"There is no must in art because art is free." - Wassily Kandinsky
Although there are no ready-made, everyone-do-this-or-else rules for how to be you, I really enjoy encouraging each other to be the grandest possibility bursting to bloom forth.
I've been inquiring to myself how to do that within the context of a group--or, even larger, in a culture.
In the past, I've been inspired by startup incubators, accelerators, coworking, the Parisian salons, penny universities, and the culture of the Renaissance--among others.
Geographically, I like to be surrounded by all types of people exploring being all they can be--not necessarily all trying to achieve the very same thing.
"It's not so much that you do whatever a city expects of you, but that you get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do." - Paul Graham, Cities and Ambition essay
For a long time, I agreed with Paul Graham above and sought that sense of camaraderie. I tried out San Jose, San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York--whew--and that's only the last couple of years.
"Originality is ... a by-product of sincerity." -Marianne Moore
Nowadays, I don't agree with Paul Graham. If you are doing anything new, and you expect to find people who care about the same things as you do than (a) it may not be that pioneering to begin with (b) you might want to look deep at your supposed "need" for external vouching (c) who said contrast and, heck even opposition (ever seen a beautiful pearl?) is all bad?
Sure, I thrive within mutual respect, but I have witnessed that's not necessarily the same as people "caring about the same things."
So my open-ended question nowadays is: Under what condition(s) or what environment is risk-taking liberated? And, allowing our own "original" to us ways? This is a big topic and I've created another feed titled "Community" expressly to share resources and book excerpts for this exploration (don't worry if you don't subscribe, I'll link to its contents from time to time here).
I am not waiting for any finished wrap-up conclusion to that question, as a place of innovative risk-taking itself is a little fuzzy and messy, just like hunches are:
Innovation tends to be fuzzy, it resolves itself with time and thought." - Hugh MacLeod
Ideally, innovation never truly resolves itself, rather it continues expanding and learning and surfing new edges infinitely.
One of my favorite snippets ever on drawing forth the best in people--mutually--is below. (I've also a bunch of my favorite excerpts from this gem of a book, Infinite and Finite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility shared in a Google Document.)
"If in the culture into which we are born there are always persons who urge us to theatricalize our lives by supplying us with a repeatable past, there will also be persons (possibly the same ones) in whose presence we learn to prepare ourselves for surprise. It is in the presence of such persons that we first recognize ourselves as the geniuses we are.
These persons do not give us our genius or produce it in us. In no way is the source of genius external to itself; never is a child moved to genius. Genius arises with touch. Touch is a characteristically paradoxical phenomenon of infinite play.
I am not touched by an other when the distance between us is reduced to zero. I am touched only if I respond from my own center--that is, spontaneously, originally. But you do not touch me except from your own center, out of your own genius. Touching is always reciprocal. You cannot touch me unless I touch you in response.
The opposite of touching is moving. You move me by pressing me from without to a place you have already foreseen and perhaps prepared. It is a staged action that succeeds only if in moving me you remain unmoved yourself. I can be moved to tears by skilled performances and heart-rending newspaper narratives of heroic achievement--but in each case I am moved according to a formula or design to which the actor or agent is immune. When actors bring themselves to tears by their performance, and not as their performance, they have failed their craft; they have become theatrically inept.
This means that we can be moved only by persons who are not what they are; we can be moved only when we are not who we are, but are what we cannot be.
When I am touched, I am touched only as the person I am behind all the theatrical masks, but at the same time I am changed from within--and whoever touches me is touched as well. We do not touch by design. Indeed, all designs are shattered by the touching. Whoever touches and whoever is touched cannot but be surprised. (The unpredictability of this phenomenon is reflected in our reference to the insane as "touched.")
We can be moved only by way of our veils. We are touched through our veils." -- James Carse, Infinite and Finite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility
credits: Wall Panel for Edwin R. Campbell's Villa, by Wassily Kandinsky (worth seeing his work in person--the presence is palpable--this one at the MoMa); Hugh MacLeod's Cartoon #212 "Hacker" (Hugh's interpretation of the Hacker Emblem)
p.s. The books that have fallen into my lap related to community, unconditional acceptance (a prerequisite to risk-taking), and teamwork include a “random” powerful section on agape (start on page 295, “No Strings Attached”) in Keeping the Love You Find, Ubuntu, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace (this book in particular has been a blessing and a balm), Never Eat Alone, Who’s Got Your Back?, and even Where Do Good Ideas Come From? (which is really focuses on collisions and community with other people sparking innovation, and not solitary confinement). I am also intentionally set to re-read The Wisdom of Teams.
p.p.s. Not only an idle question this one of: Under what condition(s) or what environment is risk-taking liberated? Perhaps it'll be the underpinnings of an actual geographical place, or an online space, or both? We'll see.
It is a big question isn't it! I am attracted to the Circle of Seven.
"Their ostensible task was the development of a program for women who were going through changes in their lives. Following their first meeting, they gave up their images of noble purpose for the sake of others. No matter how hard they tried to create an event for women in transition, they kept being directed into their own life stories to find out what it would be like to unfold the next phase of their lives from deep within themselves and the field of their circle. Though they were dedicated to service, their own healing needs at that time overshadowed what they sought to do for others. "
These 6 women meet periodically not to save the world, but to discover through a process that Otto Scharmer called Presencing which is allowing what wants to spontaneously emerge come forth.
It does anyway! ;O) But o.k. We pay better attention to it or witness it.
I liken this to the teaching awareness provides in each and every moment by gently keeping my attention on what arises in the body\mind sense field. In other words, where is the attention going if I allow it the freedom to go anywhere.
In a small intimate group setting imagine what could emerge which leads to risk and vulnerability.
On Risk:
"There often has to be a risk in order for the collective to show up. The risk can be one person's, two people's, or all of ours, but there has to be some kind of risk or vulnerability for crossing the threshold that you're talking about."
So based on the risk and\vulnerability they come together to discover what wants to emerge through the collective opening to presence.
What Conditions are Necessary:
"The first condition is a suspension of the projection of the judgments. You described that as part of your threshold experience. In your story, it was the same thing. So suspension of judgment and unconditional witnessing are one condition.
The second condition is clearing the horizontal space by unconditional love. When I interviewed Peter Senge a couple of years ago, he talked about love in terms of “showing up and being present.” That was his definition of love. Showing up and being present. Fully present with.
And the third condition maybe has to do with having the trust that the presence, or whatever you name it, is going to show up and do the work."
I would state it slightly differently. The Witnessing Presence is always here. Judging is here, so just seeing it and finding out what it is trying to communicate to us with the judgment.
Making an open space in a charged atmosphere of risk or vulnerability allows presence to move to the foreground.
We are already present. We can trust that. Consciousness is presence. Presence is the only thing there is. Without presence nothing can be....present. Take away presence and what do you have? Nonpresence? No, nothing. Not even that. If someone says to me you are not being present, from the aspect of individual separate person it may be accurate that I am not attending to them, but the assumption seems to be that consciousness inhabits separate bodies. What if Consciousness is the one container that all bodies appear in? Then we can trust what Ramana says that the SELF is ever moving us the way we need to go even when individually we have thoughts that say it is not so.
Trust is so key, but trust in what? Trust in nothing at all or said differently the presence that IS.
So the group opens the space, puts the risk or vulnerability in the center, attends to what is emerging in presence no matter how crazy... and then the "apparent" magic happens.
Imagine the intimacy... The only requirement I currently see is the process calls the participants authentically through resonance.
From their website.
http://www.collectivewisdominitiative.org/papers/circleof7_interv.htm#introduction
Posted by: Ben | Nov 19, 2010 at 11:26 AM