Blog Posts — Page 6

“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 Read More

“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 Read More

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 Read More

“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 Read More

“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, Read More

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 Read More

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 Read More

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, Read More

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 Read More

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 Read More

At a recent Village Council meeting in my small town, I implored the elected officials to consider, in their deliberations about policy decisions, the differential effects of anachronistic thinking vs. possibilistic thinking as well as the differential effects of interdependent relating vs. competitive unrelating.  I assume that, in pondering the challenge, they came to one of three conclusions: What is this guy talking about? Where is this pompous ass coming from? Hmm, I wonder how Read More

I recently listened to an excellent podcast by Ezra Klein on the withdrawal from Afghanistan.  He discusses with Robert Wright, the author of Nonzero – a newsletter that examines the assumptions that drive America’s foreign policy – our policy failures in Afghanistan over the past 20 years after an investment of 2 trillion dollars and deaths of over 200,000 people.  Their discussion delves into the deep history of American involvement in Afghanistan, reveals the unacknowledged Read More

My small, hometown community recently sponsored an event called “What Unites Us.”  The event started with free sundaes in the park and concluded with a drum dance on the beach.  People in the community made signs indicating what they believed unified us, and we used those signs to make a pathway from the park to the beach.  Drums (green buckets) and drumsticks were placed in a circle with hula hoops in the middle.  Everyone was Read More

In our little town in Northern Michigan, a neighbor put up a sign that read “NO WOKE ZONE”  (code for “I hate liberal, establishment elites’).  At first, I thought it said “NO WORK ZONE,” but the message is the same in either case – “I am willfully ignorant and refuse to do the work to find the truth.”  Yes, being woke can go too far, but to me, it simply means “I’m open to uncomfortable Read More

In this post, I’m going to address the question of how to persuade someone with power to make a sacrifice for the common good.  It seems to me that this is one of the most intractable problems in history.  For thousands of years, people with power have been more likely to impose their will on others than to shift positions through persuasion.  Let’s start with some provocative voices on power and persuasion.  “When the whole Read More

I know about running for cover.  When I heard bullets whistling over my head on guard duty in Vietnam, my instincts kicked in. I ducked down into my sandbag bunker for safety and protection.  To be clear, I was defending an apartment building with high walls in Saigon – not hacking through the dense jungle exposed to sniper attacks, venomous snakes and nasty traps.  Still, I experienced the natural instinct to shrink down and protect Read More

I’m reeling from violence I’m kneeling in silence I’m healing my damaged soul I’ve been reeling from a sense of loss I’ve seen kneeling for the Southern cross So many are healing from a toxic boss I’ve been thrown off balance from low blows I’ve seen submission before turned up noses We all need healing from hate and hoses I’ve staggered badly from drunken days I’ve seen kneeling to maleficent ways I’ve known healing from Read More

In 1984, my wife, my first daughter, and I drove to JFK Airport to pick up our second daughter – Jang Hee JInn – fresh off a flight from Seoul Korea.   She was a 3 month old bundle of wonder.  I dropped the camera in my eagerness to welcome this new child from the Korean caretaker who had nurtured her lovingly for the long flight.  We named her Emily Jane.  I’m writing this post to Read More