Blog Posts — Page 18

“We need a self because the complexity of the chemical processes that make up our individual humanities exceeds the processing power of our brains.”  Mohsin Hamid Humans are complex systems – so complex that it is tempting to reduce experience into simplistic dualities.  A great case in point are the conversations about gender fluidity and sexual orientation. It is so easy to confine the human experience into the binary of male and female.  These handy […]

“Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.” Sigmund Freud  Gurdjieff often stated that his mission was to mercilessly destroy the illusions we have about ourselves and the world.  He is getting a lot of help these days from three major disruptions on […]

“The authoritarians tell a simple story about how to restore order — it comes from cultural homogeneity and the iron fist of the strongman. Democrats have a harder challenge — to show how order can be woven amid diversity, openness and the full flowering of individuals. But Democrats need to name the moral values and practices that will restore social order.”  David Brooks Practices and behaviors are simply manifest values.  That’s true on an individual […]

I spend the first two hours of most mornings reading the New York Times.  It’s a marvelous paper covering monstrous stories.  In order to recover from the depressing pall of what’s happening in the world, I meditate for 30 minutes to ground myself in the current reality and to experience the boundlessness that mediation brings.  It’s a marvelous way to deal with whatever monsters are still lurking in my mind from the morning news.  I […]

“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” Lao Tzu   I just finished watching season 3 of Succession.  It was the culmination of 29 depressing episodes of shameless depravity.  The series is a spoof on the Rupert Murdoch family dynasty and their polluting effect on the news media.  As the title suggests, the plot revolves around the children’s jockeying for power to assume the throne of […]

“Is your glass half empty or half full?” asked the mole.  “I think I’m grateful to have a glass,” said the boy.”  Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse My family has grown accustomed to me going off on tangents in which no one is particularly interested.  On a recent vacation, as I was thinking about this post, I suggested a game we could play to expand aphorisms related to non-dualism.  Surprise, […]

In my last post, I wrote about collaborative communities which elaborated on the process for engaging collective intelligence to achieve sustainable growth across organizational boundaries.  I alluded to the fact that creating collaborative communities required a new type of leadership – not the heroic, hierarchical, humorless, and hubristic type, but more of a servant leader type who humbly hosts welcoming spaces and who inspires people to come together, connect deeply, and commit passionately to a […]

Over the past several years, I have been working with the Grand Traverse Land Conservancy (GTRLC) – an organization whose mission is to preserve and protect the pristine environment of Northern Michigan.  I’ve worked with their Board on Governance and strategy, with its staff on cultural alignment, and with their CEO, Glen Chown, on leadership.  It’s been the most satisfying experience of my entire career.   Their work keeps my hope alive in an increasingly divided […]

Much has been written lately about the “Great Resignation.”  People who were downsized due to Covid 19 are not coming back to work in the numbers expected; and people who are still at work are quitting in record numbers.   Millions of jobs are open and employers are having a hard time filling them.  It appears that people are tired of jobs that don’t provide decent benefits, a living wage or flexible work options.  In short, […]

I’m really worried about minority rule – especially when that means the republicans are in charge.  In all of the articles I have read recently, two factors stand out for predicting a republican vote – education and identification.  It appears that less educated and more identified people tend to vote republican.  I think there are several related factors that predict republican voters.  Conveniently and characteristically, they all start with the letter R. Rich:  63% of […]

I was recently inspired to write a poem after participating in a meeting with our Downtown Development Association and Doug Griffiths, author of 13 Ways to Kill a Community.  We were discussing change challenges and how to deal with detractors and resistors to proposals aimed at transforming our seasonal community to one in which there is a chance for sustainable growth.  In the discussion, a metaphor emerged of the river and the rocks.    This metaphor […]