Building Our Human Skills
What do you allow yourself to daydream about?
What do you think of the value of meditation or daydreaming? I teach it as a fundamental aspect of the human lived experience. I make space for it, and I empower the kids who come to my camps to engage in it.
“...These three skills (empathy, curiosity, daydreaming) do NOT represent a weakness in our human condition. They represent organic and recursive programming that terrifies data scientists and programmers, where in that context they are a definite liability. ”
Why I prefer Human Skills to Soft Skills
Kids drawing/Daydreaming on a piece of glass painted white on the back, resting on a white tarp - instant whiteboard.
It is this very illogical connection that makes me prefer “Human Skills” to “soft skills”. I take offense to the idea of calling our ESSENTIAL skills for character, connection, communication, love, dignity, empathy and self-expression as simply “useful” or “soft” or “weaker” than a technical skill. That conflation belongs to industrial and colonialist mindsets.
We know good character when we see it. Alternatively, we have been in a position of needing help and the person available is technically proficient, but lacking in personality or compassion. A part of our hope for resolution dies when we know we might get a problem resolved, but learned nothing.
Human Skills Like Daydreaming
Self-Reflection and Introspection are ESSENTIAL human skills. We cannot teach large language models or artificial intelligence to be self-referential, empathetic, or introspective. Also, tese three skills (empathy, curiosity, daydreaming) do NOT represent a weakness in our human condition. They represent organic and recursive programming that terrifies data scientists and programmers, where in that context they are a definite liability.
Software is a terrible way to characterize our humanity. It is the very death of innovation. Imagining and reframing problems or solutions is how we use the resources available to us. Yes, it is prone to failure and fragility, but it is also entirely magical when it works.
Leadership, Courage, Curiosity, Dignity, Empathy, and Respect cannot be programmed. They are human skills that must be lived, lost, and rediscovered iteratively. This pattern of iterative, experiential, emotional, and hands-on learning is what I refer to as the Human OS. More on that later.
