On Living, Leading, (Re)designing, and Coaching

Searching for a Collective Ontology

Last week I took a 7 mile hike with my friend Ken Homer.  Among other things we discussed the observation our most powerful "technologies" for transformation focus on transformation of the individual because they are founded on individual ontologies - answers to the question "What is a human being?"

For example, one approach to answering the question "what is a human being?" that comes from hermeneutic phenomenology follows.

A human being is interpretive (and self-interpretive). That is our experience is shaped by our interpretations and, as individuals, the interpretations we make can and do differ. And this applies to our experience of ourselves as well as our experience of others and our environment.

A human being is product of the interaction of biology, biography, and culture (especially language). That is that how we interpret the everything is shaped our bodies, our personal histories, and the family and cultures we grow up in.

A human being has concerns and takes action to care for them. That is, as individuals, our experience is grounded in "care" and we have agency.

This leads to "transformational technologies" for individuals that amount to shifting how we interpret the world and how we act to take care of our concerns. This is the heart of coaching.

But the significant environmental, social, and spiritual crises of our present day also seem to call for transformation on a collective level. However, we don't seem to have good collective ontologies - answers to the question "What are human beings?" or, said more colloquially, "What are people?"  Of course, here we are asking about human beings as a collective phenomenon.  And, of course, we aren't proposing abandoning individual ontologies only augmenting them.

Ken has a neat idea - that we could look to indigenous peoples who seem to exist more as a "people" than as modern "individuals." I think this is a great idea.  To me it makes perfect sense.

Perhaps the best individual ontology we have is from the work of Heidegger. The above picture is of an Achuar man. The Achuar people are indigenous to the forests of Ecuador and Peru. What we need is the "Heidegger of the Achuar."  Any suggestions?

My best lead so far on this inquiry is to read "The Walking People" by Paula Underwood.

Take care,

-Steve

The Essential Spiritual Dilemma

I've made it a regular habit over the last 15 years to read widely in the spiritual literature of many traditions. And recently I've been reflecting about what is essential in spirituality. And it seems to me that what is essential focuses on a central spiritual dilemma.

We take ourselves to be separate. Separate from each other, separate from nature, and even separate from our bodies. Some of the eastern traditions call this sense of separation "the self-contraction." In the west we often call this sense of separation "ego."

From this egoic self-contraction we live in fear for our survival. And this fear leads to all sorts of reactivity including avoidance of relationships, emotional reactivity, and object relations.

And this sense of separation creates competition, social inequality, slavery, ownership of property, positionality, wars, casting ourselves as righteous while demonizing others, and so many other social issues.

Yet this sense of separation is self-created. This is the dilemma or apparent dilemma.

And every spiritual tradition has a way of responding to this by saying that we are all One, that we are all God's children, that we all have the same Original Face. But saying it doesn't help us to live it.  In a way it is too impersonal and flies in the face of the personalness of our experience and the threats to our survival that we fear.

-Steve

Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream

This past Saturday I went to a symposium called "Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream" sponsored by Spirit Rock and the Pachamama Alliance.

The Pancha Mama Alliance is doing some great work.  They are committed to a human presence on the earth that is 1) spiritually fulfilling, 2) environmentally sustainable, and 3) socially just.  They see all three as being interdependent ... I agree. Further, that our way of being and living today doesn't generate any of them. And because of this, we have all of these challenges.

I am inspired by the symposium and am now looking at my life again to see where my own work in these domains lies.

I already recycle, already reuse, already have a spiritual path, already work from home and so use the car less and less.  I consume way too much paper.  And I have purchased some "bad" things.  Like petrolium-derived Nalgene bottles.  I learned this weekend that stainless steel is better.

But I am left with this quandary.  I already own Nalgene bottles.  So is it more environmentally friendly to throw them away (or recycle them) and purchase (read "consume") a stainless steel one?  Umm .... ????

This sustainability stuff is more complex that I thought ....

Happy Thanksgiving!

-Steve

Design Politics

Life commitments have overwhelmed my commitment to blog. However, my curiosity still pulls me in many directions that I'd love to share with you all.

Here is one.  Many of you know that I am a fan of Tony Fry's work to make the unsustainable visible and therefore to open the possibility of responding to it with more sustainable practices.

Tony and his crew have a new website on the politics of design.  Have a look ...

http://designphilosophypolitics.informatics.indiana.edu/

Enjoy!

-Steve