Six Days In.
At this point, just a few days into the journey, questions are forming.
The understanding that complicated and complex do not get on is at the heart of it. Complicated thinks that if we can reduce issues to their smallest components, we can engineer them to give us what we desire. Complex falls about, clutching its sides, laughing at that idea.
We are left with a challenge. How do we make our lives as simple as possible so we can thrive in the complex challenges we face? Simple is flexible, complicated is not.
How do all the parts of us whose core does not sing at the prospect of increasing shareholder returns cope with the idea that it is the main reason, perhaps the only reason, we are employed?
How do we feel that our economy must be dysfunctional to generate consistent GDP growth? Growth is only achieved through constantly wanting more or different from what we already have, but the system relies on us not finding it.
How can we have an honest and productive relationship with an employer whose interest in us is mainly economic, avoid their attempts to domesticate us, and keep our wild side alive for when we need it?
Where can we find the best soil to nurture the seed within us so we can discover what it might grow into?
How do we come to terms with the fact that all that is best in us is a function of our relationships and does not scale?
We cannot start again. We carry our past wherever we go, so how do we harness it to write a new chapter that surprises us?
“Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, to rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless.” Salman Rushdie
As artisans, at our core is an ability to sit in uncertainty, accept volatility, take the provocations that come our way, see the art in them, and turn them into something of real value.
I look forward to discussing these ideas and whatever else arises this evening.