Creatorship

A message to take to heart

 

 

Click to download The State of Ease Booklet.

 

I’ll Take Reality Lite

[The following is written by Marge Innoverra and is re-printed with her permission. I loved it!]

By now we are supremely tired of Weinergate, aren’t we?   I bring it up only to point to a trend in our culture that I’ve only just become aware of.   Watching the Bill Maher show last week on HBO, I heard Bill and a female guest read the texts that passed between Anthony Weiner and a woman in Las Vegas who were clearly, graphically engaged in sex via an electronic device (Cell phone? Facebook? Twitter?).  How is it, I wondered, that someone chooses to have sex with another person who is not even in the same room?  How is it that so many people are having virtual sex instead of the real thing?

I am a late comer to the virtual scene.  I learned only recently that some people become engrossed for hours in Internet porn while their partners languish alone in bed, waiting for their return.  Don’t they know that these flickering images on the computer are not real?  They do not see you, you cannot touch them, they do not care about you.  What is their attraction and why is it so powerful?  How does a virtual world become preferable to a real world?  Do we even know what is reality?

It seems to me that to know reality in all its guises, one has to accept the good together with the not so good.  It’s easy to embrace reality when everything is going our way, when we’re flying high and getting what we want.  But when nothing works, we’re feeling abandoned and betrayed, then reality bites.  It’s too overwhelming to feel, so we go unconscious.  We may have thought we wanted to be real, but it turns out we only wanted reality lite.  Perhaps it’s then that a virtual world looks better and better.

You might think from what I have written that I actually know something about reality.  Not necessarily.  My teachers say that mostly we don’t know reality; we just have our ideas of what it is.  Do you understand this?  I don’t think I do.  Oh, I have some ideas about what they might mean, such as we see only what we want to see; and if we don’t like what we see, then it doesn’t exist for us; so in this way we can create a world that makes sense to us, that is comforting and non-threatening, that gives us the illusion of safety and security.  But that sounds like another version of virtual reality, doesn’t it?  Possibly a more subtle version.

I could ask my teachers what they mean but I know what they will say:  “You must discover what’s true for you, Marge.  You might start by stopping trying to figure it out.  Just be.  Experience what is.  In this way you can learn to discriminate reality from a mental construct.”  This just boggles my mind.  I guess that’s the point.

 

trust...as in "trust me lady....

 

“Trust me Lady”  
 said the frog to the maiden
 “I’m a Prince”

“In God We Trust”
the dollar bill says so
but in which god?

“You don’t trust me”
after one too many
broken promises

“Trust is just another word
for nothing left to lose”
when alone at the bottom

Trust is more than
 a word on our lips
It’s a longing in our hearts

When innocence is gone
after the brutality of betrayal
can we trust with open eyes?

Trust, in the end, is simply
understanding that everything
is true to its own nature

It can be no more or no less 
seek to understand what is 
and then ask, "Is it enough?"

 

 besliter (with appreciation to my writing group)

I’m drawn to the river at flood stage

I’m drawn to the river at flood stage,

compelled to the rushing water 

moving trees like match sticks,

plastic bottles, floating toys, oil 

and pop cans

 

connecting me to unknown places

and lives lived miles away--

mementos of someone’s childhood, 

a 100 year old oak,

the debris of a careless boater

 

All rushing down river 

to another river’s edge 

where someone else, 

like me, 

stands watching this

 

fleeting flotilla of our

collective trash and dreams,

a traveling history of life quietly

connecting those who watch

the river at flood stage.

 

4/25/11

 

 

Wow, OK, I got sucked into the drama....

After I published my last blog, I had an "ah ha" moment. Someone sent me Jon Stewart's rally song and I listened...really listened. 

I was humbled to realize I'd gotten sucked into the "rock throwing."  I had reacted. I was frustrated and depressed at the staged event at the Illinois debate. I let myself forget that most of the time Americans are working together, helping each other out, giving to other Countries that need help, and basically caring. I let this Illinois/Beck incident steal my peace of mind and heart.

Jon Stewart's Sanity Song reminds us that we're human, that even though there are dark times, we get through, that indeed we work together "every d--- day". (Don't play the song if swear words offend you.)

 It's not that I suddenly approve of what happened, nor do I want to pretend it didn't happen. But I know when I push against what I don't want (get angry, discouraged, resist) I only reinforce it.  Sharing information is one thing, being totally upset and taking action from that place is another. [Creating 101]

I want to live in hope not fear. I know what you focus on you tend to create. I want to focus on those things that represent what I love about this Country. I want to search out solutions and people having real discussions and focus on those.

I will not let others manipulate me into despair, anger, or apathy. I won't let circumstances distract me from what I care most about. I do believe we are all creators. I want to live that way.

 

 

 

...selling candidates the way they sell drugs, shampoo and light beer

I'm tired of political grandstanding, ads that are selling candidates the way they sell drugs, shampoo and light beer, and of rarely hearing anything substantial about the complex problems we face. The following just exemplifies this "hitting below the belt" mentality that's around.  This is an  excerpt from a letter by Elisabeth MacNamara, President, LWVUS... 

"League offices and League volunteers are receiving threats because of the League's nonpartisan role in sponsoring and moderating a congressional debate in Illinois....

Here's the almost unbelievable story: someone in the crowd at a Congressional debate hosted by a local League in Illinois called for the Pledge of Allegiance, and when told that this was not part of the pre-negotiated agreement reached by the candidates, many stood and recited it anyway.

One of the candidate's campaigns put the video up on the Internet soon afterwards—so it was likely a planned stunt. And now, fueled by Glenn Beck, conservative extremists are calling in threats to League offices and local League volunteer's homes, accusing us of opposing the Pledge and being unpatriotic."

Is Beck so desperate to fuel contriversy?  League for Women Voters tries to be nonpartisan. Yet, I noticed this election cycle, a number of politicians avoided answering the League's questions for their voter information paper.  Maybe they think people don't read and certainly don't think, so they just run their party line instead.  Maybe our politicians really don't have answers. Maybe they don't  have a clue. So instead of engaging in real discussions and debates, they resort to throwing rocks at each other. 

Elections shouldn't be a war between parties. The only people who win are those getting paid and who are rising in power. 

Who was it that used to yell "WAKE UP AMERICA!"

P.S. If you want to support the League, click here.

 

So are computers taking over our minds?

I just saw "Social Network" --the story of Mark Zuckerberg's founding of Facebook--which I admit,  left me with a faint, unsettled feeling. Then recently Frazz (by Jef Mallett) suggests that not only are we spending time on line but how we evaluate our experience is being filtered through computers.

So how are computers shaping our experience of life? Are they really linking us to each other or are they putting a tissue paper thin barrier between us and our experience of life, each other and the world around us?

What do you think?

 P.S. if you belong to Facebook click here for Mark Zuckeberg's site and thoughts.

 

 

 

 

A quick fix but the wrong fix.

Quick fixes by "morally outraged" politicians make headlines and give the illusion that they're fixing problems. However, too often they don't understand the system in play. Their much publicized "solution" ends up resulting in unintended consequences equally serious or worse.

Here's a wonderful example (unless you are one of the stranded) of such a "quick fix" reaction. In the  "Unintended Consequences of the Passenger Bill of Rights"  Chris Manno, an Airline Pilot, describes how and why Congress's solution is creating more severe problems for travelers. He lives in the system and has a better understanding of it.

I suspect, by the way, that no one making or passing the law thought to talk to those closest to the problem (e.g., airline employees) to get their ideas and input.

Mark Graban expounds further on the phenomena of quick fixes in his post, "No Quick Fixes for Complex Problems."   He gives other examples of a "quick fix but the wrong fix". The examples range from the Government in the United Kingdom trying to shorten the patient wait in the A&E (accident and emergency) waiting rooms by an arbitrary law, to individual Mississippi river towns trying to stop flooding in their town without considering the impact on the rest of river.

Quick fixes and simple fixes to complex problems are always suspect!

Well I can't resist...

Here's quick fix: Maybe we ought to require that all elected officials take a systems thinking course. How can we expect them to make good decisions on the incredibly complex issues they face without training?  Of course there's still always the politics.....

An intelligent article about the nature of decisions and BP....

Here's an intelligent article by Deborah Mackin about the nature of decision making, the way our minds work, and why disasters like BP keep happening.

It's worth a read:

BP Oil Spill, the Challenger and Columbia Explosions, and the Deaths on Mt. Everest: Key Decision Making Tragedies and What We Can Learn 
From Them

Just because it is unintended, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt...

In complex systems, cause (action taken) and effect (impact on people, nature, environment, product quality...) are often separated in time (sometimes years) and across space (different location).

Intervening in a system (cause) often results in unintended consequences or effects not anticipated.  Since the person or organization taking action usually intends to gain some benefit from their action, there is often great resistance to acknowledging that something is amiss.

Here's a perfect example of cause and effect in a complex system with unintended consequences:

Farmers Cope With Roundup-Resistant Weeds

It is easy to point at them (Monsanto for example, or the farmers) and shake our heads in dismay.

We are living in a special time when we can do more with technology then ever before. And, because of technology including our ability to collect data and communicate, we are seeing the effects of what we do. We are no longer innocent but we are still young in our understanding of what it means to live and work in complex systems.

We read almost everyday the story of someone, some company or some government agency faced with the choice of what to do when the feedback loop says "oops, here's an effect we didn't expect." There is no blame but there is responsibility. At times like these we need the morale courage to think about the well-being of the whole, not just the short term impact on the part that is "us". It is getting harder to ignore the fact we are interdependent in so many ways.

"Them" and "us"  - it is our future together.