Two paths available to all of us, that are an inherent part of being human.(1) The automatic path
Our bodies and minds have an exquisite ability to learn something new and then reproduce it without our having to pay much attention to it. It's what we rely on to get us around in the world. Navigating doors, cooking utensils, cars, speaking, phones, cities, social niceties, and paying for things would all be practically impossible were it not for this capacity. Without our automaticity we would have to learn and relearn how to interact with just about everything in the worlds we have invented. Indeed, without our capacity to automatically respond to the vast and rich background of culture and tools in which we live, culture itself and tools themselves would be impossible.
(2) The responsive path
We also have an exquisite ability to make sense of and respond to the particular needs of the current moment. In any given situation we can find ourselves doing or saying something we've never done or said before. Sometimes our creative response can be surprising, sometimes clumsy, and sometimes we find ourselves able to respond with beautiful appropriateness to what's happening. From this comes our capacity to invent, to respond with empathy and compassion to others, and to change the course of a conversation or meeting or conflict mid-flow. Without this capacity we'd hardly be human at all. We'd be machines.
But here's a problem. We so often call on or demand the automatic path when what's called for is the responsive path:
We fall into habits shaped by the strong feelings that arise in our emotions and bodies.
We tell ourselves 'I don't like that' (and so don't do it).
We say 'I am this way' (meaning I won't countenance being any other way).
We insist other people stay the same as we know them, and put pressure on them to remain predictable in all kinds of overt and subtle ways.
We institutionalise or systematise basic, alive human interactions in our organisations, insisting on frameworks and codes and processes and procedures so that we won't get surprised.
We repeat ourselves again and again - saying the same things, the same jokes, the same ideas, the same cliches.
We think rules, tools, tips and techniques will save us.
We form fixed judgements of ourselves and others which we can fall back upon when we're in difficulty.
We turn away from anything that causes us anxiety or confusion. We prefer to know rather than not know. We're hesitant to step beyond the bounds of what's familiar, and comfortable.
We would often rather settle into the predicability and sense of safety that our automaticity allows. Sometimes we even call this professional or businesslike.And all the while what's most often called for in our dealings with others, in our businesses, in our work and in our organisations is the responsive path - our capacity to respond appropriately to the particular situation and its wider context; to be unpredictable, creative, exciting, unsettling, sensitive, nuanced and, above all, alive.
Photo Credit: Chirag D. Shah via Compfight cc
When you feel emptiness, what do you do?
Could it be that we're so harried, so unhappy, so stressed because we've forgotten the simple pleasure and discipline of being up to one thing at a time?When we're committed to being always on, always connected, always responsive - and to reacting to every email, phone call, tweet, facebook posting, news report - how can we expect to lose ourselves, completely, in something that's both fulfilling and of value?Everything is interrupting everything else, all the time. And we keep it this way because we think we like it. It makes us feel important.And perhaps most significantly, it saves us from having to feel, really feel, anything in particular - numbing both our anxiety and our joy.
Anxiety and fear aren't the same.It's important to see this, because they lead to different places. Anxiety - felt, allowed and responded to - can be an invitation into a new way of relating to the world. But fear so often leads us into actions that cut us off from ourselves, and from others, and from what's called for.It's 
Perhaps uniquely among living creatures, we have the capacity to sense beyond the particular details of the situation in which we're living. We can see its limits, and perhaps more importantly we can see our limits. We can understand that there's a ceiling to our power and capacity, that our time is finite, that the future is unknowable, that our understanding is small, and that much of what we depend upon is way more fragile than we'll ever admit.There's a special word for the feeling this evokes - angst.We mostly experience angst as a feeling of absence, because in coming up against the limits of our world, and the limits of our understanding, we quickly conclude that something is missing and that we must be responsible for it. We feel that we ought to change things, make them better, fix them up. We feel our inadequacy in doing so.And so we build cultures, organisations and lives in such a way as to shore us up against experiencing angst. We imagine that if we don't have to feel this way - perhaps if we don't feel too much at all - then we can assure ourselves that everything will be just fine.Of course, in the end this doesn't work out, because behind all our busy activity, our habitual routines, and our constant affirmations that we're doing ok, angst is still making itself felt. In a way our efforts make it more apparent, because living in such a way as to avoid angst means making our world small and tightly sealed. The feeling that we're deceiving ourselves and imprisoning ourselves and that there is some bigger way of living becomes even more present, even as we try to hide it.Running away from angst, it turns out, amplifies it and robs it of its biggest possibilities.The way through this?Firstly, giving up the idealised notion of an angst-free future. Angst is, it seems, built in to the human condition and comes as a consequence of our capacity to see beyond ourselves. And so there can be no world in which angst is fully absent.Secondly seeing angst not as a terrible something to be avoided, but as an invitation, a reminder of the truth of our situation, which is that the world is much bigger, more mysterious, and more possibility-filled than we can usually imagine. And that even though there's really nothing to stand on, there's much that we can trust.Angst is then not a signal to hide away, but a reminder of the uniqueness of our human situation. And a call to step more fully into life.
We human beings are profoundly shaped by, and drawn out from ourselves, by the things that are around us. And the smartphones that most of us carry are purposefully designed with this in mind.It's no accident that we find ourselves checking and re-checking email, messages and social media, before we even know quite why. We're drawn in by the promise of a brief, welcome surge of expectation and hope. This is going to be the moment when we'll find out that everything is OK, or that we're wanted, or that we're loved. This is the moment that we'll be saved from our anxiety.But shortly afterwards, we feel a familiar hollowness and emptiness. The hit was but for a moment. Our devices call to us, wink at us, and buzz us with the promise. And we willingly succumb, knowing it will not satisfy us but feeling unsure about whether we can do anything about it.We have, as Seth Godin writes, a 
There are enough people afraid, yelling, paralysed, spinning, panicked in the world already, and it's not helping us. Right now what's called for is the capacity to be grounded, to see with as much clarity as we can muster, to take the world and its changes with the equanimity that comes from knowing that change is the way of the world, and to bring as much virtue to the world as we can.It's always been the case that the world, and everyone in it, benefits when we can find courage, truthfulness, compassion, kindness, service, justice, mercy, creativity, gratitude, patience, integrity, fierceness of purpose, commitment and the like. Let's please, do what we can to cultivate that in one another and in ourselves, rather than those qualities that dehumanise us or isolate us from one another.Right now I'm taking up the practice of reading less news and more poetry*. I'm finding in this a deeply renewed capacity to engage. So much of what's passing for news at the moment is in any case fevered speculation, and reading more of it numbs me (with fear or denial). Exercise is helping enormously. Meditation. Long hugs with people I love. Giving up the fantasy that I can control what happens. And doing the thing I'm here to do - writing and teaching.It seems to me that if ever there was a time to start committing ourselves to what we're really here to do (rather than what someone else told us to do, or what we imagined would get us liked or give us status) it's now. With as much sincerity and integrity as we can find.Let's get to it.*I found this suggestion in the wonderful work of 
Yes, I admit it. In my pain and confusion and fear and hope and general agitation over what's happening in the political and social sphere this week, I've read far too many of the knee-jerk reactions that fill the press and the web. Some have been helpful, some have fuelled my anxiety but many - most I think - have been the work of but a few minutes or a few hours of thought, and have done little to deepen my understanding. Most of my reading has been an attempt to reassure myself, I realise, an unachievable project given the complexity of this moment.Which is why I am so grateful for the depth, nuance and care of Marilynne Robinson's writing, which I mentioned a few days ago. Today I have once again picked up her latest book '