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“Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
~ Mark Twain ~
Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina.
Life can be tough. It can be tiring and frustrating. In striving for any goal we face a road of trials. At times its too hard. We throw our hands in the air and shout “I give up!” How do you know when to push through? How do you know when to persevere? How does one come to the conviction that they can, or that they can’t? That they are right, or that they are wrong? That they should continue or that they should give up? And how does one find the determination, the motivation, and the energy, to continue on the journey?
I don’t know the answer to these questions. I don’t know where conviction comes from. But I know what it feels like. This little story, and the sense of conviction I felt at the time, is a landmark feeling I know I’ll refer to in the trials I face in my future.
The story behind a photo…
From the lookout at the top of Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. I was exhausted. It was FREEZING cold. My wrists hurt. My back hurt. I tried. It was messy. My back simply didn’t want to bend.
I tried again. And again. And again.
“I give up.” I declared. “My body won’t let me. I just can’t do it.”
But sitting there watching the luminous sunset. The beauty in the trees, the mountains, the sky… changed me. Something inside me changed.
“Get the camera,” I instructed. “I can do this.”
I put my hands under my shoulders.
I thought of the journey I have taken – the most unlikely dreams that have already come true.
I thought of the journey ahead – the dreams in my life that I am working towards.
With all my might I took a deep breath, and lifted my body up as high as I could.
I held it and held it. The beauty before my eyes. The wind catching my hair. The freshness of the cold air permeating my being. The stars and my body aligned for one short magic moment.
And this is the shot.
How do you “know” something? How do you know it is “true”? I have been going through old diaries, intrigued by the development of thoughts and ideas through time. The following is a little rant I had in 2009 about knowledge and truth…
From the origins of humanity, life and our universe, to the possibility of multi-verses, forces or even beings that are invisible to our senses, some things may always be unknown. For all we know we might be bits inside a computer, replicates of another group of humans, who evolved in the way our science tells us, or inside a computer-like creation designed by beings of who-knows-what nature. Smaller than ants to humans, humans are to the infinite universe/s.
Clearly there are some things we KNOW we KNOW – limited to our mind and bodily senses. Our “knowns” come dow to the combination of matter and energy contained in a human allow the majority to think, see, hear, eat, drink, taste, smell, feel, love, hate, laugh and cry.
There are some things we DO NOT KNOW we DO NOT KNOW – seeing that five hundred years ago we didn’t know the world was round, imagine the knowledge we will discover in the future.
There are some things we KNOW will DO NOT KNOW – the incomprehensible possibilities of what is outside our universe, and whether there was always something (God, a cell or otherwise), or if at one stage in the history of everything, there once existed nothing.
It seems to me, the MORE WE KNOW the MORE WE KNOW WE DON’T KNOW.
Given we know we do not know so many things, I conclude:
a) we may as well be content with our lack of knowledge, and admit the limits to what we think we “know”.
b) it can still be interesting to ponder the mysteries – curiosity might kill the cat but before it does so it makes life more fun
c) knowledge is not fixed. “Truth” (and what is attached to all moral objectives) changes with language and culture.
Therefore never, ever, stop questioning. Always strive for better answers. And better answer. And better answers still…
Photo:
On a recent trip to Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina – not a bad sunset hey!
I’ve been thinking about the idea of a “revolution”, and wondering why exactly one would want to “revolve” to the beginning, completely start again? What would be the point of bring down The Pyramid, only to have to build one up again?
Revolution may not be a dirty word, but it does seem kinda stupid. Capitalism and democracy have done a lot of good for society, from technological advances that enhance the lives of many, to bringing women out of the house, and empowering citizens to have a right to vote. Of course our versions of capitalism and democracy are no where near perfect. They are systems still in their teenage years. They need to grow up, reform some of their irresponsible laws, and evolve into mature systems that doesn’t ignore parts of the world suffering from poverty and environmental destruction at their hands. Sure our systems have their problems, but are they so broke that we have to throw them out completely?
It seems pyramids of power are a model that can function very well, but can also fail. The trick, it seems to me, it to maintain a pyramid of power/money/organization that works for both the parts, and the whole.
Let me use the Hobbesian analogy of a society and its leaders as a mind and body (if you look close the Leviathan’s body is made up of lots of little people):
Our minds have a certain degree of power over our body’s actions. So long as our mind and body acts in constant communication, our organism is a functioning system. If my leg wanted to be my brain, or if my brain ignored my leg, I would be in trouble. If my hands ignore our stomach and put too much, too little or the wrong type of foods in my mouth, my body gets fat, my energy decreases and my entire being suffers. A healthy “me” = a mind, body and spirit being respectful and connected with each other, and with its surroundings.
Similarly in society, good minds acting in leadership positions provides for a healthy system of people. The leader in constant communication with the people, each feeding back into each others decisions, each respecting the other. Yet if, like a psychologically damaged mind, a leader that is a psychopath or that doesn’t listen to its people is no good for anyone.
I don’t think our system is completely broken – it just needs a few of its laws reformed, evolving the system to work for humanity rather than letting the destructive aspects of it that have emerged over time force humanity to work for it. I vote for an evolution, not a revolution.
Why did our political leaders bail out banks (who caused the GFC) rather than the public (who lost wealth and jobs as a result)? Why did governments spend trillions of dollars repairing a system that, in the well-known cycle of booms and busts, is destined to crash once again? Why are they bandaiding problems caught up in a powerbroker system that is visibly failing, rather than following the advice of economists like Joseph Stiglitz, who suggest seizing the opportunity for reform? Why do our political leaders seem to support “Shareholder Capitalism” rather than investigating the process of moving toward a “Socialised Capitalism” that might be more constructive?
As the Occupy Wall St movement spreads across the world, people are questioning a number of aspects of our system that they previously left unexamined. One of those is the assumption that Capitalism as we know it today is the only version of Capitalism that is possible. While economists recognize the varieties of Capitalism that exist throughout the world, the varieties can be less visible to the average human eye.
The thing is, the Global Capitalist model as we know it today, that emphasizes neo-liberal policy, provides little regulation to banks and financial industries, and disconnects shareholder profit and public loss, is by no means a fixed and final version of the Capitalist model. In fact, it is clear that such a form of Capitalism is destined for ongoing collapse. In short, it’s time for reform.
What does a shift from “shareholder capitalism” to “socialised capitalism” involve? The Australian School of Business article that inspired this blog entry suggests this shift would involve a move from short-term speculation to long-term investments, from huge corporations to family-owned companies. ‘The differentiating factor lies in the allocation of resources‘. [1]
“Make no mistake,” Andrew Kakabadse explains, “both ideas are market-driven… which is either in short-term deals driven by cash flow to cater to the few or in infrastructure and highly innovative family businesses that deliver long-term wealth to society as a whole. Nobody takes notice of this second model, which has by far the greatest wealth creation potential in the world, despite everything that is happening”.[1]
Hang on a second, which creates the most wealth? What’s more appealing then, shareholder capitalism or socialised capitalism??? Isn’t it in our favour to create more wealth, not less?
I don’t know the pragmatic details of how such a shift could be actualized. How could you stop short-term speculation (derivatives, hedge bets etc) deals going down? How could governments encourage a move from corporation to family-owned companies? How can resources be reallocated to promote a more people-friendly system? It is too late at night, and I’m too tired from recent adventures in Chicago, DC and car accidents (which I’ll blog about soon), for me to contemplate such answers. I will therefore conclude with my take-away message from this article, that some kind of “socialised capitalism” is an appealing direction to be heading… do you agree?
[1] “Off the Record: Spilling the Bilderberg Secrets” Published: October 11, 2011 in Knowledge@Australian School of Business. http://knowledge.asb.unsw.edu.au/article.cfm?articleId=1489
“Art is the imagination at play in the field of time. Let yourself play.” [1]
Do you ever wonder where your good ideas come from? Have you ever tried tracing them back to their source/s? When you have writer’s block or the equivalent, how do you deal with it? How do you regain your creativity?
Tonight I’m meeting with a group of artists to discuss a book called “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. One of the first things she mentions is that you can’t teach a person to be creative – you can only teach them to let themselves be creative.
How do you “let yourself be creative”? Where does creativity come from? How can you get more good ideas?
This RSA Animate with Steven Johnson suggests that most ideas come from one small hunch colliding with other small hunches:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU&feature=grec_index[/youtube]
“The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.” Piet Mondrian.
Has there ever been a completely “new” idea or invention that wasn’t connected with already existing ideas and inventions? I don’t think so. I think it’s the nature of our being to continually be in a state of evolution – with now more than ever, small changes and small ideas joining together to make bigger ones, which combine in the ongoing creating and changing of our world. Creativity is something that we channel from all the people, experiences and energies that surround and penetrate us.
I can trace most of my “good ideas” (at least the ideas that I consider “good”) back to conversations and experiences that I wouldn’t have had if it weren’t for friends, family and other people I’ve met. Creativity doesn’t come out of no where, it comes from many places. Out of a network of relationships, ideas evolve and emerge to create something “new”.
I think the way to let these ideas come, the way to let the creativity flow, is to (1) be promiscuous, (2) pay attention, and (3) connect the dots.
(1) Be promiscuous. “Intellectual promiscuity” (as a friend back in Sydney calls it) means reading many different books, hanging out with many different types of people, and learning to see the world through many different lenses. Such promiscuity stimulates creativity.
(2) Pay attention. Take note of what you learn from these sources. What concepts intuitively stand out to you.
(3) Connect the dots. Bringing your notes from above together to create something new.
I may have posted this before, but it’s such a good one I’ll post it again. An RSA Animate – Ken Robinson on how School Kills Creativity:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkPvSCq5ZXk&feature=related[/youtube]
We are all creative beings, we just have to give ourselves the time and space to discover, explore and express it.
[1] Julia Cameron (1992) The Artist’s Way, Putnam: New York. p. 24.
“Inefficiency is a good thing,” a wise friend informed me six months ago. I must have looked confused.
“When I said this to a room full of corporates, you should have seen the horror on their faces!” My face would have read pretty much the same. Inefficiency is good???
“How?” I asked in almost disbelief.
“Friendship, for example, spending time with people you love. It’s entirely inefficient… All the things in life that are wonderful, involve being inefficient. Think about it: Art. Love. Reflection. Contemplation. These things don’t happen in a rush. They take time. You need to be inefficient.”
But “Time, we say, is money, and, boy, that’s for real!” says Alan Watts, in Does it Matter?:
“Even sex is becoming acceptable for the same reason: it is good for you; it is a healthy, tension–reducing “outlet”—to use Kinsey’s statistical term for counting orgasms—and some wretched hygienist will soon figure out the average person’s minimum daily requirement of outlets (0.428 would be three times a week) so that we can screw with a high sense of duty and freedom from guilt.”
He goes on to explain that: “We get such a kick out of looking forward to pleasures and rushing ahead to meet them that we can’t slow down enough to enjoy them when they come.”
“The heart of the matter is that we are living in a culture which has been hypnotized with symbols—words, numbers, measures, quantities, and images—and that we mistake them for, and prefer them to, physical reality… A culture is hardly a culture at all when it does not provide for the most sophisticated training in the fundamental arts of life: farming, cooking, dining, dressing, furnishing, and love–making. Where these arts are not cultivated with devotion and skill, time to spare and money to spend are useless.”
For someone from a business and economics background, which based on efficiency, this shift from efficiency = bad, can take a while to truly comprehend, and even longer to integrate into one’s life.
Ever since school I’ve judged myself on how much I have “got done”. How many boxes on my to-do list I have ticked. I couldn’t relax till my homework was complete. My day was a good day if it had been an efficient one.
In my first serious relationship it took time for me to adjust. When you are in love, you tend to spend time doing the most inefficient things. You drive out of your way, you sit around watching TV, you talking for hours, you fight and make up. Almost everything you do when in love is inefficient. Each action is unmeasurable. There’s no tick boxes in love.
I did adjust. I learned to be inefficient. It felt good. It forced me to relax.
It was a long relationship, and few years have passed since it ended. Old habits die hard.
Without a reason to be inefficient I ascended or descended, depending how you judge it, back into my more efficient state. All my time became my time again, to do all the things I wanted to do. If I wanted to work a 14-hour day on my research, I could. There was no one else to think about. Just me. So I “followed my bliss”, got myself wrapped up in research, writing and creative projects that I loved doing. I really love these things. Yet in time, efficiency takes its toll.
Sometimes I catch myself on skype, on the phone, or even in person, with friends or family, and I notice my mind wonder off to think about various ideas and projects. At times I find it hard to go out of my way for others. It can be hard to justify a weekend away, time out, reading novels that aren’t teaching me something, spending time doing nothing. Sometimes even yoga feels like a trade-off – I can do yoga or I can do more study, and I choose to do the latter. The worst feeling is when stuck in traffic or waiting in line or in a dead boring conversation – in any situation where time is being wasted – and some part inside me cringes, an inner frustration of time ticking by.
There has to be some way to navigate the efficient and inefficient.
In the short term being efficient might make me happier than ever, feeling satisfied with all I’m accomplishing. But continued in the long term too much efficiency means we miss out on the deeper, the inefficient, relationships and connectivity that we are on this planet to experience. If we aren’t careful, we will be old, grey, bald, fat, and lonely, and life will have passed us by.
After a walk in the nearby mountains, spending time taking photos like the above shot, I wrote some “notes to self”:
It is what one does when they are inefficient that makes life worth living.
Did you know that Eskimos have five words for snow while the Aztecs had one word for snow-rain-hail combined?
That which we do not have the vocabulary for, we tend not to notice. Those things which we notice, we create a vocabulary for. Through the processes of noticing, vocalizing, pondering and comprehending, we build up an understanding of the world in which we live.
“We speak of attention as noticing. To notice is to select, to regard some bits of perception, or some features of the world, as more noteworthy, more significant, than others. To these we attend, and the rest we ignore – for which reason conscious attention is at the same time ignoreance (i.e., ignorance) despite the fact that it gives us a vividly clear picture of whatever we chose to notice.” [1]
The double process of noticing is governed by:
(1) ‘whatever seems advantageous or disadvantageous for our survival, our social status, and the security of our egos’ and (2) the systems of notation that are ‘learned from others, from our society and our culture.’[2]
Our identity and our survival are connected to the aspects of life that we notice and that we ignore, all of which is intrinsically connected to our language.
Through this vocabulary, and the stories associated with them, we build up a self-centric idea about reality.
In this way languages play a paradoxically liberating and limiting role in our lives.
What are you looking for? What do you want? If you don’t know, how will you know when you have it?
This was a problem faced after eating a mushroom in Amsterdam. We were walking around aimlessly. We didn’t know what we were looking for! My friend through up her arms, “How are we going to get anywhere if we don’t know where we want to go?!”
A bridge pose wasn’t much of a solution…
I think I’ve been facing a similar problem with my life: how do bridge toward a future without knowing where that future lies? How am I going to get anywhere, if I don’t know where I want to go?
Be it in decisions of travel, career, or love, in the past I have known what I want after I get it. When from out of nowhere I get a strong feeling that something is just “right”. When my mind can’t think of anything else. When my fingers can’t help but pick up a pen and write. When I make a spare-of-the moment decision, buy a plane ticket and everything works out perfectly.
Some decisions feel like they have been made by some version of Self that is outside myself. I can not not do that thing, make that decision, spend time with that person. That’s how I know it’s what I want. I just know.
But what happens when you find yourself in the middle-land? What should you do when your “intuition”, your “higher self”, or your “God” seems to have abandoned you?
There are times in life where one’s intuition doesn’t seem to speak up. Times when everything seems to go wrong. Times where you can’t see your options, times when there seem to be too many. Times when you are confused. Times when you really don’t know what you are looking for. Then what?
Maybe it’s at times like this we need to take our mind back a few steps:
There are things we have control over, and there are things we don’t. The more aware we are of these, the more chance we have of creating for ourselves the reality we want.
The Footprints poem tells a mythical story of a man walking on the beach looking back at his life in footsteps on the sand. Most of the time there are two sets – his, and “God”s. In the man’s hardest times there is only one set of feet. “God” seems to have abandoned him.
My trip around Europe, peaking with my accident in Greece, left me feeling this way. I was questioning EVERYTHING. I was ready to go back to Sydney. I wanted to be surrounded by my family and friends. I realized how much I missed them. I realized how important they are to my life. I realized how great my life is back in Sydney: my little apartment, the coffee-shops, the beach, ease-of-life. I wanted to go home.
I pushed on with my journey. Arriving in the US I was sick to my stomach with feelings of uncertainty. I was more homesick than I’ve ever been.
“What am I doing with my life?” I kept asking myself. Sure I’m doing a PhD. But why? Do you want to teach? Or do you want to write? Do you want to make money? Or do you want to have a family? Do you want to keep traveling? What’s the point in my doing the things I am doing? Are they taking me where I want to go? Or should I just go home? If I do go home, what will I do when I get there?
A friend of mine recommended I sit down and write at the top of a piece of paper “What is the purpose of Juliet?” Then write everything that comes into my head. “When you break down and cry, you know you have hit something.”
I hit that point pretty quick. This exercise, along with time, and seeing the healing of my physical wounds, has helped my mind return to a more normal place.
Though I don’t know what my next step will be – how long I’ll stay in the US, or where I’ll go next, or when I’ll go home – but I have returned to feeling comfortable with that.
The uncertainty is exciting. An unknown future means anything is possible.
The Footprints poem concludes with “God” saying, “When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”
It’s a message of faith: of letting go, of acceptance, and trust. Pay attention to everything that is going on around you. Be limber. Be flexible. Open your eyes. Open your mind to options and ideas that you never thought of. Sleep, eat, exercise, meditate. Be merry. We don’t always need to know exactly where we are going.
Maybe it’s times that we feel the most lost and confused that we need to have the most faith. I’m not talking about faith that people think of means believing in a supernatural religious God. But faith in the bigger story we are a part of. Faith that everything going on in our smaller stories will turn out ok. Faith that comes with understanding that in time we will lose some battles, win others, have an apotheosis, discover the ultimate boon, and return to oneness that we first left. Faith that as we continue on our journey, the energy of the universe (call it God or the Great Storyteller or any other name) will carry us to ever-new horizons.
One of those horizons for me … finish editing my book.
