Category: General Learning

I arrived at the airport early today, several hours before my flight. I did so to accommodate my son, giving him a few bucks for driving me to the airport (rather than paying it in parking or to a taxi service). I did so to spend a bit of time with him, and it is wonderfully convenient.

It’s easy for me to work at the airport. Wifi. My laptop. My phone. A few files. Today I did, for about three hours.

The table I chose to work at was next to a moving walkway. Sometimes it was heavily occupied. At other times sparsely. Mostly, I was focussed on my work.

However, I couldn’t help but look up each time I heard a child giggling as he or she raced what I assume were parents who were not on the walkway. Moms and Dads walking very quickly. Kids picking up their pace. Each eyeing each other and escalating the speeds. Shouts of caution from the parents — “Watch out for the people in front of you!” “Careful at the end!”

It was a game, in which the adults became kids. I’ve done this enough with my own kids over the years. It was fun to see 8-10 times today.

Joy is like that I suppose. It doesn’t really interrupt the good work I was doing. It enhances it.

Nic Askew is an English filmmaker living in the US. He’s committed to films that show more of human experience. The raw stuff. The simple stuff.

His site contains this premise: “The causes of much of what happens in our lives lie far deeper than we imagine. Yet we seldom look far enough beneath the surface.”

I received a broadcast email from him this week. I got curious. I peeked at the film he was sharing, an introduction to some of his work. I laughed immediately as I watched these beautiful people he featured, well, laughing. And then sharing a few words that debunk some of the many myths of certainty that populate much of western thought.

Oh, how beautiful, I thought. I’m not a film-maker, though I admit there are many days when I wish I was. I’m glad to be in a field, however, that deliberately invokes a depth of humanity, very present human minutes, in service to deliberate and desirable futures.

Give it a peek, on his site, here. Just three minutes.

My friend and colleague Steve Byers recently shared this post on his site. He shares a bit of story about where this came from and who contributed. Some of it is below. It’s worth reading the full post on Steve’s site. I also love the invocation to do “one scary thing every day.”
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A Declaration of Interdependence

 “The wise see knowledge and action as one” – Bhagvad-Vita

“Humans can handle anything, as long as we’re together” – Margaret Wheatley

“Working together is a necessity, not a luxury” – Suzanne Morse

“There is in all things…a hidden wholeness…an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy” ­- Thomas Merton

“Citizenship is a way of being in the world rooted in the knowledge that I am a member of a vast community of human and nonhuman beings that I depend on for essentials I could never provide for myself.” – Parker Palmer

“Citizenship is the capacity to create for ourselves what we had sought from our leaders.” Unfortunately, “we have lost faith in people’s capacity to come together on their own and be productive.” – Peter Block   

 

I relate to being an artist. I don’t paint, though I loved the kittens I painted through a paint-by-numbers kit when I was 8. I don’t draw, though I love to use a few simple icons to create graphic recordings. I don’t play music, though I love to make sounds with a guitar.

Of course there are many people that would argue feverishly that all people are artists. I’m one of them, but without the feverish part. I don’t need reassurance of what I might become. No placating needed. I still like the idea that art is a part of all of it.

There are times when I reference myself as “group process artist.” Yup, I like that. It points away from an exactness, an over simplified court room testimony. It points away from all knowing science. It points to a need to work with the subjective, the unknowns, uncertainties, the relationships among people and things. It matters in working with groups.

Seth Godin is a popular American author, writing often about the post industrial revolution. A friend, Bill Muhr, with whom I’m really enjoying some great conversations, recently shared this quote from Seth Godin, on art. Good stuff.
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