We Are All Called to Be Poets

Basking in the exoticism and eccentricity of life

A found poem . . . 

We can live differently,

basking in the exoticism and eccentricity of a life of vision;

can talk more to better clarify, understand, and align,

can search for Unconventional Terrestrial Intelligence,

can break our familiar ways of thinking about Self and Other.

Attention is a system that scatters easily.

Embrace the complexity within;

imagine that you have dedicated yourself to helping others

to think a little differently about life

so they’d be happier and better off;

each one is a miniature work of art and tells a story.

I have friends everywhere.

We are all poets and artists as we live our daily lives,

we all move on the fringes of eternity.

There is room enough for an awful lot of people to be right about things;

that's where important, quality things happen.

Being told my needs don't matter changed me;

 — things do not change, we change — 

Fact is an illusion; Imagination is real;

all attempt to shape the narrative.

I’m talking about the literal content we consume

—the television, art, movies, literature, music;

a runner could ask "Hey Meta, what's my heart rate?"

Leaders worry they won’t be ready for the massive influx.

Fix the culture, not the people;

engage opposition to prevent conflict.

A broader “assassination culture” appears to be

emerging within segments of the U.S. public;

this can happen to anyone

looking for relief wherever they can;

the line between thinker and thought

is often in the eye of the beholder.

It is a counterproductive approach to leadership.

Truthtellers are being punished, because liars are in charge.

today's fragmented ecosystem is increasingly controlled

 — or threatened — 

by forces aligned with the White House.

Forecasters are also calling for above-normal temperatures;

an escalation in every way,

the war on truth heats up;

the U.S. says it may deport them to third countries;

two lower courts have blocked the move;

many business owners are faced with a hard choice.

Basking contentedly in the sun, above the hiding box,

burned and brown on the outer half,

clinging to green life underneath.

The opposite of love is power.

It’s just autumn: the perfect time to say as little as possible;

it’s just autumn: the perfect time to discuss approved subjects;

the corpses and ghosts of leaves;

nothing short of chilling.

Ultranationalist movements have seized on his death;

Kimmel’s suspension has produced an uproar;

everyone’s said your ideas are garbage and

you’re a rotten person for suggesting them.

A problem that can lead to fatigue, brain fog, and difficulty concentrating.

Americans take their First Amendment rights seriously.

This marks a serious authoritarian escalation..

We all want what's best for the team;

patterns are alive, and we are living patterns.

So, instead of trying to out-troll the trolls,

you would just be able to say to yourself:

In the concrete there hides a face;

that was magical thinking;

we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

Strange and remarkable forms of intelligence already exist here on Earth,

working to make the world a happier,

more harmonious place by

arguing that God is everywhere,

and that humans are one with God.

The way of Jesus refuses to sacrifice the most

vulnerable for the comfort of the community.

See the images, the stories and pieces of story

that give meaning and value to

the most ordinary details of a life.

Become poets of the everyday:

the grey feather hiding in the grass;

gain insight into sensory differences;

even people who aren't collectors find delight in stamps.

Curiosity is key.

Thanks, I wish I'd thought of putting it that way.

I spent a bit of time pulling intriguing phrases and sentences out of what follows in this post; then I did the same while I browsed all of the news and newsletters that came to my email for a day, plus a bit from my feed; then I came up with a few phrases of my own related to some of the images in this post. Then I gave all of it some kind of shape, order, and structure.

My enthusiasm for Thomas Moore's book Original Self: Living with Paradox and Originality has cooled a bit as I've slowly worked my way through it and I've been finding fewer insights that resonate in the latter part, but I'm in love with the thought I just reached. I couldn't just pick out pieces, so here is most of that mini-essay with my highlights added for emphasis.

 . . . As we deal with life day after day, hour after hour, in practical terms, taking it only at face value, we ourselves become rigid, thick, and opaque. Our language becomes one-dimensional, our personalities flat. We say what we mean, and only what we mean. Shallow slogans and opinions, picked up from the media and from conversation, pour out of us as though we were mere recording machines. The deep soul that gives us vitality and interesting substance goes so far into hiding that it becomes invisible.

The way to wake up to vitality is first to find holes in the illusory literalism of everyday life. Ansel Adams used a camera to see through the film that covers over the world's lively personality. Others use oils on canvas or crafted words on paper. The skin of literalism can be penetrated, but some kind of technique is required--an art, a craft, a rite. The camera lens can do it, when the eye of the photographer is penetrating. A mirror might do, if we could get past the literal reflections to the wonder inspired by reflected images.

The key to seeing the world's soul, and in the process waking one's own, is to get over the confusion by which we think that fact is real and imagination an illusion. It is the other way around. Fact is an illusion, because every fact is part of a story and is riddled with imagination. Imagination is real because every perception of the world around us is absolutely colored by the narrative or image-filled lens through which we perceive. We are all poets and artists as we live our daily lives, whether or not we recognize this role and whether or not we believe it.

It is possible to live artfully in life's constant stream of poetry. We can be educated in imagination by the arts, and that is why the arts are primary in any soul-focused education. In the arts, we see the images, the stories and pieces of story that give meaning and value to the most ordinary details of a life. A still life reveals the soul in a kitchen. A landscape teaches us that nature has a personality. A sonata recapitulates the rhythms and moving forms of experience.

Once we penetrate the illusory veil of literalism and glimpse the layers in events, we may never go back to the fabrications of fact. We will have become poets of the everyday. The writer sees a flash of sense in reality and with his art keeps that vision at hand. In this sense we are all called to be poets. We can always hear further reverberations of significance in everything that happens and in all that is. We can always sound that resonance in the way we shape our lives and do our work.

The pulse of life is as close as our own throbbing veins, but everything around us conspires to convince us of its nonexistence and unworthiness. The poet and the artist have no place in a society that has forgotten the soul. But we can live differently, basking in the exoticism and eccentricity of a life of vision. The camera of our awakening may be Iris, the messenger sprite, our own eyes of the imaginal that look at the flat of existence and see the poetry.

Which leads right into my next thought, which was about the book's very next essay.

I've recently started trying to fill a paper journal as well as the record of my thoughts here, simply because I enjoy the journal's aesthetics and tactility. The contents are similar to here.

Transcribed:

Today is the Autumn Equinox. The official beginning of fall. A day when the sun is precisely above the equator, the night and day there exactly the same length today. The Earth continues to wobble slowly, and now our southern half will when get more time with the sun for a while.

We will have more darkness.

So too it appears, will our nation. The presidential administration gets more authoritarian by the day. More controlling. More entrenched. More retributive and oppressive to disagreement and difference.

I just read a mini-essay from Thomas Moore's book Original, Self: Living with Paradox and Originality. He takes inspiration from a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote:

"The quality of imagination is to flow, and not to freeze."

Moore writes: There are two ways of being: kinetic and static. Something in us wants to venture outward, explore, discover, reinvent. Something else wants to enjoy what has been achieved--protect, conserve, be still. In the best of circumstances, both principles have their influence, and so we explore and go home, discover and maintain, reinvent and don't change a thing. But life is rarely so balanced; instead, we become persons dedicated either to adventure or to the status quo.

I feel this deeply in myself, the call of both desires to live "in the intersection of movement and stasis." Yet the older I get, the more I experience, the more I find myself drawn to movement. The more I see a Kinetic quality to all of life, to the state of existing. Being of the world requires adapting to and with the world.

After reflecting on the essay, I pondered words to capture that idea in the hopes of landing on the ideal one. Instead I have a list: 

Flowing

Fluid

Malleable

Adaptable

Flexible

Supple

Versatile

Open

Transformable

Harmonious

Compatible

Sympathetic

Complementary 

At the confluence of the meanings of this set of words is the idea the describes, I think, a vital, wise orientation for approaching life.

Needless to say, it sits in opposition to the values being enacted by our current political powers, which are dedicated to stasis around particular, rigidly defined identities and reinforcing the power and privilege of certain ones at the cost of all others. There is nothing harmonious, sympathetic, or agreeable about it; the choices in their perfect world. are conform or disappear.

I expanded on similar thoughts a few months ago in Develop a Positive Xenophilia.

Came to me as memes:

I've read some other Vonnegut, but not yet The Sirens of Titan. I may have to before long.

I don't really know anything about the Institute of Art and Ideas, but their content has started showing up on my Facebook feed. The ideas are almost always intriguing, and sometimes I'll engage with them. This one caught my eye.

Patterns Are Alive, and We Are Living Patterns

It seems as though real beings are tangible, permanent things and they think and feel by rearranging the fleeting patterns within their cognitive medium. But it’s important to remember that nothing is permanent and even relatively long-lived humans are patterns of flux of metabolic energy and molecules which enter and leave the Ship of Theseus that is a living body. If we, as flows of temporarily-stable and self-reinforcing order within our environment, are true agents with preferences, goals, and memories, could other patterns – within us and within other media – be somewhere on the agential spectrum as well?

The link doesn't go to the clean URL, but the "guest" one shared on Facebook to entice interest; otherwise it doesn't appear to be available for free.

I really appreciate this short post from The Marginalian, which represents my views well. From How to Criticize with Kindness: Philosopher Daniel Dennett on the Four Steps to Arguing Intelligently:

In Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking (public library) - the same fantastic volume that gave us Dennett on the dignity and art-science of making mistakes - he offers what he calls "the best antidote [for the] tendency to caricature one's opponent": a list of rules formulated decades ago by the legendary social psychologist and game theorist Anatol Rapoport, best-known for originating the famous tit-for-tat strategy of game theory. Dennett synthesizes the steps:

How to compose a successful critical commentary:

1. You should attempt to re-express your target's position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, "Thanks, I wish I'd thought of putting it that way."
2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

If only the same code of conduct could be applied to critical commentary online, particularly to the indelible inferno of comments.

But rather than a naively utopian, Pollyannaish approach to debate, Dennett points out this is actually a sound psychological strategy that accomplishes one key thing: It transforms your opponent into a more receptive audience for your criticism or dissent, which in turn helps advance the discussion.

And now Dennett's book is on my list to read.

Years ago, Stephen Covey wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which has developed into training courses and all kinds of things. In my organization, we especially like to refer to "the four quadrants of time management," which look like this:

Most of us spend most of our time in quadrants 1 and 3, dealing with the urgent things, then head to quadrant 4 for recovery time because we're worn out from constantly dealing with urgency. The goal for being successful is to make more time for quadrant 2, because that's where important, quality things happen. So we try to schedule ourselves Q2 time to make sure it's not forgotten.

I recently emailed my leadership team about something I wanted to take a look at for our upcoming Q2 time. Here it is, slightly modified for pseudonymity.

A couple of weeks ago, we were emailed an invitation to sign up for a free, 20-minute webinar: Fix the Culture, Not the People: Designing Work for Wellbeing. I watched it last Thursday and really enjoyed it. The basic idea: how policies, norms, and leadership practices affect stress, burnout, purpose, and belonging, and how fixing the culture can transform mental health and performance outcomes. I recommend it and am including more info and the link to the recording at the end of this message. It seems appropriate to our meeting yesterday about employee engagement.

At one point in my time with [the library], I was moved from [one location to a different location in the same position]. During the discussion when I was told of that decision, the admin told me, "I know this move isn't the best for you and your family, but in making decisions like this I can only consider the needs of the library, not your needs." I know that if not an absolutely, word-for-word quote, it's extremely close. It is seared in my memory, being told by a senior leader that my needs don't matter to the organization. I also remember the thought I had in response: if the library doesn't care about my needs and well being, then I guess I shouldn't care about the library's needs and well being. I've tried ever since, of course, to not give in to that thought, but being told that was definitely a blow to my morale and I can't be sure I've ever been quite as invested in my work since. It wasn't the decision to move me that changed me, it was being told my needs don't matter that changed me.

One of my goals as a leader is to never make anyone else feel the way I felt in that moment.

Not only because it was an awful feeling, but because I think it is a counterproductive approach to leadership. The most productive, dedicated employees are those who feel invested in the health and well being of the organization. They feel connected to it. They contribute to it. Invested employees make the library better. And that's a two-way street, a give-and-take. It's a relationship. If we want our employees to take care of the library, then we need our employees to feel the library is helping to take care of them. When we "only consider the needs of the library, not the employees" we are creating less invested employees, which is counter to the needs of the library; when we consider both the needs of the library and the needs of employees in a dynamic relationship together, we are creating a positive dynamic that makes the library a more effective organization.

By considering the needs of the individuals on our team, we address the needs of our team; by choosing to not factor the needs of the individuals on our team, we undermine the needs of our team.

(By considering the needs of the individuals working for the library, we address the needs of the library; by choosing to not factor the needs of the individuals working for the library, we undermine the needs of the library.)

I write all of this because yesterday during our recent meeting we had a discussion that reminded me of the conversation when I was moved. During the part of our meeting when we were talking about weekend schedules, to be specific. It wasn't the need to have more staff scheduled on the weekend that stood out to me; that's a legitimate need and we should be addressing it. What bothered me was how we framed finding solutions for that problem: it felt to me we were taking the position that the only factor that mattered in our approach was the needs of the library, and we shouldn't be considering whether our solution was good or bad for the people impacted by it. I'm pretty sure that's not what was meant, that it was more nuanced than that, but I worry we were drifting into territory that it would be better to avoid.

I think this warrants further discussion. I know we all want what's best for the team and I expect you experienced that discussion differently than I did. Which is why I bring it up in the context of our Q2 time tomorrow afternoon, so that we can look forward to having that opportunity to talk more to better clarify, understand, and align. So, anyway, food for thought.

I sent that soon after our manager asked us to watch a webinar from Crucial Learning: Creating a Culture of Healthy Opposition: 5 Keys to Managing Conflict. Here are some quick excerpts and notes:

Healthy opposition isn't about winning arguments or avoiding Crucial Conversations.

It's about creating space where truth can emerge, trust can grow, and teams can thrive.

Opposition - Objective disagreement

Conflict - Opposition gets personal

"Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision. Then, I propose we give ourselves time to develoр disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.”

Alfred P. Sloan, Chairman of General Motors (1923-1956)

Healthy Opposition:

• People speak up respectfully
• Listening is active and curious
• Focus is directed to ideas, not people
• Emotions are regulated
• Shared goals stay central
• Psychological safety is evident
• Resolution is collaborative

Signs of Conflict:

• Conversations turn personal
• Listening stops
• Defensiveness rises
• Emotions escalate
• Dialogue ceases
• Power dynamics come into play (who is right, not what's right)
• Digging in
• Scorekeeping
• No shared goals

Engage opposition to prevent conflict

SDI

• Anticipate Conflict - The better you can understand what triggers conflict, the more you can prepare for it.
• Prevent Conflict - Watch your overdone strengths
• Identify Conflict - Early detection prevents escalation
• Manage Conflict - Don't fix the person--shift the conversation
• Resolve Conflict - Resolution isn't just about agreement--it's about restoring and maintaining trust

POSITIVE REGARD - Treating people (including oneself) with dignity and respect; assuming positive intentions and motives.

PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY - Taking ownership and initiative; being responsible for the results of your actions and choices.

SERVICE ORIENTATION - Being curious and open to learn what people need. Being willing to meet other people's need and appreciative when they meet yours.

STRENGTHS-BASED AGILITY - The intentional use of behavioral strengths in pursuit of desired outcomes; metaphorically, choosing the right tool for the job.

Curiosity is key

"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

It appears the recording is freely available at the link, so I recommend it if you're intrigued.

Fact is an illusion; Imagination is real