Archive for May, 2006

Footprints in the Wind sm # 672

Footprints in the Windsm # 672

The dance
circling, spinning
spiraling, making
the larger larger
up and out
including, embracing
gathering even fear
in its arms
another of love’s
many names is
evolution


Please pass it on.

© c 2006, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Please publish in your print or electronic periodical, with the above info.
To subscribe, send an e-mail with the word “subscribe” to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com

Published in: FootprintsintheWind/sm | on May 31st, 2006 | No Comments »

“Please hold:” Telephone courtesy on both ends of the line

To our good friends–

On the way in to get my haircut this morning I was working through the earlier phone call and my reaction to the receptionist who answered “Business Name. Could you please hold? Mumble. Click.” I decided for one thing that my reaction was not just to this call, but to others like it. My reaction was based in part on my previous decision for long-since forgotten reasons, to consider this as rude behavior. Perhaps it was because they put their situation ahead of mine: they are overwhelmed with several calls coming in at once, and so are trying to buy themselves time. Perhaps it is because the first to call in is the last one served in that scenario—and “it ain’t fair!” Perhaps it is many things, all revolving around why are you treating me thus? Am I losing my time or my position in line? All irrelevant.

I reached the point of deciding that I need to be kind and help this person. For instance: “Glad you came back to me. Now, take a breath and let yourself come back into one piece. It’s gotta be tough when all the lines ring at once. But you can do it. You can take them one at a time. And if you miss one or two, so what? They will merely think they dialed wrong and try again. So that gets you a few more seconds to give each call your best individual attention. Have you taken that deep breath yet? Good. Now, this is Doug Germann. Would you kindly connect me to X?”

That is miles ahead of berating the person or concentrating on what is bad treatment about it—those just make us both feel bad and gives no hint of a solution.

So what is the solution to many lines ringing at once? Ignore all but the one in front of you. That seems what I would want as the one calling in. Get more people to answer—have a back up person if it goes to three rings. Or put extra lines on hold if there are not enough to answer them. Have voice mail if it goes to three rings. Many of these are management issues.

I will try the Take a breath and let me help you tack and see what happens.

What ideas do you have?

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 31st, 2006 | No Comments »

What is this like?

What is this like? Where does it fit? Is it part of a pattern? A rhythm?

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 31st, 2006 | No Comments »

These are not words.

These are not words. These are only markings. These are only maps of the words.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 30th, 2006 | No Comments »

see how we are thought

Conversation is how we break the cultural trance, see how we think—to see how we are thought, and change it when we choose.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 30th, 2006 | No Comments »

Might there be another way?

One way to meet the problem of violence and anger and terrorism in the world is to meet it head on. Butt heads in some way or other. Kill it. Drop bombs on it. Imprison it. Push on it more than it can push back. Overwhelm it. Smother.

Another might be to get to work. Invest sweat not blood. Find ways to meet the violent, angry and terror laden persons and engage them in something constructive that meets their needs. (Do you suppose they like terror for itself? More likely, do they think it will get them something they need for life—food, money, power?) Help them outgrow the problem that led to their suffering. It may be costly for us. It might mean we have to invest lives—rather than throw them away; we might have to meet people—rather than blow them up; we might have to spend millions on feeding these workers and their families—rather than billions on armaments.

Or might there be another way? What does experience tell us works?

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 27th, 2006 | No Comments »

If we take care of each other

To our good friends–

We have a world of free-floating anger. We have many angry young men and women. They do not have constructive things to do (although much needs to be done), and they are held back, they feel frustrated. Wow, how money is part of all this! Our currency system, based in scarcity and control and limitation, feeds this anger. If we could find a way to all get busy, there would be ample good work to do (there already is) and people would be fed, soul and body. If we take care of each other, we would take care of each other. What the economy of money provides is the luxuries, seldom the essentials of life. If we were all friends, we could see a need and meet it. Your house burned down? Then we have a house-raising, we cut some trees, and build it. You do not have anything to eat? Here, I have some. You want to help out? Here, there is something needing your special talents. The place for money is to allow us, like e-mail lists, to have asynchronous conversation, and especially impersonal exchange of goods and services. As it developed our money encouraged the impersonal nature of our interchanges. Today the servant has become the monster which threatens to become our master. Yet we cannot go back to the old days because most of our backyard forests have already been cut. So we have to invent new ways to get the jobs done, keeping in mind that scarcity of money does not mean scarcity of heart to get the job done, nor resources for the task.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 27th, 2006 | No Comments »

Footprints in the Wind sm # 671

Footprints in the Windsm # 671

The world has gotten too big too complex for one person one brain to hold it all in sense. It is now necessary that we begin to connect minds together.


Please pass it on.

© c 2006, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Please publish in your print or electronic periodical, with the above info.
To subscribe, send an e-mail with the word “subscribe” to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com

Published in: FootprintsintheWind/sm | on May 27th, 2006 | No Comments »

The disorganizing principle

Disorganization is not preliminary to creativity: it comes interwoven, blown through.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 27th, 2006 | No Comments »

Creativity is disorganizing

What is creativity but a disorganizing of what existed before? If we are to have creative communities, we must disorganize.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 27th, 2006 | No Comments »

Dialogue is the entry way into life.

Dialogue is the very entry into life. We go about our lives day to day along the surface. Where and when did we become anesthetized to life and the living of it? Dialogue provides a hole through which we can meet life. It is scary—we do not know what we will find. But the hope and the threat and the reality of it is that here there be life. Ours. We will have to give up our faked life. This is a death. We will be faced with the opportunity to grasp a life fully engaged, lived at full abandon, somehow only received when from out of our heart we toss it away.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 27th, 2006 | No Comments »

If you cannot control someone you fear, at least you can hate her.

Is it possible that the hate the immigrant receives is a result of the free-floating anger we have in this society? Anger easily coalesces into hate. The immigrant marches have given a place for people to focus their anger. That is because the immigrant is unknown, the unknown causes fear, and fear is the coalescing point. If you can’t control someone you fear, at least you can hate her.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 27th, 2006 | No Comments »

All change is not love, but all love is change.

We’re also about radical change. There is more change necessary on this old earth than we realize. Essentially, it is a need for more love. For what is G*d about? Not belief in or subservience to G*d. Rather, action of love. Livingkindness. Beloving G*d and neighbors. Change is a way of making that real. Not changing means leaving them to their pain and suffering. Not changing means allowing those who would kill to go on killing. Not changing means not loving. All change is not love, but all love is change. It is growth. It is meeting.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 26th, 2006 | No Comments »

Living: meet

Life is living. It is breathing and ever moving. We must then meet it new every encounter.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 26th, 2006 | No Comments »

Conversing meditation?

Chris Corrigan has given us a neat list of 40 meditation practices, a good collection. As he says, now you have no excuses.

This morning I found myself seeing the similarity between Bohmian Dialogue and meditation. It really looks like meditation to me, when he talks about the participants just noticing what is happening in the conversation, and letting it go….

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 25th, 2006 | No Comments »

Meet the world

Meet. Meet the world. Find out what is real.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 25th, 2006 | No Comments »

For every action there is not an equal and opposite reaction….

One thing I have found is that whatever we try, the world usually accepts. It might not pour overwhelming returns into our arms, nor kill us for the effort. Often it will simply ignore us—it is indifferent. Occasionally it will give us feedback, but not always. For every action there is not an equal and opposite reaction—our greatest efforts may simply fall silent on the field. But the hope lies in this: we tried and the world says OK, I’ll accept all tries. I’m open for business. Try again. Most the balls miss the target and only rarely does the firefighter go into the dunk tank. Even fish miss the bait. We can try many things, and the ones that work have advanced some part of life. So try more.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 25th, 2006 | No Comments »

What is beyond shared meaning?

Can we move beyond shared meaning? What would that be? Shared being?

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 25th, 2006 | No Comments »

both search for and create

The meaning of life is to both search for and create the meaning of life. To be and to do. We have both capacities. We use both to be whole. What we find is the world generally accepts what we try.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 25th, 2006 | No Comments »

Flowers on the edge, black holes in the middle

The overlap of Join-Open-Be does not form a cube. One end of the continuum—which is not a line—is a point the other wide open. Bell-shaped flowers. When all three are at their points, you have a dot-sized human, a black hole shaped human. When all these are wide open and opening, you have a bouquet!

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 25th, 2006 | No Comments »

No longer selling

Now I am no longer selling. I’m buying.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 24th, 2006 | No Comments »

didn’t know

Tell me something we didn’t know.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 24th, 2006 | No Comments »

“Input! Input!”

“Input! Input!” demanded Number Five.
“Input! Input!” declared Number Five, gobbling.
“Input! Input!” cried Number Five,
Celebrating.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 24th, 2006 | No Comments »
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