Last night,  each person in group I’m a member of was selecting a key word to use as a focus for 2014 – the intention being to carry us beyond New Year’s resolutions.

From a table-top of different words, I picked up a number which have resonated with me for a long while or have buzzed with me recently.

I found myself with five and wondered which one to choose as my number one.  I fell upon CURIOUS, as I know without this I cannot make any progress.

Every one is curious about something.

Humans try to understand their world and everything within it to find meaning if not Meaning – the big M kind.  Some say, our brains are designed to look edges and patterns everywhere.  These edges and patterns, once identified, tend to shape the way we think and see for a long while – and lead us to our personal and corporate understandings of meaning and Meaning.

This can lead is to the problem of WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is), and we’re blind to the dar more than we see: “Each thing we see hides something else we want to see,” says Rene Magritte.

Curiosity takes me outside or beyond my present way of seeing and understanding.  It may carry me to another book – especially one I would not have imagined reading, or to listen to how someone else sees and understands the world, or try out a skill in a different field, or try giving philanthropically and watch to see how useful it might be to people.

Curiosity, though, is tiring for Humans.  We can’t be aware of everything all at once – we’d be overwhelmed, so we use what’s been termed selective sensory perception, and is the reason why Magritte can say what he does.  I realise, in choosing the word CURIOUS I’ve decided to do some hard work.

We have help built in.  We’re all interested in something, so everything in life for us is subjective and with this comes energy.  Nothing is objective, and just as well.  We can all begin by pushing the boundaries of what already interests us, leading to crossover experiences with sources, with people, with places.  (The scientist who believes she is involved in some objective piece of work has chosen the subject or field for a reason which is, directly or indirectly, subjective; even if she is arbitrarily provided with an area for research, she’ll need to find ways of attaching to it, to be motivated by the work, to have the energy to complete.)

Curious to know where you might begin.  I am.

Carlos Castaneda counsels us to choose a path with a heart.

If the path we are on does not have a heart, then we must choose another.

Robert Greene tells us we can choose a path for the wrong reasons: money or fame or such.

It might take some time to find a path with a heart.  I was in my mid-forties.

(I was reading something from Erwin McManus on potential: basically, if you’re 45 years old and people are still talking about your potential, excuse yourself from the conversation, enter a closet and weep.  I was forty-five.  Longer story: before I was forty-six, Erwin had helped me find my path with a heart.  Whatever, your age, if you’re still trying to turn potential into potency, get in touch.)

An industrial view of the path is that we choose it as we leave formal education and we remain on it for the rest of our lives – straight and linear.   This view worked reasonably well if you had an eye for the product m0re than people.  It does not work very well now.

Now we search for a path with a heart.  Anything but straight and linear.  It’s got a lot of bends and dips and blind corners.  Admittedly, this can be scary.  It’s our choice, for all the right reasons – no one else to blame.

Your path is found by being true to your self, but I think one point of origin isn’t enough, you need to be true to others, and you need to be true to world you are a part of, too.

Your perspective on the world is unique and never to be repeated.

As my friend Alex has underlined for me, when we pass from this world, our perspective passes from this world with us – forever.

Except, we don’t value our perspective in this way.  We think other people have way more important and valuable perspectives and contributions to make.

Except, a lot of that important thinking and important perceiving of things has got us into a big mess and a load of trouble.

Maybe this is your time, when your different perspective, your unconventional approach – that thing you do – is better than anything else on offer.

We cannot decide who are our parents are, where we are born, and a whole host of things which come with the accident of birth, but we can choose what we do with all of that, now.

Perhaps, more than any other time in Human history, the world is inclining towards you and what you offer.  I certainly am.

That’s because we’re a journeying species.

The design and innovation company Ideo is said to ask the question Why? five times of the thing it’s working on.

Why?  (Sorry!)

Because here is not there.

There’s still further to go.  And when we arrive there, it becomes here, and there is something in us which has to journey again.

Is Why? the most Human of all questions?

Some ask why we have to do things the way we also have.  Others ask we we should change what we’ve always done.  Some initiate journeys, but just about everyone embraces them.  I don’t know of anyone who still uses their Smith Corona typewriter with carbon paper and Tipp-Ex to capture their art, and most people would feel it near impossible to give up their laptop; we love our Dysons and no-one takes carpets outside to beat them anymore.

To know something is one thing, to feel it deeply is to go further still, but to do it is to go even further.  And once we’ve done it, we can see more, feel more, and do more.  We are not there yet.

For today to be an experience of life which is meaningful to you may well depend on the stories you tell yourself at the beginning of the day.

I don’t mean made-up stories.

Before you rush in, reconnect with the truths of who you are, especially your talents and passions.  These are the things which connect you with others, with the world, and help you do the courageous things you must do.

To be grateful for what you have and who you are, allows you to see that the pain and doubt are a part of something whole, out of which you can be generous to others.

Turning up at the beginning of the day and taking a few moments to connect to these things in a way which works for you, not only makes it possible to accomplish more, but you will be an encouragement to others to live their stories.

The other possibility: ignore who you are, what you have, and drift through another day.

You are the storywriter.

This is some of the “technical” stuff behind what I’ve been writing about over the past days.

Please just skip if it isn’t for you – I thought some might like to see a little bit more of what’s lies in the background.

Generally speaking, this is about how ideas from different people overlap, nuance, and develop each other.

Specifically, it’s about the thinking provided by Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer about how we can be more present to the emerging future, through becoming more present to our world, each other, and to our future Self, and it’s about the thoughts of Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright on the different tribes to be found in organisations.

Scharmer and Kaufer introduce Society 1.0 (organises around hierarchy – “bring us order and we’ll do what you tell us”).  This society lacks dynamism and freedom.  It doesn’t mean people don’t complain.  I found myself in a context once upon a time where the people would tell me I was the one who was supposed to come up with the ideas, and then they would let me know what they thought about my ideas.  Logan, King, and Fischer-Wright introduce a tribe whose mantra is “My life sucks” – the caveat being “Yours is okay, but if you had the background, opportunities and people in your life that I have, your life would suck too.”  These “tribe-members” cannot see how there lot can be changed.

Then there’s Society 2.0 (organising around competition – the state takes more of a back seat and let’s the economic forces get on with it, largely); whilst having dynamism and freedom, this society is often blind to, or, unconcerned with, the externalities of its actions (the make more-faster madness).  The corresponding tribe holds the mantra “I’m great!” – the caveat this time being “but you’re not.”  It can be about the survival of the fittest, and in an extreme form, sees success as a scarcity so you you may have to be brutal.

Society 3.0 (organised around interest groups – takes up the problems of the externalities – labour rights, eco-concerns, the rich-poor divide).  The problem is, those too slow or unable to organise themselves, for a host of reasons, miss out.  The tribe which connects with this Society have the mantra “We’re great!” – the caveat being “but they are not.”  Although people are more aware of one another, it’s more likely to be within the special interests of the group, organisation, or culture.

Then Scharmer and Kaufer describe Society 4.0 (organised around the emerging whole – seeing and understanding all the people, all the issues, on the levels of the world, people, and the future-Self everyone must be empowered to explore).  Although, Logan, King, and Fischer-Wright claim there to be further developments to come, their corresponding tribe has the mantra “Life is great.”*  Together, the real competition to life on earth is taken on: disease, illiteracy, poverty, injustice, natural disasters.

The good news is, Humans are on a journey into an emerging future – this is what we’re exploring.

There is another tribe.  It comes before the first one mentioned and it’s mantra is “Life sucks.”  This tribe corresponds, in part, to the Society which Scharmer and Kaufer see forming when beliefs and views become more fixed, then delusion follows, and then destruction – here is where we find the fundamentalisms.

(*By this, I certainly don’t deny pain and suffering, rather, it is about everyone being able to explore a life of Creativity, Enjoyment, and Generosity.)

I saw this framed poster in a gift shop I passed yesterday: “Blessed are the curious for they shall have an adventure.”*

The trouble is, curiosity soon feels like hard work.  It turns into a lot of reading, conversing, investigating, pondering, journeying.

Two options.

Option One:

Humans struggle with complexity.  We download from past experiences to explain our present ones – or the experience of others, and we evolve heuristics, like, A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.  That’s fine – if you want to cage the bird in your hand, but if you’re a bird conservationist, you might prefer the birds being in the bushes.

The temptation is to stay where you are, in  a world more determined for you than by you; okay, it may lack dynamism and adventure, there may not be a lot of creativity to it, but you know how things are and what will and won’t happen.   From time to time you may take the opportunity to blame others for this world when it doesn’t work, or blame the system, the politicians, the employer.**

Option Two:

Identify your curiosity – it may be something which excites you or angers you.  Either way, it’s a beginning.  Find out more this thing.  It’s the age of google, so this part isn’t hard.  Start following clues and leads.  See where you’re taken – the adventure has begun.

Before I finish, two things.  Firstly, I wish I could tell you it’s not going to be hard, but future hopes and possibilities don’t exist yet, they lie beyond the present-moment frustrations and struggles, and they need you to bring them into existence.  Secondly, I know something about you.  I know you have amazing talents and abilities and can tell you what they are.

Curious?

(*I just had to include this from a friend who has become very curious; it feels to fit well here.  She describes it in this way: ‘Like Alice following the white rabbit, I had come to a crossroads, and found myself having a conversation with the Cheshire Cat.  “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” I said.  “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” the cat said back to me.  “I don’t much care where….” I said.  “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.  “….so long as I get somewhere,” I explained.  It all starts with knowing you can’t stay here and knowing you can’t go back there.’  You don’t know where you’ll end up, but it’s better than here.)

(**One of the things which comes from being curious to find out more is we discover things don’t work because of us, not because of others.)

I’m not going to try and tell you what the truth is, just that there’s a lot more of it out there than we know, and a lot of it effects you.

The trouble is, folk are blind to it.

The inside story of what happened in the hours following the nuclear explosion of Chernobyl got me thinking about this.

Mikhail Gorbachev tells of how he first heard of the real magnitude of the problem from … Sweden.  High radiation readings had set off alarms at the Forsmakr Nuclear Plant more than a 1,000 kilometres away.  Until then, all Gorbachev had been told by local sources, had been, there’s been an accident, a fire – no explosion.

Blindness to nuclear truth is found in two relating stories.  Nuclear experts were given all they needed to work on the problem, but set up their base in a hotel by the Chernobyl plant, even though they should have known better.  Later, Gorbachev realised another blindness.  If radiation from the plant seeped into the groundwater beneath the reactor then there were consequences for all Europe.  It dawned on the regime that the Soviet’s SS-18 nuclear missile was equivalent to 100 Chernobyls, and the Soviet Union possessed 2,700 of them.  Eighteen months after Chernobyl, all missiles with a range of 500 to 5,000 kilometres were retired.

There’s a lot of truth out there and being open to it is critical to life.  That the blindness I’ve just iterated was found in amongst people with keen minds.  It’s a warning for all of us.

I suggest three areas of blindness exist: our relationship to the world in which we find ourselves (ecological blindness), our relationship to one-another as Humans (socio-economic blindness), and to ourselves and the  future Self (spiritual-cultural blindness).  A cameo for each of these: our production of more, faster from finite resources; while it can be said the life of the poor is improving, the gap between the richest and the poorest is increasing across the world and within countries; and, we have never had so much to improve life and never been more despondent as a species.  Three more cameos: we can heal the planet; we can improve the lives of others; and, we can live a life of creativity, enjoyment, and generosity.  (I’ve included some books, below, which spell this hope out better than I can.)

Truth matters, and if we can take it, there is a deeper connectedness to our world, one another, and to our selves coming to us from the future.

Ecological Resources:
The Infinite Resource (Ramez Naam)
Abundance (Peter Diamandis)

Socio-Economic Resources:
The Infinite Resource (Ramez Naam)
The International Bank of Bob (Bob Harris)

Spiritual-Cultural Resources:
The Talent Code (Daniel Coyle)
Mindset (Carol Dweck)

Life is meant to be lived deeply, with passion.

A shallow life or a passionless life are not great to be around.

We’re not meant to be pushing the barriers of deep all the time – we all need time to chill – and it’s not healthy to live with adrenaline-pumping passion every moment, but I guess we’ve all met people who never get excited about anything, or the conversation which never dives beneath the surface of whatever is being talked about.

A little bit of detail to what I’m thinking about when I use the word deep.  I mean an increasingly open mind, heart, and will – an open heart is deeper than an open mind because it’s inviting change at a deep personal level, and an open will is deeper than an open heart, because it’s actually living out what is happening to us, and practice fees us stuff even more than feeling it.

It’s no wonder Otto Scharmer identifies the battle between self and Self – who we are now and who we might become – as the primary battle of our century (individually and collectively).  It is a battle for increasing openness, and where we lose the battle the voices of doubt, cynicism, and fear grow stronger.  Think about the people you know who are not prepared to explore more, to be changed, and to act upon (or the organisation) and see if you don’t find doubt, cynicism, and fear being voiced.

As I was pondering all of this, I happened to listen to a report on BBC Radio 5 looking at the growth of cyber bullying of children.  I listened to children speaking of their own experiences and it’s hard to deny what they were on the receiving end of was closed minds, hearts, and wills, which, in the most extreme cases are extremely destructive of all concerned.

I do not want to see people as a problem to be solved but as a mystery expressed in beauty (for me, creativity, enjoyment, and generosity).  We give ourselves opportunities as we go beyond how we see and understand in this moment, to seeing through the eyes of others (Donald Miller shares how he didn’t like jazz until he saw how much someone else loved it), and we act out this greater world.

Everyday becomes a gift towards this destination of deep and passionate.

There’s something you need to know if you’re going to be exploring your bright, emerging future – all the things you’re able to do with your passions and skills.

There’s a push-back.

The push-back is the reaction you experience to going further and deeper with the purpose of your life.  It may come from outside – by pushing into your emerging future, you unknowingly challenge others whose lives are held in stasis, you make others uncomfortable in their organised rut, and, subtly, they can bring pressure on you to show their disappointment.

Or, the push-back may come from within.  You begin to doubt your ability to increasingly connect, as you’ll be invited to,  with other people, with the big world in which you live; you doubt the capacity of “the well” which holds all you need; and, you question you ability to keep doing these these things because it’s exhausting.

Let’s name these things so we can know them more.

The first is Integrity, by which I mean our increasing oneness and connectedness with others, with our world, and with our true Self – including for some, spiritual ideals and faith.

The second is Wholeness, by which I mean our capacity to love and be creative.  It’s not the same as being complete or perfect – if such states exist.  You have enough right now to set out on an amazing journey, which, when embraced bring wholeness.

The third is Perseverance, by which I mean our capacity to keep going and achieving more.  Like the marathon runner, you have honoured the small steps and found you can travel further than imagined.

None of these are set, each can extend and develop and grow.

If the push-back comes from others, it’s likely they’ve a fixed view of who they are and what they can do, or maybe don’t want to do the hard work of bringing themselves into a bigger world: possibly connection problems (integrity), a belief they don’t have enough to draw on (wholeness), and giving up too soon (perseverance).

When the push-back comes – and it will – the only solution is to push on.  You don’t know your limits or capacities because you’ve not been there yet.

Read more (some quickly assembled book suggestions, below), meet with like-minded person, connect with a group that “gets it,” do something amazing (even if it’s a small something), keep checking in – we need each other.

Anything by Seth Godin, including:
Poke the Box
The Icarus Deception

From Ken Robinson:
The Element
Finding Your Element

A little more demanding:
The Genius in All of Us by David Schenk
Creativity by Mihaly Csizsentmihalyi