I love words; I love what they can do; how they can open up a universe of possibility.

Once upon a time, someone said something to you – perhaps words of encouragement or permission or an insightful story – and you set out on your unique adventure.

Get words right and worlds are created; get them wrong, and worlds comes crashing in.

I’m reminded of those who spoke important words to me – sometimes hardly knowing what they were saying, but they loved the things they spoke of – and they changed me.  This is the power of words we get to be a part of, as we share words with others from our unique, unrepeatable perspective on life.  When we live the things we speak about, then we speak with authority:

‘Each person’s life – each life form, in fact – represents a world, a unique way in which the universe experiences itself.  And when your form dissolves, a world comes to an end – one of countless worlds.’*

Which is why it’s so important, while we have breath, that we speak up.

(*From Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth.)

Some days are just chaotic.

‘Randomness is a concept that defies categorisation; by definition, it comes out of nowhere and can’t be anticipated.’*

Randomness is the stuff we navigate every day of our lives, though often don’t notice.**

From childhood, we are doing just this.  Former MIT researcher in Brain and Cognitive Sciences Frank Sulloway suggests that personality is our strategy for surviving childhood.  Ron and Ben Zander pick up on this, suggesting:

‘A child comes to think of himself as the personality he gets recognition for, or, in other words, as the set of patterns of actions and habits of thought that get him out of childhood in one piece.’^

Personality propels us from childhood into adulthood, but often with an unquestioning acceptance of everything, positive and negative.

When unaware we continue to think in survival terms when there’s no longer any need,  The Zanders call this the “calculating self” – surviving or progressing within the human hierarchy, the world of measurement.

When we become aware of this, we see how the human journey is an incredible odyssey of discerning what we need and do not need in order to become more human, into the universe of possibility.  We’re only just beginning:

‘When one person peels away layers of opinion, entitlement, pride, and inflated self-description, others instantly feel connection.’^

(*From Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc.)
(**Arriving on time with everyday journeys relies on hundreds if not thousands of things working together in the right way.  Normally the differences may alter the journey by a few minutes, but add an accident and roadworks and diversion (like today!) and the journey time doubles – including the person who drove out of a side road straight in front of me.  Though, all of this is pretty mild stuff in a universe as random as ours, and this is what we must grow up into.)
(^From Rosamund and Benjamin Zander’s The Art of Possibility.)

Life is a journey opening to those prepared to go deeper.

Over the years, I’ve been learning that continual seriousness is as much an inhibitor of “deep” as always joking around.  Like the spacecraft returning to Earth, needing to get its angle of re-entry just right so that it doesn’t bounce off the atmosphere or burn up, so we need to have the right amount of serious so as not to bounce off into impotence, and the right amount of levity so as not to burn up everything and everyone we come into contact with.

I’m learning to lighten up.

Just as I’m learning alacrity from others, I’ve a number of people in my life that teach how how to lighten up.  I’m also reminded that one of the important things I took from Mindfulness was to be kind to others and to myself.

Then I can have some fun getting to grips with some serious business:

“What does the world need most … that we are uniquely able to provide?”*

Getting the angle right is about servanthood, it means we can ask, “What more can I do?”

(*From Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question.)

Brisk and cheerful readiness.

To turn up every day with alacrity isn’t easy, it’s about many things being attended to.

Yet, when we’re able to turn up with alacrity, then the next day holds even more promise.

We have to daily identify and reconnect with what we are most concerned for and care about.

Living as if we’ve seen all there is to see and we know all there is to know is a dangerous place.  Being jaded and disenchanted means we fall short of magis – more: the promise of tomorrow.

‘Living with doubt is always more profitable than living with certainty.’*

We like it when those around us turn up with alacrity, which is significant, because most of what the future holds is going to be made up of people working together.

I can also trust what my life is saying to me when I am seeking to connect with all that matters most to me, to others, and to the world.

Alacrity provides us with momentum, to push us from what we know and what we love into what we do.

(*From Seth Godin’s Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck?)

‘It was a calling to something greater than himself, some thing other than himself.’*

‘There is a mission out there greater than yourself.’**

What do you see on the horizon?  If you keep along this path?

Cleverness has never been the problem – we’re all pretty clever.

The problem is wisdom.  Our choices have brought us to a place we couldn’t have imagined, and now? Defeat?

We can change the horizon.

Maybe we can spend a lot of time lamenting our mistakes and trying to undo them, or maybe we can identify something greater than ourselves to live for – and sort out anything we need to about ourselves along the way.

Chris Guillebeau tells the story of Jiro Ono, a top restaurant owner who tells Guillebeau he feels victorious when he finds a good tuna to sushi, which may seem a strange way to talk about his work; Guillebeau comments:

‘I also got the message: The man loves what he does.’**

A new horizon comes into view when we find ourselves on a quest to something greater than ourselves.

(*From Alex McManus‘s Discipleship in the Way of Jesus.)
(**From Chris Guillebeau’s The Happiness of Pursuit.)

Life.  It’s all about service, and it’s all about identifying our kind of creativity and going for it.

And these two things can live together … beautifully.

When we engage in service and creativity, we’re engaging in a human revolution.  We’re on the cusp of the next stage of becoming human: to be both conscious and caring and creative.

‘It is here where the synergistic interplay of courage, wisdom, and generosity make us most creative.’*

The story we’re telling ourselves is far more important than the history we find ourselves inheriting.  History is what others have done, but we get to shape the story now.

‘[T]he leader may be any one of us.’**

Here, if we choose to accept it, is our mission.

(*From Erwin McManus’s Uprising.)
(**From Rosamund and Benjamin Zander’s The Art of Possibility.)

What do you fear most of all?

Sometimes smaller fears get in the way of the things that are worth getting fearful over – like the fear of missing out on living the one life we have in a way that makes a difference, perhaps the greatest adventure of all: “bold innovation, limitless generosity, and the opportunity to save a life.”*

This journey witnesses us crossing the thresholds of judgement to openness, cynicism to compassion, and, fear to courage – into curiosity and inquiry, relationship, and action.

“Things change when you care enough to grab whatever you love, and give it everything.”*

What we think is the safest place to be can turn out to be the most dangerous.

Yesterday, I caught something of Jurgen Todenhofer’s story, how this writer and retired judge from Germany wanted to see the other side of the Islamic State story, successfully negotiating ten days within the caliphate.^

He brings his story back to all of us who want to understand more of what life within this region looks like, even as we try to imagine the future.  This journey wasn’t into Mediocristan, but into Extremistan, where, each night, he didn’t know what awaited him the following day.^^

As I listened to his extraordinary experience, I saw Todenhofer’s journey as one of servanthood for others, for the “powers that be” and for each of us.

Maybe we think we live in “Calmistan” – where everything is in its rightful place.  While Todenhofer’s story is extreme, reality is we all live in a world of randomness and chaos, every day wrestling it to some kind of order.  Calmistan does not exist – the ordering of chaos that has served is in the past will not serve us now.  We need imaginative, creative people, willing to overcome their lesser fears to face the greatest one of all.

[P]ersonally, I think the person who can’t change his or her mind is dangerous.’*^

(*The subtitle of End Malaria.)
(**Music student Amanda Burr to Ben Zander, quote in Rosamund and Benjamin Zander’s The Art of Possibility.)
(^See Jurgen Todenhofer’s My Journey Into the Heart of Terror.)
(^^Mediocristan and Extremistan are concepts of randomness and chaos identified by Nassim Taleb in The Black Swan.)
(^^From Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc.)

‘Wisdom is not a shift from me to you, but a shift from me to us.’*

What if wisdom exists in the following forms?

Wisdom 1.0: Often passed from others and seen as good enough for was we want to do in life, so lacks questioning; it’s expressed in heuristics and doesn’t worry too much about what others think.

Wisdom 2.0: There’s more wisdom than we first thought – it can be made to work for us and change our circumstances, and, to some extent, used for the good of others; wisdom is a valuable commodity and is scalable.

Wisdom 3.0: Wisdom exists in everyone, even in our planet and the universe, so we begin exploring what wisdom looks like from the perspective of others, stepping into their shoes; wisdom isn’t so scarce, and we have come a long way from the monochrome “wisdom according to me.”

Wisdom 4.0: Wisdom is far from fixed, it’s unfolding, and more, it’s something we discover and create and live within together; wisdom is abundant because there’s always more to come, it’s increasingly inclusive, abides in all relationships, and new relationships are constantly being formed within it.

What if Wisdom 4.0 is our future?  A future of endless, unfolding possibilities for making all things thrive?

(*From Erwin McManus’s Uprising. Erwin’s “me and you” and “me and us” echoes Otto Scharmer’s “I-in-me,” “I-in-you,” and “I-in-us”; Otto also has “I-in-it” between the first two: see his Theory U.)

“If I start on a film and right away know the structure – where it’s going, the plot – I don’t trust it.  I feel like the only reason we’re able to find some of these unique ideas, characters, and story twists is through discovery.  And by definition ‘discovery’ means you don’t know the answer when you start.”*

How do we navigate the unknown?  Warren Berger ponders whether mission questions may be more helpful to us than mission statements.**

Wisdom is the elegant solution: a simplicity found on the far side of complexity.

It can all appear magical, but there’s no wizardry involved.  It’s wisdom’s ability to connect past and present and future that makes the difference.

‘To my mind, randomness is not just inevitable, it is part of the beauty of life.  Acknowledging it and appreciating it helps us respond constructively when we are surprised.’^

When we’re prepared to reflect on our past, even upon its ugliness, it becomes fuel for the fire we make for the future; when we’re unable to do this, what has happened is unavailable or of no use to us.

Our ability to learn from our mistakes leads to being grateful for their lessons, leading to new possibilities through experimenting and practise towards the unknown of the future – no longer a repeat of the past.

(*Up’s director Pete Docter, quoted in Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc.)
(**See Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question.)
(^From Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc.)

‘Live the questions now.’*

‘The heart of wisdom is motivated by the need of others.’**

We may think wisdom is found in answers, but it is more strongly encountered in questions.

When wisdom is not so much about what we know but how we live, then this may be one of the most powerful, catalytic question we can ask:

“What do you want/need?”

It holds the notion that somehow I can serve you – expressing the wisdom of humility.

It hopes that I have something to give to you – expressing the wisdom of awareness or gratitude for what I have.

It believes I will somehow find ways to deliver what I have – expressing the wisdom of faithfulness in discipline and creativity.

We can live for a lifetime in questions like this.

(*Rainer Maria Rilke, quoted in the Northumbria Community’s Morning Prayer, 11/4/16.)
(**From Erwin McManus’s Uprising.)