharing and advice you all give to each other here on a daily basis.

There is an example used to illustrate the concept better (and also give us a better idea how we all become as vital and effective as I think we are) - "navigational symbols and tools enable large navy ships to navigate in tight, shallow waterways and expansive seas." The large navy ships are not intelligent in any way. The people who guide them are. But those people, no matter how smart and skilled they may be would be unable to guide them if there were not, also, nav sats, beacons, charts, sonar, tugboats, lighthouses, radio and light signals to help them do all that (and I have not even come close to exhausting the list).

What that says is that your actions as Bees, create a layer of distributed cognition that impacts and affects countless others lives, many of whom we do not even get to see. It makes our belief that "everyone matters or none of us does" all the more vital. Our shared goals of acceptance, empowerment, health and fitness become the navigational symbols others use to find their way through life. There is an entire web being created from everything we do and everyone here is its architect. Kudos. And gratitude for making it happen.
 

JohnStrong

Well-known member
Guardian from Alberta
Posts: 458
"No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. -Socrates"
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Wait... and a Hive gets harvested... by those starved for navigational nourishment?... @Damer my brain hurts! 😅

Some big ideas here that I probably need more caffeine to process; but the overall arc is great, it's not easy to keep the big picture in mind so posts like this are important. Your references to ships and navigation reminded me of the challenge allied ships (our goals and dreams?) had during World War II who were often at the mercy of Germany's submarine wolf packs (self-doubt? discouragement? learned helplessness?). That problem wasn't effectively solved until the convoy method of multiple, defensive escorts (self-love? understanding? community?) in tight formation was developed.
 
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