Category: Notes
-
Open mind, heart, and will
Kelby Bird, author of Generative Scribing, reminds us of the importance of staying open. If we close down, we get lost in our own heads. Staying open is a key skill, and a real challenge, while listening and acting. Three key capacities Three blocks Open Mind– with Curiosity, we Perceive Judgment– restricts the Open Mind…
-
Wholeness is not breakable into parts
Wholeness is not breakable into parts. —Skye Hirst Skye Hirst said in a conversation that “wholeness is not breakable into parts”.1 It caught my attention. I saw it in relation to what Christopher Alexander has been trying to do with patterns. Christopher Alexander attempted to formulate the principles that lead to a good built environment…
-
David Bohm on thought processes
Thought processes have a striking resemblance to quantum processes. David Bohm writes in his book on Quantum Theory that: If a person tries to observe what he is thinking about at the very moment that he is reflecting on a particular subject, it is generally agreed that he introduces unpredictable and uncontrollable changes in the…
-
Rúna Bouius on Managing People
Rúna Bouius suggests in a newsletter that we need to replace the term “managing people” with something else. Rúna writes (Sept 3, 2022) that: It started with a young leader…contacting me to ask for advice about a workplace dilemma. He explained how he…likes to reach out to subordinates so he can understand where they are…
-
New orders reflect new values
The world crumbles. New orders are emerging. Conditions are getting worse and worse. There is less and less to hold on to. There are fewer givens to assume. How to live? What to do? How to organize? The world is falling apart. Fear deepens as necessary orders are lost. Events force rapid reassessment of everything,…
-
Free Play
I have read “Spela fritt” by Stephen Nachmanovitch, which is a Swedish translation of Nachmanovitch’s book “Free Play“, and was reminded what is lost in translation. Even the book’s title, “Spela fritt”, is lost in translation. Play can be translated with spel or lek. So, the title could have been “Leka fritt”, or “Fri Lek”.…
-
Selfless service
I have read Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO’s Quest for Meaning and Authenticity by August Turak. There are some gold nuggets in this book, but I don’t have the same enthusiasm for monastic life as the author. Selfless service driven by love is one thing. It’s another if it is based on…
-
How to make living structure?
Christopher Alexander on how to make living structure: …success in making living structure…comes from the ability of the maker, at each step in the unfolding process, to do the thing which is required—at each instant to do the thing which is most consistent with wholeness. …and that, of course, depends on the extent to which…
-
Why do I sometimes feel being used up?
Why do I sometimes feel being used up? It’s related to the exhausting world of work. I feel a need to check out at the end of the workday because I haven’t felt free during the day. By contrast, when I feel free I come alive in the same way a child comes alive when…
-
Are People Machines?
This is an imagined conversation between Peter D. Ouspensky (1878-1947), George I. Gurdjieff (1866 to 1877–1949), and Norm Hirst (1932-2012). The conversation is based on quotes from Peter D. Ouspensky’s book In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching, and the Autognomics website. PO: Once I was talking with Gurdjieff… I was speaking…about…