Sloan Creative

Dennis Vogt, a good friend and a good mind, forwarded me this just a bit ago… a very interesting look at our linked world.

 http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html

 It reminded me of this great E. M. Forster story I re-read just the other night. 

http://brighton.ncsa.uiuc.edu/prajlich/forster.html

As it all gets so easy, so interesting… what might we be losing? 

What risks increase as systems become more complex?

What risks does The Machine lead us to discount or forget?

An interestng article on “Normal Accidents” here:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/sep06/4423

No time to muse further, I’m working hard on a local loosley coupled system; connecting farmers and local citizens to the land via the Trust for Working Landscapes

Running a business is fascinating. Running a business is also often difficult, usually more emotionally challenging than taxing to mind and body.

It has always been so…

The fascination of what’s difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart. There’s something ails our colt
That must, as if it had not holy blood
Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road-metal. My curse on plays
That have to be set up in fifty ways,
On the day’s war with every knave and dolt,
Theatre business, management of men.
I swear before the dawn comes round again
I’ll find the stable and pull out the bolt.

W. B. Yeats September 1909- working as the director-manager of the Abbey theatre

I used to love the Zen koan,

It is not the way that is difficult,

but the difficult that is the way.

And the great American Horatio Alger questions:

• If not me, who?

• If not now, when?

I consciously pursued what was difficult.

• I thought I read too slowly coming out of high school, so I choose a reading intensive major, History

• I felt shy, so I became a Realtor and forced myself to cold call and hold open houses

• I feared poverty, so I stepped up to managing a business with 35 employees, most older than I, when I was 24

• I feared irrelevance, so I took on the chairmanship of our industry’s leading coop.

• I saw a real need and opportunity, so I left that business to create software to help the entire industry

I burned myself out.

Now, 5 years later, I finally threw the bolt! I signed my last payroll check in December 2006, after 16 years of having employees.

I am free to choose new difficulties that fascinate me.

I’ve found that I still must pursue what’s difficult. I haven’t figured out if it’s just in my nature or in human nature.

I think everyone finds it a bit more natural to walk uphill rather than down. This is especially true with climbing. But, so many folks, in our leisure-based culture, seem to spend most of their time avoiding what is difficult - distracting themselves with work, activities, entertainment and consumption.

Now, as I choose new difficulties, I am more respectful of that koan. I try to choose my difficulties more carefully:

Why am I choosing this?

• Reasons that should prompt a pause and reflection

  • Feeling inadequate

  • Feeling bored

• Reasons that indicate the difficulty might lead someplace interesting

  • It takes me towards a more conscious, integrated life

  • It takes me towards more fully expressing what is uniquely me

  • It serves some higher calling you see working near you

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.
Henry Kissinger

My current projects include:

• Leadership support for small business owners- like coaching, except that I actually do stuff!
• Researching and writing on my family history, the tip of the iceberg here

Enjoy the ride, getting off makes a real mess.