The Courage to Be Disliked, The First Night --- A Travel Companion

The Courage to Be Disliked

Musings on the book by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. 

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Framing

The book is a Socratic exchange between a fired-up youth and a more experienced philosopher. 

The two adventure through 5 nights of dialogue on the simplicity of life and accessibility of happiness.

“When we try to change [how we see the world and ourselves] we put our great courage to the test. There is the anxiety generated by changing, and the disappointment attendant to not changing. I am sure you have selected the latter.” (pg 30, 34)

Five years ago, I had begun to explore the idea that, in a moment,  we can reforge our perspective, actions, thoughts, reactions to the world--What the authors here refer to as “Lifestyle.” Paradigm Making, I called it. I dabbled around the edges of the idea—built a fire, stoked it for some weeks, and more or less resigned to poking at the fire until the embers faded, where I permitted other pressing concerns to push that exploration to my past. 

In the years since, I have lived both anchored to the past and grasping for an uncertain future--creating  and holding a state of anxiety in the here and now: splashing haphazardly in a soup of fear, doubt, impatience, want of control; bubbling over the urgent flames desire to be anchored, safe, defined, feeling accomplish in a forward momentum.

I’ve had marginal success in feeling accomplished, satisfied in this state--little islands of peace in the boiling pot, you might say. I know I have and can certainly “do better.” I desire to live in greater peace while effectively leveraging my gifts for our common good. Most of this is subjective. After reading the first of five sections (“Nights”) of The Courage to Be Disliked, I can tell that this journey will be self-reflection on how I have framed many of these subjective lenses, perhaps to the point of removing the lens altogether.

Removing the lens: I’m not in a boiling pot. 

What does this mean? It feels out of reach, yet familiar.

Travel Companion, YouTube Style

The First Night

“Present goals?” (9)

The youth has a friend who refuses to go outside, though the youth is convinced that the friend direly wants to engage with the world. After back-and-forth, the philosopher says:

“…So, in Adlerian psychology, we do not think about past ‘causes’, but rather about present ‘goals’.

Present goals?

“Your friend is insecure, so he can’t go out. Think about it the other way around. He doesn’t want to go out, so he’s creating a state of anxiety. “ (9) 

The discussion goes on: the friend’s past experience is not causing him to act like a hermit. The choice to live in isolation is just that: knowingly or unwittingly, the friend decided it is better to stay hidden. The uncertainty, the chance of some no-good happening are not worth it. We construct how we see the world and ourselves with an architecture of goals, most are hidden to us--calculations we have made that ideally help us navigate the complexity of life. A question we can ask: do these goals help us, or hold us back?

“We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.” (12)

The past does not define us, but we use the past as a tool to inform the goals we set. 

Adler

The excerpt references “Adlerian psychology.”' 

Alfred Adler is a notorious psychologist who worked (and pointedly disagreed) with Sigmund Freud. Inspired by Adler’s principles, The Courage to Be Disliked posits that nothing from our past determines our present and future. Rather, we permit our past to determine our lives. Once our mind reaches a certain maturity, we establish goals (Adler held this to be around 10 years old) and we then proceed to live our life according to those goals. This outlook on the world and on ourselves is what the book calls “lifestyle.” 

“Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.” (13)

In realizing our liberty and responsibility to fully own our goals, we can then reshape these goals, from the ground up. (Goals here seem to run the gamut of emotions, knee jerk reactions, cultural filters, reactions, ways of judging, ways of seeing hope, fears, doubts, perceived limitations, and all their friends.)

“People Fabricate Anger” (15)

Pages 15-18 open the discussion that people fabricate anger to achieve some goal they have. Anger is a light switch, as seen when you’re on an angry tirade and the phone rings--you answer it and instantly change your demeanor, tone of voice to gentle and friendly. Once you hang up, you switch right back to anger.

I had to step back and think on this one. 

• When I am frustrated, what is my actual goal?

• Why am I letting myself grow frustrated?

• What lurking excuses about my condition are holding me back from consistently being peaceful, loving, and kind? Consistently happy?

“Are you okay just as you are?” (24)

The youth is dissatisfied; he wants to be like someone else. 

“The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment.” (26) 

I was born into privilege. 

I’m a white male who spent much of his youth in the quiet Cincinnati suburbs or Oklahoma city-country towns. The skin-value oppression faced by the majority of our world had not dawned on me until I left Oklahoma. No hate to the state, but to those invested—it is critical that we open our hearts to the things we do not understand--and we must put ourselves beyond our comfort if we are to evolve. 

Someone in my high school junior history class made a powerpoint presentation including a picture of the Rio Grande with fifty copies of a cropped photo of one of our Mexican-American classmates. I was ignorant of the discrimination that Latino families endure in this culture--asleep to the evil that openly mocked our safe, country Christian values.

I wish I was aware, I wish I would have had the courage to overcome the socially comfortable position of just sitting there--or worse, laughing with the class--to ask the harassed student if he was okay--to let him know that I recognize this behavior to be abnormal, to be racist, to be unacceptable. I wish I would have sat the class down to watch Will Smith’s Netflix series, Amend--especially episode 6. Then we could have a conversation about the 14th amendment, its applications to today’s conversation about immigration, and specifically to the context of that classroom. Proper US History. 

Am I okay just as I am?

In being born with much, though I have no generational wealth ($$$) to speak of, I have equipment to make use of—platforms (social influence/access necessarily following from my white, male, English-speaking nature) and the other gifts of education, creativity, connections. We all have equipment of some nature. Our voice, insights, friendships, education—be it in the halls of Oxford or the streets of Chicago or Managua. Your paradigm of mind is equipment and it can be upgraded.

The philosopher suggests I am okay just as I am, but this doesn’t mean I have arrived. I have quite a way to go, a journey unto infinity, perhaps. I must be okay so I have the peace and presence to make good use of my equipment. I have a responsibility to advocate for justice. My faith, social caste, heart, and common sense all point me toward the goal of unification, which demands that I use my equipment in love, to elevate the cause of the poor, marginalized, oppressed. 

My heroes speak of reconciliation. It is this coming together, this great hope for our world that calls on each of us to eradicate injustice. In a world reaching for peace, there is no place for separation of others into the cold night. 

What are we working for? A world of peace or something less than? Nothing less than is worth my time. 

My work is to align the testament of my life, my character and actions, with what I am writing here. I know I have “goals” that get in the way. My hope is to humbly accept the rebuke offered by The Courage to Be Disliked, that I may rip away the things that hold me back from being a more authentic warrior of peace.

Here’s to the journey.

“Unhappiness is something you choose for yourself.” (27)

Giphy: Cat Biscuits

I get frustrated, more frequently in recent years.

I would rather be frustrated than act against goals I have set. 

The invitation is to soften myself, to be open to seeing how I might better equip myself to navigate life in a less frustrated way. I will have to be vulnerable—step into “fear” and take some kind of risk. The philosopher’s premise is that life can be easy, but the road to reforming my goals –reformatting my operating system—will not be a gentle massage. 

“Your Life is Decided Here and Now” (35)

This hit home. 

The philosopher had just been discussing with the youth how “people always choose not to change.” 

“…Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.” (34)

Naturally, the youth wants more explanation, so the philosopher talks about his friend, who carries an untraveled dream along in his life—always just out of reach. The friend is a hobby-writer who dreams of becoming a novelist but refuses to put in effort and engage with the dream, for a variety of excuses. The real reason is that the friend prefers to keep the possibility of “’I can do it if I try’” (36) open. It is comforting to believe that excuses like family, work, and environment are holding me back--all the while I can avoid the potential of rejection and criticism. 

This is personally relevant. I enjoy publishing creative work. I like to share my perspectives and I dream of facilitating engagement beyond a 1-dimensional giving. However, there are many risks I avoid taking. To sum them up, I like feeling safe, in harmony, and of value; at times that means I share nothing, say nothing, do nothing. I have to ask… what good is this for me?

---

Myriad tensions held: 

satisfaction feeling opportunity; abstain, my hand, from venturing beyond--fear, pain, rejection, failure, something precious lost (time, reputation, faith, ability, knowledge that I am “good”)

... the unknown could rain anything down on me. 

This small shelter, my fortress. 

Where you find my bones, the courage of my heart is measured.

---

“…the past does not exist.”(38)

“Adler’s teleology tells us, ‘no matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on.’ That you, living in the here and now, are the one who determines your own life.” (38)

Our life is determined at this exact point—the past does not exist. Teleology considers that our ways of behaving are grounded in future wants, not past causes. 

This is our segue into the next Night, to come next week. Our homework is to meditate on these ideas.

A Final Note

This philosophy and psychology is amazingly redemptive. It rests on a principle that I’m equating with grace: regardless of our past, we can be continually redeemed. Nothing can hold us back from our liberation—only ourselves. It is something we each must claim. 

So very much love and peace to you,

Gabriel 

 

Thoughts on The Gift

 Thanks to a recommendation from either Malcom Gladwell or Seth Godin (I'll attempt to track the source in some later post,) I have been reading a work by Lewis Hyde, called "The Gift."

The Gift, as seen on my kitchen table

Around 1/3 of the way through, and thus far Hyde has been detailing gift culture--highlighting social examples from across history where exchange within, across (and sometimes beyond) a group is not calculated or transactional, but liberated from our sense of market to instead flow in some other dimension of generosity and collective identity. 

The gift--or, gifting-- serves to bring and keep people together with a common allegiance that baffles our current idea of markets, society, statehood, etc. 

Chapter six is an interesting trip, looking at how societies do and have, historically, treated people as a kind of property in their gift economy. 

The chapter, titled "A Female Property," takes a look at the ways women are (or are not) "given" in marriage, representing a flow in the gift-economy of life. Hyde also takes a look at the way sacrifice is involved in this cycle of the life-gift, where women in history tend to be gifted life, be a gift, and consequently gift life (give birth.) 

When men are wrapped into the life-gift-economy, it is usually as a living sacrifice (resulting in death,) where the man gives his life for the sake of their group. 

Hyde also gives some attention to the way the organ transplant economy (rather, the innovation that permits transplants) demanded a re-writing of the legality of ownership of one's body.

The chapter is helpful in thinking about what it means to have ownership of yourself, your children (what role you may have in their life,) your body after death, and for thinking about how you might give yourself to a cause or a group. 

The gift idea is that all of these ways of owning/stewarding/giving are radically different that a classical economic construct of exchange. Perhaps I can unpack this better, later.

I'm briefing over the chapter's content to get to a footnote I found within it, on page 126:

    If our life is a gift to begin with, we tend to be compelled to give it away. 

So, to what, to whom do I give my life? 

Is it worthy of the life I have to give? 

Where do you give yours?

I thought I would sit and write on this, but time--a currency representing where my gift is given, compels me to cut short this entry. All in the service of aligning how I spend my time with where I want my time spent--where I want my gift given. 

Rest assured, I'll be meditating on this question. 

I invite you to join me, and to share any thoughts or questions you may have. 

In love, 

Gabriel

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Juneteenth 2020

Happy Emancipation Day. I hope I can grow my heart in understanding of what Juneteenth means to Black America, to my family who has been oppressed under unfair trade agreements, unjust resource extraction, slavery, segregationist (racist) policies like mid-1900s Jim Crow and property red-lining policies that continued the systematic isolation, wealth extraction, and future-opportunity-limiting practices of colonial (white) America, and that continues today with the unresolved echoes of these policies and mindsets, with privatization of prison systems and police being used as a buffer between the rich and white and  poor

(the poor, who are disproportionately Black and Brown, because of said racist policies and the natural ways of perceiving that white people learn and share over time based on how the world around them is (racially) structured, a structure that lay people didn’t critically build, but have bought at face value—though, mind you, the structure has always been meticulously designed—a structure that we still to this day and beyond owe it to our family to critically view, to opproach with an open mind about how it might be working for all of us—

(as in: Is it working for you? How is working for you? How is it not working for you? What might an alternate way for it to work look like—so that it might work for you?)

And to understand that we have our experience, that is what we know in our bones—but we must use our heart to bridge our misunderstandings, to reach out and ask, or, when we (white America/those with the majority of power) are being reached out to (as is the case today, evidence by mass demonstrations that are now global—the literal crying, groaning of the world for justice and a new revelation of peace)—when we are being reached out to, we owe it to our family to listen, to honor the voice of experience that we have no hope of knowing unless we chose to listen with an open heart, and to let that connection move us into reconciliation. Reconciliation demands humility of the strong, and inherently promises that the weak will be made strong. This is God at work—through us, as us.

The world is crying out. If you are white, I ask you to listen with an open heart—to step away from the politics and to approach not in teams but one on one to discover what in the blazes is going on that would drive someone—focus, find someone...—to step out into the streets and lift up their voice. That action is the language of the unheard (Thank you, Dr. King). Maybe you feel no compulsion to get into the streets—but clearly some many people do, enough to stay in those streets for weeks on end. We owe it to our family to find out why. The news can’t reconcile our family. The President can’t reconcile our family. The pastor can’t reconcile our family (though our leaders can help equip us.) This is heart to heart work, were we must step up to each other, to open our hearts together and engage with enough faith through our lack of understanding so that God can move in the space between. There is the love, there is the magic. This can not wait—our family depends on all of us.

If you are Black, Brown, Native, Unheard, Unseen—I love you. I wish we could overcome today the deafening chasm of pride and fear and all manner of divisive evidences of the grip of souls to control their reality. I have enough of a battle in the daily micro-stuff of my soul where I want control—It often results for me in prolonged inaction for fear of “doing it wrong” or being judged... How much more difficult is our collective resignation from the need to control?

The good news is that this is the cause of Love, of God’s Heart, of the very dawn and fundamental vibe of the Universe: to reconcile us together: away from our need for control to lovingly accepting, honoring our own hearts, each other’s hearts—the invitation of Grace is infinite, this Love is eternal. We all must lean in, and we will get there.

#blacklivesmatter #BLM #Love

I know this rhythm

Rhythm. I had to spell that one out.

----

I know this song.
A familiar wind breezes across my plains.
The wheat bends, whistles, a cry:

Come Dance!

The moment, fleeting

An invitation, a door usually hidden
Always there
Unseen
Ever present

I saw you in a flash,
The lights went down...
I fumble through the darkness--
is this the right handle?

Turn and enter.

I find myself here,
A familiar blank page
filling
filling
white space turns to ink,
image of ink,
a flow,
a river,
creek,
virgin stream it seems,
Though this land has known the water

all too well.

She dwells beneath this soil,
her whole body there.
Under my nose,
Though in congestion I fail to recognize her scent.

Failure--fail, fall, fell
To fail is a celebration of the attempt,
Try, try again
Smell--SMELL again

Deep

Breath...

Stretch your imagination---challenge your perception

paradigm shift realign the construct that says:
Your door is hidden,
Your riverbed is dry,
Your nose doesn't know,
The wind doesn't sing...

like it used to.

Poetry never dies, my love.

She is ever and always with us.

Calling:

Dance.

Just
move
your
feet;

faith.

Collaborative Economics: The University and a New Industrial Age

Collaborative Economics: The University and a New Industrial Age

Written by Gabriel Conners

One of the greatest challenges of our time is empowering lesser developed regions to effectively engage with more advanced economies.

The Co-Creative Industrial Revolution holds the key. It is a shift from top-down, hierarchical processes towards grassroots, distributed-yet-highly-connected systems. Examples of this revolution can be found in 3-D printing combined with open-source architecture, as well as a city-wide smart grid tethering small rooftop wind turbines.

Through aggregating the potential of capital across a given region, the revolution drives economic self sufficiency and empowers creative desires of individuals and communities. From media and arts to energy and entrepreneurship, the individual holds an unprecedented capacity to produce as the economic function of production is decentralized.

There is no revolution without connection.

This democratic shift is layered over new communication systems which connect market players in ways that permit massive amounts of micro-exchanges. What emerges is collaborative economics, wherein wealth results from social relevance and cooperation. A reflection on the work of social scientists Granovetter, Ostrom, and Putnam regarding social capital highlights the idea that power in the collaborative economy is derived from meaningful relationships.

I chose to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology because it is a technology-research school positioned between low socioeconomic communities and the thriving urban core of Chicago. Illinois Tech is a gateway, strategically positioned and equipped to catalyze a revolution in regional economic innovation. In this new social era, our success as engagers, students, employees, and institutions will be determined by the relevant human connections we build. As a technology institute, Illinois Tech is tasked with engineering the design of communities and their infrastructure, from sewage systems to skyscrapers and power plants to data infrastructure for smart-grids. Here is an institution which holds the assets needed to drive a Co-Creative Industrial Revolution in Chicago.

Before changing the world, one must change theirself.

Illinois Tech, as most institutions of higher education, faces the ever pressing challenge of evolving to become more than a place of learning, but a critical asset of social relevance.  According to findings by the Education Advisory Board, traditional students make college choices based primarily on reputation. Today is an age where the cost of university is rising while distributed, non-traditional education is increasingly available and more legitimate with each new compelling education startup.The student must be nurtured in new ways, just as the institution must serve society in new ways. The rising generations are demanding social responsibility from the powerbrokers in society.

All of these conditions, taken in sum, are favorable for higher education. The university now has the socially permissible opportunity to adopt a process of continual redesign. Our institutions now must step beyond the 20th century meaning of meeting the needs of society, to evolve away from serving as a cog which bridges 20 year olds into the opportunities of the workforce.

The collaborative economy is a far step beyond the linear production economy of yester-century. The behavior of our interactions and the nature of our work will need to be modeled more and more by quantum formulas. While my notions of models are conjecture, the logic informing them comes from the authority of what I have witnessed: the means of production are growing into the hands of the people and the people, as a distributed body, are twisting the once straight lines of profit and power, confounding hierarchies by sheer strength of numbers. With more mature tools of organizing and communicating, what greater disruption from the status quo will We The People author?

The Co-Creative Industrial Revolution is a messy one. Left unchecked, we will invent and revolt and revise the world in ways that will likely miss out on the wisdom of the generations that came before us. The thirst for renewal, justice, and innovation is an energy in today’s youth as visceral as the Grim Reaper’s thirst for blood. The generation rises which is coming for its voice, its power, its right to be, to express, and to not be silenced. It’s a beautiful thing, though there exists a certain arrogance and naivete in youth that will be reflected through our dawning wave of restless innovation.

We are always breaking from the patterns of the old. It is how we adapt to changing conditions and come to know the life in new and fascinating ways. However important it is to not be held bound by tradition for tradition’s sake, it is just as important to be raised up under the advice of those who came before us. History often repeats itself because we fail to reflect on the past, as we are in such haste for the future.

It then becomes a social responsibility to encourage, instruct, and establish great opportunities for creative exploration of and expression by the youth. Who should bear this responsibility? Be there no mistake, the responsibility of investing into the future in meaningful and sustainable ways in a shared mission. No-one is exempt from the demand to support those who come after you. Allow me, now, to single out the university’s ethical mandate to show others how we must move forward in the collaborative economy.

The Shift

The mind is our most powerful tool next to the heart; both must be considered as we progress.

The mind is capable of magnificent transformations, as well as tremendous feats of fixation. The transition to college life is a unique life-event. Often shrouded in hyped expectations of the reality that is university living, first-year students undergo a bend in character definition and lifestyle change that rivals tragedies, marriage, and commitment to living on the international space station. The opportunity to expand the reaches of what a person deems possible is perhaps never so richly available as it is during the first few months of life at college. This transitionary time will significantly define how fixated a person becomes in their thinking or how open they are to reinventing the boundaries of their reality.

Institutions of higher learning can heed the call of adapting to the Co-Creative Industrial Revolution by establishing atmospheres for their students to grow as experts of co-creation. In these spaces, both literal and metaphorical, students will come to understand themselves and their deeper motivations, as they will also learn how to understand and trust their peers through shared exploration. This piece is critical to maximizing the social and economic strength of our emerging economy, as exchanges and interactions will increasingly rely on the quality of peer trust and reputation. With stronger social bonds brought through shared understanding, peers will know how to lead with greater confidence through the adversity of the unknown and will be able to draw on their unique strengths to conquer fears and achieve what Nick Udall and the Now Here team terms as “collective breakthrough.”

A conscious atmosphere permissive of such creative exploration will equip students to deliver collaborative innovations while under the umbrella of the university, thus providing attractive reputations for the institution and a place of safety and wisdom for the students. This creative culture cannot be contained; it must reach beyond the walls of the institution to involve the surrounding community. This is simply an extension of the “anchor institution” ethic that demands large organizations to serve as social and economic growth engines with their locality. The stories of social relevance will emerge as colleges and universities make committed efforts to bring together members of the surrounding community, students, faculty, and staff to work together and share the learning and production capital of the institution. The focus at the onset must be on creating space for relationships, encouraging students and community alike to explore and understand each other and, as trust is developed, they will evolve into co-creation.

Shifting culture is no simple task, but as we consider the future of our economy, we see that a culture ready to embrace and dance with the Co-Creative Industrial Revolution will deliver the most sustainable outcomes.

Power and wealth in the collaborative economy is derived from meaningful relationships. (so long as these relationships are capable of being translated over new and emerging communications networks and holding that those connected networks are integrated with and provide access to the means of production.) That is, these tools must have meaning for people or they must help people find meaning, people must have access to these tools, and people must know how to use them.

Of course, these postulations mean nothing unless the logic is tested and, if it demonstrates merit, implemented in the domains of public and private programs and policy.

Peace and Visions of Tomorrow

Leaning over the embankment, an invitation beckons me to release my hold and dive into the water below. The pond ripples, responding to the whips of wind cascading over its surface. I see myself, then, in a mirror as fragmented light.

This past week has been a trip off all sorts of learning, glory, opportunity, and challenge. I’ve been following a book, “The Highest Goal,” by Stanford business professor Michael Ray. He is an incredibly insightful man and the work he has done in his Creativity in Business course is reflected through this book. Each chapter is effectively a prompt to view and engage with life in a new and novel way, such that my engagement becomes more naturally rooted in the truth that drives me, that fuels my most inner yearning. How curious it is to write in one sentence a thought so lofty that it requires a life to actually dance it out.

Such is the work I’m aiming towards: life defining.

“What gets you up in the morning?”

My toes squirm, I re-adjust my seating position; I don’t have a direct answer to this question. It’s unsettling, to consider the underlying motivations for my existence, to ask such eternal confounding questions as “Why do I do what I do?” and “What is my highest goal?” These are pressing, perhaps soul-wringing explorations. Stirring up these waters invites a wealth of mind-chatter, likely a deluge of judgemental thoughts about who I am, how capable I am, how I have performed or have been perceived, how likely it is for me to become more free, how obligated I am to certain things that I feel tie me down, how I’ve failed in certain regards, how I’ve misinterpreted calls to action and missed opportunities and been misled in my pursuit of God’s heart….  These questions, provocations, doubts, fears, anxieties swim through me. Ray talks a lot about the VOJ, or the Voice of Judgement. The important thing in doing work where we open ourselves up to thoughtful introspection and self-healing is to not let the VOJ derail our efforts.

We sell ourselves short. Far too often. Even our great fumbles are a platform for growth. I have a new semester of school coming up and I’ve got so many pots cooking that there is bound to be something that boils over, gets charred, gets undercooked… you name it. There also will be things that end up tasting glorious. I love to cook. I romance the art of cheffing. To dance in the spirit of culinary creation, celebrating the inherent beauty of foodstuffs and openly embracing the magic of synthesizing flavors through any myriad of methods is a blissful waltz. I perhaps feel most in tune with the nature of creation in this rhythm, for I become the creator: romancing potential into existence. It’s my creative dance, one that surfaces in lesser or more profound but distant forms across areas of my life.

This becomes my best answer to these deep prodding questions: I live to love (unconditionally celebrate) the heart of creation.

There is a certain youthful glow I feel from those who live in or around this approach. Their energy is infectious and time spent with them is invariably inspiring. When we live from a posture of inspiration, where the things we pour our life into have inherent meaning that compel us with optimistic curiosity into the future, we spread this energy without even intending; it’s infectious.

The more I lean into such a walk of life, the more curiously intriguing, fun, and challenging this life becomes. I end up with more questions as this pursuit carries on, and so the journey necessitates a quest for calmness of soul. To press into my highest goal and usher a reality into my life ripe with awakening, I have to be with peace in all things.

Peace stills the voice of judgement.

Last week I was given a new charge with my work at Upkey.com. As a student on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus, my role is broadly to serve as a brand activator: get the right folks invested into the vision of the company so they pull it into the culture of their tribes. More or less. Well, turns out the answer is more, for I now get to pursue a very fascinating opportunity to create compelling content leveraging our network across Chicago. It’s the kind of open-ended invitation to dance that leaves God-like room for creative autonomy and organic growth. I’m recognizing a pattern in my life, something I’ve certainly been aware of for some time. Truly, it’s tied to one of my greatest giftings: near unbridled faith in where we can go in the future. Thinking about it makes me smile. When I am given a seed to plant, my imagination jumps to visions of how that plant will grow, and how its seeds will lead to the fruition of vast gardens and orchards and new ways to produce sustenance and oxygen for life on other planets… You get the picture: I paint a vastly profound work of art in my vision based on a simple, non-descript seed.

Two interesting things happen here. One, the vision gives me the energy I need to move forward on the project. I have left multiple employers and institutions for lack of holding a strong vision for my work. The more I live, the more I see the importance of holding vision, being flexible in it, and being disciplined in the small stuff. This is where the second interesting point comes in: the disappointing reality of time. There is a general law of seed--time--harvest. Seeds don’t instantaneously germinate into fields. In my mind, however, they do. Tied to my perception that is half rooted in eternal consciousness, existing beyond time, some of the laws of this physical reality still take me by surprise. Here then comes the ever important role of peace. After I got this opportunity to a new kind of dance with Upkey, I dove into the ocean of visionary thought. I spent the better part of my weekend exploring what this means to me and where it could go. I drafted up a compelling outline for how the concept may evolve over time. This isn’t exactly what my team needs right now. Given that I haven’t even begun producing the actual content, its evolution over time could bear no resemblance what-so-ever to my plans.

So there’s two thoughts I have regarding this. One: it’s not what my team needs but it is what I need. I need a vision-rooted compass for the work I do. I have to know that as I invest my energies into an enterprise, those energies are feeding towards something I can celebrate, effectively bringing me closer to God’s heart… ushering more of what I love into the world. Two: I can’t know all the things. It is fruitless to expend all my energies creating maps of tomorrow when the pathways must be built for that tomorrow to exist. Peace enters the scene as faith. When I am in the flow, where the work is affirming my passions and I feel the synergy it has with other areas of my life, I have got to trust and have faith in the unfolding. With me at the helm, of course it will evolve in a way that I will celebrate. That is, if I am present. My organic intuition to respond in the moment and act from my heart  will build the world, the life I love. The longer I dwell in a sweet-state of hope and expectation for the glory of tomorrow to unfold, the longer I will wait for the unfolding. In truth, I will die waiting with that attitude.

The chapter of Michael Ray’s book I am currently in is charging me to “not worry and just do it.” In the past I haven’t viewed my tendency to get visionary as worry. Truly, we need visions to guide us… but not to consume us. It is neither healthy to live in the past nor in the future. Our place, ever and always, is in the present. The mission, then, is how do we thrive in the present?

Michael Ray: "The Highest Goal"

I mentioned intuition and responding in the moment. There is a natural unfolding that occurs when we release worry and act in the flow of things. To do so takes a calm sense of peace, assurance, faith in the unfolding. I can vouch for it, knowing that across the history of my life things have gone swimmingly the more I acted from a posture of celebrating the present (wisely). We can bring wisdom to the table of the present by building into our life such richness as meditation. Before I decided to write this, I meditated for the first time in many days. My mind was rushing with noise about things I needed to do, how I want to start shipping more things, more frequently, to show people in my life that yes I am getting work done and not just musing over in Gabeland. But there was a slight imbalance… my mind was so noisy. I certainly know I wasn’t entertaining the idea of sitting down for an hour+ to write.

I recognized the need for stillness, I read a short chapter in Sakyong Mipham’s “ Turning the Mind into an Ally,” and I simply sat and breathed for a little bit, hardly for ten minutes. Thoughts rushed into my awareness and I just kept on breathing, shifting my attention back from new thought to centered on my breath. Incredibly, with some small level of intentionality, I opened the door for a wave of peace that freed me to express myself to the tune of 1600 words.

The pond has since grown calm. Leaning over the embankment, the surface grants me new perspective of myself, the sky, and what it means to be still.

Week in Reflection July 22 2016

Week in Review: Just Breathe

Breathe

I began this week with a breath.

There has been a mantra I've taken to lately in life: breathe. I was working about a week ago on bringing together some ideas for Jerry Doyle, a strategic thought-partner/mentor and  my Vice Provost over Student Access, Success, and Diversity Initiatives. We discussed the possibility of meeting on Sunday, which is traditionally my day off. He basically said "enjoy your day of peace, Gabe." and he closed his remarks with "Breathe."

I've always considered holding peace as a strong piece of my life. However, I inevitably get distracted from time to time and become caught up in a web of ideas, projects, and shiny objects of the imagination. It's in those times where I become more and more consumed with the idea that I need to create and deliver outputs, which builds a cycle of internal anxiety that ends up directing my attention in even more tangential directions. It is always only after I pause to breathe, feel, and come back to the present in peace that I am able to proceed with clarity and impact. Otherwise, my work is messy, my mind is disheveled, and my clothes don't get washed. 

This summer has brought me into new levels of responsibility, creative autonomy, and passion-relevant opportunity for my emerging future. It began as a roller-coaster of sorts, juggling a series of physical moves, out of state trips, new projects, and my sanity. I've since leveled out considerably, coming to terms with the evolutionary nature of this journey that is life. So long as I press in, the ride is going to be full of color and speed and bumps and new delights--it's all part of the dance. My latest mantra, then, has been around peace and breath. Regardless of what life "throws at me," when I stay in the flow of peaceful grace and keep my head above water by focusing firstly on my breath in every moment, I navigate this journey just fine. From crystal "glass" water to choppy rapids, it's all the same to my soul if I approach life from the right place, a place where my heart is centered on eternal love and my breath is focused on feeling the deeper truths inherent in my existence. 

A couple days ago, I was reflecting while laying on a roof in Chinatown, Chicago; I considered the work I am doing, at the intersection of design thinking and education. There are a host of verrrrrry cool things that will stem from my current projects, never a dull moment in the future I'm stepping in to. My day-to-day is increasingly becoming more and more relevant to my passions in life. Even so, I lied up there, staring into the night sky, and wondering to what end my work was aimed. I still have disturbances in life. Not that I expect perfect peace to be the norm right here and now... such a goal fruits from a long journey... But there is soooo much room for more peace and love to be built into the very core of my perspective and approach to all things and people. Something so absurd that I approach each new engagement seeing the beauty inherent in all souls and things I encounter, and I immediately am able to feed that beauty with love. I want to cultivate that within myself so that everything else I do (the things I build, the relationships I form, the ideas I conceive) ALL grow from a soil pervasively rich in peace and love. The idea here... is that whatever comes out from my life will then have peace-love intimitely woven throughout its design.

THIS is the prayer of my week, my life. It's what I saw this week that I want to echo forward into eternity.

Here's to love.