Mostly we experience ourselves as separate from one another.We experience the way our bodies are separated from one another in space, the way our personal life history is distinct from that of others, and the apparent hiddenness of our inner world. And we conclude that in some fundamental sense the distance between us and others is unbridgeable, that we are alone.And it's no wonder, because as well as what we see, the public discourse of the past 300 years or so has encouraged us to relate to life in this way. Rene Descartes' move to portray us as isolated individual minds, separated from everything else, plays a big part in this. And our increasingly individualistic political and economic narratives have split from one another still further.But when we look this way we're looking only at the results of something, not the something itself that underlies it all. We take our separate and individual bodies as proof of our separateness, but we are looking too far 'downstream' as it were.If we were to look further upstream we'd see not just our separateness but an endless process of becoming that produces it all.We'd see the whole of human life renewing itself through the biological processes of conception and birth, each new generation of human beings emerging from the bodies of those of us already here. And we'd see human life becoming itself through language, culture, conversations and ideas, through the grand stories and narratives that shape us even as we shape them.Looking downstream we see our physical separateness. Looking upstream we see that we are expressions of a unified and ceaseless process of becoming that happens through us and because of us, and that produces all of human life.Sometimes we gaze at others and realise this. We see them not as separate, but as an expression of the selfsame life that we are. We realise that 'they' are really another aspect of that which makes us 'ourselves'.And this, I think, is what we call love.
Embracing the storm
Your attempts to control life can take you only so far.You can try to eliminate all risk. The cost? Less and less room to move. A smaller space in which to live. Because life is inherently risky. And the only way to avoid it is to avoid life itself (a strategy with risks all of its own).Or you can try to never feel fear. Or shame, embarrassment, uncertainty, confusion. But to do this you'll also have to shrink your life down to tiny, rigid proportions. You'll have to live a life in which you do nothing and in which nothing can touch you. And even then, you'll still feel them.Better to give up the idea altogether that you can shape life to meet you. That you can win.Time instead to embrace the possibility of defeat. Give up endlessly fighting off what's difficult in life, and allow it to fight with you for a while instead. Let life in, in all of its fury and strength. Learn, as in the words of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, that whoever allows themselves to be defeated often comes away:
"proud and strengthenedand great from that harsh hand,that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,by constantly greater beings."
from Rainer Maria Rilke 'The Man Watching'
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Exhausted
Mostly the stories we're living are invisible to us. They're like the air we breathe, or the water we swim in.If you're someone who never rests, who keeps going even when you're exhausted - as so many of us do - do any of these stories shed light on the way you're living?Are you taking yourself to be
An orphan? Carrying a huge burden given to you by others that cannot be put down. There's nowhere to rest. Nobody who can really be relied on. Nowhere that's safe. All you can do is to keep on carrying, carrying, carrying, knowing that life is ultimately exhausting and nobody can help you.
A frantic hare? Always running to get to the finish line. The point of life is to hurry, hurry, hurry so that you can be there first. If you stop, even for a moment, you'll lose the race. Because everyone else is apparently running too.
The emperor in new clothes? Trying to look good or at least acceptable, but fearing that everyone else can secretly see that it's all a façade. So you have to work hard all the time to keep up an image, and not let any cracks show, in case you get found out.
Atlas? Holding up the world for everyone with unceasing, superhuman effort. If you don't do it, nobody else will, and then the sky will fall in and everything will come apart.
And if not one of these stories, is there another one you can find that will explain why you're so sure you can never stop, never take care of yourself?
Where did you get your story from? From your family? From the wider culture into which you were born?
And what happens if you let go of your story, just a little, and find out that it can't be completely true? Perhaps then you'll find out that you'll still be alive, and people will still be around, even if you lie down for a while.
Stories you could live
To be human is to be storied.We're always living out a story of one kind or another. And we mostly have no idea the extent to which we inherited the stories we're living from our culture and from our family.Our stories tell us who we are, and what's possible for us.Sometimes - often - the stories we're living are way out of date, or way too small for us. They fail to account for our lives. They hide possibilities to step forward and contribute. They mislead us. They're the stories others handed us, rather than those we could tell about ourselves.And here's the thing: whatever story you're used to living, there are almost certainly hundreds of other stories that could account for who you are and what you're up to more accurately and expansively. Stories that bring you to life. Stories that evoke courage and presence, kindness and discipline, compassion and wisdom.Can you tell what story you're living, and what size world it produces? Does it increase or reduce your suffering? The suffering of others? Does it have you hold back, or come forward with your most whole-hearted contribution?And are you willing to be a story-hunter, finding other ways of accounting for your life that would address these questions?
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Hollow heart
That hollowness you feel.Are you sure that running from it - into work, busyness, emails, surfing the web, eating - is such a good idea?What you're experiencing is at the heart of the human condition. Not an error, but an understanding. An insight that there really is nothing to stand on.We're thrown, without our permission, into a world that is bigger, more complex, and more mysterious than we can understand. And we have to find a way to live, knowing that we know so little, and that everything is shifting all the time. That at any moment it call all be taken away from us.In that way hollowness is not a mistake, but is instead a sign of your deep sensing of the way of things. By fleeing from it again and again into shallow distractions, you're deepening your suffering. You're fleeing from life. And whole industries exist to help you to do this.Today, perhaps, it's time to turn fully, with courage and openness, into the hollow heart so it can give up its gifts.Let it become your home.Let it support you in standing, rather than fleeing, in the storms, uncertainty and huge possibility of a life that you did not ask for, but nevertheless have this one glorious opportunity to live.
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Speech Acts 7: Who's listening to your requests?
The seventh post in a series exploring Speech Acts – the foundations of speaking and listening to make meaningful action possible. In this post we'll look at the second of ten parts that make up requests, the foundation for conversations in which you want action to happen.
(2) all requests need a listener
This might seem as obvious as all requests needing a speaker. But it's amazing how often we assume we can be heard while ignoring the capacity of others to listen to what we're asking.Some examples:
You made your request by email
If your recipient didn't read it, didn't see it, or is overwhelmed by emails and messages, as so many people are, you probably don't have a listener, no matter how many times you insist that you've asked, or how sure you are that they should have read what you said.
You asked at a time when the other person could not pay attention
If they're busy, anxious, fearful, or distracted then just because you've spoken, again, does not mean you have a listener. Even asking someone face to face who is distracted this way does not guarantee they have any capacity to hear you.
You assumed the other person should be interested in what you have to say simply because of who you are
Your seniority, fame, position of authority, sense of yourself as interesting or important are no guarantee anyone is listening. Neither is being a parent or the boss. Assuming you do is a route to many difficulties.
Can you think of times you might have asked when there's no listener available, even if the request seems obvious to you? And if so, what might you do to make it possible for people to genuinely hear you?You might need to think about timing, place, tone and the medium through which you make your request, as well as the mood of your request (sincerity, cynicism, frustration). All of these will have an impact on others' capacity to listen.If you find yourself thinking "I've asked them time and time again, but nothing ever seems to happen" you might well still be assuming you have a listener when you don't.And now you have a place where you can look to resolve your difficulty.
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You can read more on 'Speech Acts' - conversations, requests and promises - here.
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Blaming
Blaming someone else or calling them names is simply a way of discharging feelings you don't want to experience: shame, resentment, anger, disgust, embarrassment, confusion.It's far more skilful, and more helpful to everyone, to be able to tell what you're feeling and then ask yourself:(1) what unmet need or unfulfilled longing is this feeling revealing to me?and(2) what's my own part in addressing it?Please, stop discharging by spraying accusations all over the place. And stop handing all the responsibility to someone else to sort it out for you.And, please, catch your urge to blame before it blossoms, and use its energy as an invitation to step in, for the sake of all of us.
Telling the truth
The more I look, the more it seems to me that among the most personally damaging acts each of us can take is that of turning away from truth.I'm not talking grand universal truths here - the kind that people claim apply across time and space and across people. It's quite easy to see that establishing truth in this way is fraught with difficulty.No, I'm talking about something more basic and immediate: what's true about this moment, this experience, from the place in which you stand.If you pay attention, it's not so difficult to tell when you're turning away from truth in this way. The truth that you are sad, or joyful, or angry, or despondent, touched or numb, feeling whole or split apart. The truth that this is difficult or painful for you. Or the truth that this is bringing you to life.The truth that these thoughts you are thinking, whatever they are, are what you are thinking. The truth that what you're feeling in your body is what you're feeling. The truth that this place is where you are, and that what you are doing is what you are doing.When we deny these simple, basic truths to ourselves and others - when we speak of ourselves inwardly or publicly with deliberate inaccuracy - we assault our own integrity. And we cause ourselves tangible harm, in our minds and in our bodies, by putting ourselves at odds with ourselves, fuelling the inner battles that pull us apart.And then being whole again requires a kind of return, a turning back to the part of ourselves that understands how things really are. A turning back to something simple, and straightforward, the heart of which we've known all along.
Birth of a toothpick
"I once saw a cartoon," he told me. "It was about a huge tree, cut down, stripped of its leaves and branches, and then fed into a factory which whittles it down and down until, at the end, out pops a single toothpick.""And I am that toothpick" he said, with sadness. "Once, I had wide-ranging interests, a full and varied life, but I've allowed myself to become narrowed and withered by my single-minded pursuit of my career, and it's years since I've touched any of them. It's not how I intended to live."You can see some stills from the cartoon, produced in 1939 by Walter Lanz of roadrunner fame, here, including the striking final frame where the toothpick is born.
It was a rare moment of vulnerability and truthfulness among a group of senior corporate leaders. And I had a strong sense of the opening that this could be for him and for the people around him to do something about the condition they, and their whole organisation, found themselves in. Because, as I've said in elsewhere on these pages, often we don't get to see what our doing is doing to us and to those around us.More of us have become toothpicks than we might care to admit, armouring ourselves against our deepest longing, living a divided life. And in doing so, we have other people become this way too. It exacts a huge cost from everyone.As Giles Fraser argues this week, feeling and articulating our own essential human vulnerability in this way is the first real opportunity to have our most human needs met, because it's the moment we admit - perhaps for the first time - that we have human needs at all, and so does everyone else around us.It's our first opportunity to put our lives back together. And no amount of hardening ourselves by denying, defending, posturing, or using status or seniority as a mask can do this for us.
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The good news
A good friend told me a few days ago she'd noticed what a corrosive effect listening to the news at the start of each day was having on her. Because of course 'the news' is just somebody's interpretation of what is worth talking about. And the choices that draw in an audience, sell copy, and attract advertisers can quickly give us a distorted sense of the world because they leave so much out. The 'news' after all is not the world itself, but a predictably narrow slant on it. It may be worth listening to sometimes, but we harm ourselves and our sense of the world if we take it to be the whole story.Which I why I think Thich Nhat Hanh's poem "The Good News" is of such importance
The good news is that you are alive,that the linden tree is still there,standing firm in the harsh winter.The good news is that you have wonderful eyesto touch the blue sky.
You can read the full poem here.
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