We are curled together, each trying to determine which loss could be worse – going forward or turning away. I still have no idea what will happen. But in this moment I learn one thing: I have been lying to myself for months. Because I am fully willing.
Going forward or turning away articulates a threshold and the choice faced with standing at that threshold. And the essential questions that emerge from this piece:
What are we going toward that we should turn away from?
What are we turning away from that we should continue to move into?
What am I fully willing to lie to myself about?
_____ _____ _____
This post forms part of Chapter 6 – Emerging Thresholds, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities. Click here for an overview of Chapters 4-7 (Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence). Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.
One of the ways I know I have reached a threshold, whether clear or not, is that I feel an inner struggle. Geraldine Brooks, in the afterword of People of the Book, articulates it well:
I knew it in that deep place where one hides knowledge that is inconvenient, or too painful to admit, even to oneself.
There is great intelligence in an inner struggle; it is instruction from self to self. It is often inconvenient or painful to explore because that means acknowledging the status quo is not good enough. The inner struggle is a sign that there is improvement needed, and sometimes it is hard to admit that what I have, or what I am doing, or done, is not good enough.
I get caught in a trap of my own creation when I allow myself to be threatened by what could be, allowing myself to believe that what I have been doing is bad. Instead, I can focus on the potential of what could be, if I make the choice. I can recognize that much of what I have done was appropriate for the context of the time. I can be honest with myself about what could have been better, for this is healthy reflection, but I don’t need to beat myself up. I need to learn and improve.
My aim is to constantly, endlessly, shift and adjust and improve. To do this, I have to consciously explore my inner struggles to see how I undermine improvement, how I sabotage myself and my dreams. When I move into a mindset of being threatened, I choose to sabotage myself by defending my earlier actions, blaming anything else for why something didn’t work. It is hard to admit that I could have made a different choice, but I have a choice about how to handle that very choice.
The inner struggle can happen at any scale of time, over a few minutes, hours, years or a lifetime. As awful as it feels, for Bruce Grierson, it is what powers our way over a threshold into a new way of being:
To have reached that spot is to be standing over the proverbial frozen sea with an ax… It’s genuinely wanting something different for yourself… The internal struggle that will ultimately power the turnaround has been set in motion… there is no struggle…
The struggle as I approach a threshold can be huge, just as I imaging approaching a cliff, and taking a first look at the chasm in front of me. As the need to leap grows, I will find the inner strength to cross and one I have made that choice, the struggle disappears.
This inner struggle takes place in each of us as individuals, and also as collectives. As families, neighbourhoods, organizations, cities, nations and as a species, we struggle with how to deliver health care, organize economic systems, feed and shelter everyone, and ensure our planet habitat is healthy for us to live on. For our cities to be well, we need to deeply explore our struggles as individuals and as collectives. When we do, we will see what we really need to do to improve the quality of life of citizens and cities.
The struggles we feel individually and collectively are powering us up to be better citizens to create better cities.
What are you struggling with?
What is your city struggling with?
_____ _____ _____
This post forms part of Chapter 6 – Emerging Thresholds, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities. Click here for an overview of Chapters 4-7 (Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence). Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.
_____ _____ _____
Sources
Geraldine Brooks, People of the Book, p. 310 (Afterword – reference to Mira Papo, a young Jewish Partisan in Sarajevo and which is in the collection of Yad Vashem.)
As I approached the edge of the river valley this morning, it was hard to look at my city; the bright, rising sun was aimed right into my eyes. Its intensity disabled my ability to look at, and contemplate, the horizon and the valley in front of me.
Edmonton at 9:19 am
I choose instead to enjoy the sun’s warmth.
Sitting on my bench, I started to feel too warm. I was dressed appropriately for the air temperature, but not for the warm micro-climate created by the hot sunshine. I also started to think about when I stand at a threshold, when something is too big to handle – or too bright – I tend to ignore the bright light. It hurts to look at, so I turn away.
I’m curious now…
How can I let an idea that scares me simply warm me up first?
_____ _____ _____
This post forms part of Chapter 6 – Emerging Thresholds, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities. Click here for an overview of Chapters 4-7 (Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence). Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.
Deep down inside, I know when I am near (or at) threshold, even if I can’t see it. Sometimes this materializes as a struggle with mental and/or physical manifestations. Other times, I do not notice the struggle, but if I take the time to spend time with myself, it is always there, ready to be noticed.
When a struggle is obvious, my choice is to notice pay heed to it. At times, the struggle is because I don’t want the inconvenience of changing even when I want the change. Other times, I really want the change but I just can see how to pull it off. When the time is right, the struggle ceases and off I go. In both of these struggle, there is great learning in exploring what is really going on within me – if I choose to explore what I have to teach myself, my in-tuition.
When a struggle is obvious, it is easy to notice and take the time to explore what the struggle is really about. When my struggle is NOT obvious, it’s a whole different matter – I have to go looking for it, choosing to find struggle with the express purpose of exploring myself and seek what lurks within me. By doing so, I notice and test the assumptions I make.
Explicitly looking for inner struggles when they are not apparent gives me an opportunity to teach myself how to live well with myself. I give myself a chance to notice if I make decisions without struggle when there should be. As I reflect on the struggle of jumping over the surge channel in choose the right leap, I can imagine that we made our choice to jump too fast and confidently. Did we actually know that the rocks were not slippery? I can imagine myself making decisions fast to avoid struggle. That signals other struggles…
In the end, the better I know the patterns in how I operate, the better equipped I am to make decisions that serve me well. And when my decisions improve, I serve everyone around me better: my family, my neighbourhood, the organizations with which I work, my city, my region, my planet.
What does it take to really look at the nature of our struggles?
What are we telling ourselves that we haven’t heard yet?
What thresholds do we know – yet haven’t noticed yet?
_____ _____ _____
This post forms part of Chapter 6 – Emerging Thresholds, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities. Click here for an overview of Chapters 4-7 (Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence). Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.
I must confess that I did not live up to the expectation I have of myself to release 4 blog posts into the world last week. I was really struggling with the last post, Choose the right leap. Ironic, as I was writing about struggle when faced with a big decision.
I had a hard time finding a clear message for this post as I was writing. I had a hard time finding a photo that displayed, adequately, the choice we had before as we stood at the edge of a surge channel on the West Coast Trail. Today, I sat down and could easily see the text to take out of the post and the picture appeared immediately in my search. It seems a few days away from a struggle can take the pressure off and help me see more clearly.
It is necessary – and appropriate – to take a step back from the edge from time to time.
It helps me see what I could not see.
My next post will continue exploring thresholds in choice-making.
_____ _____ _____
This post forms part of Chapter 6 – Emerging Thresholds, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities. Click here for an overview of Chapters 4-7 (Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence). Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.
As I explored the role of destination as we organize our cities in previous posts, I reached the conclusion that where we are headed is both alive and adrift. We know – and we don’t know exactly – what we want to achieve at the same time. When we have a destination in mind, but it shifts and adjusts to changing life conditions, something new has emerged. When we notice that we are moving in a direction, even if not yet able to define that direction and it feels adrift, it is alive. Our purposes are planned and unplanned.
When we have a clear destination in mind, it is easy to lay out a course of action because it is clear, linear and rational. When we trust we are moving in a direction, we only know we are moving in a direction when we come upon thresholds – indicators that something is happening.
In our cities, Jane Jacobs notices that new activities must take place for cities to develop – or they stagnate. She wrote this passage in her book, The Economy of Cities, in 1969:
Once a serious practical problem has appeared in an economy, it can only be eliminated by adding new goods and services into economic life. From this solution to city problems comes true economic growth and abundance. No city by itself develops all the various goods and services required to overcome its complex practical problems, at least not in historic times and probably not in prehistoric times either. Cities copy each others’ solutions, often very swiftly. They also support each others’ solutions, by importing relevant goods to solve problems.Practical problems that persist and accumulate in cities are symptoms of arrested development. The point is seldom admitted. It has become conventional, for instance, to blame congested and excessive automobile traffic, air pollution and noise upon ‘rapid technological progress.’ But the automobiles, the fumes, the sewage and the noise are not new, and the persistently unsolved problems they afford only demonstrate lack of progress. Many evils conventionally blamed upon progress are, rather, evils of stagnation.
I was born 6 days into the year 1970, and the list of persistent practical problems that Jacobs articulates has not lessened in my lifetime. I agree that this indicates stagnation while simultaneously I would argue that we have made progress in other areas of city life. But regardless of the progress made, the persistent problems persist and this should capture our attention.
There are three significant points made in this passage:
New work is essential to address the challenges of today’s life conditions.
New work replicates itself – as appropriate, and as determined by us – across and city and from city to city.
Persistent problems are an indicator of arrested development, a lack of progress, stagnation of our individual and collective development.
Jacobs is highlighting the need to notice when it is time to learn – to know and understand the world differently. In an earlier post, I highlight the conditions for evolutionary expansion articulated by Beck and Cowan: openness to the potential for change, exploration of solutions, a sense of dissonance with way things are, a realistic understanding of barriers to change, insight into new patterns, and consolidation of understanding.
Jacobs is telling us, from 1969, that the well-being of our cities has everything to do with how we show up – our willingness to grow and learn as individuals and as whole cities. Persistent practical problems in our cities are an indicator of OUR stagnation, our lack of emergence.
The next series of posts will highlight forms of thresholds that tell us that the conditions are there, should we choose, to know and understand our world differently. To emerge.
This post forms part of Chapter 6 – Emerging Thresholds, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities. Click here for an overview of Chapters 4-7 (Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence). Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.
In my last post, I declared a goal: to have a supportive relationship with 40,000 people about cities and our relationship with them. I have crossed a threshold to think this goal, let alone say it out loud and communicate it to the many of you who are reading my blog, following me on twitter, LinkedIn and facebook.
This goal makes me feel distinctly uncomfortable, so I recognize it as my own version of a threshold of a new age. This goal requires me to reach out very far, much farther than my internal filters say is appropriate. I am a ‘good Canadian’, who doesn’t toot her own horn. Yet the opportunity before me, using social media, is profound. It is a new age, where I can connect with people across the planet. The people who see cities as I do are not concentrated in one spot – we are all over, and there is so much to learn from each other’s experiences. Because of this new age, I can find my tribe across the planet, build relationships with them and seek out ways to support each other in our work. This, I actively wish to pursue: making connections and see what comes.
What will our work be? That will emerge…
Peggy Holman provides a simple definition of emergence in her book, Engaging Emergence: order arising out of chaos. The result is new levels of patterns as we make sense of the world. On the Nest City Blog, there are many posts that speak to this – simply search for posts with the tag “Spiral Dynamics integral.” Our value systems have evolved – emerged – in response to our life conditions. We make sense out of the chaos we see, then find more chaos, followed by more order. As a reminder, here is the Spiral as we have looked at it here:
Each level on the Spiral is a new order of complexity (complexity is increasing with movement upwards). As Holman puts it: “Emergent order arises when a novel, more complex system forms (p. 18).” There is a transition from one order to the next, and in this transition there is a threshold.
Each level of emergence is a new world that we see with fresh eyes. It works differently, it organizes itself differently and it values different things for different purposes. To see the new world, we must cross a threshold:
Without warning, thresholds can open directly before our feet. These thresholds are also the shorelines of new worlds. (John O’Donohue)
The passage to a shoreline of a new world, from the sea, can be rough or calm. Whether a straightforward or dramatic manoeuvre, it is a transition from what we know into a world we do not know. It is daunting and thrilling at the same time to make the voyage through thresholds into the unknown and the uncertain.
As cities and citizens we come upon thresholds. What is their role in our own emergence?
This post forms part of Chapter 6 – Emerging Thresholds, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities. Click here for an overview of Chapters 4-7 (Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence). Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.
We are, at each an every moment, on the threshold of a new age. Each choice, each decision and in fact, each thought, shapes our present and our future. At each moment we stand at a threshold, choosing the age in wish we live.
Never again will we stand On the threshold of a new age. We that are here now are Touched in some mysterious way With the ability to change And make the future. Those who wake to the wonder of this magic moment Who wake up to the possibilities Of this charged conjunction, Are the chosen ones who have chosen To ace, to free the future, to open it up To consign prejudices to the past, To open up the magic casement Of the human spirit Onto a more shining world.Ben Okri
Our future unfolds as we create it. It emerges in relationship with us, and, as I will explore it over the next series of posts, the future that we desire to create relies on three things: noticing thresholds, courage and risk. This revolves around three questions:
What thresholds are before me?
What part of me desires (or does not desire) to cross the threshold?
What are the risks of crossing (and not crossing) the threshold?
The threshold of our new age involves a willingness to notice our choices, to examine our relationship with our choices, and being mindful of the consequences of our actions.
As John O’Donohue reminds us in his blessing, we drift through gray, increasing nowhere:
Until we stand before a threshold we know
We have to cross to come alive once more.
_____ _____ _____
This post forms part of Chapter 6 – Emerging Thresholds, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities. Click here for an overview of Chapters 4-7 (Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence). Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.
This is destination as articulated by a group of municipal employees I worked with this week. They are carving out a new way of being in their work, and their lives – their civic practice. Experiential strengthening…
Let’s synergize leverage opportunities to analyze, connect silos, information, platforms, initiatives into corridors of power pursuingoverlapping goals expanding conduits shocking access beyond the usual suspects there’s so much to see when opensupportivethoughtfulinnovativewe are resource full experientially strengtheningspringboards for collaboration
Over the course of the last nine months, I have been sharing bits of the book I am working on – Nest City: The Human Drive the Thrive in Cities. I made a decision to share the book on my blog while I was working on it. Five chapters and 126 posts later, the decision to share this work before it is officially in book form is one I revisit over and over in my mind.
For each post to appear on my blog, I have to hit this button:
The word ‘publish’ is rather official. A recent author acquaintance of mine cringed when she heard I was sharing what I was working on: “Why are you giving this away?” Another author friend says, “Good for you. I blogged most of my book before it turned into a book too.” Others have warned me that publishers will not look at the book now that it has been ‘published’. I am of the opinion, still, that writing here is serving me and my readers well in several ways:
I learn in bite-size pieces. I get to dive into small passages and sort and sift around in my being to seek out what I am learning.
I write in bite-size pieces. These are small pieces that serve to help me wrap myself around a thought. Blogging helps me discern the pieces I have to work with, that will later shape up into book form. This is essential time to practice the craft of writing.
We find each other. By sharing the pieces of my exploration, fellow explorers and I are able to find each other. As I share, I reveal myself to my audience, and my audience reveals itself to me.
We build supportive relationships. I am receiving feedback from readers: the odd comment here on my blog, an email, a ‘like’ or comment in facebook or Linked In, or new followers on Twitter. I am hearing about how my writing supports others and the work they do. In return, readers are supporting me too by using my blog posts on their webs sites, as they teach, and simply by giving me feedback on what resonates for them.
We grow our understanding – of selves and cities. The more we explore individually and collectively, the more we learn and improve. We are expanding our consciousness.
I don’t know – yet – what my writing will add up to. I do know that my writing, when published as a book, will not read as it does here. While I have a destination in mind – a published book that we can lay our hands on physically and digitally – I do not know exactly what it will say and how it will say it. I have a frame that I am using here, with chapters and the like, but I an open to that changing if and when that makes sense. With each post, my sense of direction gets more clear. Even what the book will say gets more clear. But the real book to come is in the process of emerging.
The very process by which we create our cities, through the interplay of destination (chapter 4), a learning journey (chapter 5) and emergence (chapter 6), is in play for me as I craft the book. I have a destination/direction; I am on a learning journey; I am about to explore the thresholds that each of us, and our cities come across as we emerge.
The next series of posts will explore the role of emerging thresholds as we organize ourselves and our cities for continuous improvement.
_____ _____ _____
As I dive into sharing parts of Chapter 6 – Emerging Thresholds, here are some plot helpers for Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities, the book that I am sharing here while I search for a publisher:
