‘[P]art of me believes when the story of earth is told, all that will be remembered is the truth we exchanged. The vulnerable moments.  The terrifying risk of love and the care we took to cultivate it.’*

Relationships are a tightrope experience.

I’m out here, trying not to fall to the right for inauthentic, nor the left as unprepared to change.

Then there’s the risk I take that at any moment you could shake the wire.

The truth is, I’m sometimes tempted to impress.  At other times, I know my soul is small and I refuse change.

Funny, I don’t want to be any of this.  I’m a work in progress.  I guess we all are.  I guess we are as a species.

‘I’m the kind of person who wants to present my most honest, authentic self to the world – so I hide backstage and rehearse honest and authentic lines until the curtain opens.*

What if our advancing technologies explain what we long for most: the hard work in labs, teamwork around a problem, laughter around lunchtime, having a drink in the pub before heading home – all the “stuff” around the technology is the stuff that counts?

We’ve come to a time Sherry Turkle’s names the robotic moment:

‘At the robotic moment, the performance of connection seems connection enough.’**

Check out the videos of Paro and Spot.  Our interactions with robots tell us everything about what it is to be Human and not what it feels like to be a robot.  (Remember the outrage from some at Spot being kicked?)

The same technology makes it possible to avoid one another – I can get more done if I message and text than if I phone someone – AND also to connect – a Facebook message in the morning confirms I can meet up with someone for a chat at the end of the day (I can fine-tune this with him through the day if necessary).

What if who we are most visible in our relationships?  I am more Geoffrey when I am with you than when I am on my own?   This is where things get messy.  You’ll definitely see my mess if I really turn up, if I manage to stay on the tightrope.

But it’s on the tightrope where I find hope.

(*From Donald Miller’s Scary Close.  When the history of our time is written, it won’t be about the fiscal dexterity of the British Government which catches the attention, but our recognition of and compassion towards those caught up in potentially the greatest Human migration for half a century.)
(**From Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together.)

‘Art is a vast democracy of habit.’*

There many kinds of doors.   Passing never becomes easier.  If it was easy, it wouldn’t really be a door to something new, something more.

More difficult, though, is to live with the regret of never moving through the doors which present themselves; there’ll also come a day when there’ll be more doors provided.

‘But retreating from doors drains the human spirit far more than charging through them does.’**

All can learn and grow skills which keep them moving through doors.  These skills are many, connected in different patterns,making them unique to individuals.  If you know yours, you know how to move forward.

As Twyla Tharp offers in the opening line, working on habits is something available to all, opening up the possibility for great art.

And all around, there are dreamwhisperers who live to help others know their skills and move:

‘they awaken hope.  They connect meaning to action.  They craft narratives that release human energy.  They make new maps that guide us into places where there are no paths.’^

(*From Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit.)
(**From John Ortberg’s All the Places to Go.)
(^From Alex McManus’s Makers of Fire.)

You will know your door.

You’ll think it the most incredible, demanding, engaging purpose in the universe, and you’re staggered when you think you really get to do this.

It’s more than likely others won’t see it this way at all, but no matter.  What is important is you finding your door … and others finding theirs.

My door?

I was reminded again, today, I have the best job this side of Pluto.

I am a dreamwhisperer.

I get to awaken others to their dreams.

(Goosebump time.)

The slight seventy-two year old figure sits stroking Paro, her robot baby harp seal.  Able to turn towards a human voice, respond to touch and speak, the sociable robot brings comfort to its owner who appears to respond to the needs of Paro:

‘In attempting to provide the comfort she believes it needs, she comforts herself.’*

Clinical psychologist Sherry Turkle is wrestling with claims that Humans will move into a sex and love relationships with robots.  Turkle tells this story of Paro and also of a conversation she had with a woman in her mid-twenties who confesses she’d trade in her demanding boyfriend for a robot displaying a caring attitude towards her.

Is there a greater experience and sense of fulfilment for Humans beyond love: to special others, to a larger tribe or community, and to some purpose we love which is greater than ourselves.

It seems as though love is most amazing thing the universe has birthed.

‘Love is the emergent capacity of empathetically including others within our own self-identity.  It is the context for all faith and love.’**

(*From Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together.)
(**From Alex McManus’s Makers of Fire.)

We have the opportunity to write an infinite story, but time and time again write a finite one.

(Like the infinite game, an infinite story aims to include as many as possible for as long as possible, and when the rules get in the way, they’re changed.  On the other hand, the finite game is exclusive: some win, and the winners make the rules – most don’t even get to play.)

Yuval Noah Harari contends that Humans stepped outside their biological instincts to create larger cooperative networks: ‘humans created imagined orders and devised scripts.  These two inventions filled the gaps left by our biological inheritance.’*

These devices, though, have created inequality and distinction not based on reality: men and women, blacks and whites, residents and aliens, rich and poor, and all the others.  They’re all bubbles we create to live in.

The same devices can write a different story.

My friend Alex** claims we are Human Becomings.  Those who see the fictions, see through them, aiming to script a better story, are such Becomings.  The attempts might be clumsy, but when we keep in mind all can thrive, we’re heading in the right direction: hope for outsiders and insiders of the stories in the bubbles.

(*From Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens.)
(**See Alex McManus’s Makers of Fire.)

When it’s a wall.

‘The great question in life is whether the universe has a door in the wall.’*

Syrian refugees camp out in a Hungarian railway station hoping a door will open into Germany; the world is impacted by the personal reality of the refugee crisis in the story of three year old Syrian boy whose body is found on a Turkish beach – his family – all thought to have perished – had hoped for a door into security in Europe.

‘The great question in life is whether the universe has a door in the wall.’*

It seems, we have some say in how the question is answered.**

We look for the doors in life so we might pass through to something different, something more.  But our lives can be doors for others, too.

‘We are partners in the unfolding of the universe.’^

Frederick Buechner wrote of how we find our place or purpose “where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Each of us is a different kind of door for others.

‘I suggest the word “inhumane” is a sign that we are discovering a meaning to life.  Our purpose is to reject  inhumanity and build a civilisation that is consumed by love.  In other words, our purpose is to become human.’^^

Today, I decide again to be door and not a wall.

(*From John Ortberg’s All the Places to Go.)
(**As I write, the city council of my home city of Edinburgh is waiting to offer sanctuary to the most vulnerable of Syrian refugees, but they are waiting for the British Government to be a door rather than a wall.)
(^From Joseph Jaworski’s Source.)
(^^From Alex McManus’s Makers of Fire.)

This is becoming real on many levels.

It can be true in terms of the long tail, someone’s art,* business, and a person’s life.

Iincreasing understanding doesn’t lead to being a know-it-all, but to becoming a connector, maven, or marketer.**  Humility means it’s the development of skill which is focused on, not the packaging.

‘Creativity is a skill and a habit.  You need to learn and practice the skill, which then becomes a habit.^

I love this because it holds out the hope of increasing understanding for anyone.

When we follow our curiosities, develop practices, take these deeper, then we create habits of skill.  It means there are as many creativities as there are people.  Being informed by something beyond ourselves – a value, a need, a philosophy, a god – can turns this into something even more groundbreaking and impactful.

None of this implies great size.

This is an infinite game, welcoming as many as possible to play and keeping the game going for as long as possible.*^

‘Today, you can have a narrow movement, a tiny movement, a movement in a silo.’^^

(*For long tails think, Etsy, Pinterest, NoiseTrade and more.)
(**In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell names three kinds of people who make a difference: connectors know lots of people and get a buzz from connecting them; mavens know lots of things and love to share helpful things in the right places; and salespeople love to see someone won over and joining them in what they love – I offer marketer as an alternative term, though am still looking for a better one.)
(^From Edward de Bono’s How to Have a Beautiful Mind.)
(^^From Seth Godin’s Tribes.)
(*^For more on infinite games, check out James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.)

Humans appear to be set up for sensing the future: ‘the heart may perceive future events before the brain does’ … ‘at the very least it implies the brain does not act alone in the perception of future events’.*

Many species of animal display senses which makes it possible for them to anticipate approaching danger – weak signals from a future which is not quite upon them.  When we think in these terms, it isn’t surprising that we have sensing skills too.  Jospeh Jaworski proffers:

‘Human beings are exquisitely designed to sense the future, shape it, and bring it to reality – to actualise it when necessary and meaningful, as it desires.’*

What fascinates me is the possibility of shaping a future.  There’s no such thing as the future – I guess Jaworski isn’t suggesting there is.  More likely, we’re expressing an awakening of our perceptual skills towards expected, possible, and preferred futures. It is the possibility of preferred futures which catches my attention.

We can all develop “good eyes,” making it possible for us to see more of what’s happening, and to develop the skills to see and shape a better future with foresight, intention, and love.

(*From Jospeh Jaworski’s Source.)

‘With each emerging generation, the network that connects so many of us becomes less and less like a tool and more like a central nervous system of the human community.’*

‘These three capabilities – seeing systems, collaborating across boundaries, and creating desired futures – must continually develop institutions as well as individuals, for … institutions, and the networks they create, shape how our present world operates and hold the greatest promise for systemic change.’**

Joseph Jaworski outlines fascinating research into how the heart and gut are part of the intuitive mind: ‘There is compelling evidence that the body’s perceptual apparatus is continually scanning the future and that the heart is involved in processing and decoding intuitive information.’^

The heart and gut contain complex neuronal structures which produce hormones and neurotransmitters, so the next time your heart beats rapidly, it may be telling you something more important than your thinking about what you’re experiencing.

As we journey towards the future, we’ll see Humans increasing their learning and practicing of skills which connect mind and heart and will; connect people to people; and, connect us to the flora and fauna of our planet.

It promises to create a brave new future, one imagined and shaped together.

In Scotland, the government is encouraging as many as possible to be involved in an experiment of connectivity, inviting service providers, government bods, social enterprises, charities, and more to be part of ULabs Scotland, a MOOC (massive open online course), and getting together across the country in learning hubs and coaching circles.^^

One corollary to this is how it is each person’s responsibility to build the skills to bring to the party.  You can help me identify my skills and talents, and provide ideas for how to develop these, but you can’t do my deep practice for me:

‘Learn to do for yourself.‘  It’s the only way to broaden your skills.’*^

(*From Alex McManus’s Makers of Fire.)
(**From Peter Senge’s The Necessary Revolution.)
(^From Joseph Jawaorski’s Source.)
(^^ULabs is a free course lasting for eight weeks and open to anyone and it’s not too late to sign up; it begins on the 10th September.)
(*^From Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit.)

“We are sensible that behind the rustling leaves and the stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of grape, there is a field of a wholly new life which no man has lived; that even this world was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women.”*

I snatched the title down from a pile of books in my friend’s office, but I should have made a note of the author, too.

The book I meant to read was More Than Human by futurist Ramez Naam; instead, I ordered the book of the same title by science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon.

But it turned out okay.

Sturgeon serves up an intriguing tale of how the people society considers hopeless are together capable of achieving amazing things.

I got to read Naam’s book, too, in which he considers how Humans are being shaped by pharmaceutical, technological, and genetic means – to the extent there’ll be different forms of Human walking the earth.  After all, we are a teenager species growing into adulthood, and what shall we be?

Maybe all of this helps us to see the untapped depths of a Human life and life together, including the greater story of life:

‘A regenerative society is about life flourishing, not just human life.’**

When compared to what we have been as a species, we already appear more than human, and we can only imagine this continuing.

“So far, the evidence seems compelling.  What seems to be happening is that information is coming from the future.”^

(*Henry David Thoreau, quoted in Peter Senge’s The Necessary Revolution.)
(**From Peter Senge’s The Necessary Revolution.)
(Physicist Brian Josephson, quoted in Joseph Jaworski’s Source.)