Over at Crossroads Dispatches, the following appears:

Ordinarily, when we speak of withdrawal, we think of having a substance removed from us. We give up alcohol, drugs, sugar, fats, caffeine, nicotine — and we suffer a withdrawal. It’s useful to view creative withdrawal a little differently. We ourselves are the substance we withdraw to, not from, as we pull our overextended and misplaced creative energy back into our own core.”

Fascinating…we ourselves are the substance we withdraw to as we pull our overextended and misplaced energy back into our own core. Now keep this statement in mind as you read Sylvia Martinez’ Web 2.0, the meltdown and education quote below.

As I read it, feel it, it’s the calm before the storm, that moment of stillness before the winds rip the roof off from on top of you, suck you out into the maelstrom, and then, you pray for deliverance. You pray that what’s left will be enough to carry on, to enable you to keep moving and talking and walking, living and loving.

You pray that your life won’t be unalterably transformed in ways you aren’t prepared to accept.

Sylvia writes:

everyone is affected by this financial crisis, not just Web 2.0 companies. School budgets are being cut as well, making it even more tempting to use free tools. There are definitely alternatives such as open source, as Tom Hoffman pointed out in his response to my earlier post. But every alternative has its long and short term costs, and as we are about to find out, there is just no Free Lunch 2.0.

I think we need, more than picking out what tools will endure, to be prepared to accept what remains, to withdraw to the core of our creative energy and keep our hands empty, remembering that it’s easier to grab ahold of something when you aren’t clinging to this technology or that one. If nothing else, impermanence is the lesson of Web 2.0, the economic meltdown, and education that rides its horse forward, looking backward.

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