‘”The history of suburbia,” writes Rebecca Solnit, “is the history of fragmentation.”  It is the history of exclusion. […] It is a story about breaking away from the collective in all its variety to dwell among similar people.’* (Lauren Elkin)

Manchester is the third largest city in England and the U.K.  Whichever way you turn in the city, new buildings are going up, commercial and personal living spaces juxtaposed with the established to create a new cityscape.

Walking through this was an exhilarating experience for me, crushed in by all kinds of people, from so many backgrounds, in the city for makers’ and Christmas markets.  There are two stories from this experience that provide an intriguing contrast.  A new bar and restaurant on the edge of the city centre was absolutely empty.  It was looking for people to make it their space.  On the opposite edge of the city lie old warehouses, graffitied and tired but emerging from one comes vibrant music.

Walking off the dank, dark late afternoon in Manchester, one is embraced by the eating space called Grub.  Formed out of plywood and street food sellers marquees, the interior is rumoured to have cost £2,000 to transform.  People have made this a prime eating place sitting or standing around in large groups meeting up there.

One is a beautiful space looking for a community, the other a story of community people want to be a part of.

We need a story before we need money to begin something that matters for people.  Check out Seth Godin’s Tribes for more details.

And, if you’re in Manchester looking for somewhere to eat, I’d recommend Grub, very close to Piccadily railway station.  I particularly recommend the Cuban sandwiches and halloumi fries with pomengranate jewels – though the street sellers may be different.

(*From Lauren Elkin’s Flâneuse.)

‘Anyone can work more.  Not everyone can care more.’* (Hugh Macleod)

‘In a gift society, the increase follows the gift and is itself given away, while in a market society, the increase returns to its owner.’**  (Lewis Hyde)

Black Friday is just more of the same.  And it’s not the benefit of the customer.

You probably have better ideas.  If you make a habit of leaving the usual and familiar behind and find others – happening in all kinds of ways (Good For Nothing,, U.Lab, Maker’s Labs … .)

‘The flânuese does exist, whenever we have deviated from the paths laid out for us, lighting out for our own territories.’^

(*From gapingvoid’s blog The Magic Isn’t in the Hours.)

(**From Lewis Hyde’s The Gift)

(^From Laura Elkin’s Flâneuse.)

‘Technics and wisdom are not by any means opposed.  On the contrary, the duty of our age, the “vocation” of modern man is to unite them in supreme humility which will result in a totally self-forgetful creativity and service.’*
(Thomas Merton)

This probably isn’t it.  Whether it’s having made it to the top or the realisation that we will never get to the top or the fruitarian diet we’ve discovered or the latest technology, there’s always more.  And the very thing we think is it can be the very thing that gets in the way.

Thomas Merton’s words, above, were written to Rachel Carson on the publication of her 1962 book Silent Spring, an early environmental warning. I happened to read this alongside Ken Mogi’s description of the Japan’s Ise Shrine which is carefully dismantled and rebuilt every twenty years, passing on traditional building techniques for over 1,200 years.  Mogi offers this as an example of sustainability and concludes:

‘The excellent track record of the Ise Shrine should be studied as a model for the realisation of sustainability.  Clearly, harmony is the key to sustainability.  The reservation and humbleness of the Ise Shrine staff, […] make the Ise Shrine the apotheosis of harmony and sustainability, the third pillar of ikigai.’**

Mogi’s mention of humbleness echoes Merton’s reference to humility, and the uniting of technology and wisdom mentioned by Merton feels as though it anticipates Mogi’s reflection on a different level of sustainability.  From these, Merton asserts, there emerge many possibilities for creativity and service – the more that lies beyond a premature This is it.

Both contributions imagine sustainability stretching over many lifetimes and generations, not just our own.  When we find an it that joins with this then maybe we have found the real it.

(*Thomas Merton, quoted in Maria Popova’s BrainPickings: Technology, Wisdom and the Difficult Art of Civilisational Awareness.)
(**From Ken Mogi’s The Little Book of Ikigai.)

“I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.”
(Thomas Merton)

“To me the converging objects of the universe flow.  All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.”**
(Walt Whitman)

Getness is a life posture or attitude.

To learn from those who have gone before opens new learning to us, not because we have to learn for the sake of learning – though it seems we must as a species – but because we know so much and still get things horribly wrong.

Thomas Merton wrote to Rachel Carson on the publication of her book Silent Spring which identified the poisoning of the planet through chemicals:

“you are, perhaps without altogether realising, contributing a most valuable and essential piece of evidence for the diagnosis of the ills of our civilisation’.

Carson’s book was written in 1962 and yet we hare witnessing the denial of the evidence, of what we know, in the highest echelons of power fifty five years later.

Erich Fromm writes about the difference between Western and Eastern thinking:

‘In Taoist thinking, just as in Indian and Socratic thinking, the highest step to which thought can lead us is to know that we do not know.’^^

Fromm goes on to draw on the thinking of philologist Max Müller who wrote:

“not to know know [and yet think] we do know is a disease’.*^

To be open to learn more and still understand that we do not know is what getness is about and we need more if it.

(*Thomas Merton, quoted in the Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer.)
(**Walt Whitman, quoted in Lewis Hyde’s The Gift.)
(^Thomas Merton, quoted in Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings: Technology, Wisdom and the Difficulty of Civilisational Awareness.)
(^^From Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving.)
(*^Max Müller, quoted in Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving.)

They already are.

‘The robots will make everything we need, except the thing we need most of: humanity.’* (Hugh Macleod)

As we try to make machines more human, Sherry Turkle notices through her research that:

‘long before we have devices that can pass any version of the Turing test, the test will become beside the point.  We will not care whether our machines are clever but whether they love’.**

The notion that a robot can learn emotion Turkle suggests is becoming conventional wisdom and offers this warning:

‘We have entered a realm in which conventional wisdom, always inadequate, is dangerously inadequate.  That it has become commonplace reveals our willingness to the the performance of emotions as emotion enough.’**

She objects to robotocist Rodney Brooks’ comparing of a robot’s computer code to the neurochemicals that produce human emotions because the “programming” happens in different ways for robot and human:

‘I tend to object to the relevance of a robot’s “numbers’ for thinking about emotion because of something that humans have that robots don’t: a human body and a human life.’ **

You are not a brain inside a body but a whole self.  You are not an individual in a crowd but a community.

We always must connect, engage.

We’re “programmed” through our interactions of our bodies within a multiplicity of environments, and these we interact with over many, many years.

Karen Armstrong writes about one of these environments and one of the extremely complex ability to forgive:

‘nearly every day there is something to forgive in the family’.^

From early years, we’re learning forgiveness, or not.  We know forgiveness is not simply a restoring of a relationship to a former state, or even a better one, as Anderson suggests:

‘Instead of seeing this as an irritant, we should see these tensions as opportunities for growth and transformation.’

Forgiveness often involves great imagination and I suspect beyond an algorithm.   One of the most human activities we can involve ourselves in, human imagination can send forgiveness bursting out in many directions:

‘Dazzling and tremendous, how quickly the sunrise would kill me, if I could not now and always send sunrise out of me.’^^

All the time we are trying to make machines more human, are we perhaps asking, How can we be human?

(*From gapingvoid’s Will you be outsourced or automated?)
(**From Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together.)
(^From Karen Anderson’s Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life.)
(^^Walt Whitman, quoted in Lewis Hyde’s The Gift.)

‘We use our imaginations not to escape the world but to join it, and this exhilarates us because of the difference between our ordinary dulled consciousness and an apprehension of the real.’* (Iris Murdoch)

‘A halfman is not someone who does not have an opinion, just someone who does not take risks for it.’** (Nassim Taleb)

We do not have to work from scratch, or come up with the idea no-one else has thought.  We only have to bring our imaginations to the “artefacts” of others for the fun to begin.

To know our mind is one thing.  To know our heart is quite another.

To know the mind of another is one thing.  To know their heart quite another.

We have found a journey without end.

(*From Iris Murdoch’s The Sovereignty of Good.)
(**From Nassim Taleb’s Antifragile.)

‘All that is required to become free from the ego is to be aware of it, since awareness and ego are incompatible.’* (Eckhart Tolle)

‘Triumph in mountaineering, as in sports, is measured in firsts, fastests, and mosts’. ** (Rebecca Solnit)

Nethermost as in the farthest away.

I realise I am never far from pride, greed, and foolishness.  It comes in the most subtle of ways.  Just this morning, I read Yuval Noah Harari describing the British Empire as ‘the largest the world has ever known’ and momentarily feel pride.^  Then I remember just what this meant and the pride evaporates.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly may be the title of a spaghetti western but it’s also a description of me most of the time.  Again, I must choose the nethermost practices of humility, gratitude, and faithfulness if I am to be free.

(*From Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth.)
(**From Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust.)
(^From Yuval Noah Hariri’s Sapiens.)

Prehension signals alertness, engagement, and risk-taking all in the act of looking ahead; it is in spirit the very opposite of the prudent accountant who does not exert a mental muscle until he or she has all the numbers.’* (Richard Sennett)

‘The sun goes up; the sun goes down.  I can handle that.’** (Austin Kleon)

This morning, I looked upon the most beautiful of skies, the luminescent salmon clouds reaching quietly across the cool blue sky, and I understood the day to be a gift.

Prehension is seen in the cupping of the hand in anticipation of taking up the glass before contact is made.  All together, it involves anticipation, the following contact, the cognition of what has been taken hold of, reflection upon this, and values, in that we take this experience into ourselves.

Prehension is the way we hold a day before it has unfolded.  It is the touch we have both developed and allowed ourselves to be shaped by.

(*From Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman.)
(**From Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work.)

“I will not live and unloved life, I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.” (Dawna Markova)

‘Never opt out of the opportunities that move you in the direction of your dreams, your purpose, your passions.’** (Erwin McManus)

There are basically two ways of getting away from it all.

Number one is through escapism – we simply want an easier place to live.

Number two is towards what we are wanting our lives to be about but we know we need to sometimes slow down to catch our breath, to see more clearly.

When it comes to what we must do with our lives, there’ll always be difficulty and pain, but well-used silence and slowness helps us to see it for what it is – more a teacher than a foe.

The first way of getting away from it all may simply be a symptom of not choosing the second.

(*Dawna Markova, quoted in the Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer.)
(**From Erwin McManus’ The Last Arrow.)

‘Far more often, competence involves the humanity required to connect with other people, in real time.’* (Seth Godin)

‘As dream, robots reveal our wish for relationships we can control.’** (Sherry Turkle)

We cannot control people the way we control machines, but there can be a wonderful serendipity arising from the opening of minds, hearts, and actions.

Our interactions are more and more wrapped in technology: we text, message, and email one another long before we pick up a phone, never mind meeting up.  Sherry Turkle warns of what she sees the real issue to be in our expectations for technology:

‘we transgress bot because we try to build the new but because we don’t allow ourselves to consider what it disrupts or diminishes.  We are not in trouble because of invention but because we think it will solve everything’.**

What technology does allow is to see what we can do when we connect; it then offers itself to us as a means of making things happen.

Erwin McManus tells of when he received an invitation to attend the 2014 Football World Cup Final in Rio de Janeiro.  The bad news was there were only a few days to get there and a visa would take weeks, not to mention there was nowhere to stay in the city.  The good news was that he was chosen by the people with the tickets because they believed him to be someone who would rearrange his life with a moment’s notice.  Technology would make it possible to get everything in place for the trip to be made, even making it possible to find somewhere to stay on arriving.  Erwin would see Germany beat Argentina but also spends a leisurely breakfast with the family that  first put him up, and he wanders through the city taking in the sights and the feelings.  These are the things technology cannot replace or reproduce.

‘How can you pull people together from across different systems in order to do something inspiring, fun and meaningful?’^

‘Creating a space collaboratively is the best recipe for creating a collaborative space.’^^

At the moment, I’m reading through someone’s book manuscript with an eye on where I might provide an illustration or two and some thoughts on collaboration got mer thinking about what it makes possible:  we each have a contribution to make; we recognise how we are  different to each other and so understand the complementary nature of each person’s contribution; what we do will have more impact; and, what we do will develop and grow more.

I mention this alongside Erwin’s story because of what he goes on to say following relating his story:

‘I could not help but think of how many times in life are are invited into an extraordinary adventure and into opportunities that only exist in our imaginations and we let them slip away.’*^

Erwin loves football and so the World Cup final wasn’t something to turn down.  I found myself thinking about what I love to be about and what I do when opportunities and adventures are provided, even when I don’t know how I can make that happen.  Just as Erwin’s story was made possible by many people, so ours will be.  Lewis Hyde encourages us to think in this way:

‘constant and long-term exchanges between many people may have no “economic” benefit, but through them society emerges were there was none before’.^*

I believe we’re only beginning to understand how we can use our new technologies of connection but one of the things it has helped us to see is the wonder of a human life and what can happen when people get together to make something happen.  It has always been the case, as Karen Armstrong helps us see in identifying Joseph Campbell’s hero as a means for understanding and unleashing our own heroic potential.  I leave the final words to Armstrong:

‘Joseph Campbell has shown that every single culture developed its own myth of the hero, an exceptional human being who transformed the lives of his people at immense cost to himself.  The story always takes the same basic form, so must express a universal insight.  In all these tales, the hero begins by looking around his society and finding that something is missing. […] He can find no ready-made solution, so he decides to leave home, turn his back on everything safe and familiar and find a different answer.  His quest is heroic because it demands self-sacrifice: the hero will experience pain, rejection, isolation, danger and even death.  But he is willing to undertake the journey out of love for his people – a devotion that does not consist of wordy declarations but of practically expressed altruism.’⁺

(*From Seth Godin’s blog The confusion about compliance.)
(**From Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together.)
(^From U.Lab.)
(^^From Scott Doorley and Scott Witthoft’s Make Space.)
(*^From Erwin McManus’ The Last Arrow.)
(^*From Lewis Hyde’s The Gift.)
(⁺From Karen Armstrong’s Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life.)