Diaries are written backwards, telling what happened.  Narrative arcs are written forward, connecting past, present, and future together.  They’re shorter on details than diaries, but they remind us of the direction and intention we want to live with when we wake up in the morning.

To identify the narrative arc requires great honesty – the kind of things I’ve mentioned lots of time: who we are and what we can do and what we have.  More than what we think about something but what we feel in the deepest places of our lives, and what we’ll do to bring into being.

Everyone’s narrative arc or story is different.  They inspire me – which is another thing about how narrative arcs make such a difference: when you do what you must do, I want to do what I must do, and, who knows, there may be things we must do together.

We can stay in the same place and travel great distances.

Two people can live in the same city,* even the same neighbourhood or street, and make it look like they’re living in totally different places.

One loves the diversity they find themselves a part of and, soaking it up, it is always a new place to them, the other wishes others were more like them, resist the differences, and wish, “If only it was more like this … .

The infinite traveller understands that travel is not about the destination but the journey: ‘not to overcome distance but to discover distance.’

The finite traveller can cover great distances but it’s as though they’ve never left home – food, clothing, reading, thinking and more all remain the same, three continents from home.  For all the machinery and technology they have used, in one sense, they have gone nowhere.

Yet we can discover distance by staying where we are and opening our minds and our hearts to others as discoverers of more.**  You are more talented than you think, there are things which deeply move you, you have great resources, there are astonishing people around you; these things have always been so, you just didn’t realise it, thinking you had to travel distances – more training, more influence, more opportunity.  Who you are – your genius – open up a new world of possibilities for me right here.

Infinite travellers understand, those who ‘dramatically open themselves to a renewed future’ are ‘those who look everywhere for difference, who see the earth as source, who celebrate the genius in others, who are not prepared against but for surprise.’

(*Or town, or village.)
(** Stephen Sutton expressed this so well; he’s been posthumously awarded an MBE today.

Every so often I make mention of how we need to connect to one another, to our future Self, and to our world.

This morning I read these words from James Carse, affording me the opportunity of exploring this strange relationship between Humans and the world more closely:

That nature has no outside, and no inside, that it suffers
no opposition to itself, that it is not moved by unnatural
influence, is not the expression of an order so much as it
is the display of a perfect indifference to all matters cultural.

I’m trying to get my head around all of this so please bear with me, but I take this to mean there’s no such thing as un-nature: nature simply is.  Nature is not opposed to itself but in all of its activities remains fully and always nature.

Our language about nature is our way of making cultural sense of it all.  So Carse continues:

Chaos and order describe the cultural experience of nature
– the degree to which nature’s indifferent spontaneity seems
to agree or disagree with our current manner of cultural self-control.

Nassim Taleb teaches and writes on randomness, and the impossibility of prediction – as if we have any control over what we call order and chaos (we recall prediction is interpretation in reverse – another way of seeking control); Taleb identifies ways of working with randomness, Carse also believing this to be the best way:

The more clearly we remind ourselves that we can have no
unnatural influence on nature, the more our culture will
embody a freedom to embrace surprise and unpredictability.

Humans, then, are an expression of nature.  This also must mean whatever we do is an expression of nature too, though we are capable of executing choices which are detrimental to our species.  In the end, Earth is indifferent to whatever damage we do; if we make the planet inhospitable to ourselves (and many other species), Earth will recover, whether it takes millions or billions of years to do so.  Yet we might also say, nature has produced something which can oppose itself, which is not indifferent to its opportunity to live.

When we understand ourselves not to be outside of nature but part of nature we learn how to live more freely and spontaneously.*  Which brings us to technology.

Our technology is part of what it is to be Human – from the first tools of some 70,000 years ago up to today – being Human (as part of nature) has improved both qualitatively and quantitatively because of our inventions.  It offers tools for increasing Human fulfilment and satisfaction expressed through diversity and quirkiness over and over again, but is never an end in itself, having the ability to both free us and enslave us.**   We need the technology but are also harnessed to it – machines need Humans to serve them in order to function.  We can begin to take on their characteristics.^  It is true for too many that their creativity is diminished by machines.

Perhaps, perhaps, the more we learn from nature, the more we’ll be able to create and use our technology to become more Human.

(*One source suggests there’s much to learn from nature, including interdependence, multiplication, energy transformation, multi-usage, symbiosis, and function.)
(** Before we think we’ve found what it is to be Human, be aware “Variability can now become part of an automated design and production chain.”)
(^A computer used to be someone who crashed data, then a machine came along which did this for us so we gave it what had been a Human label or function, but now we say we have become Human computers – meaning machine-like.)

Last night I found myself in a finite game.  I lost.

I tried to play an infinite game but finite games are powerful things if you know how to play them.*

Here’s how it was a finite game: I was representing a colleague at the meeting – the meeting consisting of a small number of people holding key roles in the organisation; we had a time sensitive agenda which required decisions to be made on the night; this was a repeated game (occurring a few times every year) in which it appeared to me that those who spoke most resistantly and loudly prevailed; all the possibilities which didn’t make it onto the final list were lost.**

Earlier in the day I’d been describing the infinite game and the finite game to someone over a hot drink.  He asked some great questions which made me work to describe the infinite game, especially how its aim is not to have human opponents, ultimately taking on those things which threaten all Humans and our world: environmental catastrophes, disease, illiteracy, injustice, et cetera.  Of course, there will always be those who see the infinite player as their opponent, but the infinite player see these as people to bring into the game, somehow.

Ultimately, the finite player wants to control people – anything from including them in their field of influence to excluding any contact or influence with others.

The infinite player wants to learn and grow through the other, and hopes, through seeing the future together, for possible collaboration.

This is not to try to explain why things worked out as they did last  night, but to include it as part of the ongoing narrative – the infinite game is not lost.  I think the reason I’m still part of this organisation is because I believe the infinite game will prevail – that is, everyone will win.

One interesting juxtapose to all of this: funite players are fearful of the future, they seek a repeat of the success of the past.  They use prediction to control their opponent  – a prediction being an explanation in reverse.  They appear very reasonable because who wants something to go terribly wrong?  What we do not see, however, is ‘The uncritical substitution of plausibility for probability [which has] pernicious effects on judgement when scenarios are used as tools of forecasting.’

Obversely, the infinite player is a prophet of hope, knowing we are far more likely to succeed when we decide upon something together: we may not know exactly what will be but we have seen a need and we bring our significant skills and energy to bear upon it.

The infinite game goes on.  We win.

(*Infinite Game = include as many as possible and keep the game going – when necessary change the rules.  Finite Game = a select number of people with winners and losers – always play by the rules.
(**We almost got to these people going back to their areas of the organisation and encouraging people who wanted to begin something they were passionate about – the larger organisation would then help them to make this happen.)

Cliché is one of the many words we’ve inherited from the world of printing.

It denotes a ready-made phrase .  Instead of setting up the type every time a phrase would be used, the printer would cast said phrase as one piece.  It would then be slipped into the typeset whenever needed – which probably would be a lot.  (Apparently the word itself derives from the sound the type would make when dropped into molten metal to form a printing plate.)

No one really wants to live their life that’s a preformed phrase, or a script or text to be slavishly followed.  We prefer to live originally, in ways full of possibilities.  They don’t have to be big possibilities, only tell me that tomorrow is open and unscripted, not bounded or pre-formed.

We are far from perfect, far from being complete … and that’s the great thing, the thing which gives us hope.  If it were perfect and complete, then it wouldn’t be living, we’d be performing some script or other.

Of course, you may like cliché, maybe there’s a phrase to describe you that it’s become a cliché.

Or maybe you’d love to dump the phrase, not to be typecast.  Perhaps the opposite of your cliché is the art only your life can produce.

All of the above is to say, I am your audience.

I often find myself saying something and having to explain, There’s a question-mark after that, by the way.

Conversations with purpose are transformative; I am intrigued to know what you’ll say if I say this or that.  I’m testing out thoughts I’ve read or have come to me.  How long can we keep the conversation going?  What will you say and what will happen in me as a result?  Will you play the game of infinite conversation?

The finite player wants to say something which will end the conversation, win the argument, they are already certain of what they will say.  The infinite player wants to say something to continue the conversation – who knows what will be uncovered as people listen to them and they listen in return? – and though they know sometimes the conversation must end, it is always in the knowledge of the infinite conversation within which it takes place.

I play this game poorly but I want to play it better.

Finite language exists complete before it is spoken.  There
is first a language – then we learn to speak it.  Infinite language
exists only as it is spoken – when we learn to speak it.’

They are different.

Explanations aim to tell us why something has happened in the way it has; usually end of argument.  Explanations are very helpful in the right places, but not in the wrong places.  The temperature of boiling water at sea level is 100C, but at 9,068 metres is 71.3C and there’s an explanation for this.

Narratives don’t try to tell us why something has happened in the way it has, but only that it has.  They can be very open-ended, leaving us with unanswered questions which need to be explored.  I know that as we meet at an elevation of 229 metres hot water will boil at 99.2C, but why have you asked me to share a hot cup of tea with you at that height?

Wisdom is not only an accumulation of explanations but of narratives too.  It’s what I’ve called complexipacity: the capacity to thrive both with what we can see and is explained, and also what we do not see and is random.  We believe we think or feel or behave in the ways we do for reasons we understand, but often we don’t.*

We’re all prone to this.  It’s a wonder we survive.  Nassim Taleb has written about how hard we find it to keep our lives open to more input and insight – to be what he calls sceptical empiricists – as we want to move towards a conclusion; Daniel Kahneman warns us that our inquiring thinking process is lazy, not only finding an easier answer but even substituting the question.

Perhaps we can say, explanations promise objectivity; narratives admit subjectivity.  You’ll probably guess what I’m trying to write is more narrative than explanation.  Where does this take us?

Narratives are open to experimentation and innovation and failure and learning and development in which I am changed as well as being a means of bringing change.  Through practices and rhythms held within these narratives we find ourselves changing: our brains rewire, we integrate the energies of body, mind, emotions, and spirit.  I am more open to others and to my world and to my future Self.  I am becoming slowly but surely – I call it a slow journey in the same direction – more aware of who I am and why I do the things I do.  I have no illusions of being able to do what others are able to, only to do as much as I can with who I am.

(*You may read something in my words today and respond  in a particular way, but it may not be what I’ve said but a memory I’ve triggered of what someone else has said or done.)

When you begin something which is different to expectation, when you stand up for something you believe in, when you take a divergent path, then criticism will follow.

There are two kinds of criticism.

There is criticism which is helpful to you; it will always give plenty of great detail for why you need to keep working on something or adapt it or maybe focus on something else.

There is also criticism which bludgeons you and your ideas.  The most vociferous comes from those who are against many things but struggle to articulate what they’re for – it’s a way of life.  Because they’re against rather than for something, they struggle to be creative themselves.  You won’t be found amongst their peers; they prefer to hang out with people who don’t question their thinking or behaviour but offer mutual reinforcement.

Delivering your art to a world in need of the good and right things you want to bring will require you ignore the second kind of people.  If you have the first kind of people around, you’re blessed.

We also need to recognise criticism is a scale thing rather than a black and white thing – we’re all on it somewhere.  An infinite artist is mindful of this, how we are Human Becomings, not-yet-arrived people, inviting as many into play as possible and keeping the play going for as long as possible.

I like this phrase a lot.  It was offered in a group I’m a part of as we closed a conversation about how we can create spaces for people to flourish.

Here are some interesting quotes which caught my attention as I was thinking about people having opportunities in their localities to thrive.

I’ve mentioned Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) Centre before, established in Thimphu in January 2013, it is an attempt to move beyond Gross National Product (GNP) as the only means of measuring a country’s progress and development.  The metrics are coming together, as Bhutan’s Prime Minister Lyonchen Jigme Y. Thinley explains:

We have now clearly distinguished the “happiness” in GNH
from the fleeting, pleasurable “feel good” moods so often
associated with that term.  We know that true abiding
happiness cannot exist while others suffer, and comes only
from serving others, living in harmony with nature, and
raising our innate wisdom and the true and brilliant nature
of our own mind.

It’s been pointed out that whilst our technology advances our dependence upon it means our development of the person lags behind:

“I’ve dealt with many different problems around the world,
and I’ve concluded that there’s only really one problem: over
the past hundred years, the power that technology has given
us has grown beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, but our
wisdom has not.  If the gap between our power and our wisdom
is not redressed soon, I don’t have much hope for our prospects”
(United Nations senior officer at the International Institute for Applied Systems analysis).

The flip side to this is the notion we can have that we can only develop with technology, yet this can’t be true:

Our basic way to expand our efficiency is through modern
science and technology.  But another is through integrated
(emotional,mental, physical, and spiritual) growth and enhanced
wisdom.  This means growing our sense of connection with nature
and one another and learning to live in ways that naturally cultivate
our capacity to be human.

In the face of empire-building economies and markets, the idea of developing neighbourhoods of gross local happiness offers opportunities for us to reconnect us to our world – groaning beneath the pressures of what we’re able to do with present-day technology* – and to one another as we seek to find new ways of connecting beyond the nuclear family.

We can all be generators of GLH.

(*The old adage rings true here: Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.)

Different to games in time.

The finite player aims to complete things in time.  The infinite player is more aware of what is yet to be done, how incomplete things are.

Each of us has a finite player and an infinite player within us.  We get to choose how we will live with time.

Next month I will be fifty-five years old.  The finite player in me bemoans how the best years have gone, how my energy is waning (tell my legs it ain’t so), and, whilst I have my dreams, there’s not enough time in which to pursue these.  I have elected to believe that it is time which gives me freedom to live a fully Human life of creativity, generosity, and enjoyment.

The infinite player in me knows that age is not the issue, rather my “purpose, passion, and pleasure” are the most important life-dynamics, and most hindrances can be overcome with courage, generosity, and wisdom.  My dreams increase.  I have elected to believe that it is freedom which affords me time.

This freedom is found in the energy we find at the centre of our lives, in knowing who we are and what we have and how we hardly know yet what we can do with these; there is also freedom to be found in knowing we are far from perfect, we are not complete, and we have farther to go.  I’m cool with this, I hope you are too.  I’ve never been happier and perhaps this is ‘the paradoxical engagement with temporality that Master Eckhart called “eternal birth”‘*

You may enjoy this story I came upon this morning:
An Elder had finished preparing his work of baskets with handles for market when he heard his neighbour saying, “What shall I do?  The market is about to begin and I have nothing with which to makes handles for my baskets.”  The Elder removed the handles from his own baskets and gave them to his neighbour, saying, “Here, I don’t need these, take them and put them on your own baskets.”

Content with incompleteness, I think he chose to be an infinite player playing games with time.

(*If you’re younger than me and get this, you’re laughing.)