When the moment arrives
And destiny beckons,
When the reach of our enemies
Tickles the hair on our necks
When the bastions of civilization
Teeter in the fall wind
Let us remember these times
When the scope of possibility
Was as vast as the evening sky

This age
Has spilt blood
And made peace
Has been rejoiced and lauded
Damned and spun
This age unlike any other
Just like every other
So human, so inhumane

We will not be forgotten

We will not forget

The methods to the madness
The driving wind, the melancholy of
Friends lost and found, of parted ways
Of the barren truth of violence, of love

We cannot forget

The travels of the heart
In search of home
The lights at the end of this winding path
The mettle of our masters
The gentle God

Those in despair, rest.
Those in danger, flee.
Those that can, help.

Let us dissolve these bands with our vicious past,
Our erroneous history, our skewed perception
In the course of human events, a tale must be retold
But first it must be rewritten, it must reflect
The passions of the heart, the lessons in acquiescence,
The calm before the storm.

It must render independence as self-evident
And husband greatness from the flickering of
Innocence lost.

It must remember the violence
And vilify, see the injustice
And desist, make innocuous the pulse
Of mutual destruction.

We must redefine human.

By Michael Gallagher

My name is Michael Sean Gallagher. I am a Lecturer in Digital Education at the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. I am Co-Founder and Director of Panoply Digital, a consultancy dedicated to ICT and mobile for development (M4D); we have worked with USAID, GSMA, UN Habitat, Cambridge University and more on education and development projects. I was a researcher on the Near Futures Teaching project, a project that explores how teaching at The University of Edinburgh unfold over the coming decades, as technology, social trends, patterns of mobility, new methods and new media continue to shift what it means to be at university. Previously, I was the Research Associate on the NERC, ESRC, and AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund sponsored GCRF Research for Emergency Aftershock Forecasting (REAR) project. I was an Assistant Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (한국외국어대학교) in Seoul, Korea. I have also completed a doctorate at University College London (formerly the independent Institute of Education, University of London) on mobile learning in the humanities in Korea.

2 thoughts on “Feeling a dash of self-importance”

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