“Chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans have been living for hundreds of thousands of years in their forest, living fantastic lives, never overpopulating, never destroying the forest. I would say that they have been in a way more successful than us as far as being in harmony with the environment.”
I just finished reading the book, Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson in which he describes the deceit and folly surrounding World War I resulting in over 37 million war related deaths and untold injuries. Anderson suggests that “In war, language often becomes a weapon.”
For me, the book highlights the fact that the same language and norms that undermined higher values 100 years ago are still raising their ugly heads today. Specifically, Lawrence in Arabia, contains hundreds of chilling tales about
- Duplicity
- Arrogance
- Back room deals
- Personal promotion
- Underestimating the opponent
- Sticking with losing and lethal strategies in spite of overwhelming evidence
- Basing our decisions on profound ignorance.
Sadly, the end of World War I didn’t exactly bring harmony back to the world and those behaviors didn’t magically disappear. Just over 20 years later, World War II started over the discord created from World War I and another 73 million people were killed. Even though we have managed to avoid World War III, there have been multiple conflicts throughout the world since World War II ended: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, Syria, Yemen etc. It seems to me there is a strong case for creating more harmony in the world at all levels.
On a more positive note, Japan recently installed Naruhito as its new emperor. In the Japanese tradition, each new emperor picks a word to describe the culture they want to create under their leadership. Naruhito’s reign will be called Reiwa, a term with multiple meanings, including “order and peace,” “auspicious harmony” and “joyful harmony,” according to scholars quoted in the local news media.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the name had been chosen from Japan’s oldest collection of poems, an eighth-century anthology known as the Manyo-shu, and referred to a verse about the budding of plum blossoms after a harsh winter.
I find this choice of words so refreshing and inspiring. We could use a few plum blossoms after our long winter of wars.
Harmony is defined as the combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions having a pleasing effect. I like the sound of that. The question is, how do we create harmony in this cacophonous culture?
Here are some musical descriptions to assess how we are doing now at creating harmony on five levels:
|
Harmonious Possibilities |
Musical Assessment of Current State |
Desired End State |
|
Planet Earth |
Clanging and Jarring |
Caring and Loving |
|
World Governments |
Tone Deaf |
Tuned-In |
|
National Governments |
Loud and Cacophonous |
Quiet and Collaborative |
|
For Profit Organizations |
Off Balance |
Balanced and Equitable |
|
Human Beings |
Depressing Incoherence |
Joyful Unity |
Think how different the world could be if we took better care of our earth, if governments around the world were tuned into the needs of their people, if each government collaborated internally to get things done, if our corporations provided more balanced cultures and more equitable compensation, and if human beings were able to exist in joyful unity. Seem like an unachievable dream? Not if we learn to engage in harmonious relations with our environment, with our global partners, with our fellow human beings, and with ourselves. Why is achieving harmony so hard? Let’s look at the dynamics and challenges of each component.
Human Harmony. As individuals we are always dealing with conflicting thoughts and competing priorities. Choices create cognitive dissonance. Our physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual desires are not always acting in concert. The demands of living require us to make sacrifices. Trying to act in accordance with our stated values is an on-going battle. The result is a sense of disassociation or lack of coherence instead of feeling a sense of joyful unity.
For-Profit Organizations. Corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to make money for their shareholders. Global competition makes it more and more difficult to establish sustainable differentiation. Attracting top talent requires management to make choices on how much to pay for critical skills. Market forces establish pay ranges for different types of work. Social, political, economic and competitive conditions change rapidly forcing companies to make hard decisions. Quarterly pressure from Wall Street places demands on executives to maximize short-term profits. The result is that people experience a lack of balance between personal and work priorities instead of enjoying a sense of balance in an equitable environment.
National Governments. In governments around the world (whether its Britain, Germany, France, the US etc.), there are bitter rivalries and rigid ideologies. Constituents line-up in fairly equal portions on exactly opposite sides of the same issues. Emotional passions sometimes drown out rational, intellectual processing. Oftentimes, one side feels contempt for or from the other side. Contempt breeds reactionary, and sometimes violent, reactions. This results in loud and cacophonous battles in which both sides demean and demonize the other party instead of working collaboratively to achieve goals for the common good.
World Governments: There are 193 member countries in the United Nations. Each country has a different mix of corruption, cronyism, complexity and control. India and China alone are host to over 2.8 billion people. Each country faces challenges with different classes and religions. As the demands of those countries have increased, they have moved to more authoritarian styles of governing. Leaders dealing with rapidly changing conditions in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Africa have also moved to the right over the past decade. As a result, many leaders have become tone deaf to the needs of their diverse constituents instead of being tuned in the their changing needs and welcoming different voices into the mix to create a richer and deeper blend of sounds.
Planet Earth: Climate change poses dangerous risks to our planet. As I mentioned in a post on Crisis and Choice, greenhouse gas emissions are rising at alarming levels. As a result of human activities since the industrial revolution, we are on a path to increase the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from around 280 ppm to over 410 ppm by 2020 if nothing is done. If this rate of increase continues, the Earth’s surface temperature will increase 2 degrees Celsius or more by 2050 with harmful effects on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human livelihoods. The warning bells are clanging and the news is jarring. The sky may not be falling, but the Arctic and Antarctic are melting with disastrous consequences for our planet. There are big challenges to addressing these problems: plastics are convenient, 80% of our energy consumption is powered by fossil fuels, nations need to provide job opportunities for people that may pollute the environment, and there is a lot of money to be made from exploiting the earth’s resources. And yet, the earth needs our responsible and loving care if it is going to continue to serve as host for the magical symphonies it has witnessed over the centuries.
What can we do as individuals to create more harmony in our personal lives, in our organizations, and in our communities? To me, we need to start at the most basic level.
When we simply take time to stop and listen, we can notice bodily sensations, trains of thought, fleeting and flooding emotions, and spiritual energies. We can pause long enough to look for the harmony among all the elements of our being.
When we walk and move, we can notice the tension in our bodies and release it. We can let go of that tension and get into a rhythm and flow. We can dance to a slower beat instead of rushing through life from one demand to another.
When we are with our loved ones, we can listen carefully to what’s going on in their lives. We can consciously attend to their words, thoughts, and feelings. We can try to be fully present for the symphony of their experiences.
When we are working with organizations, we can respond to the challenges our colleagues face in balancing their work/life demands. We can heighten our awareness of health risks and personal prices we are paying for our “busyness.” We can be more patient, gentle and sensitive to our own and others’ struggles to find time for reflection, contemplation, and “music” in our lives.
When we watch the news, we can pay attention to the negative thoughts and emotions that invade our personal space. We can listen to the tone and volume of our voices and ask ourselves why we would let someone else take us to a dark and dismal space. We can limit our news intake and make effort not to get caught in an ugly flow of negativity.
When we read the paper, we can feel compassion for the victims of violence and natural disasters. We can stay informed about what’s happening in the world and try to tune-into the variety of life experiences that people around the world are having. We can feel gratitude for whatever bubble we were born into and accept that so much pain and suffering is beyond our control. We can forgive ourselves for our shortcomings and for any discord we create in our lives.
When we hear what’s happening to our beautiful planet, we not only need to be sad and scared, but we also need to do what we can as individuals by limiting our fuel consumption, reducing any use of plastics, eating less meat, and picking up litter. We can give thanks for all the harmonies and symphonies the earth provides. We can listen more carefully to the glorious sounds of Nature and spend as much time as possible hiking on pristine paths.
I see lots of examples of people trying to create more harmony in the world. My oldest daughter, for example, helps people come together through music. Singing in harmony somehow melts the differences among us and heals the divisions that keep us apart.
I wish I could do more to create harmony in the world. To me, it’s the only real solution to the divisiveness we experience daily. May we honor the apes from whom we supposedly evolved by returning to the harmony genes that guided their behavior. May we create music in our worlds instead of war. May we find harmony instead of discord. And may Japan not only succeed in its aspiration to establish a joyful harmonious culture but also serve as a model for the world.
