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Tag: undivided wholeness in flowing movement

Thoreau on the interconnectedness and meaning of life

Published October 7, 2010 by Jo Jordan

Umbrellas in the rain by Ed Yourdon via FlickrHow can severe disappointment provide meaning?

Sometimes when life disappoints us severely, it is hard to imagine what Viktor Frankl means when he says that people who survived the concentration camps expected it all to make sense in the end.

“How?”  we wail.  “How could that ever make sense?”

I suspect what we are crying is that “No, I won’t let it make sense.  Because to make it make sense is to say it is OK and I cannot say it OK that you killed my mother, my father, my brother, my sister, my grandmother, my grandfather, my uncle, my aunt, my cousin.”

Possibly to have faith in the universe feels disloyalty and we prefer lack of faith to lack of loyalty.

Loyalty is a good thing and loyalty should be honored and celebrated.

Life is often unfair

But life does disappoint, in big ways and small.  Often we feel very profoundly that life is unfair.

I am not saying we should do nothing about unfairness.   Not me.

But the writers like Thoreau point us to another way forward.

First, look at the interconnections of the world.  See the whole picture. Loyalty is part of that picture.  Put it in.

Then, decide what you think.

Thoreau’s dilemma of a rain day

This is Thoreau writing about a rainy day at Walden when he elected to be a subsistence farmer so that he would have time to read and write.

His beans are important to him.   He became a farmer to have time, and the weather is throwing out his plans, challenging the very raison d’etre of his project.

He needs his beans too.  Otherwise he will starve.

But nonetheless he brings first the outlook of a contemporary quantum physicist.  Everything is connected. A rainy day may be disruptive; but it is not an insult thrown at us by the universe.

It is a invitation by the universe to bring ourselves into a more connected relationship with everything around us.

Thoreau on a rainy day

Nothing can rightly compel a simple and brave man to a vulgar sadness.

While enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me.

The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house to-day is not drear and melancholy, but good for me too.

Though it prevents me hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing.

If it should continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the lowlands, it will be good for the grass of the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me.

Sometimes, when I compare myself to other men, it seems as if I were more favoured by the gods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of – as if I had a warrant and surety at their hands which my fellows have not, and were especially guided and guarded.  I do not flatter myself, but if it be possible they flatter me.

(p. 114 of the 1927 edition of Walden)

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Dance in any way you know how

Published July 4, 2010 by Jo Jordan

Let's Dance by zenera via FlickrI’m reading David Whyte‘s The Heart Aroused.  It’s profound. It’s illuminating. It connects all the many facets of contemporary management theory: poetry, the positive movement, the mytho-poetic school and hard core complexity theory.  It’s difficult to summarize though

Today, Bukik left a comment on this blog.  Most of his work is in Indonesian ~ which I can’t read.  But some is in English.

From Bukik’s site, I learned this:

“While I dance
I cannot judge
I cannot hate
I cannot separate myself from life.
I can only be joyful and whole.
That is why I dance.”

Hans Bos

I tried to discover who Hans Bos is.  Maybe an American living in Illinois?  I would like to know.

Thanks to Bukik, I have a good quotation to illustrate the contemporary quantum idea and older eastern idea that we are our relationship  with the world.  And almost paradoxically, our relationship with the world is good when we dance, and dance.

Dance in any way you know how.

A good thought for a Sunday morning and good respite from reading economic reports.

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New Year’s Resolution: Look beyond the light

Published December 21, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Look in the light?

I’m sure you all know the story about the man who was looking for something under a street-light.  A passer-by stopped to help and asked what he was looking for.  “A sixpence,” the first man said.  “I dropped a sixpence.”  “Where did you drop it?” asked the second man.  “Over there”, the first man said, pointing outwards into the dark.  “Why are you looking for it here, then?”, said the newcomer.  “Because here is where the light is”, answered the first.

So many of us run our lives on that principle.  We know we need light.  So we head towards the light.  But so has everyone else.  And in business-terms, that patch is “over-traded”. In social terms, the “in-crowd” is there.

Look beyond the light

It is good to be there too.  But who is being excluded?  And why?

In many countries, we are approaching the Christmas festival and many of us will be packing up preparing to criss-cross the globe to rejoin family.  We are heading towards the light and warmth of the family hearth.

In the Christian tradition, it is also a time to think about those who are not included around a family hearth.  It is a gesture of kindness and compassion to reach out.

It is also in our self-interest.  Poets remind us that it is in the dark, the place where we generally do not look or listen, where the value of our lives might be.  Paying attention to the dark might bring value to the hearth.

Poetry about looking beyond the light

Here is a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke on making friends with the dark.  Maybe that should be the New Year’s Resolution for 2010.  To spend a moment each day looking beyond the circle of light into the dark beyond?

You, darkness

You, darkness, that I come from

I love you more than all the fires

that fence in the world,

for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone

and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything-

shapes and fires, animals and myself,

how easily it gathers them!

– powers and people-

and it is possible a great presence is moving near me.

I have faith in nights.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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Tell me about the people in your life and I will show you a successful business and a blossoming career

Published December 9, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Our strengths are our connections to the environment

Our strengths are not in ourselves.  They are in our connections with our environment.  So says Ralph Stacey, complexity theorist at University of Hertfordshire.

What on earth does he mean?  Is this just some abstruse idea that I can safely ignore?  Is it some pop idea that it is not what you know, it is who you know?

Use systems theory to understand your business and take action!

I am going to explain this idea using ideas from MGMT101: very basic systems theory.

Imagine the world as set of concentric circles. Go on.  Draw them.  Draw three.

Outer circle : macro-environment ~ the cloud

The very outer circle is the big bad world ~ the macro environment ~ the cloud. This is where you do your PEST analysis. This is where we worry about Politics, Economics, Social Trends like birth rates and Gen Y and Technological Change like Social Media.  What is happening in the stratosphere of our lives?  It is important to know this stuff.  In the slow moving world of the 1950’s, it was possible to look up and do this once a year.  In this day and age, you should have a set of Google Alerts just for this purpose. If you are a large organization, you should have part of your intranet reserved for articles on these topics written by your own staff in their areas of expertise.

Outer circle but one : micro-environment ~ your pond

The next circle are your competitors ~ your micro-environment ~ your pond.  Who is in your pond?  This is where we use Porter’s Five Forces.  We think about what your customers actually want.  What are the benefits of our products and services (rather than our features).  We think about what it takes to get into this business (barriers to entry).  We think about the suppliers on whom we depend (and how much they or we call the shots).  We think about who else ‘wants in’ to the business ~ who are our competitors.  We think about what our customers could use as a substitute for our service our product.

The ecosytem of our pond is quite complicated and we are sometimes overwhelmed by thinking it out.  I’ve found two concepts really help.

  • Think of your lunch.  Who wants your lunch? The answer is often very surprising. After all, if scientists depend on government for their money, then they are in the businesses of public administration, government or politics.  This is usually an aha moment.
  • Think of the food chain.  We are often make jokes about being at the bottom of the food chain. Actually you want to be at the bottom of the food chain. If you are nobody’s lunch, then there is no reason for your existence.   Who dies if you die?  Often your existence is rather diffuse.  So let’s phrase that a little.  Who would be inconvenienced if you closed down? You can see why businesses try to create monopolies. They are safe if they are indispensable.  Here is another aha moment when you see clearly who are your allies in the great game of  commerce.

When we have our competitors (they want our lunch) and our customers (they eat us), we are on the way to describing the ecosystem of our pond.

Defining your micro-environment ~ your pond ~ is work that you have to do yourself

Both these questions about ‘lunch in the eco-system’ are hard to answer.  They are not like PEST which is common to huge swathes of people and answered in The Economist and other general sources like that.

These are questions you must answer.  I can suggest ideas. We can borrow ideas and insights from other people in the trade.  Occasionally we find a really good book on our business like Michael Riley’s Human Resource Management in the Hospitality Industry.  Mostly we have to sit down and answer

  • Who wants my lunch?
  • Who thinks I am their lunch?  Who depends upon me?

We need concrete answers.  Take photos for me.  Tell me what they had for breakfast and where they are are 2.17 in the morning.  Why that time?  Because you know them so well.

The third circle – who are you and what is your agenda?

With those concrete and specific answers we can define the next circle.  Who are you and what are your strengths?

Now we do the SWOT analysis.  What are your strengths ~ your internal capacity, or things that you do every day, that allow you to be who you are.  Your weaknesses ~ those things you wish you weren’t (but might just be the flip side of your strengths).  The opportunities ~ those things coming up that you really want to do.  Threats ~ those things upcoming that you want to get out of.  You SWOT analysis is just a fancy ‘to do’ list.

Your strengths are the things you like to do and that you probably did yesterday too.  That’s what makes us thing they are us.

But they are really a story that we tell ourselves about us.  That’s why we look partly at our inner talk. We have a story of who we are, who we secretly fear that we are, we we secretly want to be.   We will always have our secret fears and aspirations, but our happiest times are when most of our story is out in the open.

And what is our story?  It is the story of what we do with other people for other people while we are up against a threat (those who want our lunch!).  It is a playful story about people who are in this game ~ with us and against us.  Cheering us on and getting in the way!

We cannot tell this story with the story of the outer two circles.  We cannot tell this story with the story of our times – the PEST analysis. We cannot tell the story without the story of our pond – Porter’s Five Forces.

Our story is a story about real people.  You must tell me who those people are.

Your strengths are your participation in the game of life. Everything you say and everything you do, with real live people.

Tell me that story and I will show you a successful business and blossoming career.

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Relieve your stress. Live outside your tunnel vision

Published December 8, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Motion

David Bohm‘s concept of “Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Motion.” is so hard to understand for we western-raised psychologists.

David Bohm was a American quantum physicist who got himself into trouble by refusing to testify to the Non-American Activities (McCarthy) hearings.  After that he came to live and work in London.

Implicate Order

Bohm emphasized that nothing exists in this world except when we pay attention to it.

Did you get that? Touch your computer screen. It doesn’t exist unless you see it and touch it.

No, that’s not what it means, though that’s often what people say it means. He doesn’t mean that it is “all in our mind”. He doesn’t mean that what is in our mind is selective either.

Think of the thought as real. And then think that we are its host, so to speak. The thought is not ours. Nor is it make believe. Nor are things make believe.

But we only see, or perceive the thoughts that arrive, and not everything arrives.

Everything is connected

When a thought arrives, it is not us. Yet is in us. The world has arrived in us. The thought and the world are not separate. And nor are we separate from the world!

We are all interconnected and nothing, not any one of us, or anything, can be interpreted out of its context. Every thing is as much part of is context as it is apart.

Separating the whole into the parts is not universal

Other cultures get this. We are very proud that we don’t. Our science is based on separating things from their context.

Listen outside your tunnel vision

But I want you to try it.

When you are feeling stressed, which is right now, close your eyes and think outside the tunnel vision of your will. Listen. Listen for the furthest sound that you can hear.

I did that this morning for the first time in long time. I heard the birds. I heard the industrial din of the telephone exchange two houses away.

And I felt relaxed.

Imagine as David Bohm the physicist says. Imagine as Alan Watts the philosopher said. Imagine that you are one with the world.

Does the world suddenly seem more possible because you are working with the implicate order rather than against it?

Try it. Try the physical exercise (from author Paolo Coelho btw who is on Twitter with the same name).

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