Kashmir's Shak

See The Seasons Alter

One of the the dumbest question ever (and repeatedly) asked is: "What came first the chicken or the egg?" This is a dumb question because nothing is served by the asking or the answering of it. The more useful question would be "How do we ensure healthy chickens and healthy eggs?" This moves us from wrestling in a senseless duality into the richness of connectedness, where the truth ever waits.

  

Our questions define us. The pedantic duality of OR encircles our lives. Choices are not created by such indolent thinking, they are reduced to a cartoon, a parody of the richness that is within and all around.

 

Sadly we are conditioned to think in terms of life as a logical, explainable, convenient trajectory, with a finite beginning and end. The the arc of all our reason is encircled in this mind-trap.

 

We are taught that our life cycle begins with our birth and ends with our death. Even the circumference the great teachers of connectedness (Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad, Nanak etc.,) is bound by dates as if when they were born or passed away matters?

 

Old Shak evokes the inevitable cycles of the four seasons, these are inevitable, regardless of how we anticipate them, view them, dress up for them. They are what they are, they don't need us and perhaps for what it's worth, perhaps we should learn to respect them for what they can teach us.

 

That life is a continuous, endless flow of destruction and renewal. Birth is not a beginning because it is the outcome of all that came before. Death is not an ending because the mark we leave, the impact we have on those who we have touched, good or ill, remains. 

 

As the winter solstice passes us today from one part of a year into the next, who will mourn the death of 2011? We know it and are all that occurred in it, this will remain part of us beyond our physical existence, we are the parents of these memories as we were and are origin-al in them.

 

 

"The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original"

A Midsummer-Night’s Dream (Act II, Scene I)

Thy Golden Time

As many of my friends in their “golden time” share the pain of the passing of their parents, it brought to mind when my grandfather passed away the how the wisdom of my grandmother became engrained in my soul.

1. Parents are first our ‘air’, as babies we are completely dependant on them from minute-to-minute for food, shelter, love and safety.

2. Parents become our ‘water’ in our youth as our needs are present but not as immediate. Their practical wisdom and emotional sustenance helps us to meander through our youth and into early adulthood.

3. Parents are our "fire" when we reach the stage of adolescence. The dawn of adult life forces a radical change in our relationship with them. Some never make it through the fire, others come through with life scars, for others the relationship is reborn.

4. For those who emerge out of the fire, parents become the ‘earth'. Our more reliable friends in our middle age. As time wears on they increasingly depend on us for as much physical and emotional support as they have given.

5. When our parents pass on they become our 'sky' -- eternally present, untouchable. Our ‘heaven’, they are in every sunrise and every sunset. Enrich us with light and rain. The heaven that sits above us, a constant reminder of our destination, where (if we made it through the fire) our children will find us one day, an ever present canopy of truth and grace.

My life tilts between stages 4 and 5 as my parents age… it is the cycle… painful as it is inevitable, it is thus.

"Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remembered not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee".

Sonnet III

This England

"Ol' Blighty" is an affectionate term for "Britain". As I pack and get ready to head back to Ol' Blighty, i recall my fondness for the word blighty. Although it sounds very much like an infection a plant would get, Blighty has a much richer meaning than a rotting veg.

Long before the poets Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and songs of World War I popularized "Old Blighty" -- its roots derive from British India, from the Urdu/Hindi term "Bilayati" which means "foreigner".

For the first 30 years of my life in England i was treated as outsider, a foreigner in the country of my birth. When i first went to India all my relatives kept referring to me as "bilayatia" (30 years later they still do). I continue to be a "bilayati" in the past 20 years I have resided in America and Canada.

The Australians added the "Ol" to Ol Blighty to bear witness to the old country from whence they came. Perhaps if we all stop to uncover our ancestry far back enough we would discover that we are all foreigners and that there is nothing wrong with being foreign, that perhaps it is a necessary human (natural) condition?

As Walt Whitman once said "I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable".

Birds and beasts are not bound by national boundaries, why should we be so constrained and fathomable? As Whitman says further "I exist as I am, and that is enough."

Perhaps being a bilayati is our noblest blessing? Free to be ourselves, naked, unadorned, unburdened of the emotional shackles of nationalism. A calling to be who we are is perhaps something far more vast and essential than merely being defined by where or to whom we "belong"?

"This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England".
King Richard II
Act II Scene i

Wit Depends on Dilatory Time

Where are we running to? What are we running from? Why am I rushing headlong to burn out each sacred day?

I wind up the clock till there is nothing left to turn or see or feel or do or hear or need or know or be.

When I return to Toronto after a week or more away, not matter where I go (unless it is another time-whore like London, New York, Delhi, Tokyo, LA, Bangkok, Beijing, Chicago, Mumbai, Sydney, etc.) I am immediately struck by two things. The complete total absence of any natural rhythm in the place i have stepped into and the pull to cease being myself.

If I have been away to rural area for over three weeks, I find that i have to almost quite literally kick my mind body into gear, jolt myself into the self pace of the race that chases dreams away.

Before too long, I am entrained, I am hustling, hassling, pushing so hard that I am can take reality itself, passing my own life by.

When I first enter a new room, relationship, town or country, I am struck by how much I see. My eye is slow, my mind is open, it takes so much more in - in less time. Take this challenge, tomorrow. Reduce your driving speed by 10mph. Let the impatience subside and then you will notice something. You will discover the same routine route you take every day, the same road, houses, tree's and grassy paths with new eyes. You will arrive home no more than five or ten minutes later than usual, but you will be unusual, special, refreshed.

What are we afraid of? What are we running from? What will happen if we don't make it, today? What if we don't make that promotion or close that deal? What are we trying to accumulate all this paper wealth for anyway? What will it give us? Peace of mind? A place to rest? Time off?

How much is enough? How much money do I need to pile up, to give myself permission to get on with my own life? Who am I begging this permission from?

Once I have completed the payments on the economic Tower of Babel, I will still only need three square meals a day, a tall glass of water and a narrow space to lay my head down at night. Beyond this, all I need is time spend my love with the people who matter. So what if i can eat at a better cafeteria! How long does it take to get bored with something that didn't not matter in the first place?

After all this crazy running around for nothing, will I ever catch myself Will I even be recognize or know how to enjoy the silence, the stillness and the people I am working so hard for? I am killing myself and all my relationships, whilst my loved ones are still alive. I am destroying my life to make money so I can buy something that is not for sale. Killing myself to earn what I already possess. The truth is that longer and faster I run, the further I push it from my reach.

The more I rush the less hours I have in the day. When I 'take five' to sit back and reflect, the day opens up like a precious gift. Einstein's theory of relativity needs no mathematical proof. The more time saving devices I invest the busier I get. I will use the e-mail because i don't have time for a real conversation, so I spent more time getting a head full of junk mail.

Fear of boredom is the biggest driver of our economy. If I am not working, being entertained, serving or being served - then I might be found in my cozy rented jail cell - doing time (sitting in the rush hour traffic jam).

All this rushing pays off, with exhaustion, ulcers, headaches and needless arguments. After I have overdosed on myself, I have to hurry to avoid the rush to get to my personal retreat - my cottage in the country or by the sea. Here I can re-absorbed myself back into a natural cycle.

The true currency of flow is to be found in nature, things are slow and then there are bursts of speed, then slow and then burst. These cycles are all connected, the slow growth of the a tree or flower, that takes a very long time to grow, but then the blossom it seems to arrive over night. The clouds gather slowly before they burst down onto the ground.

Plutarch wrote: "Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack, the other an excess of courage". Perhaps we are so consumed proving to ourselves and our neigbours just how heroic we are that we have no time to pay attention to the real needs on the planet. Being out of time is trendy otherwise why would we suffocate ourselves with such nonsense? Being being late and rushed for time is chic. It is the crown that time paupers use to celebrate their importance to the world.

A Director of Sales was in his office. His legs stretched out on the table, head flopped back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. I walked by and then stepped back, worried, whether he was alright? I made a futile pretend coughing sound - "Mark - are you OK?" - he looked at me and smiled. "Oh yes, how's it going Kashmir?", i replied without thinking, "Fine, sorry to disturb your rest".

Mark smiled as he sat up, "I wasn't resting man, I was thinking". I love working with sales people, they are (at least the best of them are) great students of the human condition and always at the ready with a quip or come back line. I did not believe Mark. I thought to myself, he is telling exactly what he thinks I need to hear. So I asked him, "thinking about what...? " Mark told me to come in and sit down. He then painted a picture of his industry, his customers, his business and all the factors that need to be addressed, that ten of his peers could not conjure if they had ten days and ten consultants to prop them up. He told me what he was struggling with. The limitations in the way resources were being deployed. The insights from the competition and customers that were being ignored. As he got into issues, causes, barriers and then into solutions, practical steps that needed to be taken, i steadily felt very small. I wondered why I had been too busy to see what this man saw, as it was all so obvious once he laid it out. Then I wondered, why isn't this man running this company? The answer rushed b the office door quite literally, not five minutes later.

Meditation, sleep and prayer are not resting, they are a quiet way of resting life back from the jaws of time poverty. Renewal. Regeneration. Revival. Return to the present moment where reality resides. Filling up my hours does not fulfill me. It does the exact opposite. It robs me of any opportunity to discover, meet, greet and fall in love with the wisdom God has implanted in me and the sheer beauty that surrounds me. When an hour is empty, the minute I am no longer defined by time, the moment I become timeless, that is when the palm opens and the gift of life is revealed. That is when the healing begins.

"How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
Thou know'st we work by wit, and not by witchcraft;
And wit depends on dilatory time."
Othello - (Act II, Scene III)

A Special Providence

Attempting to define and know who we are is as useful and possible as trying to catch and dissect an echo with our bare hands.

Try as we may we cannot fully know what has shaped us, what we are or may be. Countless lives ripple through our being. Infinite influences ripple through the nooks and crannies of our restless hearts and minds. Even if we were able contain our being and identity within a definitive meaning, what good would that serve, when it is our adaptive capacity and embracing the unknown that fuels our way into the future?

We can take all the tests ever created by every well meaning psychologist and shaman. We may filter our  imagination through every philosophical model ever dreamt up, but this is idle vanity. Our poetry and engineering pales in the vastness of what we are. It is in this fragility we find our freedom.

The joy in every breathing moment is the mystery of our unbounded self and the wonder in everyone we have ever met and yet to meet. Our freedom is born out of our inclusiveness and openess to all and everything that is infinitely unknowable.

"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
The Tragedy of Hamlet,
Act 1, Scene V

fond pageant

I am told today is my birthday. I am useless with birthdays. Both mine and all loved ones alike. I never could got my head around the point of them? We are free to celebrate the unfathomable richness and uniqueness of each living day, why is a 'birth-day' so special?

A day is a lifetime. Each day the promise of a birth-day.If it is nothing but a repetition of the day before, how is that living?

Each morning we crack open an aching eye out of the warm womb of dreams into new born day. Each waking a wide berth of possibility. A youthful invitation to an unimaginable innocence of pain and promise.  Afternoons are middle-age, the energy of a fresh young morning fuses with deeper truths and rhythms of the day that is yet to come.Evenings are the culmination, the crecendo of a day fully celebrated.

A day-in-the-life and life-in-a-day are brought to a head as our weary frame fades under the cloak of a peaceful easy sleep of death. Will we awake from it? We are too tired to know. And we must never know, else how could we sleep but that through the womb of another night will arise the gift of a fresh new morning, a new day of birth.

Each day, lived fully in the present is an precious invitation to a celebration, until there are none left to speak of. The way we live in the presence of that gift is its only true celebration. As we say around our house "Happy New Day!".

"Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be."
A Midsummer-Night’s Dream
Act III. Scene II

Shall Starve With Feeding

Did I hurt someone today? Did I inspire someone today? People gather, organise and catalog compliments and insults as if they are a butterfly collection. Lay them out on the white board of their imaginations, so they can fill the emptiness of their days with righteous indignation.

What good what that do? Why should our definition of ourselves be a slave to fleeting impressions of passing strangers who barely know their own souls? Why should we be defined by a momentary mood?

Especially when other peoples opinions (much like our own) is more often than not no more than a reflection of how they feel and think about themselves. Why do we lay so much on other peoples opinions? Get consumed by the monster of our own projection?

 Whevever i pollute a relationship with my projections, I harvest a fresh crop illusion to drown my misery. We are all equally frail. Our flaws are not a problem to be picked apart hair by hair, they are here today, gone tomorrow.We don't need a healthy excuse to cry, we can cry anytime we want to.

Rage is an easy excuse. It is a clueless attention. Taking a breath and rejoice the opportunity to peek out of the window to our own sanity. We should not take such glances so lightly and give so much credence to the monster of self-doubt? Especially we have only so many finite breaths left to heave?

"Best you stop your ears.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,
or else my heart concealing it will break" T
he Taming of the Shrew (Act IV, Scene III)

We hate that which we often fear

I have written about this topic a couple of years ago, but the subject keeps rearing its delicate head. It has been come up in recent conversations with Mikel Ellcessor of WDET and Jennifer Ferro of KCRW. What is the nature of competition?

The term competition came from the Latin competere which means “to strive in common". Competere was derived from two Latin roots:

• Com – which means to come together, to agree, to realize, to be qualified.
• Petere – which means to petition, which means to strive, to seek, request, supplicate, to pray, appeal to a higher authority.

…thus to compete means to "strive together".

The flow of energy in competition is understood in the martial arts where a battle or competition is won by drawing the force, by honouring and petitioning the energy of the competitor.

Destructive competition seeks to benefit an individual, group or organism by damaging and/or eliminating competing individuals, groups and/or organisms. It assumes a “winner takes all” outcome. Challenges are reduce into a zero-sum game. The success of one group is dependent on the failure of the other competing groups.

Destructive competition comes from a siege mentality rather than one of abundance. It derives from a wanting to consume, cling, claim and control, it comes from and generates fear.

Positive competition does not seek to change but to be changed by the best in oneself and society. It is not a wanting but an acceptance of the unknown that is in us and all around us. The challenge is to remove the blinkers that we cannot see, therefore focus us in ways we cannot know.

Positive competition begins with seeking to give not take, to learn not codify, to honour not destroy, to being changed not to change others, to seek and understand not judge or lable as good or bad.

Although many of these organisations changed later, the founders of many of the industry shaping organisations drew their strength from positive competition. McDonalds "strived together" through Ford Motor Company to pioneer mass retailing of food (or fast food as we call it today); Dell competed with Toyota by creating custom built orders through a strong supplier base and rationalisation of inventory; Southwest competed with Greyhound by combining simplicity with service; Starbucks competed with the café’s in Italy by bringing the "third space" between home and work into America.

These organisations were not competing narrowly, attempting to consume or destroy the "market share" but rather to create new value. They honored that which inspired them to suprise themselves with unspoken and unexpected value. They were applying what Marion Blackett-Milner called "wide attention".

We cannot learn contentment. It cannot be gained by thinking or trying or buying. It is within us, it surfaces by letting go of fear and accepting, opening ourselves up to uncertainty as a wonder to be discovered not something to be controlled and removed. Milner describes "narrow attention" as blinkers or blinders.

Acceptance and opening up to what is unknown within us, in the relationships and universe around us removes the blinkers and changes how we the face of the world and therefore how we experience ourselves "to make boredom and weariness blossom into immeasurable contentment". This often occurs in silence, quietude is the most under-estimated of skills.

People and organisations that alter the competitive landscape do not seek to shape but be shaped. They do not compete in the niave,cognitively obsessed sense taught by business schools and the negative way management text books define “competition”. In fact, go back and trace the history of all innovators, and you will see it is precisely the moment when the bureacrats took over that the value of the organisation began to die. We have worked with many self-destructive organisations that are sustained by people (many of whom go unrecognised and unrewarded because they do not crave attention) who apply positive competition. It behooves leaders in government, private industry, non-for-profits and private equity firms to remove their blinkers and surface these natural born competitors in their midst. These are the people who shape the future, with or without leaders telling them to.

The way we are taught to map business plans through a narrow, academic view of competition destroys value. This is why template driven business planning exercises are such a terrible waste of time and energy. They narrow attention to the confines of an existing industry or market or way of leading a church, a non-for-profit or a government department, etc.

We become whatever we gaze upon. Open your mind to the people and institutions that inspire you, then competed to your hearts content. Do not compete through fear, compete through the unknown. Then you will discover who are you striving in common with and the value that is possible.

"In time we hate that which we often fear"
Antony and Cleopatra
Act I Scene iii

This Mortal Coil

Over the past few months, I have suffered three personal losses. Three people, first a friend, then a cousin and then last week a dear and devoted business partner.

First a friend in Australia without any prior symptoms – collapsed and died instantly of a massive heart attack. Then a month ago even as the shock of Rob Pledgers tragic death was still rattling inside of me, my cousin collapsed and died in precisely the same way as Rob. Victor was a tender 39, ten years my junior. He had not right to go before me, even though I have no right to presume such rights!

Following Victors death, my wife Ammie made me throw my laptop into the closet, jump onto a plane and go to Rome with her for a week, without plans or aims or any such care in the world, just get away from it all.

However no sooner had we returned, as if to remind us that there is no escape from such cold, cruel realities, a close business partner of ten years, Ken Stewart, (with whom I had established a business) suffered an acute cerebral aneurysm. Once again, there were no symptoms, no headaches, nothing. Just gone.

None of these individuals knew each other. Only one or two people in each of the network of people who knew these men knew any of the people in each otheres network. I am the only thread that connected them and now, sadly the story of their inopportune departure connects them all in my torn heart.

At times like these, our feeble notions of “normality” are stripped naked, revealing the unabashed fragility of natural order.

I find myself thrust again and again through the invisible curtain, into a groundless, airless, nothingness. The dominion of death. The ulimtate reality of all realities. We have all been touched by its raw edge. It is a world we dare not acknowledge, but one that awaits for us all, patiently, relentlessly, effortlessly. A reality so daunting that the very thought of it scurries our senses into a retreat, forcing us to clamber back into the safe clutches of our busy, noisy, perpetually distracted, spiritually dehydrated lives.

The universe of death gets steadily larger and clearer as we grow older. As more of the people we love enter it, it becomes clearer and more vivid until it connects our mutual sadness into a single seamless whole. A reality that connects us all with each other even as it tears us apart. I am in hope that there will come a time when it will not be so hard for me to make such a cold and clear distinction between life and death.

Grief is a universe where logic is reduced to a soft toy. A place where convenience of common sense, of rights and wrongs and roles and rules all melt into thin air. I ache to ‘wake up’ out from such the terrifying place. I dare not be brought face to face so abruptly with my unimportance, imperfection and impermanence. However this is not a hell, but rather a sacred space. It is not a nightmare, grief is not a sleep, it is an awakening. Death is not a sleep. Our grieving of the dead is an uncompromising space where we ache so much from reality that all our truths thaw into pure feeling. This feeling is frightening because it is so real. For sanities sake we retreat from such woes into THIS sane world, this pinch-self-must-be-true pool of logic world where there are enough distractions to keep us occupied.

We ache to return to this dream of order, reason and rationality. When we retreat into this brittle sleep from which we are so rudely awoken, this is the safety into which snuggle so anxiously keeps us warm…we are only on hold until our next awakening, the ultimate one of course, being our own.

"To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause."

HAMLET, Prince of Denmark
Act III. Scene I

A Thought Quartered

"What is a man,   
If his chief good and market of his time   
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,   
Looking before and after, gave us not   
That capability and god-like reason   
To fust in us unus’d. Now, whe’r it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple   
Of thinking too precisely on the event,   
A thought, which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom,   
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do;’   
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means   
To do ’t"
Hamlet (Act IV, Scene IV)

Culture is the earth within which language festers or flourishes. But what tills this soil and shapes our language and indeed all our relationships and experiences is how we we see, how we hear and how we feel. People who know how to manipulate these more basic of human attributes are rewarded the most in society. They are the high priests of culture - the people we yearn to see ourselves through, the people we yearn to be or at least be with. Beyond our intimate (true) relationships, these idols are more often than not "our" (ah hum!) actors, politicians, priests, teachers, game show hosts, sales people and fashion icons. In reality they are less ours than our lives are theirs?

If we peer quietly and reflect patiently into the bowl of own life, what do we see? For all the joy we entrust in them, was it the slow witted or the clever who have made our life a living hell? This is a trick question, because it is easy to confuse cleverness with intelligence. The term 'clever' derives from the source cliver - which means "expert at siezing". Lo how we are siezed!

When we are intelligent we are able to see without being invested in what is before us, we are able to see and feel without fear of losing face or justifying our own position or existence. When we are intelligent we do not vest ourselves in a position or an argument, we are aware of ourselves in our own drama, concious of our context, open to new ways of seeing, welcome uncertainty and surprise because we know we can and will make the most of it.

Being clever is about using words, knowledge and facial expressions to trick others into getting ones own way. Clever sales people are everywhere, they are the politicians and celebrities and thier publicists, the high priests of culture that we never see. Clever people win hearts and minds, gather and move crowds, they alter the fate of nations, write our history books, and more often than not do all this without personal consequence. But being 'experts in siezing' - being clever is the same as tooth rot, hyperglycemia and heart disease, we do not see the consequences of our sugary consumption of cleverness but it will come soon enough and when it does, will do so with devestating permanance.

"O dear discretion, how his words are suited!
The fool hath planted in his memory   
An army of good words: and I do know   
A many fools, that stand in better place,   
Garnish’d like him, that for a tricksy word
Defy the matter!"
The Merchant of Venice (Act III, Scene V).

These conditions play themselves out every day in families, sales conversations, management-reviews, coaching discussions, supplier-customer contracts, across communities, across nations, cultures and generations.

It was never the stupid people who created the violence and blood-shed. It was always the clever people. There are clever boys and girls at school. They will be tuaght to be well read, to articulate themselves and influence the world. To what end?

"Why, look you now, how unworthy
a thing you make of me.
You would play upon me; you
would seem to know my stops;
you would pluck out the heart
of my mystery; you would
sound me from my lowest note
to the top of my compass;
and there is much music, excellent voice,
in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak.
’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played
on than a pipe? Call me what instrument
you will, though you can fret me,
you cannot play upon me"
Hamlet (Act III, Scene II)

What Dances Shall We Have?

Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,
To wear away this long age of three hours   
Between our after-supper and bed-time?   
Where is our usual manager of mirth?   
What revels are in hand? Is there no play,
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
A Midsummer-Night’s Dream (Act V, Scene I)

I move from child to child, airport to airport, colleague to colleague, client to client, shuffling from day to day, city to city, truth to truth. At each turn of the dance, opening myself up to the next step, the next new reality, to each new sense and new truth.

Oh - what it is - to turn on a dime? To be the Fred Astaire of the mood moment. To be pulled along by its graceful call. To dance the joy out of every sacred moment. To adapt to any environment, any persuasion, any person, at any time, without the stiffing ego tripping me, hurling my concious efforts to the floor. To be at the mercy of the moment. Allow others to spill their mind, then give them permission to be just that little more.

Step in and out of each moment, tip gently betwen tragedy and joy, happiness and sadness, right and wrong, good and ill, today and tomorrow.

A single word, question, glance or nudge can change everything.

Every morning our stage is bare. Waiting to be filled with a new dance. Moments to be unpacked, surfaced, enjoyed for what they are and what we will be.

The struggle with certainty is in itself the problem. The idea that stuggling is necessary is a wild distraction. It keeps us from being present, slowing down long enough to see what is really already here at our feet.

Clear the floor, let your self go, dance the only dance you know and let the dances you could never have imagined surprise you. Let go of struggle. There are no steps, only the fow of one moments movement into the next. Dance openly, acceptingly, unafraid. Dance until each moment opens up and teaches its truth. Dance being perfectly still in quietude. Dance sitting with uncertainty. Dance listening without prejudice. Dance freely without the burden of knowing or presuming.

"How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell; Striving to better, oft we mar what's well"
King Lear (Act I, Scene IV)

The Offered Fallacy

"He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour to act in safety. There is none but he whose being I do fear" - Macbeth (Act II, Scene I)

Are my relationships with people or my opinion of them? Is this a lifetime spun out on the axis of my projections onto them or their projections of their reality on me? And if this is a delusional way of building relationships, why bother?

The word relationship derives from the term 'to relate' which means 'to recount or tell a story' and 'to communicate with'.

The circumference of my relationships is bounded by stories, be these tales of inspiratin, rumours or slanted operating assumptions.

How many true relationships are there in my life? How many true conversations did I have today? How many of these resulted in a story worth re-telling?

How many people have I been totally wrong about? How many do I assume to have "figured out" and are now relegated into relationship on auto-pilot? I have grown and changed in the past ten years. Have these individuals changed in this same time period? I continue to judge them and they judge me. Our relationships are based on the tension between possibility and uncertainty. Two sides of the same question.

"What error drives our eyes and ears amiss? Until I know this sure uncertainty, I’ll entertain the offer’d fallacy" - The Comedy of Errors (Act II , Scene II)

How deeply and truly do I appreciate others? How do others appreciate me? The answers to these two questions can be revealing, perhaps even shocking!

"The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;  But do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in, bear ’t that th’ opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment" - Hamlet (Act I, Scene II)

I get off on the wrong foot with an individual. The difference between an insult and a compliment is in the mask that we attribute to each other. We are safe now because we only need to relate to the masquerade now.

I need to step over the easy excuses and rush to judgment. I need to find a way to reset the refresh button each time I relate to another human being. I can only refresh the relationship by challenging myself to listen more openly and by encouraging the other person to reach beyond the bounds of innocence and help them appreciate themselves for who and what they are.

If one of us have to take off the mask first, then let it be me. I will falter, I will fail, I will get hurt, but what is the alternative? How much does it cost to live a lie?

"This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man" Hamlet - (Act I, Scene III)

Now Doth Time Waste Me

Technology is meant to be here to free up time so we can be present to do what we want with our own lives. To be free to be with the ones we love. But this is a difficult proposition when the medium controls not just the message, but the messenger.

In our media soaked times, with advertisers and institutions screaming for our attention, aching for us to be and do what they want us to, how can we find the time to think for and be with ourselves?

How can we reclaim our freedom? To stop being part of someone else’s economic or social plan and be truly free to think, feel and act out of our own volition? When we are taught how to think, what conversations to hold and news becomes a conversation coat hanger, where and how do we have the time to think for ourselves?

The past and the future are illusions. They exist only in our heads. Dreams of the future are recycled scripts from the past. We are taught that the future is out there. But the future is not ‘out there’, it is here, right here, right now. The future is born out of what we think, feel and do right now. The past ends with what we do now.

Our presence in now does not mean we abandon consequence for short term gain. Being present now is the acknowledgement of the power we have to create the future now. We set the context and basis for the future now. Some of our decisions will have impact for a few days; others have consequences for many years. We can only know what the right decision is by being present in the current reality of all the people our decisions affect. To know this requires us to be present not only in our own reality but the reality of everyone our decisions affect.

Despite the praise and celebration of freedom, when we have it we don't use it because it is frightening.How free are we really to make our own decisions? If we don't have time to be with others and be present in our own lives, how do we even know the decisions we are making are going to benefit us, sustain our freedoms or curtail them?

Sometimes I feel as if I am stuck in a dark theatre, a river of selective memories rushing ceaselessly from my past through the projector of my busy mind. This is not just a metaphor for being presnce, but quite literally, my presence is consumed by the constant distraction of screens. Projections, artifacts, illusions, crisises, nonsense, noise, an unconcious prisoner of so much white noise.

I devour screens all day long and they devour me, sapping my vital energy, time, space and opportunity from knowing, experiencing and being here now, through myself and the ones I love to be with.

Conversations deteriorate into chats, chats dissolve into acronyms and instant messaging is the coolest thing to do. Fine, if we had no time to connect with each other and this tiny hole in the wall of noise is all we had to stay in touch, but what happens when this is all we do? If this is all we do, staring into screens, when will we have time to be with each other? To look into each others eyes. To hear each other breaht? Filling out time (on screens) removes the need to hold real conversations, to be present with each other.

If there was a Stone Age and an Iron Age, then we are in the Screen Age. Having realised political freedom, we have become slaves to screens. These screens have no tone, warmth or silent expression. We pick the fonts that express our handwriting. We pick the still photo’s that represent our public self.

These screens scream for our attention. Through them we attempt to define who we are and manage our relationships. My skype conversation with the kids is convenient, but when did convenience become the corner stone of fatherhood?

Be it the television set, an email on a computer screen, constantly checking the phone, blackberry or PDA screen for life's instructions, what to do and where to be next. When we play its through a WII, X-Box or gigantic screen in a movie theatre. Screens soak up our time. First we waste time and then it wastes us.

These machines quite literally screen out the human touch. In an age where I am my FaceBook page. I am my logo. I am my Avatar, Skype handle and email address, where is there the time to be myself and be with those I care about in this life? To be with them, here now?

Thankfully there are many proven ways of breaking out of being screened out from realising our freedom.

• Buddhists realise freedom through Mindfulness by returning to our breath.
• Christians realise through Prayer and contemplation of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
• Hindus realise freedom through Meditation and OM.
• Moslems realise it through prayer and supplication to Allah.
• The Talmud advises Jews how to stand and kneel in pray for Blessings.
• Sikhs realise freedom through the teachings of the Guru Granth.

These are some of the ways to rinse the screen out of our minds-eye. Daily baptism. Clues on the paths to freedom and being present here, now.

I am no Luddite, I spend all my time serving and being served by screens. The question is not whether they are useful, but rather whether we are being used by the medium or using it to connect with ourselves and each other in the moment, free to be here now, he says, joyfully, typing into a screen.

Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear
To cheque time broke in a disorder'd string;
But for the concord of my state and time
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;

Richard II, Act V, Scene V

fortune's buffets and rewards

The term struggle has always been associated with negative attitudes. And yet, artists, parents and leaders in society have often created the greatest value and realised their greatest achievements following the greatest struggle. People who are disabled, rejected or repressed often discover more potent or original ways to express their individuality and innate power. But this rarely comes without a struggle.

There is an ancient tale of a boy who sees a butterfly struggling to get out of its cocoon. He feels so sad watching the new born butterfly struggle. He wants to help so he cracks open the case of the cocoon. The boy is overjoyed when the little butterfly leaps out of the cocoon. The butterfly flies several yards and then it suddenly collapses onto the floor and dies. The boy’s mother hears her son crying and rushes over to ask why he is so upset? On seeing what has happened, she explains to her son that the butterfly builds the strength of its wings through its own struggle to get out of the cocoon. This is nature’s way of creating itself. To build our immunity to a disease, doctors inject us with a safe dose of the illness, to teach our system to learn and grow. This tension or ‘stretching’ is part of natural creative processes of life. If it is appreciated, it results in unique value, if it is ignored, repressed or avoided, it can become quite destructive.

One way to deal with human development is to appreciate the nature of struggle. Once we yield to the source of a struggle we may find the basis for new value. A struggle is not necessarily a bad thing. It the basis of learning and growing, it is the heart of creativity and innovation. A struggle is only depreciating (destructive) when it is ignored, denied or repressed.

It is important for us to learn to listen to our own ‘struggle’ and to each others ‘struggle’. Listening in itself is the most important thing as it creates space for the struggle to breath. Some people struggle with what we call ‘capability conversion’. This means that they have a calling, a capacity that needs to be realised or experienced. It is a hollow feeling, as if something vital is missing in their life, it is theirs and they want it back. Their capacity has grown over time creating a space or “a calling” to be fulfilled. Our capability calls to us, the only way to answer the call is to ‘realise’ and come to terms with the capability within and then to realise it by applying it through the acquisition of new skills, knowledge and experiences.

Converting capacity is easier if the individual and the institution they are working in (be it a family, a church, a military unit, a charity, government department, private business or a public corporation) is fully aware of what is going on in doing so they provide the necessary space and support.

Other people are struggling because their growth over time is going through a transition to a new level of complexity. Similarly this struggle finds new energy and confidence. If an individual or an organisation knows what it is and that it is OK.
Another aspect of struggle can be seen in the conflicts that occur between individuals and between groups when they fail to appreciate each other’s capability or ‘calling’. We see this phenomenon constantly in all manner of institutions, large or small. When people are not given sufficient space or discretion to experience or express their latent potential or to apply their judgment, they break the bounds of the formally defined roles that contain them.

Roles are not fixed, they are constantly evolving as the context, constitution and environment within which these roles exists is constantly changing. For example if a role (of a father, mother, son, daughter, neighbor, farmer, nurse, banker or bus driver ) is too narrowly defined, individuals will vent their frustration or find other ways to express their capacity. If a role is too loosely defined leaving, too much space for discretion, with little opportunity for feedback and learning, then the individual can become be overwhelmed, afraid and confused. In these conditions, without vigilant support around them, individuals shrink the role to into a shape and size that fits their capability. This is how many organisations are designed. Being trapped in these conditions consumes more energy that it creates and over time this erodes health, confidence and sense of self-worth.

We often see this ‘struggle’ when an individual in an institution is being required to report into another person who is has less capacity for abstraction or complexity. We call this struggle “structural conflict”. Structural conflict is not the same as personality or cultural conflict. Structural conflict occurs when different levels of complexity of work are not aligned or nested properly with each other and directed towards shared aims or purpose.

If a leader is unable to see (appreciate) this, the struggle will be a negative one, destroying value and squandering latent potential, sometimes for years. We do have experienced managers who appreciate and understand the implications of the capability of those that report to them and are able to, coach and nurture this talent. These people often become life-long friends and associates. Once this struggle is appreciated it often immediately addressed. Thus there is a negative aspect of struggle, when an individual is reducing the size and shape of a role to fit their comfort level. The impact this has on others and themselves can be very damaging. This is when the need to bring their attention to the need for support, collaboration and capacity conversion becomes critical.

This is addressed by developing the skills, knowledge and experience . The key is to allow every individual to become self aware, so they are conscious of their own capacity and also how their decisions and behaviors affect others in the work place. One of the most important tasks of any leader is how much space to create and where to create boundaries so others are able to grow?

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart.

Hamlet, Act III, scene ii

All Our Yesterdays

Today everything stopped.

Every thought, concern, plan, priority and purpose was contained in the purity of the moment. We sat and stood and cried both together as one and yet each at our very personal proximity to mourn the loss of our uncle.

Sidhu Masserji was one of those jolly uncles, the ones who with a glance, a wistful smile and a booming joy fill the room with his love. His six foot six frame was not large enough to contain his joyful heart. At the same time the largest man in the room and at the same time the biggest child. The honesty of his smile and warmth of his embrace would melt an acre of cares.

Today however, the cares were swept away not by the embrace of his warmth but the stillness of his unbending departure.

Death is a constant reminder of our inevitability and the destiny of everyone we do and do not love. Its agony can only be felt in the joy of our love. The deeper we love, the wider the berth of our anguish. And yet, despite the drama and ceremony we wrap it in, death is and will always remain completely ordinary. It is the most sobering and ordinary of experiences we can ever encounter.

Death is ordinary because does not distinguish. It does not compromise between race, creed, colour, fame, title, age, wealth, wisdom, insanity, the saint or the devil. It is what it is. There is nothing to negotiate. Death is our simplest expression of clarity. Our final statement.

My cousins’ fellow police officers graced the funeral with full military honours today. They lent a fitting dignity to our seperation from a man whose entire life had been about grace and connection to others. And yet at the same time, the formality of their polished uniforms and exact saltues could not take the ordinariness out of the stiff reality that lay bare in front of us for all to see and feel. The absolute normality of our mortality.

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow"

Macbeth, Act V, Scene V

the immediate jewel of our soul

Toronto is in the middle of one of its worst garbage strikes ever. For over a month the rubbish has piled so high that the stench and associated health risks are starting to become a major public hazard, especially with the lethal combination of heat and summer rain storms.

As I drove through this (otherwise) beautiful city, i thought about how the processing of waste, whether it is a city, a business, institution, house or human body is such a central part of our health and well being.

Then I began to think about how mad people would get if someone was to throw garbage onto their doorstep, and yet when someone whispers rubblish (bad mouthing another human being, nationality, race or group), some tolerate this, some refuse to taken in the toxic sentiments and others not only consume the stench, but beg for more.

When people bad-mouth others, is it any different than throwing rubbish onto each others front door. Negativity consumes, it erodes our ability to see what is really goin on in a flexible, fearless, resilient way. The stench of negativity towards others warps an individuals and an organizations ability to function effectively.

I have worked with firms where regularly and without consideration, simply putting the competition down was a celebrated trait, but then the same negativity would eventually spill over into other departments, functions and vendor partners and as a result, consume institutional capacity with nonsense/noise.

Once the municipal civic workers strike is over in Toronto, the garbage trucks will return and is likely to take weeks and a concerted effort to remove all these piles of stench. As a result of this combined effort, this beautiful city buried in rubbish will breath again, it will be revealed once again for one-and-all to enjoy.

What effort would it take to remove all the negativity we have taken in over the years, to rediscover and appreciate ourselves for what we are and allows others to do the same?

"Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed."

Othello; Act III, scene iii

Scoured To Nothing

People die every day. In the same week as the very public deaths of Michael Jackson, Steve McNair and Farah Fawcett, in our family we lost an uncle to cancer. He fought bravely through great anguish and torment for the past 18 months. He was a beautiful man with a warm wit and always a gentle inviting manner.

His life was a blessing to anyone touched by it. He did not shape an industry or create a new art form. It was the ordinary and simple things that he did that made him special to us. The way he listened, the way he greeted us, the way he told his stories, the way he went about his work, the way he shared everything he had and everything he was without expecting anything in return. The way he carried himself through his role repertoire as father, son, husband, brother, farmer, neigbour and friend. Just sitting with him was energizing. He did not postpone life.  He did not pass the time blaming, hiding from or making excuses for his life. He was always being there right with you.

I was in Joburg when I heard about Michael Jackson. I was amazed at just how deeply and how widely this man (obsessed with never growing old) had touched so many people in the world. But at the same time I wondered whether it was him or his fame that so many people craved? Who actually knew Michael? His very public departure was a further reminder that being famous has its own price tag. Being ourselves is more fulfilling than merely being famous. Growing old is not easy but someitmes it can be easier than trying not to.

Of all the fears, the root fear is of death. This is not necessarily our physical demise at the end of our life, but rather as we live, the fear that we do not matter, that we are unloved or unnecessary.

The anguish of not being noticed or needed is a salient expression of the underlying fear of a living death. This vain attachment consumes the ability to be ourselves and be fully with the people who deserve our love and attention while we are here to give it and they to recieve it.

Trying to be liked is a much lonlier place than being a farmer in India, in a village where less than a thousand people will ever come, a place where being known is not as half as important as being a good neigbour and being yourself.

Fear is a form of energy. Fear of death is futile. Better to acknowledge its existence and move our energy into a life creating and a giving and forgiving direction. Our energy follows our attention, even when we (our physical bodies at least) are long gone.

"Were better to be eaten to death with a rust
than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion"
Henry IV. Part II (Act I, Scene. II)

 

Starting Courage

"Here art thou in appointment fresh and fair,
anticipating time with starting courage."
Troilus and Cressida
Act IV, Scene V

There are times when procrastination serves us well. Sometimes we have to cease being slaves to the impulse of doing whatever we think is right. Sometimes being in not knowing, lost in uncertainty, in the freedom that confusion affords us, there is a stirring that our deeper un-breathed breathes need to dislodge. Wisdom is rooted in quiet, uncomfortable truths. For what learning did not preceed through the door of confusion? What new insight did not spring out of a restless thought? Procastination is often the path to that place.

More often than not, procastination is disguised in activity. We are so busy rinsing and repeating outlived habits and thoughts that we forget to trust ou instincts. As a result we fail to see beyond what we feel.

Procrastination is neither good or bad, but what we make of it. It has a bad name because it is not always good. At worse it is a form of cannibalism. Using ones capacity to aimlessly consume ones existence and potential is not a capital offence, but killing each moment adds up. Over a lifetime, that is a living death.

The challenge is when we are conscious of our procrastination. When we can put our finger inside the wound of their own addictive thinking, and find ourselve addicted to such an addiction. We woe in the mire of intellectual masturbation. A bad case of over-thinking is all consuming. As my dear friend Jeremy Preedy used to call it "over egging the custard". Procastination is neither good or ill but it is what we make of it. The struggle in the space between knowing and doing, is as old as to be and not to be and all that shit.

If procastination is consuming us, there are three steps that can open the future. Free ourselves from its empty bondage:

1) Ask.Call a friend. Admit we are stuck. Ask for help. Reveal and revel in our vulnerability not as a shameful scar but as door to new beginnings. Let someone hear our nonsense so it can vibrate through them back to us. But at such times we must avoid friends who want to "help" us, lest they infect us with their distraction. A true friend is one who is wise enough to allow us to listen to ourselves through their silence.

2) Start. Break the momentum. Lets begin. Taste what it feels like to begin. Start right now. In the next 3 minutes start to do the one thing that we want but dread the most. And only give it the luxury of three minutes. Even if we do not finish it will not matter because at best we may arrive in a place that is not here. At worst it may give us something else to overthink about. However, we may find a point of view or touch upon an energy in ourselves, a perspective we could not imagine but can only know by making a decision or taking an action. Breaking the inertia of our thoughts requires a leap of faith. But once it is released, it creates its own energy. Carves its own pathway forward.

3) Play. Cease the vanity of taking ourselves so damn seriously, Our life is just a brief itch. We are a temporary craving. This silliness we call an existence, this too shall pass. So with only a finite number of breaths, why not let the next one breathe in the fallacy of this drama. Relish these costumes. Take this make up seriously. Fix this silly wig. If life is a game (which of course it is) then lets play at being here today. This moment will either become a memory we will cherish or it will be wiped away like dust in the wind like so many billions of lives before us. Each aching care blown away in a whisper. Pfew! It is gone. So why are we so hung up? Why are we taking this emptiness so seriously?

All of these require us to be surpried, to tear up the old script. Abandon our identity. To cease thinking, but do something different. Why worry so much about our identity? It is going to slip off our stiff cold carcass one day soon enough. Why not today? Let our old self be. Let it go. Move on. Do something that is not on a to-do list. Do just one thing that makes us afraid. Sit in the uncertainty of it all. Taste the fear. Meet the person we never imagine we would know. Ourselves.

"This dangerous treason lurking
in our way to hinder our beginnings.
We doubt not now but every rub is
smoothed on our way"
Henry V,
Act II, Scene II

Nothing Will Come Of Nothing

The painting "Poetry in America" contains two predominantfigures: For me, one of the dancers depict America and the other dancer represents Europe. The old poetry defends itself from extinction in the face of the new poetry.

Dali had a vital sense of the emergence of commercialisation, commoditization, globalization and the poer of consumerism. In Dali’s painting, the blood of Christ has been transformed into a dripping blood bottle of Coca Cola. A phone oozes black ink as the mass media consume "the word". The darkness of his vision of media is in sharp contrast with the light of Christ that is signified by the candle in the dancer’s head, the deep cavern humanity. Dali became more deeply smitten by his Catholic faith as he grew older.

In the "Poetry of America" two cosmic athletes, harmless sword fighters, dance around each other like yin and yang, completing each other, grappling through the air. The futile dance continues to revolve like the earths revolutions, as time runs ticks away in the background, rooted in the cradle of all civilization, Africa. A naked child seeks to confirm the "time of day" with a stick and tries to reconnect with the sun to dial in the time. All innocence is consumed with activity and consumption.

Here is how Dali replied when he was asked about The Poetry of America in 1966, in his own words:"The greatest passion of the American people is when they see little children killed. Why? Because, according to the greatest psychologists in the United States, the massacre of the innocents is the favourite theme, the one which is found in the innermost depths of their subconscious minds, since they are constantly annoyed by children, so that their libido projects itself filling the cosmic surfaces of their dreams".

A half century later, what would Dali see or say if he were here now? What would Dali make of our digitally connected, time poverty stricken, age of global consumption? Would his soft melting "French Camembert" have dissolved into a mist? Are the new and fast growing urban middle classes of India and China our ages new geopoliticus children?

Has the "Poetry of America" become the dance of the generation of globalised children? Turn on a television set, open up a computer or switch on the phone and the world is waiting to pour in from the other end. 50 years on we are more deeply, broadly and instantaneously connected than ever before. One of the consequences is that the culture of America has soaked the fabric of the world. Perhaps, half a century on, the two figures are the new poetry of America, dancing in the form of middle-class India and China?

"Nothing will come of nothing"
King Lear. Act I, Scene I.

The Uses Of Adversity

According to Joy Lim, reputed Feng Shui expert, the Year of the Ox, 2009 will be a “year of resilience”.

 

Other Feng Shui experts echo Lim’s sentiments that despite (or perhaps because of) the current economic turbulence that the Year of the Ox will bring respite because the Ox is patient, persevering and tireless.

 

A time to keep our head down, replenish the soil, focus on getting the basics right and our arses back in gear.

 

I don’t know if this is custom, prediction or wishful thinking, but I’ll take it!

 

We all fail but we are only a failure when our truth is smothered in blame and regret. Courage and appreciation will be as important as ever as we step together into the wondrous Year of The Ox!

...

O Happy Day! Hung Hei Fat Choi!

 

 

"Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing".

As You Like It; Act III, Scene I

in venturing ill

It is not what we predict but how we inflict our past upon our future that matters.  

Our obsessive grip on concrete facts and certainty constrains and blinds us from what destiny has in store. We are not overcome by the horrors and hopes we expect. It's the punch we don't see coming is the one that takes us down; the unexpected gifts and surprises give us the most joy. Our ability to reach a goal that we never dreamt possible and do things we never thought we could defines the boundaries of our joy and life.

When we serve the past blindly we inflict the past upon the future. 

Rational choice is a succor, an instant gratification that quietly rots a deep cavity into our imagination.

Our friends say what we need to see. Our enemy is the one within, the soft voice that hides us from the joys of inconsistency, looking clumsy, confusion, ambiguity, relishing not knowing or being liked. The rest is vanity unleashed.

Our future flowers from the unknown present moment. Sometimes we need to slow down to speed up. Stand still to know where we need to be.

If we tie the choke hold of certainty around the throat of our creativity we should be prepared to swallow the infliction of never knowing surprise.

All along dormant needs sit paitently, waiting for a little ray of light to shine through.

Our latent knowledge suffers the indignity we would not reserve for our greatest enemies.

As long as our sense of identity is tethered to a past that is defined by where we are now rather than where we have truly been how can we claim to know where we will be?

Our practial wisdom is consumed in the grind of the daily noise of senseles habits. We are surrounded by pepole who can see all in us that we cannot and we choose not to ask and they choose not to intrude on our lonely plight for fear that we might disrupt theirs.

And yet a seven year old who does not speak through filters of what 'should be' because they have the pleasure of not knowing any better or a seventy year old  whose filters have been stripped away because she has realised what a terrible burden self deception is, they will introduce us to the strangeness that is the stuff of life.

Predicting the future is a fruitless activity, it ought to be outlawed with all the other drugs that society spurns. If we pay attention to not knowing, we can sense the fresh morning air and risk experiencing an untold future, enriched with surprise.

"So that in venturing ill we leave to be
The things we are for that which we expect;
And this ambitius foul infirmity,
In having much, torments us with defect
Of that we have: so then we do neglect
The thing we have; and all for want of wit,
Make something nothing by augmenting it"
The Rape of Lucrece (211)

 

Nourish all the world

Here we go again. The US media swings full scale into yet another overdose of sensationalism.

It is not enough to come to terms with the fact that an African-American man might possibily be intelligent and eloquent. Having not had enough of the buzz over Hillary Clinton's "historical" race for the Democratic nomination, we are now knee deep in Sarah Palin overdrive. We are meant to be consumed by her qualifications (through the dualistic lens of right or wrong, right or left). We are to sit by and watch people pick apart at her personal and private family affairs in the name of political clarity, as if any of this nonsense matters. 

All of this crazy media hype about 'history being made' is more hysterical than historical. History is made in every moment, the rest is so much excess labelling.

Lest we forget, here is a brief tribute to the many nations, media groups and the women around the world who have carved the pathway for the "greatest democracy in the world" to follow. Here are some timely lessons in how democratic elections can be fought and won with dignity, integrity and respect.

We are not talking here about the many women who ran for the office of the Vice President. Nor are we talking about the hundreds of women who ran for national party nomination and were narrowly defeated. We are talking about the 62 women who have stood for the highest political office in their land and won on their own merits. 

We are talking about the women who became the Presidents, Prime Ministers and Heads of State of soverign nations. These elections occured without any of the hoopla  of the U.S. media circus agast at the fact "Oh my god, she's a she!". Where were the "historical" pundits then?

The Irish electorate voted for two women in succession as their President. Just as the United States of America braces itself for a "possible" female Vice President, just across 'the pond' women have been running the highest office of the land in Ireland for the past 18 years!

Do you recall the headlines in 1997 when Mary AcAlleese succeeded Mary Robinson as President of Ireland? The big question of the day was not that she was a woman but that the largely male dominated para-military group Sinn Fien were strongly advocating her victory. Some in the press wondered if this would hurt Mary AcAlleese's chances at the polls? The point is that this issue was gender neutral.

If you are not aware, then check out Mary Robinson's credentials, her track record as President and the legacy she left behind. In each of these case and so many more around the world, women have risen to power in a male dominated system because they were the best fit for the job.

Here are the 62 pioneers who lead their nations and have nourished the world over the past 48 years. The stories of these women can now nourish the American political media and its electorate as they discover their own path towards a new historical future.

1. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, prime minister of Sri Lanka - 1960, 1970, 1994
2. Indira Gandhi, prime minister of India - 1966, 1980
3. Golda Meir, prime minister of Israel - 1969
4. Isabel Peron, president of Argentina - 1974
5. Elisabeth Domitien, prime minister of Central African Republic - 1975
6. Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of Great Britain - 1979
7. Maria da Lourdes Pintasilgo, prime minister of Portugal - 1979
8. Lidia Gueiler Tejada, prime minister of Bolivia - 1979
9. Dame Eugenia Charles, prime minister of Dominica - 1980
10. Vigdis Finnbogadottir, president of Iceland - 1980
11. Gro Harlem Brundtland, prime minister of Norway - 1981, 1986, 1990
12. Milka Planinc, federal prime minister of Yugoslavia - 1982
13. Agatha Barbara, president of Malta - 1982
14. Maria Liberia-Peters, prime minister of Netherlands Antilles - 1984, 1988
15. Carmen Pereira, acting president of Guinea Bissau - 1984
16. Corazon Aquino, president of Philippines - 1986
17. Benazir Bhutto, prime minister of Pakistan - 1988, 1993
18. Kazimiera Danuta Prunskiene, prime minister of Lithuania - 1990
19. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, prime minister of Nicaragua - 1990
20. Mary Robinson, president of Ireland - 1990
21. Ertha Pascal Trouillot, interim president of Haiti - 1990
22. Sabine Bergmann-Pohl, president of German Democratic Republic - 1990
23. Khaleda Zia, prime minister of Bangladesh - 1991, 2001
24. Edith Cresson, prime minister of France - 1991
25. Hanna Suchocka, prime minister of Poland - 1992
26. Kim Campbell, prime minister of Canada - 1993
27. Sylvie Kinigi, prime minister of Burundi - 1993
28. Agathe Uwilingiyimana, prime minister of Rwanda - 1993
29. Susanne Camelia-Romer, prime minister of Netherlands Antilles - 1993, 1998
30. Tansu Ciller, prime minister of Turkey - 1993
31. Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, president of Sri Lanka - 1994
32. Reneta Indzhova, interim prime minister of Bulgaria - 1994
33. Claudette Werleigh, prime minister of Haiti - 1995
34. Sheikh Hasina Wajed, prime minister of Bangladesh - 1996
35. Mary McAleese, president of Ireland - 1997
36. Pamela Gordon, premier of Bermuda - 1997
37. Janet Jagan, prime minister of Guyana - 1997
38. Jenny Shipley, prime minister of New Zealand - 1997
39. Ruth Dreifuss, president of Switzerland - 1999
40. Jennifer M. Smith, prime minister of Bermuda - 1998
41. Nyam-Osoriyn Tuyaa, acting prime minister of Mongolia - 1999
42. Helen Clark, prime minister of New Zealand - 1999
43. Mireya Moscoso, president of Panama - 1999
44. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, president of Latvia - 1999
45. Tarja Halonen, president of Finland - 2000
46. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, president of the Philippines - 2001
47. Mame Madior Boye, prime minister of Senegal - 2001
48. Megawati Sukarnoputri, president of Indonesia - 2001
49. Maria das Neves, Prime Minster of Sao Tome and Principe - 2002
50. Beatriz Merino, prime minister of Peru - 2003
51. Luisa Diogo, prime minister of Mozambique - 2004
52. Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany - 2005
53. Yulia Tymoshenko, prime minister of Ukraine - 2005
54. Michelle Bachelet, president of Chile - 2006
55. Micheline Calmy-Rey, president of Switzerland - 2006
56. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, president of Liberia - 2006
57. Han Myung-sook, prime minister of South Korea - 2006
58. Portia Simpson Miller, prime minister of Jamaica - 2006
59. Pratibha Devisingh Patil, president of India - 2007
60. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, president of Argentina - 2007
61. Borjana Kristo, president of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzogovina - 2007
62. Zinaida Greceanii - prime minister of Moldova, 2007

"From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world:
Else none at all in ought proves excellent"

Love's Labour's Lost
Act IV, Scene iii

Passion's Slave

The ‘middle path’ is a Buddhist construct. But middle in the Buddhist context does not mean compromise, concession, conflict avoidance or tolerating being average. Middle in the Buddhist tradition means to sit in the core of a problem or situation and to realize it fully, without being affected or infected by it.

The middle path is the ability to walk through the battle field surrounded by noise, confusion and destruction, confronting our reality by remaining emotionally still and intellectually neutral. Neutral is not the same as being  neutered and being still does not mean to do nothing, only to remove attachment to the self, the obstruction of needing to justify oneself or seek approval from ourselves or anyone else for that matter.

Taking the middle path means sitting with our current reality in the here and now. Not to be caught in the past that we can never fully know or a future that is yet to be. The middle path is clear when we free of attachment and still long enough to see ourselves in our own drama

The middle path is our ‘true north’. The truth emerges out of our own mind and body, there is a practical wisdom that sits quietly underneath our chattering mind, bound by the chain of memory and cursed by the need to need. 

The measure of a leader is his or her ability to act freely and do what is right without being consumed by what is right or wrong. Without having to prove to themselves or others that they were right.

Taking the middle path means sitting with our current reality, exploring a situation, seeing an opportunity or a problem from multiple, even conflicting perspectives without angst. It requires us to see all points of view without being physically, intellectually or emotionally embroiled in what we see.

The painter who paints the effortless stroke, the musician who plucks just the right note or harmony out of the air, the friend who says only what needs to be said, the lovers glance that says it all, the engineer who sees the simplest path in a mass of complexity, the cricketer who catches the ball in the sweet spot of the bat and snaps tit into the perfect corner of the circle. That is the middle path. It is emergent, it is uncontrolled, it is the sum of all our practice, all our learning, all our non-yearning.

The middle path is simple, but it far from easy. The middle path is our inner voice. The middle path is the sacred space where we our breath and the earth that breathes in harmony with us.  

"Give me a man that is not passion's slave and
I will wear him in my heart's core"
Hamlet, Act III: Scene 2

Trifles Light As Air

The word competitor derives from the latin term competere which means "to strive in common" or "striving together".   It is the combination of com "together" + petere "to strive, to seek".

The term competere "coincide, agree" is also the root of the term ‘competent’ as competence is the basis of an agreed set of standards of professionalism.

 

Since the industrial revolution, the term competition has became synonymous with trying to beat others in a furious race to acquire and accumulate the most finite resources. Turning a blind eye to the old adage "even if you could own everything in the world, where would you put it?"

 

Competing has nothing to do with stealing or taking advantage of others for our own selfish benefit. Competition is not a zero sum or short term game.

 

To vie for, challenge, contend and strive to be the best creator of value for the people we serve has more to do with how and why we apply resources than how or why we accumlate them.

 

The accumulation of wealth is a natural outcome of the value we create for others. One follows the other. When we focus on accumulation over application we confuse cause and effect; short cuts and corruption soon follow upon our heels (performance enhancement drugs, cooking the books, burying the truth).

 

Competing is about applying limited resources more wisely than anyone else in order to create more resources in the form of new value, than anyone else. Value begets value.

 

A common way of growing market share, leveraging economies of scale and reducing  overhead is to acquire a competitor. Knitting resources together is not enough.  To be successful the new entity needs to strive in common. Some mergers and acquisitions realise this, many more do not.

 

Competing is a question that always begs an answer to a question that has no bound. Striving in common requires an openess to uncertainty that melts into grace. Meekness is no giving in it is rising up above the illusions of ego.  

 

When we compete we lose something we gain something. What we gain is a a focus, we innovate new forms of value for customers/ society our competitors cannot imagine or repeat.

 

 

"Trifles light as air are to the jealous

confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ"

Othello: Act III, Scene 3

Satyagraha

Satyagraha means the “Firmness of Truth” or "Truth-Force"

 

Satya the Sanskrit word for “truth”; agraha means "firmness". Thus combined Satyagraha means "the firmness of truth”.

 

Gandhi's impact on Indian independance has been exagerated and romanticised by western academics and idealic biographers. The sacrifices made by Bhagat Singh, Udham Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru,  Bagaha Jatin, Veer Savarkar, Tilak, Rabingdranath Tagore and Neaji Subhash Chandra Bose had a far more profound imapct on the British than Gandhi alone.

 

Nevertheless, the Mahatma did have an inspiring influence, he charmed not only the British out of their divide and rule commercial and imperialistic brutality, but has had an untold and personally acknowledged influence on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

 

Gandhi's greatest strength was his wit and wisdom in knowing how to manage and put the use of mass media to his own pragmatic use.

 

Gandhi went out of his way to clarify precisely what he meant by non violence, "passive resistance" or Satyagraha.

 

Mahatma Gandhi was concerned that the media and governments both in the east and west did not understand his phrase "passive resistance". They kept confusing it for "passive agressive" behaviour or simply doing nothing.

 

Gandhi drew his inspiration for Satyagraha from Baba Ram Singh, who lead the Kuka Movement in the Punjab. Here in Mahatma Gandhi's own words is a vivid description of what Satyagraha meant to him, and it is in the same stroke quite self explanatory as to why it is important for us:  

 

"I have drawn the distinction between passive resistance as understood and practiced in the West . I often used “passive resistance” and “satyagraha” as synonymous terms: but as the doctrine of satyagraha developed, the expression “passive resistance” ceases even to be synonymous, as passive resistance is a quiet admission of violence, it should be universally acknowledged to be a weapon of the weak"

 

"Passive resistance does not involve complete adherence to truth under every circumstance. Therefore it is different from satyagraha in three essentials:

 

1.     Satyagraha is a weapon of the strong

2.     It admits of no violence under any circumstance whatever

3.     It always insists upon truth.

 

Satyagraha means truth-force

 

Satyagraha is a relentless search for truth and a determination to search truth.

 

Every truth is self-acting and possesses inherent strength.

 

Passive resistance should not be confused passive aggression, the two are opposites. Satyagraha is a pure soul-force of truth.

 

The truth is by its very nature non-resistant because it cannot be moved, the truth cannot be destroyed.

 

A Satyagrahi has infinite patience in the truth.  

 

Satyagraha abhors cowardice, and he who preaches it with any selfishness about him.

 

The fight of Satyagraha is for the strong in spirit, not the doubter or the timid.

 

Satyagraha teaches us the art of living as well as dying.

 

Satyagraha is a method of carrying conviction and of converting by an appeal to reason and to the sympathetic chord in human beings.

 

Satyagraha is a process of educating public opinion, such that it covers all the elements of the society and makes itself irresistible.

 

Satyagraha is self- dependent. It does not require the assent of the opponent before it can be brought into play. Indeed, it shines out most when the opponent resists. It is, therefore, irresistible.-

 

Satyagraha is an attribute of the spirit within. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

 

Satyagraha is a method of carrying conviction and of converting by an appeal to reason and to the sympathetic chord in human beings. It relies upon the ultimate good in every human beings.

 

A satyagrahi turns the searchlight inward relentlessly to weed out all the defects that may be lying hidden there still.

 

Satyagraha has been designed as an effective substitute for violence.

 

The fight of Satyagraha is for the strong in spirit, not the doubter or the timid.

 

In the dictionary of satyagraha, there is no enemy. A genuine satyagraha should never excite contempt in the opponent even when it fails to command regard or respect.

 

A clear victory of satyagraha is impossible so long as there is ill-will.

 

Satyagraha does not depend on the outside for help; it derives all its strength from within.

 

The method of Satyagraha requires that the Satyagrahi should never lose hope, so long as there is the slightest ground left for it.

 

Jesus Christ, Daniel, and Socrates represented the purest form of passive resistance or soul force.

 

A Satyagrahi has infinite patience, abundant faith in others, and ample hope. A Satyagrahi cannot go to law for a personal wrong.

 

In the code of the Satyagrahi, there is no such thing as surrender to brute force"

 

 

"Truth is truth to the end of reckoning"

Measure for Measure: Act V, scene 1.

 

 

 

A Good English Condition

In a recent conversation with my dear friend Robbie Stamp I found myself reminiscing about my teachers at Dormers Wells High School. For some bizarre reason, this run down multi-cultural school in West End of London in the late 70's was chock full of Welsh teachers.

Our Welsh teachers would jibe us about how our parents ended up in Southall because it was "the first bus stop they came across after they got off the plane at Heathrow Airport". We would joke with them about how they had to hitch a lift down the M4 as it was their only way out of eating daffodils.

I never did find out why we had so many Welsh teachers at our school, but I will never forget the impression they left on me: How could I forget…

• Our Mr. Mathias, the most lyrical woodwork and metalwork teacher you could ask for. He would only stop singing hymns and carting on about “the valley”  to slap us across the head to remind us to "file in the right direction” and "for heavens sake put your heart into it boyo!"
  
• Our Mrs. Murray, our English teacher would bring us caerphilly cheese from her village back in gods own country, and tell us "get your teeth into that". Would tell us how “the bastard heathen English stole the milk from our Welsh cows to make their blasted Cheddar”. Thus Cheddar Cheese is stolen Welsh cultural property. She would remind us that Shakespeare’s grandmother was Welsh, “the one he got his poetic genes from" and how Shakespeare's schoolmaster who “taught him how to read and write English” was of course a Leek. 
  
• Our Mr Gwyn Lewis (there were so many Mr. Lewis’s that we even got to know their first names!) would holler at us during Geography lessons, one week about how "Gods own country" -  blessed Wales with coal to keep the worlds "arses warm”. At the same time he would curse us for not studying hard enough, reminding us how he and his peer had to "read books to avoid being sent down the pit”. Good times.
  
• Our Mr Morgan who took enormous pleasure in chasing us and beating us senseless during rugby practice so we could be “real men”. In the summer he would hurl cricket balls at us because “cricket is a poof’s game (apart from Tony Lewis of course, who lead the "lame English game" as their captian). His long diatribes on the cottage burning of those "imperialists" made games lessons mentally as much as physically stimulating.
  
• Our Miss Clancy who quietly revealed to us in Religion class that “St. George was nothing but an effete wally who would faint at the sight of a real dragon” and dutifully taught us how to pronounce “saes” or “sasunnachs” a derogatory term for these 'bloody mongrol foriegners'  - i.e. Anglo-Saxons. 
  
• Our Mr Rees Jones would make us copy out our entire History textbook through the year while he put his feet up to read the latest edition of his favourite porno mag. No one ever complained about Mr Rees Jones personal “mind expansion” because when he wasn’t sucking on his pipe, thumbing through Penthouse Letters or simply nodding off, would break out into impromptu Tommy Cooper impressions.

How could we ever forget our morning assembly’s?  Mr. Mathias and Mr. Evans patrolling menacingly through long lines of Muslim, Hindu and Sikh kids ensuring we were singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” at the top of our lungs for fear of a short sharp boot up the back side.

 In the middle of the hymn they would implore “dig in deep, dig in deeper you rascals, put some heart into it for Pete’s sake!”. I am sure St. Peter was greatly pleased with our efforts, give us a C+?

Not that white Christian kids were spared the ordeal. Most of them children of poor Irish and Polish immigrants. Being Catholics made them as foreign than us.

 

Our teachers were not racists or bigots. They were not trying to convert us into Methodists or Presbyterians. We understood what was going on. Their only sin was that they loved to sing and scream our load about their passion for life. These were not "stiff English worms" (a phrase i never forget), they had pure British blood. These Celts had more in common with the Basques of Northern Spain than the Germanic lot who commanded England.

But for them, how would I have ever known of the socio-political genuis of Aneurin Bevan, the artistry of Gareth Edwards, the tenacity of David Lloyd George, the betrayal of Richard Burton (by "that no good for nothing two timing drunk whore Liz Taylor"), the amazing George Everest (who was forced to have the worlds highest peak named after him - despite the Welsh humility of his protests) and of course Mr. Lawrence of Arabia who came from as far from golden deserts of the Middle East as one could possibly get, his 'green, green grass of..." Gorphwysfa in Tremadog, Caernarfonshire.

These crazy Welsh emigrants infused us with the passion for life, hymns, dance, song, language -- who would i be today without the poetry of WH Davies, R.S. Thomas, Roald Dahl, George Herbert, Edward Thomas and Dylan Thomas? These loud, mercilessly joyful and angry teachers enriched us beyond measure. I don't remember the lessons in the books we were forced to read, I only remember the lessons of their lives, their ways, their inspiration.

There were reserved Sasunnach teachers in our school, but I remember few of them. All of our Welsh teachers were larger than life romantic characters. These “bugger all” backwards who wended from the vicinity of Llareggrub were lyrical, smart, eloquent, stubborn and always irreverently funny. We laughed until we cried. They were my teachers because they were unashamedly, absolutely, completely who they were. As such, they taught me to be unashamedly who I am. What more could an innocent child ask for?

"You thought, because he could not speak English in the
native garb, he could not therefore handle an
English cudgel: you find it otherwise; and
henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good
English condition. Fare ye well."
Henry V, Act V, Scene i

Heal but by degrees

I was born in England to Sikh immigrants. Taught to be a A good English Christian schoolboy during the day, reverting to a good  Sikh son of an honest immigrant farmer every evening and weekend.

For reasons I will never understand, the hard switch back and forth between Eastern roots and Western breeding, from obedient Christian by day and Sikh warrior by eve was far more of a torment to me than either of my brothers or any of my 'second generation immigrant' friends.  

To make matters more colourful most our teachers were Welsh immigrants who despised the English would go out of their way to remind us that these "Anglo-Saxon immigrants" had taken over their Celtic homeland, and how the Normans and Vikings all plundered and watered down the ancient Briton bloodline. Their anger at the immigrants of the past cast the presence of my parents and my own unwashable tan skin into new light.

To relieve the mental anguish and silence the self torment I would bunk off from school, use my lunch money to take the Tube from Ealing Broadway on the Central Line directly to Holborn Station to escape in the wonder of the Reading Rooms at the British Museum. There I dug through the brittle skin of what I was being told by what it meant to be a “Sikh” at home and by what it meant to be a “Christian” at school and excavated my own darkness.

My private ordeal eventually turned from an elevation, to an elation and eventually a rev-elation. Both faiths, indeed all faiths are connected by a stream that runs deep beneath, in an undercurrent of latent truth that connects all humanity with or without our feeble permission. We should never trust what we see on the surface we are not that shallow. Our true task is to (if we are blessed or we are blessed if we) slow down long enough to drink from the sacred pool of truth rooted deep within us.

Baba Nanak Faqir followed the Rumi saints at the same time as he cleared the hindu cobwebs off the Vedic scriptures to reveal that "there is no moslem, there is no hindu". Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji was equivocal about this, he taught that if people have the courage to step beyond the shackles of social identity, the shallowness of social despair will give way to the breadth of humanity. I learned that if people slow down long enough, allow the pool of their frantic minds to be still, then they will see that we all uniquely love.

"How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees"
Othello. Act II; Scene iii

trickling tears are vain

“Weep not, sweet queen; for trickling tears are vain”
Henry IV - Part One
Act II, scene iv

Moma butterfly is not consumed by conceited craving so dearly coveted by the rest of us. Her unfettered feast flutters only to awaken the best in us.

Moma butterfly’s flight has been ever supple strong, never brittle hard, her world could never be consumed by the coaxing flames of greed. Today, she has unclipped her wings, broken free of the unfinished symphony she cast so carefully to tame the toxic breed.

Seeds sown devoid of pride will take roots in her stride. Her passage to her next feast will be as turbulent and yet as certain as the morning tide. Moma butterfly knows only how to fly with titan heart, healing eyes and arms open wide.

“There is difference between a grub and a butterfly;
yet your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown
from man to dragon: he has wings; he's more than a
creeping thing”
Coriolanus
Act 1, Scene iii

Listening To Our Own Strory

"The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King"
Hamlet
Act II, Scene ii

Gillian Stamp recently recalled a telling conversation she held with a miner in Papua New Guinea, after listening deeply to him, the miner said "Thank you for letting me hear my story and giving it back to me as a tool I can use to attend to my future". Listening to our own and each others stories is more than a flight of fancy, the miners response peaks deep into the joy and angst of our human condition.

Whether it was the age of letters, sitting in a circle around the fire, on vacation in the company of complete strangers or making our presence felt in facebook or myspace.com, the need to be heard and to be acknowledged is core to our very being, being heard is our social spine.

.

Gillian reminds us of our four journeys and the importance of being in "flow" through our lives. The concept of flow was uncovered by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Mihaly’s research of highly creative people across all fields of human endeavor suggested that happiness is over-rated. It is difficult to be happy because the universe is not built for our happiness.
.
While religions and mythologies have been created to provide some security against this fact, first-hand knowledge cruelly reveals this truth again and again. Csikszentmihalyi suggests that it is best to think about the universe in terms of order and chaos (entropy), not happiness and sadness.

The key is not to uncover the essence of happiness but to simply listen to our intuition, listen to our own experience without judgement, to examine what is happening around us when we and the people immediately around us are fulfilled or in a state of ‘flow’ .

The state of 'flow' occurs when we are engaged in a creative unfolding of something larger than ourselves; athletes call it 'being in the zone', actors talk about being 'in the moment', lovers talk about 'bliss', the mystics have described it as 'ecstasy', and artists as 'rapture'.

Flow is the illusive moment of truth when we are self aware but not self concious, we are so consumed with a challenge that we allow our magical powers take over to the point that we end up suprising ourselves with the gifts we bear to the world.

.

During my work at NPR, Dana Davis-Rehm introduced me to the phrase “trusted space”. A trusted space suggests a sacred place that we all share and within which we are allowed and allow ourselves to be completely true to ourselves and each other.

.

This is another space where we discover flow, when we listen to each others stories without judgment or precondition, when we open ourselves wholly to another person and are completely enraptured in their story rather than their telling of it, we discover flow.

.

The story telling business is a booming sector, Hollywood and Bollywood consume themselves and us with as many stories about themselves as much as they do with stories from outside the industry, book sales grow at a time when everything was meant to have become electronic, magazines and radio shows flow with the endless stream lives that we can touch and enter in an instant. Flesh that perished many hundreds of years ago becomes our skin the minute we dip our head into their story.

What is a funeral? It is a tapestry of stories that made up a life. What is an anniversay, a marriage, a party? All these are the trusted spaces where we share and discover our story through the story of others. and perhaps if we listen deep enough, we will encounter the Truth inside these trusted spaces.

...

I was very fortunate meet Mihaly several years ago during a conference at Harvard. Late in the afternoon Francis Fukuyama took to the stage to talk to us about trust. Fukuyama began to wax lyrical about how certain races are more trusting than others, Mihaly’s face turned raspberry red. Then Fukuyama explained that there are only three races that are high in trust, these are the German, American and Japanese race, and this explains why their economies are so strong. Mihaly got spitting mad. He turned to me and asked me “What is this fool talking about?”.

.

Mihaly stormed out of the hall. I followed him out. In the empty corridor he paced back and forth as the drone of Fukuyama's presentation continued to boom from the hall. Mihaly told me that this was precisely the crazy thinking that had laid bare and destroyed so many beautiful lives in Eastern Europe and in so many sacred places throughout hisory and throughout the world.

.

These were the eloquent lies that deaden peoples intelligence. But his wrath was not directed at Fukuyama who he described as an "imbicile" but he was angry at the placid audience who sat there, passively consuming Fukuyama nonsense, accepting his rhetoric as if it were a sanctified balm being laid upon their sleepy heads. This was the opposite of flow, this was dead time when no story was being told, no truth was being revealed, time and life were ticking away without consequence.

.

Our stories are sacred. When we hear the voice of a young American solider, a grieving Iraqi mother or the victim of a far off storm, tell their story on NPR, CBC or the BBC, our hectic lives are put on hold. The pause button allows us to be present in the moment, to be part of a story that is bigger than the petty grief of our daily grind.

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Every life is a story that contains many moments of truth, moments of flow.

.

When we relive our own story through a photograph, joke, video clip or long lost love letter we are in touch with a divine thread that runs through our humanity and connects our experiences as a set of universal, timeless themes.

When we listen to someone elses story, we enrich our story by honouring them with the gift of presence.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."

As You Like It
Act II, Scene vii

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A Jest's Propensity

I liked Alfred Hitchcock more for what he stood for than what he did. I admire his films, but it was the stand he took in his profession. He had no time for method actors.

He believed that he had paid his dues and that if he was qualified enough to hire actors who knew their craft, then why should he worry about their acting? Hitchcock said “I direct films not actors. Actors know how to do their job, I know how to do mine”.

He told the actors what to do not how to do it. He instructed them to move to the right place, which way to look, how to appear. How they did it or felt about it was not his concern.

When actors would ask WHY they were being asked to do this or that he would invariably say “because it makes a great scene”, …asked him why he would have to look over his shoulder “because I told you to” or “because you are paid to do it” and “because that is what the scene needs right now” and my favourite – “You are required to do this because the audience will love it”.

The actor in Hitchcock’s view is subservient to the movie because the movie is subservient to the audience’s response.

Hitchcock would get away with murder (not literally) because of his rapier wit and cockney sense of humour. example, having been nominate five times for an Oscar, but never winning it, he was asked how he felt, his response “Does how I feel affect me getting recognition, I think it is quite irrelevant to how I feel, the Oscar does not dictate what I think about myself, I know myself very well thank you”.

Many film critics would give savage reviews of his films while he was alive. Hitchcock was asked what he felt about these critics, his response was elegantly devastating: “They are decent, hardworking, considerate people who mean well, I don’t mean they are mean in that they don’t care about how others feel, they are not mean or bad people, what I am trying to say is that all they mean well to others. They are decent, ordinary people subject to the same foibles and frailties that we are all subject to. They do their job, I do mine. They cannot exist without the work I do, and I can exist very well without them. I am happy to give them something to do. I also mean well!”.

Hitchcocks play on the word ‘meaning’ and being 'mean' illustrates the bumbling genius of one of the great artists of our time.

"Why, that’s the way to choke a gibing spirit, 
Whose influence is begot of that loose grace   
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.   
A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear   
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,   
Deaf’d with the clamours of their own dear groans,   
Will hear your idle scorns, continue them,   
And I will have you and that fault withal;
But if they will not, throw away that spirit,   
And I shall find you empty of that fault,   
Right joyful of your reformation"

Love’s Labour’s Lost (Act V, Scene II)

Houston are you receiving, over?

I was running late for my flight out of San Antonio, Texas this morning. I asked the cabbie to put his foot down as I did not want to miss my connection at Houston to London.
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The cabbie nodded his head, looked at me through the rear view mirror, then turned his head and he shook his finger at me.  "You really need to let go of your stress Sir, it will do you no good, no good at all?". In the meanwhile I peered at the four cars in front of us willing the red light to change so we could get onto the highway. 

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I rolled my eyes and grit my teeth. In every taxi ride when the driver kicks off the conversation there are only two options, take out my work and get like I'm busy working or engage.. I slumped back into the seat and went for it"¦ I asked Oh yeh? So how do I do that? It's fine saying don't stress, but tell me, HOW do it do that?"

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The cabbie twisted his head, smiled and said "Well, it begins right now, you have to stop stressing yourself over that red light, because it will change regardless of what you think or feel about it, that light does not need your stress and neither do you".

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The driver had my attention, I don't even remember that red light changing, the movie reel in my head of scrambling through check in and security to a final touch down at the departure gate before it closed evaporated from my minds eye. I was now in the taxi with this stranger wondering what made him so calm?

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"So how? How do I do that mate?". The Cabbie Philosopher grabbed my hand (not literally) and took me on a magic carpet ride. "Please sit back and relax, the airport will come when it will come, but I am going to tell you a long story" I sat back and wondered where was this stranger going to take me?

"You are from India correct?" I told him that I was a Sikh from the Punjab.  "Good" he said, "I am a Moslem from Iran".

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"The reason why I tell you I am from Iran is because I am going to tell you a story that made me let go of my stress and if you listen to it carefully it will help you let go of your stress also. If you do not listen to it, then you will keep collecting more and more stress all your life.

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"I emigrated to Am-erie-ca for 35 years ago. When I first come here, I loved everything, I loved the lights, I loved the tall buildings, I loved the fast food, I fell in love completely with the Am-erie-can Lie. I began to collect things, lots of things and then I began to compare things. I did not compare things with other things, I compared the things I had with the things that other people had. This taught me what to want. Then as I began to collect more things and even more things.

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Then suddenly one day, I got a letter from Iran informing me that a very dear friend of mine, a mentor who had been very important in my young life had been taken very seriously ill and that was in hospital.

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Suddenly could not see anything anymore, I could not see the things I was collecting, all I could see was that I wanted to be by his side. I went to Iran to visit my friend.

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Now, I have to tell you, you have to believe me, this was a very, very intelligent man, the most intelligent man I had ever met in my life. Yes, yes, my friend had an education from schooling, but much more he had the education of life, he was what you say street smart.

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Through all my university years he was my mentor. I loved him very much, like a father. When I fly to Iran I went straight to his hospital room. When I walked into the room he was sitting in the bed, he was being fed by his wife. She completely broke down and wept and I began to cry and his daughter in the room, she also began to cry very loud. All this time my friend sat smiling in bed.

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My friend could not understand why we were crying. His wife told me that he had lost his mind. I spoke to my friend but he just kept smiling and nodding his head like a little child. I asked his wife what is going on?

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She told me that he worried all the time, he was constantly worrying about his job, worrying about his daughter, worrying about his neighbors, worrying about Iran, his mind was always running, running, running, worrying about this and worrying about that, it just never stopped. She told me that he was so stressed that one day, just like that (snaps fingers) he just could not get out of bed.

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Then my friends daughter, who I had only seen as a little child began to talk about a lot of things. In her every facial expression, her words sounded just like my mentor Mohammed. In her I could see the young Mohammed, the teacher, the friend, the man that he was. This was one of the saddest days of my life. I cried all night and for the whole week after that.

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I am only human, I worry about my loved ones, get upset at religious zealots in America and my home country, but Allah is magnificent (index finger points to the sky). Allah is all magnificent, he allows us in a blink of an eye to go wherever we want to go.

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When I feel my stomach get tense, my breath tightens and muscles contract, when I shrink as a man, then right away I go back, in an instant of a blink of an eye I arrive back in that hospital room. I can be driving a cab, walking my grandchildren to school or watching a movie, but when I feel tense I go back in my mind and meet dear friend Mohammed and he nods and he smiles and then he sets me free. He is my constant daily reminder of the cost of worrying, worrying, worrying.

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We can control how we feel, but we cannot control 99% of the things that go on around us, I cannot control that driver in that car over there and whether he wants to suddenly cross this lane and take away our limbs forever, I cannot control politicians who make bombs and kills little children. I cannot control any of this, but I can control how I feel, this is my control and nobody elses.

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My friend, we can worry all we want but when the end comes, (claps his hands) it will come when it comes, and it will not come of our choosing otherwise why would we ever et it come?

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When it comes and it will as sure as the sun will go down into the night this evening. When we go, we go, we will take nothing with us, absolutely nothing. All these things that we collect, all the things we worry about in our mind, all of this we will let go and we will leave behind and it will not matter anymore, ever again. The things that we collect will gather dust, be sold, break or be thrown away. These things we collect, these worries that we collect, all of this does not mean a thing.

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I am a nothing more than a simple, humble taxi driver, stuck in this very small space (the car). I pick up many important people everyday, they sit there exactly where you are sitting right now and they talk and talk and talk, they talk about many things, politics, business, religion, families and they tell their wife tell her that they are missing her on the same phone.

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Yes, all of these important people, all their talk and talk and talk will mean nothing in the end. I do not listen to them, I do not care about what they are saying, but I do hear and feel their pain, I feel their anguish and need to collect this and that, to collect people that they want to control, to collect money that they do not know what to do with. They collect, and collect and collect until they are going to be collected.

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So, my friend, this is how you lose your stress. Let go of the 99% of things that do not matter and that you cannot control and that control you. Then get in touch with the 1% that does matter.

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The driver of this magic carpet ride had taken me to the airport, but he had taken me somewhere much more important. He had given me the keys to the real freedom that can only be enjoyed now.

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As we pulled into the airport and came to complete stop, I asked the drive "What is your name friend?" Without a word, he held up his ID card with his funny mug shot, it said "Syeed". I asked him "Syeed what makes you so wise?" and he said "We are all wise but we do not stop to pay attention to the wisdom that Allah has given to us, we take it for granted so he takes it back from us".

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The car pulled up at the Airport taxi drop off point, I began a new conversation with Syeed. I asked him "Syeed, I am late for my flight, but there will be another flight but I may never see you again, so tell me just one more thing, can you explain to me the mess that is in the middle east?"

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Syeed twisted his entire body over the seat and looked me in the eye, I opened my mind to grasp some sanity in a world gone mad, from the magic carpet ride man.

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"Mohameed and Jesus are the same, Moses and Jesus are the same, Jesus and the Buddha are the same. Yes, they came at different times and yes they lived in different bodies, but these were all the same, one spirit being guided by the light of just one god, Allah, he who is adorned by us feeble humans by a thousand and one different names but is just  only one god, creator of all"

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"The differences that exist were not created by our god, they were created by greedy religious people and greedy politicians who want to do nothing but to collect people into their control, to have power over more and more people. These politicians created the difference in our mind so they can collect our minds. The more minds they collect, they think the happier they will be, but these are fools, these greedy politicians, these greedy priests, they all created these differences in our minds so that they can collect us.

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They do this by taking us to the 99% that we cannot control, they make us forget the 1% that we can control because this 1% that is given by God would leave them feeble and realising this they would need to kneel and worship God.

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They collect us up and take us into the 99% and they make our mind unclean by filling it with anger, greed, lust, revenge, they preach to us so they can block out the light of Allah, they sow seeds of hate by making us fear that our enemies will destory us, when the real truth is that we will not last forever anyway and the real truth is that as long as we are consumd by the collecting and collecting and collecting that we are not really free or alive even now, we are possessed. We allow these priests of the media, entertainment, churches, consumer packaged goods and politics to do this to us by being feeble, we are feeble when we denying Allah the honour we owe him. We allow them to do this to us when we forget the power we have been bestowed with.

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The truth is very simple but living it is very hard. Allah made all of us with his hands, every one of us, Jew, Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, we are all his children. How can I possibly hate something that Allah has made? How can I hate a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu, because when I hate them, then I hate Allaha's creation and when I hate Allah's creation, then I pour scorn on Allah, for he is the all magnificent creator of all things".

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The worshipping of Allah is the 1% robs the priests and politician of their power.

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That is all. Now go, get your flight and remember, do got collect that worrying, do not collect that stress, may Allah be with you"

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The taxi ride was showing $44 on the meter, I shoved a hundred dollar bill into Syeeds hand and curled his fist. He went to pick up the change and I wagged my finger in his face "No my friend, you have given me a lot more change than I bargained for today".

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I walked to through the airport as if a weight had been lifted off me. I got onto my flight on time.

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Here I am  buzzing 35,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean to England, scrawling out Syeeds words as fast as I can recall them. Deep down however, I know I will forget, it is highly likely that by the time we land, I will wallow back into the cave of the 99%.

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When I get off this momentary lapse of self awareness and self acceptance, the magical clarity of this carpet ride, I will succumb to the deep habit groove laced by the lure of the politicans and priests, because before I know it, I will be back to collecting, collecting , collecting and collecting, until as Syeed so starkly reminded me, the day I too will be collected.

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But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
Let not the world see fear and sad distrust
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:
Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threatener and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviors from the great,
Grow great by your example and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.

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The Life and Death of King John

Act V, Scene i.

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Great Things Labouring

That sport best pleases that doth least know how;   
Where zeal strives to content, and the contents   
Die in the zeal of those which it presents;   
Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,
When great things labouring perish in their birth.

Love's Labour's Lost
(Act V, Scene ii)

This painting is called Geopoliticus Child, it was created by Salvador Dali in 1943.  Dali’s home and mother country, Spain was engulfed in a bloody civil and world war, deep in a national identity crisis.

What does the crazed genius Dali do? He shows us mother earth pointing to a new child grapling its way into the world.  The innocent new born is the United States of America. The land mass of the United States is the body tearing its way through the earth (egg) into life. The new born grips Great Britain, as this is the lever of its roots.

The head of the ‘child’ is yet to grace the light of day, still to find its vision, realize it's focus, reason, purpose and identity.

In every ruling class and culture throughout history has established its presence through bloody mindless military rule, gained power by reeking fear and destruction, be it the Mughals, the Romans, the Greeks, the Mongols or the British. Each in turn brought untold suffering and devastation to the cultures and communities in their path, but in equal measure, they also co-mingled with the existing cultures and heritage to bring new depths of creativity, breakthroughs in the arts, science, engineering, social order, learning and growth have emerged out of this darkness, the genesis of which would otherwise have been inconceivable.

The industrial revolution and the British Empire may be two separate chapters in the history books, but they are one indistinguishable event. Economic power, military rule and the creative power of human creativity and innovation  are all one ying-yang whole.

Each of the ruling cultures have always been a mix of political and militaristic expediency (greed) and in equal measure the divine power of their artists, poets, thinkers, engineers, their builders of education systems, community and an advancement of the human experience. You cannot separate the two. Ugly as it is to admit, they are one.

The question that Dali’s painting begs – is that as this next child tears out of the darkness, as it spreads its desperate economic and geo-political grip on the world, Mother Nature can do nothing but look and point, natures other child (existing cultures and communities) cling to the mother earth, for fear of what will come.

We are left to wonder, WHAT will America’s contribution and legacy be? It is the utimate mystery of any new born child, its potential greatness and destructive powers are unknowable.

Over half a century after the painting was put on canvas, the U.S. is getting through puberty and only just beginning to shape its legacy, it will take much longer than our lifetime for it to make is true mark. This is the birth place of the internet, the global on-line community, the source of the new wisdom, the unexpected contribution of this child is only just unfolding before our very eyes.

This is a vision of America's legacy, one that reaches beyond the narrow politicians lens of greed and consumption, politicians come and go, the only thing that will endure is the value created by ordinary human beings, born in ordinary circumstances, the artists, poets, thinkers, engineers and builders of education, communication systems, community as these are the men and women who bear the burden of broadening the bounds of human experience.

We have no idea what will be created or what will survive once the Geopoliticus Child has come of age, or once it has passed through the usual passage, the life cycle that every empire that preceded it has been through.

All we do know for sure, is that once it has run its course and bites the same dust that we all have to bite one day, another egg will hatch and a new empire will clutch the earth through its birth pangs, to destory what has been created and plant new seeds of learning through its own lethally glorious legacy.

Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O! let us embrace.
As true we are as flesh and blood can be:   
The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;   
Young blood doth not obey an old decree:   
We cannot cross the cause why we were born;
Therefore, of all hands must we be forsworn.

Love's Labour's Lost
(Act IV, Scene iii)

Momentary Grace

"O momentary grace of mortal man,
Which we more hunt for than the
grace of God!"
Richard III (Act III. Scene IV)

What is grace? Grace is elegance, politeness, a generosity of spirit, the capacity to tolerate or forgive.

Being graceful, having poise and dignity is something we admire in others.

What do we need to do to be graceful? Wear the right clothes? Drive the right car? Walk with the right posture? Hang around with the cool people – in the hope that their sultry smoothness will eventually rub off on us?

We already possess this thing called grace. We only need to learn how to relax, take ourselves less seriously and it will surface - effortlessly. That is why it's called grace. It's natural.

Some people are better at trusting themselves than others, each of us have different situations in which we are comfortable enough to be ourselves. Some people are in this state for much of the time, others will pass through this life and only catch very brief glimpses of what it means to be human.

Children are graceful, the only times they are lose this grace is when they are consumed with fear, whether it is a bully in the playground, a teacher who takes themselves too seriously (ie lack grace) or an abusive parent who forgets they were a child once also. Grace resides in every child, in their every movement and every word, until we rob it from them.

Actors know how to be graceful, so do atheletes and artists, it comes to life when they abandon their fear and trust what is true inside them. We admire it, sit in dark rooms for hours together worshipping something that resides inside us all.

We may have forgotten what it means to be free, that's OK, but as long as we remember to forgive ourselves and cease bullying ourselves, grace is ready to surface. The challenge with grace is that the less we try the more we are. In a busy world ridden with rushing and doing, this challenge is tougher to bear than it should be.

"He hath a daily beauty in his life   
That makes me ugly"
Othello (Act V, Scene I)

No Fear In Marriage

"Get thee a good husband,
and use him as he uses thee"
All's Well That Ends Well
Act I - Scene i

Our oldest is going through the "love and marriage" phase. It is difficult to know how to advise an 18 year old about anything, least of all about love and marriage. Even if I could peel back the years and remember what would helped me most at that age (not that a guy at 19 has any sense of marriage).

This is more than a good old fashioned generation gap. Even if I could remember, how could the experiences of an 18 year old guy in London, England possibly compare or even matter to another gender of another generation in another continent in completely new century?

I gave my daughter the only advice that I could. My wife and I sat in a restaurant next to a beautful lake in Switzerland, two days after our public vows. Far, far away from anyone we have ever known, we looked into each others eyes and made five sacred vows to each other.

My marriage has stood on the rock of five sacred principles for over 18 years.

Our body is one. We live through each others senses, share in each others pain and pleasure be it a toothache or the ecstacy of each others touch. Ten thousands miles may stand between us but nowhere, nothing and no one will ever substitute or sever our physical union.

Our heart is one. The only truth that matters is the one we experience in each others heart.

Our mind is one. We think and see the world completely differently. Each and every passing day we discover something new about ourselves through each others eyes.

Our family is one. Marriage (even a so called "love marriage") is only complete when two tribes become one.

Our soul is one. Our physical, emotional, cognitive and social promises dance on an eternal plane that swallows our shallow imagination and soars through the feeble bounds of death and beyond. 

Love gets mushed into romantic ideals and the triviality of socially calandared events (commercially dependant anniversaries, valentines, birthdays...) where material gifts are exchanged. These shows of love are are as far removed from an authentic marriage as night is from day.

Only one gift matters, being true to each other. The rest is so much shows of fashion, a hollow surrogate to the truth of the matter.

There is a much confusion over the question of 'arranged' vs. 'love' marriage. This is because we are being taught to use terms that are borrowed from a western diction and mindset that does not apply to other cultures. So much is lost in translation.

All marriages are 'arranged' by circumstance and by the people around us in one fashion or another.

The real question should not be love vs. arrnaged, but rather - "is this a marriage between two individuals or two families?" I know of so called 'arranged' marriages where only two individuals got married, I also know of so called love marriages where two tribes became one.

We change every seven years (plus-minus 2), weaving a continously renewing relationship year after year. Marriage is more than a promise, it is the union of two souls into one. As we traverse through various stages of life, be they innocent lovers, the ignorance of parenthood, the tender steps of becoming in laws, learning to be grand parents and finally, the inevitable widow/widowership, each of these platforms represent different marriages in one.

I can only hope that my daughter finds a love with whom she can carve out a unique set of principles that allow them to discover the kind of joy that I have through my beautiful trouble and strife!

"If men could be contented to be what they are,
there were no fear in marriage."
All's Well That Ends Well
Act I - Scene iii

Perhaps

I am sitting here wondering perhaps self awareness (self appreciation?) resides in three states or possibly four?

"For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" (Hamlet Act II, Scene ii), perhaps there is something beyond good and bad? Something more vital and important than this convenient (but perhaps not so useful) duality?

The Unexamined Life.
We are prisoners of our non-reality, seduced by our own elaborations, assume everything we think, see and feel is real because we deem it to be so. We are blissfully numb in the warm illusion of impermanence and perfection. We reside in a state devoid of 'common sense' because we have severed any sense of commonality or connection to what is real.

The Examined Life.
We realize our reality is a projection we make of ourselves. We can put our hands into the fire in Plato’s cave and burn through the illusions that contain us. It dawns on us that our life are not as clearly defined as the boundaries and meanings we cling to attach ourselves to and attach themselves to us. So we sift through the bones (our memories) in the ashes and try to make sense of what the being that these remnants inhabited?

The Un-examinable Life.
We cut the thread of our taught (self-tight and other-tight) notions of reality. We are free from illusion, we waft between orientation and disorientation fearlessly, open to surprise. Free from the clutches of prescribed meaning, the soft convenience of construction. We have been taught to think of wisdom traditions as being either eastern or western, perhaps there is a raw power in the traditions of the north and south, of the untold power of shamanism in african, the “native” american, the incan in the south or the untapped truths of the artic circle, the eskimo tribes of the north?

Once we peel away the constructs of our cartesian minds and it dawns that perhaps even the notions of NEWS (north, east, west, south) itself is an illusion, perhaps the truth is closer and deeper than "we think" therefore we are. Perhaps we are always getting in the way of our own story? Perhaps we only need to trust life itself?

Life Itself.

A fleeting kiss, the light that taps us out of a deep sleep, the curl of a babies grip on our fore-finger, a poem that takes a glimpse into our core, the elegance of geometry, the intoxication of a single word or the thud that hits home when we are confronted with the death of a loved one? We know the map is not the territory. Perhaps the territory itsef is not static but dynamic, impermanent and unknowable reality just waiting, aching to be felt?

Perhaps these truths felt are the ones with the power to move us from the unexamined to the unexaminable and beyond into a fourth way? Perhaps we don't need to think, perhaps it is right here waiting for us to be part of it and all we need to do is let go? Perhaps, that is what appreciation is.

It’s just a thought.

make something nothing

So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!
That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;
This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.
Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down,
Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck
Of that proud man that did usurp his back?
Richard II
Act V, scene v.

A couple of days ago Kenneth Lay was laid to rest. Who was Mr Enron? Who knows or will ever want to know his rags to riches to ragtime life story?

Who knows how many good deeds he did, how many people he helped along the way? Right now, who cares? His life has been reduced to a brief slur. So much for one life.

Early this morning, my mother and I sat at the breakfast table discussing this and the other more mundane matters of our own routine little lives.

I told her about an individual am working with, how she seems hell bent on self destruction. I described how she has turned her life into an emotional roller coaster and how everyone around her has to go along for the ride on this free but very expensive, extensive, unnecessary distraction.

My mother smiled and said "You know, God is not such an idiot that he would go to every extreme to imbue me with such perfection and then leave the rest of humanity unfinished. Everyone thinks they are perfect and they are right. We were all made perfect at birth, but we go way out of our way to unhinge this perfection with our vanity and greed"

We are given everything we need to be healthy and successful. We undo our own perfection when we succumb to vanity and greed.

Greed binds us, blinds us, buries the treasure of our inner perfection, disconnects us from the design of our own beautiful simplicity and because of that we block each others greatness.

Vanity makes everything larger than it is. Every minor irritation matures into a sleepless night, every strange obsession melts into an addiction, every accusation spills over into a chemical imbalance, before we know it, we are buried in a mass grave of betrayal, divorce, murder and rape.

The excess of social upheaval and the manufactured nature of war is rooted in the ultimate seed of self destruction.

The seed is greed.

Once this seed is planted in the soil of vanity, from it grows the wicked invincible invisible weed that blocks out the light of our own wisdom, burns out the purity of our minds eye, stirs everything we touch into a torment and torments everyone we touch.

The ultimate vanity is the assumption that we alone hold the patent to truth. The ultimate greed is the assumption that we will or at least deserve to live forever. Was Kenny vain or greedy? I don't know, one thing for sure, like you and I, he was imperfect and awfully impermanent.

So that in venturing ill we leave to be
The things we are for that which we expect;
And this ambitious foul infirmity,
In having much, torments us with defect
Of that we have: so then we do neglect
The thing we have; and, all for want of wit,
Make something nothing by augmenting it.
The Rape of Lucrece 148-4

Crouch for Employment

     “Out ye rogue! Play out the play!”
Henry IV, Part One
Act II, scene iv.

21st Century bureaucrats do not come in bowler hats, suits and ties. They wear khaki pants and trendy shirts. They read all the right business books and spin wondrous tales about brave new worlds. They talk about empowerment and enlightenment whilst they make everyone around them feel inadequate and afraid.

I encounter these modern day bureaucrats in my travels all the time. It is an occupational hazard.

Bureaucrats appear to be strong but they are the most fragile of creatures. They appear to be impenetrable but they quickly reveal themselves.

Instead of bowler hats, the new bureaucrats wear other people's thinking as if it is their own. They wear second hand knowledge with a style that becomes their own trademark. They form agenda's and hang onto them for dear life because once you borrow someone else's thinking, adapting it to changing circumstances and new knowledge is tougher - than to think!

Bureaucrats talk about business plans but can’t actually provide you one. They talk incessantly about the need for teamwork, culture, speed, empowerment, business results, innovation and accountability, in the meanwhile they create an environment of servitude, take every action possible to avoid these things as they fear them ever taking place as they will steal the one thing that they relish and depend upon - their own position power.

Bureaucrats talk about change as if no one except they understand it, but they don’t have a clue about what it takes to ignite it. They steal ideas from others who possess strategic knowledge, without ever giving credit to the source for fear that it may reveal their own frailty.

Bureaucrats never tell people directly that they will be fired, they are more cunning, they create the sense of impending doom, they create a culture where everyone has to pay homage to their every glance and word.

Leaders create leaders. Bureaucrats create followers. These sexy bureaucrats talk about innovation as if their life depended upon it. As executives they know that 'change' has become a procedural requirement. When they occupy the role of a CEO, COO, CFO, CMO, CHRO, CIO, CTO, etc... they C nothing but the power they can C-zzzzz.

If they occupy senior roles that do not have position power, in functions such as HR, OD, IT, Finance or if they are external new age, high tech consultants - they use jargon and power talk their way to a trendy obedience, that has become the fashion of so many organizations. Attend any conference, any day, in any town this week, you will see this lusty bureaucratic co-dependence on display on the stages and in the audience.

The modern day bureaucrat knows how to spin ideas and tell compelling stories about learning and change, but they are not prepared for the chaotic nature of the beast, the conflicts and confusion and unruly sense of surprise and constant unease that come with the ikky process we conveniently call creativity. If their agenda is questioned, they revert to wielding the club - their position power and/or connections to ensure compliance.

Modern day bureaucrats are worse than their pen pushing predecessors, at least they were transparent in their motives and actions.

The suave new variety play out their fantastic roles so well and are so enamored (addicted) by the compliance that follows, that they eventually convince themselves of the sanity (sanctity) of their plain faced duplicity. You can hold the mirror up in front of them, but they cannot see how they have created and perpetuate their own lie.

Here is how this game is played: The power of so many people paying attention and following your every word is over-powering. So much so, that it becomes difficult to think, explore, experiment, for fear of being wrong and losing face, so the double bind is locked in.

People who do the work, end up working twice as hard to succeed in spite of their so called leadership, only to have these same 'leaders' take credit for the work that they are making it so difficult to do.

Where or how could they even begin to unravel the threads of this plot? So the dance of folly goes on! Everyone knows and plays their part, even if it is killing them and the business they are in.

On the surface life appears to be smooth, below the smiling faces a rage is ready to explode. The environment of fear has its casualties, some people get ill, for others it disrupts or even destroys their home lives, others quit and stay, others move on, people eventually take out this rage against on each other, unaware of the root cause of their angst. The sexy bureaucrat in the meanwhile watches from above, wondering "what is wrong with these people?".

It does not take much to uncover the truth, scratch and sniff the surface and it unleashes months sometimes years of betrayal, bold faced lies and fear ladened duplicity.

The modern bureaucrat has only one pre-occupation, like Sméagol in Lord of the Rings it is all about ‘The Precious” the position power that makes them look so smart. Their sub conscious motive is to ensure two outcomes: Firstly to ensure people below feel inadequate and insecure and secondly to ensure the people above them (e.g. Board of Directors) buy into their spin city.

In a bureaucracy everyone stands in a circle and the first person to do anything that does not have the bureaucrats name on it, loses.

21st Century bureaucrats read all the right books and reports, but they are only as smart as their last conversation. They rinse and repeat other people’s wisdom. They are called leaders because that's their job title. They dispense witty sermons to keep the questions at bay and the unwashed masses at bay, as they weave their brand of soft terror.

Bureaucrats in our century do not wear bowler hats, The glance they wear is enough to command instant obedience. When they enter a room, everyone's senses shift to high alert.

Our newly fashioned bureaucrats apply the same ruse as their predator predecessors. Their position power and social authority serves one purpose, to become the central cog in the wheel of their own self-importance.

Bureaucrats think they are inspiring, passion and joy because they have made so many rousing speeches about the importance of innovation, but their deeds and the motives of their followers betray their carefully crafted speeches.

The trains run on time, but no one knows where they are going and are slowly forgetting why they are on board. The destination is the sustenance of the power monger. If I had my way I would tear off their khaki pants, rip off the trend shirts, hang a bowler hat on their inflated ego and send them packing.

    "O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
    The brightest heaven of invention,
    A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
    And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
    Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
    Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
    Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
    Crouch for employment"
Henry V
Prologue

Action Is Eloquence

"For in such business
Action is eloquence"
CORIOLANUS
Act III, scene ii

Heraclitus wrote “We cannot step into the same river twice” 2500 years ago.

Did he mean that the water we stepped in is now gone, long since become the ocean? Or was it that the next time we step into the river we will be a different person?

Nature is in a constant state of flux. The only constant is our illusion of perfection and permanence.

We fix names on things and people to create an illusion of permanence. Constructs like 'river' allow us to possess or control reality on our own terms.

Whether it is cleaning dishes or altering the culture of society around us, our contribution to the world and people around us is the only true measure of our existence, the rest is all only so much talk that will vanish back into the same thin air from whence it came.

I am working with a small group of quiet revolutionaries. I call them the Omega’s because they are both the beginning and end of change that is underway in a major organization in America. When they buzz, the change flows, when they become mortal, the change evaporates into the sky.

Collectively, these six passionate, visionary individuals are the hub of a movement, a deep rooted change in an iconic organization, whose name I cannot share I am bound by client - consultant privilege.

The Omega’s power source is not in the formal delegation of authority by their collective boss, it does not come from their job titles or even the consultants that pursue their charge. Their power resides in their unified, fearless sense of the present moment and a shared sense of mission. Their power springs from the engagement of the hearts and minds of the people all around them.

The Omega's have created a trusted space to help hundreds of people to fashion a future in the new high tech, multi-media environment.

Like the rest of us, the Omega’s have their good and bad days, but when they set aside any vain pre-occupation with position power, titles and the temporal reputations that so often consume men, this is when they flow, this is when they reign supreme.

The Omega's disappeared for 7 weeks, melted away as mystically as they appeared. Suddenly, there they stood alone, six lonely, fragmented, powerless mortals consumed in their positions and roles. This was a temporary slide, thankfully they have found their voice once more in the past few weeks.

The Omega's power rises when they forget their individual power and forge a new reality through each other.

The Omega’s shift to a whole new level when they create a space to enable hundreds of people in their industry to find their own voice.

It is stirring to watch their individual intelligence flow through each other to create an ocean of energy and power. They grow as they wrestle and struggle through each others truths. I sense the pain as they they hit boulders and river banks of chaos, only to find a new reality rise out of the confusion. They become ordinary when they take themselves, their positions and titles seriously.

The focus on a new reality, the open engagement and genuine collective inquiry leading to rapid action through expeditions and initiatives has provided this small, conspicuous group the opportunity to do something that no individual genius or hero could dream of.

Victor Frankl reminds us in“Man’s Search For Meaning”

"We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways, through our deeds, experience of a value and finally through suffering…. Everything can be taken from a man but ...the last of the human freedoms - to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones own way. What matters most, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.

He goes on further to say:

“What man actually needs is not a tension-less state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual."

Every thought feeds an action. Every action create a new thought. This is the self-perpetuating water mill of life, the energy that flows from and through our nature, into and out of every precious moment that we are alive.

The Omega's are a temporary construct, they are imperfect and impermanent, but as they change, they change the world around them. That is what makes them the 'Omega'. As they grow, so does everything around them, including me.

The moment they combine their diverse experiences, strengths and styles through each other, they alter the path of the very river that they stand in. The Omega's embody the notion of moving from 'having', to 'being' to 'becoming'. Every time I step into them I am renewed.

“We, which now behold these present days
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise”
SONNET CVI (106)

Wheel of Fire

"Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead"

King Lear (Act IV, scene vi)

I was asked why I meditate everyday. There is a simple answer and a complicated one. The simple answer is it allows me to awaken.

The deeper answer is this... every day as we live and breath, grime builds up around our essence and being. It is the natural outcome of every day living. This grime blocks the pours of our spiritual, thinking, emotion and physical being.

At the end of every day our skin and our actions have had their day in the sun and beg to be washed away.

Sleep washes away the redundancy of the day that has is no more. Each morning we open our eyes to a brand new day, it is (or at least should be) a new brand experience of what it means to be me in this life.

If we drag the redundancy of the previous day or days (or even months and years), if we remain locked and pre-occupied with reliving conversations and actions of the past, there is no room left to experience today. Living in the past fills up the present, it is the most severe living, breathing death sentence we can pass freely upon ourselves.

This is the natural redundancy or by-product of living. It must be rinsed out and eliminated from our memories, bodies, houses and towns/villages. Processing this natural waste is vital to our health and well being. If we fail to eliminate it, we will feel its burden, we may get ill, but left unattended it will eventually choke us to a living death. We may become so consumed by the waste that we become the waste.

Cleaning a room, organizing our desk or workspace, taking a bath or shower cleanses our body, holding an honest conversation, all of this can be hard work, but it leaves us free, energized and breathing whole. The same is true for listening to a great song, watching a marvelous movie, preparing and/or enjoying a freshly cooked meal, going on vacation, even going on a shopping expedition, all these basic actions renew our focus on the present. These acts can be habitual or meditative. If they are on auto-pilot they are a living death, if they are concious, if they bring us back to today, they are a form of meditation.

How do we cleanse our spirit? We can't wash it with soap and water, we can't hoover it, put it in tidy little stacks and draws? The only way to reset the default on our soul is to withdraw, to draw a breath and then another and then another. Breathing is what it's all about. This stops, and everthing else ceases to matter. Returning to our breath reminds us what is really important, begins to put all other noise and clutter into perspective.

Meditation is a very deliberately way of not acting, allowing the dust of yesterday to settle. The dead skin of old actions and events needs to settle so we can see through it and move past it. What was once vital, is now rubbish. Once we are able to mark and discard the mental and emotional baggage, the noise or redundancy of our past, we are free to discover a new voice, in the new - present moment. This is a freedom that cannot be fought for or bought forth. It is there inside us all the time.

Our history is the rubbish of moments that have 'past' - we need to manage rubbish properly, extract it so that it does not contaminate the 'present'. We have to respect rubbish but not take it so seriously that we bathe our present or presence in it.

We can pull the resident energy from yesterday's rubbish if we apply a ego-free contemplation, refuse to justify or pass judgement. Making excuses for what we said or did yesterday is soiling our clean hands in a deathly smell.

Reflecting on the past and learning from our successes and mistakes is an act in the present, this also sets us free. It is not to be confused with blindly re-living old conversations and experiences. One is working the truth out of the past, the other is being consumed by it.

Learning from the past is hard work, but it is not the same as yearning for or becoming the past.

Our chief task is to create history, not to toil in it.

We wash out the noise of yesterday with the water of silence and contemplation. Prayer or meditation unlocks the hold that the past has on us. But it is more than faith, even the simple acts of cleaning tables, washing dishes, repairing cars are all a form of prayer. These act returns us to sanctity and allows sanity to prevail.

We create our sanctuary (home) by cleaning out the excess. Like a poet removing excess words or a composer extracting excess notes, we create space for ourselves by removing the redundancy (rubbish) around us, by tidying up, cleaning or renovating the space in which we live.

We cleanse our spirit through love. True friendship cleanses our emotional and spiritual grime,

For many years my mother has taught me the importance of "rehm-das" --- this is a deep level of empathy, a deep, authentic concern for the well being of others. This is not be confused with sympathy or charity. It is akin to the Golden Rule - of doing onto others as you will have them do unto you, except it is not about taking an action, it is a state of being that informs all our deeds.

I was asked why I meditate and my reply is this: "I meditate for the same reason I shower every morning and eat fresh fruit, it helps me enjoy a brand new day, experience a brand new way, allows me to be brand new - me". It all gets down to one simple word: FREEDOM.

Sermons In Stones

"Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head; and this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it."
As You Like It
(Act II, scene i)

I am in debt to the many great physicians across Europe and North America who have instructed me through their practice, what it means to be a true consultant.

I have spent a lot of time in the health care system. MD’s all wear white coats, they all go through the same schooling and carry the same titles, but their practice exists along a spectrum, with prescribers on the one end and consultants on the other.

Whether it is the local GP, a specialist, a cardiologist, gynecologist, neurologist, psychologist, or (I am ashamed to admit) even oncologist’s, all medical doctors exist somewhere along this continuum between prescriber and consultant.

Patients also exist on a continuum between codependant and interdepandant.

Prescribers look at the disease first, then the patient. They attend to illness not health.

Prescribers diagnose the illness based on the best mix of solutions (pharmaceuticals) to ‘fix’ the patient. If the drugs don’t work they default to surgery or psychiatric therapy. A prescribers goal is to get through as many patients as they can in the shortest space of time.

The prescriber is the ‘wise one’ who has all the answers, his or her solutions must be obeyed. They talk at the patient, treat them like a child. They create a codependence that is the burden of any health care system.

Prescribers give patients more drugs than they need or often ever use.

Prescribers do not learn from their patients, they learn from the producers of drugs.

"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie"
Alls Well That End's Well
(Act I, scene i)

Consultants look at the patient first, then the disease.

Consultants diagnose the patients thinking, work/play habits, diet, sleep, exercise, family history, environment in order to get to the root of the patient’s health.

Consultants know that the body is the world’s finest pharmacy. They help the patient build their self awareness and discover the own strength that resides within.

Consultants work with the patient to help them to raise their self awareness and take accountability for their own health and well being, educate and empower them to alter their own habits and take control of their own environment.

You can spot the diference between the consultant and the prescriber simply by the amount of medication they use.

Consultants free the patient from their dependance on the doctor, they lift the burden off the health care system and put it back on the patient's back.

I owe everything to these doctors. They taught me the difference between being a true consultant vs. a con-slut-ant. Realilze the difference between iiving a life and living a lie.

“Who worse than a physician would this report become? But I consider by medicine life may be prolonged, yet death will seize the doctor too”
Cymbeline
(Act V, scene iv)

Friendship Makes Us

"Thy friendship makes us fresh"
Henry VI, Part 1
Act 3, Scene iii

We are born alone and will die alone. Whilst we breathe, our lives are defined through our relationships with others.

As true friends we do more than share values and appreciate each others strengths and flaws. We refine our appreciation of ourselves, re-tune what it means to be alive, like two hands that wash each other, we wash out the confusion, help each other to discover what it means to be ourselves.

True friends are mid-wives of change. Not the whores of influence. A true friend draws out the power that is concealed deep within us and gives it back to us. A friend does not expect perfection or for us to be like them, they lower their own defenses and allow us to meet them full head on, they do not waste energy fearing being judged or passing judgment on us.

Every day I am confronted by people tormented because they choose to invest every minute, their very heart and soul into cutting down, sizing up and placing emotional judgments on others. The people consumed by the futility of this foolishness, fail to realize the energy it takes to hate another human being and just how much this poisons their own view of themselves.

Every day I am confronted by people who are tormented because they will not forgive themselves let for being human. They heap shame on themselves and shy away from compliments, they are in a position to lead their tribe in a new direction, but do not know how to forgive themselves or others for being human or celebrate the greatness that resides in their midst. Rather than enjoy whats going on, they are too busy rushing to the next big thing, heaping even more self criticism on for good measure. This activity tap spurns more time poverty, consumes them with negativity, which in turn gulps up precious time and engulfs their ability to do it right once.

The headlong obsession with activity is an addiction to self annihilation. The busy-ness runs so deep that interrupting it is more painful than continuing the pointless punishment, so the beat goes on.

We are born alone and will die alone. Whilst we still breathe, perhaps our lives should be lived and defined through our relationship with ourselves? By be-friending ourselves, we can get past the poisonous self to the real self imprisoned beyond our rational reach.

Perhaps we need to do more than wear our values like a worn out fashion accessory? Perhaps we should challenge others to be more of themselves and if we care enough about each other to do so, perhaps we need to give the same gift to ourselves?

"To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes,
Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shown;
But where there is true friendship, there needs none"
Timon of Athens
Act I, Scene ii

Hidden Worthiness

CASSIUS: Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion;   
  By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried 
  Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.   
  Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?   
BRUTUS:  No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself,   
  But by reflection, by some other things.   
CASSIUS:   'Tis just: 
  And it is very much lamented, Brutus,   
  That you have no such mirrors as will turn   
  Your hidden worthiness into your eye,   
  That you might see your shadow.

Julius Caesar
Act I, Scene ii

The media is overflowing with fuss over the portrait of Shakespeare. What did he look like? This question has as much substance as how much a Van Gogh is auctioned for has to do with Vincent’s tormented expression of the beauty locked inside the anguish. The portrait debate is a distracts us from the beauty in his work, I don't need to know if he was bald or bohemian to be enriched by his contribution.

The masks (faces) we wear are so convincing that we bow willingly in servitude to our own lies. When we take our own self portraits too seriously it consumes our lives to the point of extinction.

I went to dinner with a wonderful friend in Washington last night. She is beautiful but she is consumed with so much self-torment that you have to wait patiently to catch a glimpse of who she really is, beyond the thick haze of all her self hatred. She is wrapped up so tight, she has bound up her natural beauty in severe judgments of what has and has not happened in her life. Who has said what and did what or not to whom and all that. . .

She blames the past for the pain but the pain she is experiencing is not in the past, it is right here, in this very moment.  Her husband died recently after a long painful struggle and then she lost her sister. I cannot presume to know her pain, no one can, this pain is hers and hers alone. This pain will not wear out over the years, it will remain inside her for the rest of her life. She cannot afford to bury it nor be consumed by it. It hurts like hell, it is there, it is just what it is and it will always be there.

She struggles with the losses and the pain, this struggle has become her face, her mask, her lens on the universe and her own existence. She has built a fragile wall of anger around herself. She is consumed with anger at the people who are gone and her intense love for them. She is struggling to make sense of it all, as if an emotional condition can be resolved with an intellectual balm.

Her struggles are as much a cause of the torment as the justifiable pain for the tragic losses and suffering.

She is so intense that she has become a caricature of her suffering.

She is so busy labeling life as good or bad, people as right or wrong, that she turns this same vicious judgment on her own life, her own self. It is no accident that the way she sees her situation and life is burned by this same anger.

Occasionally she will laugh and the room lights up with her deep chuckle, the pain is not far below the surface but at least for these brief moments it is not defining who or what she is.

All I see is a dam of beauty being held check, diverted from its natural currency and flow back into the ocean of life and death.

What do we look like? Who knows? Who cares? It is who we are right now that counts, we are much more than our labels. What did Shakespeare look like? Which portrait is real, which one is fake? Who really gives a fuck! We have too much going on right here right now in front us to pay attention to such foolishness.

I see a friend wrapped up inside her pain. I do not look at her face. I push past her self portrayal.

All I can do is look into her eyes in the hope she may catch a glimpse of her own beauty in the reflection of the love in my eye for her.

A Fashion of Faith

"He wears his faith
but as the fashion
of his hat"
Much Ado About Nothing
Act I, Scene i

We drove from Toronto, Ontario to Orlando, Florida over the last 30 hours. With a few stops, a lot of music, singing, video watching and driving through so much rain that it felt like we were swimming through the road, we have arrived - physically exhausted but emotionally buzzed.

A road trip with eight kids ranging from 8 – 18 years of age for 1500 miles is an adventure in itself. So many little people confined in a confined cabin for such a period is bound to create something special. The miraculous thing on this road trip was that no one got physically sick, grumpy or angry at each other. We all hit the usual bouts of tiredness, but this was more due to stationary fatigue and waves of sleep washing over us rather than anyone getting on any else's nerves.

As we moved out of Michigan and "crossed" quite literally into Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and northern Florida, we experienced the unique character of the "bible belt".

The radio stations gradually lost their rap and rock edge, country and western wafted in as approached the nerve center of Nashville, the sales people promoting cars were replaced by sales people pushing the bible. This peaked and then as we shifted from northern to southern Floriday, we returned to the consumer palaces, devoid of the stark symbols of christiandom.

We experienced the shift from KerryLand (Michigan) to the 50/50 state of Ohio (which held the whole country in the balance in the 2004 election) through the heart of BushLand to Florida which again was the state in the 50/50 in 1990. We tasted, smelt and felt the polarization of America. The polarization that no one wants to talk about. The polarization in the U.S. that is nothing more than a microcosm of what is occurring across the planet in every nation. The silent tension between the religious fundamentalists and consumer modernists. The same scenario is being played out in India, Israel, Korea, Iraq or the USA - these are are all variations on a theme.

The constant news reports about Iraq and Muslims taking their rage against Danish cartoons to the streets only serve to overshadow the very real divide that exists in these “united” state of america.

The kids were shocked at the stark contrast between the north, middle and south. If children can sense these changes, it makes me wonder why we adults can't pay any attention to it? The polarization in the US is more than political parties and election results. This polarization is the vital debate that is not occurring, buried for fear of what it might reveal. Buried and therefore locked in denial and a continuing divergence.

We experienced a collective jaw drop as we drove by the 62 foot sculpture of Jesus in Monroe, Ohio. It cost quarter a million dollars, to save lives - no doubt. After all the orphans in San Paola certainly don’t need that much to survive, so the money was clearly spent the way Christ would have intended. So welcoming were the arms of the Savior that I nearly crashed the car and took my little brood with me to the promised land to meet him in person.

As we ploughed  through Tennessee, the “buckle” of the bible belt, the kids pointed out that some of these massive crucifix's were erected next to sex shops and trucker strip bars. The massive crosses, that reach 50 - 80 feet into the air are lit with beams of light so strong that they are firmly in view day and night. Their intense, pure alabaster tone contrasts with the cheap klutzy, multi colored lights of the palaces of sin that often sit at their feet.

Were these crosses erected as an affront to the sex trade or did the sex shops rise out of the roots of these crosses as a counter balance, a reaction or challenge to to their stark purity? The polarity of these two images was constant throughout the bible belt, we did not see it in Michigan or southern Florida. Is this an accident?

These stark contradictions exist elsewhere, but they are not as visible to the naked eye in the rest of America because the seedy parts of town are always conveniently and neatly packaged separately and conveniently from the churchy parts of town.

As we tracked through the bible belt, we were taken aback by the massive and constant signs for “We Bare All” and “SPA – Showers For Truck Drivers (where presumably bible belts could be rapidly removed) these invitations to the flesh stood proudly next to “Bible Outlet -75% off - Next Exit”. Such were the wicked temptations on our path to meet Mickey and his money minting mates.

Perhaps these hypocrisies in America are not as visible to the natives as the contradictions of the Islamic world. Perhaps it is visible but it is easier to conceal the confusion by using the flaws in other cultures as a way of avoiding addressing the absence of character in our own. Taking on the task of cleaning up the world avoids the nasty business of tending to the mess in our own back yard.

The kids were alarmed at these very stark contradictions, but why should they concern themselves with these polarities? We are all so busy rushing by these glaring contradictions each consumed with our own petty cares, we consume the news which tells us that the Islamist's want to destroy our way of life - and we draw comfort from this and bury ourselves in self righteous "in-dig-nation"  -  not asking what exactly this 'way of life' actually is. That perhaps is not one way of life but many contradictions.

Fashioning the world in new ideals that do not exist in our own lives affords us the luxury of avoiding deeper questions and confronting the terrifying possibility that perhaps we mirror the same savage contradictions that we criticize and mock our enemies for? That our way of life is not so grand, pure and unified as we like to think it is? That we do not talk to each other about things that matter, that we are prisoners of spiritual materialism.

We are so deeply buried in denial, rushing to avoid the obvious, why on earth would we embrace our enemy or turn the other cheek and hold the higher moral ground as the Lord Jesus told us to? Why would we follow his path rather than fashion mammoth idols to distract us from the truth?

Make A Good Show

The mind-lock of duality infects every aspects of life. Education, religion, health care, politics, news media, entertainment, nationality… This is a good person, that person is evil. This is right and that is wrong. This works in cartoons and tediously predictable movies, but surely not in real life? Apparently so.

Last night as we watched the Grammies, the kids could not understand how rap artists and country singers could enjoy each others music so much. "but they are so different" Rajvir exclaimed. I told them “that’s because they are musicians, they are  artists, they have a common bond between them that is deeper than the sound they create” . To teenagers hooked on a particular fashion, my words were meaningless. They asked me why I liked country music. I told them that I found as much joy in great country music as in great rap music, that bad rap is just as lousy as bad country music. They had no clue what i was talking about. Why would they?

All our lives we are taught to "take sides"? What if both sides are right and wrong? What if both sides are the exactly the same? What if the choices we are offered are redundant? We make judgments at grocery stores, voting booths, temples/churches, restaurants, workplaces, parties and as we watch news reports.

The senate in ancient Greece and Rome was a circle for a reason. Modern parliaments in Britain and Canada are constructed in a very different manner. Even the US house of congress betrays the circle it is set in, with two “sides of the house”. Why two? Why sides?

Why do we have to choose between being democratic or republican, conservative or liberal, supporting Chelsea or Liverpool? Why do I need to be British or Canadian or American or Indian? When did identity get wrapped up in duality? To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson - am I not big enough to encompass all of these concepts and more?

The current furor over the Danish cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed is an example of the iron fist  grip duality on our sense of what's real and what is nonsense.

I am neither a Muslim or a Christian. I respect both faiths.

I respect that Moslem's are against any form of idolatry. They abhor idolatry even a positive image their Prophet Mohammad is against their law. They take the commandment “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” very seriously.

It is difficult to build a comparison, Christians, Hindu's and Jews love to create images, statues, paintings and even big budget movies about their creator/phrophets. But imagine if a group of Moslem's were to create an image of Jesus on the cross with his phallus hanging out? Imagine if they were to publish this and then claim that it was their way of standing up for their 'freedom of expression'? I think this would create a stir, probably bigger than people burning and jumping on records because of a casual sarcastic remark by John Lennon and the stink that occurd when Sinead O'Conner tore up a photograph of the Pope!

Attending a mosque is a very unique experience. I remember the first time I visited the London Mosque (the largest in Europe) I thought I had walked into the wrong building. This holy place is an empty shell full of worshippers. No images. No statues. Plain walls. High dome. Plain white sheets where people sat and bowed to a higher power. Lots of men washing feet, arms and faces. This experience untied a knot inside me, it helped me see how my assumptions about what constituted a temple or church were so very limited.

The creator and publishers of the Danish cartoon went out of their way to make a deliberate point about something that mattered a lot to them. They are expressing a deep personal hurt. They are protesting their freedom of expression. What is the root of this protest? What are they trying to change or improve? Why have they not taken on issues such as child prostitution, aids, government corruption, poverty, aids and environmental poisoning with the same venom? Are these issues not worthy platforms to celebrate their freedom of speech?

The Danish publishers had no intention of changing anything. They are not protesting a freedom of speech, they are trying to prove their power but they are not aiming to improve anything. They are doing this for themselves. My view is that they are acting like petty minded children who protest because they can. This is nothing buy false bravado.

The people who have hit the streets across the world with such venom are expressing a deep personal hurt. They feel violated for very a just reasons. But, what is the intention of their protest? Where are the marches in protest against child abuse, aids, environmental destruction and poverty? Are these not equally worthy causes? Most of the men, women and children dieing of aids in Africa are Moslem's. What would Mohammed be concerned with today, a picture of him in a paper that no one reads outside Denmark or the senseless corruption and loss of innocent lives? Get real.

The Muslim protesters have no intention of changing anything. They are not protesting a freedom of faith. They are trying to prove their power but they are aiming to improve anything. They are doing this for themselves. My view is that they are acting like petty minded children who protest because they can. This is nothing but false bravado.

The real story is "Why is this story even a story in the first place?" Why has this drawn so much time and attention in the media? What role has the media played in perpetuating this distraction from reality?

There is no difference between these two faction. If we peer under the music, we find the same ugly stream that connects the two sides of this story. This story is big because it is grounded in sensational duality. We watch like voyeurs as polarized political junkies draw lines in the sand and scream at each other. The spectacle of duality keeps us entertained.

I went to Belfast in 1985 at the height of “the troubles”. I witnessed two militant groups of Christians destroy their communities for the same petty reasons.

The end  of “the troubles” in Northern Ireland came to a close because the daughters and mothers of all the dead sisters, husbands, children and parents stood up, they took to the streets to get their towns and communities back from the power junkies. These women stood shoulder to shoulder to send a message, that the struggles in London Derry were not about Catholic or Protestant, they were about nothing – they were a meaningless duality being played out in the streets by power junkies and being festered by the media. The price of his show of false bravado - the lives of the ones they loved and the freedom to walk and live in their own community. Today, you will see very few headlines about Belfast. Has the city disappeared. Why are we no longer paying attention to something more important - the reconstruction of a city by is noble inhabitants.

In 1977, a handful of women assembled on Plaza Del Mayo in the Argentinean capital Buenos Aires carrying photographs of their missing children and husbands. It was the beginning of a long "march of resistance" which has taken place now every Thursday, for 1,500 weeks (27 years). These mothers of the Argentine resistance (an average age of 80) are symbolic of the dignity and suffering not only of the victims of military rule in their own country but of the victim hood of their generation of all South Americans.

Two weeks ago these incredible women held their last march. It ended it with a single statement from their 77 year old president Hebe de Bonafini: "We no longer have an enemy in the houses of government, with the changes in South America, the elections of Fidel, Chávez, Lula, Tabaré, Bachelet. Now we must defend them" Kirchner's government has offered these mothers the fullest redress possible for the crimes committed during the Argentine dictatorship and the "cover up" in the following regime

The sisters, daughters and mothers of Ireland and Argentina did not take cheap shots and poke fun at their enemy, they did not riot to draw attention to themselves. They did not posture in media interviews.There was no duality in what these mothers were about. This was no media circus act. They stood up to make a difference.

A Zen Master once said  “Freedom does not mean being untouched by joy and suffering, love and hate, but feeling both of them intensely and yet remaining independent, not losing yourself in them, not being consumed by them." These women took a stand for freedom.

These stories of true courage have gone largely unheralded in the mass media. They have been side-bar rather than a headline. Why is this? Why hasn’t every single media outlet, rushed down to the main square in Buenos Aires? Why have the daughters and mothers of Ireland been largely forgotten whilst politicians polish their Nobel Peace Prizes and buff their hollow reputations?

The mothers and daughters of Derry and the mothers and grand mothers of Plaza Del Mayo engaged in a protest that was too pure, too deep, too real to matter in a world addicted the sensationalism of duality. Pop stars (like Sting) did more to bring the story of these mothers to the forefront than the blessed media that we rely so much on.

Bono has brought the story of Ireland to the forefront in a way no reporter has ever been able to. Sting and Bono are great artists, they have a common bond between them that is deeper than the sound they make. They concern themselves with these people because this is reality, these are the true stories of dignity, courage and freedom.

I was so glad U2/Bono walked away with five Grammies last night, not for the music my children enjoy to dance to, but the truth these guys stand up for in the real world.

The blinding grip of duality is not a theoretical debate for philosophers, it is something very real. What makes it powerful is that it cannot be seen. We are intoxicated with duality and denial. Even as the media becomes more global it does not seem to be getting any wiser. It seems as if the mind-lock of duality is only deepening its claws into our sense of what's real. In the end, duality shoomality, these shows of false bravado make for a 'good show'.

Sir Toby.   I’ll make the motion. Stand here; make a good show on’t: this shall end without the perdition of souls. Marry, I’ll ride your horse as well as I ride you. I have his horse to take up the quarrel. I have persuaded him the youth’s a devil.

Fabian.   He is as horribly conceited of him; and pants and looks pale, as if a bear were at his heels.
Sir Toby.   There’s no remedy, sir: he will fight with you for his oath’s sake. Marry, he hath better bethought him of his quarrel, and he finds that now scarce to be worth talking of: therefore draw for the supportance of his vow: he protests he will not hurt you.
Viola.   [Aside] Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me tell them how much I lack of a man.
Fabian.   Give ground, if you see him furious.
Sir Toby.   Come, Sir Andrew, there’s no remedy: the gentleman will, for his honour’s sake, have one bout with you; he cannot by the duello avoid it: but he has promised me, as he is a gentleman and a soldier, he will not hurt you. Come on; to’t.
Sir Andrew.   Pray God, he keep his oath! [Draws. 
Viola.   I do assure you, ’tis against my will. [Draws. 

Twelfth-Night
Act III. Scene iv.

Thus It Remains

"Thou wast the cause,
and most accurs’d effect"
Richard III
Act I, Scene ii

Every thought, emotion and action has a consequence. The consequences of these thoughts, emotions and actions affect others as much as they loop back and affect us in return.

We are accountable for the quality of relationships others have with us.

When we forget this basic law of cause and effect, we become the victim of our own ignorance and the victim of the people and events around us.

The sense of victimization feeds on itself. The only way to turn the tide on this vicious cycle of self destruction is to focus on how we affect the world we inhabit.

Socrates used his considerable, rhetorical skills to force people to think through the logical consequences of their thinking and behaviour.

Sir Isaac Newton taught us that for every action there is an equal and opposite counter-reaction.

The seed and harvest principle is embedded in the ancient principle “for whatever we sow, we shall also reap” (Galatians 6:7-8).

The same wisdom is at the root of the Buddhist belief that “we are the source of our own suffering”.

This is an invitation to awaken. Awaken to how we choose our attitude. Awaken to why we choose a certain response to any person or situation. This is not a fuzzy thing, it is a tough journey of self awareness, a means by which we can live successfully.

Our thoughts, feelings and actions shape the reactions others have. There may be a lag effect but everything we do returns to us. Call it karma or call it consequence. It is inevitable.

Tragedies such a terrorist attack, a life threatening illness or disease, a terrible accident, a natural disaster, the loss of a loved one - are things that are clearly beyond our control, but our response to these situations and challenges is entirely in own hands.

If we are not prepared, we do this to ourselves. Being prepared does not avoid the crisis, but it avoids perpetuating new crises's (created by ourselves) beyond the one that is put in front of us.

The same is true for opportunities. A loving relationship, a breakthrough idea, a healthy decision, a lucky break, are all gifts that we recieve and how we respond to them makes the difference. Some people feel others have 'all the luck' that may be the case, but readiness is all.

The law of cause and effect has to be obeyed, if not - we pay dearly for it.

And now remains that we find out
the cause of this effect, or rather say
the cause of this defect, for this effect
defective comes by cause; Thus it remains
and the remainder thus.
Hamlet
Act II, Scene ii

Proceedings of a Drunken Brain

Thinking, thinking, thinking, all this thinking crowds the closet of my heart, over and over the same thoughts circle in vain, as if thinking got us anywhere.

And the answer is not feeling, feeling, feeling either. This girbils cage is equally self defeating.

A dear friend, Dr. Gerald Kraines tells a wonderful story of how as a medical student at Harvard, he was told a piece of wisdom in his physiology class by his professor that he never forgot. "If is dry, wet it, if its wet, dry it" All the wisdom of the ages of study reduced into a simple principle.

From this came the psychiatric wisdom, if you are thinking too much, feel, if you are feeling too much think. A principle that bears some attention.

"A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways,
She treads the path that she untreads again;
Her more than haste is mated with delays,
Like the proceedings of a drunken brain,
Full of respects, yet nought at all respecting,
In hand with all things, nought at all effecting."
Venus and Adonis (Act V, Scene I)

Wit To Lose

"Thus hath the candle sing’d the moth.   
O, these deliberate fools! when they do choose,   
They have the wisdom by their wit to lose"

Merchant of Venice (Act II - Scene IX)

We are imperfect. We are impermanent. Not a hard notion to get your head around. You would think so, but thinking warps reality as much as it clarifies it.

Our imperfection is an elusive and beautiful butterfly. We catch a glimpse of it, but fail to appreciate its tender beauty. Instead we turn into the moth of attachment and are consume by the flames of our own vanity.

The luxury of debating and writing about learning and growth is sexier than the act itself.

The act of improvement involves shattering carefully constructed self images. We have to confront our own 'deliberate foolishness' as if it belonged to another person.

We are all flawed in one way or other.

Some of us lack the ability to connect to other human beings (listening, empathy, interaction). Others struggle with keeping their life tidy and organized (time management, planning and organizing). Others struggle with thinking openly (defining, designing and leading change).

We know our fatal flaw, our wings have been clipped and sing'd many times in our past, but we continue to move forward (or around the flames of vanity) with a sublime disregard for the inevitable crisp of fire that is about to consume us.

Sometimes we can even see the flaws of vanity, we are conscious of the political and social power that we and others are wielding and yet we persist because the allure of our vanity is too deep, too over powering to abandon.

Perhaps we are condemned to weave the silk of the self consumption and then expire. Perhaps we can see beyond ourselves and through the caterpillar steps, walk gently around our vanity and discover the buds of May and freedom of the spring? This is a very vulnerable position to be in and that is why patient courage is the antidote to self annihilation.

I know caterpillars do get crushed under big feet of busy-ness, but I have never heard of a caterpillar making the long arduous journey into the tip of a burning candle.

Rash Embraced Despair

”To be or not to be, that is the question"
Hamlet  - (Act III, Scene I)

When I am at the mercy of indecision, not knowing what to say or do, society tell us to 'cease dithering' and make a decision. To do something I am told is better than to do nothing.

Doubt, indecision and procastination are my friend. When I have no doubts, I am equally at the mercy of ignorance and it's cousin arrogance. Indecision allows me to sharpen my saw, to question openly the issues and alternatives.

Doubt is the needle a poet uses to tear apart the seams of what seems to be true and to thread together a new meaning that is so obvious but often out of grasp.

Doubt allows the scientist and the pioneer to break out of the comfort zone and uncover new paths.

Why then is doubt and indecisiveness given such a bad name? Inquiry is the complete opposite of decision and action.

Perhaps it is because when we are busy making decisions and taking actions, we are safe from our own ignorance and insignificance. Perhaps we would not be caught dead admitting that we don’t know what to do. Our substance would fall apart. No one would take us seriously. Our very being would be torn apart in ridicule. So we choose to tuck our hearts and heads into the dullness and illusion of certainty.

If we allow doubt to flow freely, fearlessly, cutting through the morass of our opinions and certainty, to a fresh field of fears and precious doubt, perhaps we could awaken to a more poetic and scientific reality?

We do not need to be held hostage by our own certainty. We do not need to fear being wrong or now knowing. Once our emotional turmoil has subsided, perhaps we can know ourselves better and each other. Nothing wrong with that, even if the journey to this discovery is a messy and decidely undecisive.

"How all the other passions fleet to air,   
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac’d despair,   
And shuddering fear, and green-ey’d jealousy.
O love! be moderate; allay thy ecstasy;   
In measure rain thy joy; scant this excess;   
I feel too much thy blessing; make it less,   
For fear I surfeit!"
The Merchant of Venice (Act III, Scene II)

Sound The Ocean

"Sirs, take you to your tools. You, cousins,
Shall go sound the ocean, and cast your nets"
Titus Andronicus
Act IV. Scene III.

To be successful in any aspect of life we need to master five fundamental tools or instruments of change.

These tools are often assumed to be so obvious that they are taken for granted and ignored. They are fundamental to the human condition. They are the tools by which we construct all our relationships and shape our life.

There are tons of mechanical procedures and theories about change out there, but it always boils down to these 5 essential instruments:

1. Listening
2. Conversation
3. Stories
4. Experimention
5. Reflection

Our ability to use these five tools individually and collectively shapes the purpose, direction and power of our community, the impact of and on our environment and the consequence or our lives.

These five tools cut across every cultural, language, gender, political, religious, personal and social order.

These tools do not exist ‘out there’. They are part of our make up ‘in here’.

These tools are integral to our very existence. We would not be who and what and where we are today if we did not possess and apply these instruments. When we use them together our life elevates to another level.

Have you played any of these instruments today?

"Nay, nothing; all is said: 
His tongue is now a stringless instrument"
Richard II
Act II. Scene I.

Striving Less To Be So

"Who can be wise, amaz’d, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man!"

Macbeth (Act II, Scene III)

There is a fundamental skill that dictates the quality of our life, that is the ability to be quite quiet.

We do not tend to think of being quiet as a skill, it is not part of any school curriculum, but it is an essential life skill.

We are driven by words such as need, action, expectation, achievement. Busy people are celebrated, quiet people are forgotten.

People will ask me “Are you busy” as if this was a good thing? I am told that this is a caring question for a consultant - equivalent to "are you employed"? I always wonder about the sincerity of this question, because for me the question is not about being busy or emplyed, but rather "am I productive?" am I making a diffrence today to me and anyone around me?

Being quiet is not a passive act. It does not mean effecting an utter and total “shut down”.

For example planting ourselves on a sofa and sucking sweet nothings out of the dumb box is not being quiet. Watching television is a busy activity, our sense are being bombarded with cues to move in this and that direction. Television and movies are not a retreat into quiet but a plunge into more noise. The only difference is that other people are controlling the strings of our noise, not us. it also allows us to shut out those tough questions and challenges (about relationships and work that are getting the best of us).

To sit still. To be alone but not lonely. To be absolutely quite and allow a deeper power to untie the knots that scramble us so. This is no mean feat. It is one of the most courageous things we can do. It is possibly the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

Is it an accident that many of the deepest and most meaninful thinkers in our history were forced to spend long periods of quiet and solitude. Nelson Mandela, Matahtam Gandhi or even the great masters - the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Guru Nanak, Moses, Krishna... all abandoned the noise of the mindless mass, stepped away from the crowd and came back with wisdom.

Society teaches us to act not reflect, to judge not inquire, to justify not acknowledge, to possess not appreciate. When is the last time you went to watch a movie where the hero or heroine spent two hours sitting in a room - meditating, praying and abandoning the urge to fix something? We cannot watch others do it, less do it ourselves.

when we sit alone and get free of our thinking, step away from our definitions and solutions, we are able to redefine ourselves and what matters, then we recieve a great gift. This gift comes at the price of confusion and ambiguity, it requires us to trust our inner wisdom. It is a painful step.

Instead of getting in our own way, all we need to do is allow the divinity that sleeps deep inside us to stir us and create something true.

"O! sir, sir, sir,   
I would have had you put your power well on   
Before you had worn it out...
You might have been enough the man you are   
With striving less to be so: lesser had been   
The thwarting of your dispositions if
You had not show’d them how you were dispos’d,   
Ere they lack’d power to cross you"

Coriolanus (Act III, Scene II)