Critical Thinkers - Getting To Genius?

In thinking about critical thinking observe and understand the following statements/axioms. Do they make sense? Why are they important to each other? See if the following two quotations resonate as two parts of something very connected.

"Without speculation there is no good and original thinking." - Charles Darwin There are certain identifiable parameters in the general science of the universe. They are known as Genetic Algorithms. "These genetic algorithms 'evolve' solutions to problems that resist linear thinking by generating populations of different solutions and then testing those solutions against 'programmed constraints'." - Lee Smolin

Not understanding something is often to admit defeat. So we don’t like to admit that. We often nod - suggesting that we understand and then at some point later – NAKED! – we are exposed. The two thoughts above will be very apposite if, like me you work to discern fact from context, ideas from dynamic situations and patterns from seeming chaos. It's an evolving process.

"Evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. Facts and theories are not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away while scientists debate theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in midair pending the outcome." - Stephen Jay Gould

We often get confused and dazzled by our choices when confronted with any challenge to our ego. Whether to say we don't understand - or we would like more explanation - or we just admit it's going to be a journey of appreciation - a passage.

So it is with our ability to think.

There is something obvious and yet vital to appreciate about how we each think. The evolution of it. To reach a mastery in anything takes time and effort. You can see, touch and read and talk and ponder about stuff all you like. It won't just click. You do it when asked to, told to and when you know you should. It just won't stick. It can be very superficial. The obscurity of it can drag you down. Bits of it will frustrate enormously.

But you just don't really get it fully until you are rightly ready. When that final chunk of awakening to the whole beauty of it dawns. When you are ready and the understanding washes over you - it can take your breath away.

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Literally Symbolic. Part 2

There should not be symbolism versus literality. They should co-exist. A hybrid.

We love the 'ages' thing. 

The Steam Age, The Industrial Age, the Knowledge Age. We evolve as a species like this. We go, albeit consciously, for a new era, because it’s new. We flock like lemmings to an unnatural and extreme positioning. Led by a frenzied media or populist chant. A new and acceptable positioning. "I'm so literal." - "I'm truly symbolic." We focus on the extreme of it for a while before eventually moving off towards the next paradigm. Bored.

Literal? Symbolic? Where do you sit?

The symbolic is a more metaphoric, more representative idea. The literal is about a very clear and non-negotiable definition of something. Much less room for interpretation. The issue with this is plain to see. 

On the case for the literal: Us humans can go a couple of ways – we either get all caught up when someone is literal and become very defensive – or we would accept it and give thanks for the clarity. 

On the case for the symbolic: A purely symbolic position can engender frustration that our translation of someone's symbolism wasn’t in fact what we had expected. Or we might indeed use it deliberately to encourage a different perspective - because we have evoked the creative idea

If we had a somewhat more symbolic or hybrid age would might we develop a more conscious society, more able to accept wider and less definitive/dogmatic literality? If we had a more literal age would we be sure not to have any doubt about everything that was codified as such. I know where I would prefer to live. 

When it comes to thinking and making big decisions for our species we are just the same. 

In the west we manage things in three main ways. Politics, Media and Business. These are the three big systems we typically work within. You could add religion. They condition us to think either more literally when it suits them or more symbolically when it suits them. Think about it. Whatever suits the argument at the time. But crucially we would have to balance both if we were to get anywhere. There are merits to both. Armed with an acceptance of both, more sane and valuable outcomes would be achieved.

Symbolically Literal A perfect paradox?

The capability of symbolism to convey a deeper idea is hugely valuable. The vital importance of true definition and literality when and where required - all in balance - a supremely valuable tool for the 21st Century. Taking things literally is to see a one dimensional view of the thing. To add a symbolic dimension is to immeasurably broaden the story. Increasing the emotional bond and developing an energetic humanity for the thing.

To have a balance between symbolism and the literal is the holy grail. Get it?

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Symbolically Literal. Part 1

I find that flying is a great time to write - appropriately distant - yet just connected enough.

I write all the time - parking ideas, fragments and 'nuggets' in a variety of oddly-named folders. 'Interesting But', 'Yes, Maybe', 'See how you feel', Don't Ever Fly Again', 'Idiot', 'No-One Will Read It Anyway' - you know the kind of thing. Mostly it's stuff that will never see the light of day. Like the following. - 

"In this - the 21st Century - we need the symbolic to take up its rightful place alongside the literal. Why do people so often just fall into one or other category?" 

I probably should have left it in the folder marked 'Doh!' - but the idea continues to pre-occupy me.

What was I thinking?

Well, I know this isn't a new thought - 

"The 'literally' blinding ambition for western civilization (so called) has outlasted its welcome. The single-minded pursuit of money, profit and growth. It has been an economic imperative. Tangible returns at all cost. Greed. Literally. Disgustingly so. Interest shown only in the facts and figures - only what can be counted. Where only the left side of the brain rules. We've lived in the domain of the accountant - worse – the financier for far too long."

Recently the world has woken up a little - needing a change from this condition. It has spoken up a bit. Not enough in many peoples opinion - but we now see at least some shoots of reason. Reasonable folk and on-line activists seeking additional sense, meaning and purpose beyond the literal. 

The banking crisis and the distrust of governments around the world has caused us to question everything. Thankfully. Beyond simple growth at all cost - slaves to shareholder return. These things are now increasingly recognised as a 'by product' of something else, something symbolising trust and belief – profit is an outcome not a strategy.

Literally - no longer good enough.

To know how something works (or is built) is not the whole picture. It may be literally correct but it misses its true meaning by a long shot. It lacks the symbolic virtue or grand design and purpose of itself. The people working in the financial systems lost sight of the vital and symbolic position that they had held. For many in government they also have lost the symbolic reasons that they exist. To see how things operate under the hood is necessary of course - but to appreciate its whole – the value, the importance and quality of it - that is now crucial. 

In business it is proven beyond doubt that a bigger ideal, a clear mission and a shared vision (all symbolic) hold the secrets required to win. Today we are rightly far more concerned about the 'whole' story. The bigger picture and context from which meaning can be taken. To isolate the literal (and value that alone) was convenient for the financiers and governments of the 20th Century. 

In the 21st, to measure just what is tangible – to value only that - has become certain death.

Fact is we humans love to go to the extremes don’t we. 

We oscillate like crazy and we jump on bandwagons. Don’t ask me why, that’s a whole other question. We waver constantly and we do so in extreme cycles and over centuries. If we observe earlier societies, Romans and Greeks, Mayans and Egyptians for example, we would recognize and value a bit more symbolism - they were some of the most creative societies on Earth. 

But we muddle along. 

We are mostly literal – and then – we are uneasily symbolic when it suits – wars mostly. It takes time for any real shifts. It's imperceptible but we can do it. Fashion and all that. However I can't seem to find a time in recent history when we might say we had a conscious balance.

Problem is we just aren't good at riding any two seemingly opposing themes at once – anything where there is a continuum there comes a point when there is a versus. Then we beat each other for being one or the other. We lack the ability to consume and manage both in equal or fair shares. This means we are somewhat binary when it comes to the shadow side of things, the opposing - the seemingly paradox. 

There should not be symbolism versus literality. They should co-exist. A hybrid.

To be continued…

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Observing Or Participating?

Well to me anyway. I'm back in London (temporarily). I just took time out to do nothing and found that I can't do nothing. And I love that.

I've realised that I can't stay still. 

As much as it sounds idyllic, I cannot sit on a rock and meditate. Maybe if someone taught me to get into a trance-like state (suitable for rock sitting) then I would figure how that works. I worked out that in fact I'm very happy with where I am. I loved my rock - and I already live in a trance-like state. I am a very lucky person – I have my roll as well as my rock. 

I'm participating.

Sitting still doesn’t mean doing nothing of course. 

As you would expect it sends your brain on a crazy ride that makes up for one's lack of physical motion. It delights in making the ride very whacky indeed. It is probably a symptom of our 'normal' life that our brain feels it has this deal with our devil - so it winds us up with violent mental electric shockerey. 

Some thoughts emerged from my most recent road-trip. 

They were recurring so I place them here to remind me of their work in progress. Frankly I will never answer them fully. Nor do I particularly care to. They provide a constant source of amusement, curiosity and challenge. They remind me what an utterly useless soul I am. They dare me to answer them. I should even have the temerity to conjur such daft questions shocks me as I see them written down.

"Do I have the ability/strength to change the course of my life?"

"Why is the source of creativity so impossible to put my finger on?"

"Do I really know anything for real? Does it really matter?"

"Actually - why is it that I'm unable to retain my mojo in the face of arcane human laws and systemic stupidity?"

"Why do I like so few people I meet?"

I have my roll.

I found myself asking these things as I sat at total peace and in a wonderful place. I'm very lucky that I have a very small selection of people around me that I love and that love me. I will protect them, their's and my own space above everything. I am fiercely protective and have the following two simple guidelines that ensure my sanity. 

• Total respect and lifetime support for people who return that respect – there's no other transaction involved. 
• Demand distance. I give everyone theirs - just don't ever ask me stuff that suggests you don’t get that.

Finally

Victor Frankl asked one hell of a question.

"Should we look for meaning at all?" 

He goes on.

"I doubt whether a doctor can answer this question in general terms. For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment. One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. 

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfilment. Therein he cannot be replaced nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it. 

As each situation in life represents a challenge to man and presents a problem for him to solve, the questions of the meaning of life may actually be reversed. Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he which is asked. 

In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible." 

Frankl may not have given us the answer, but he asked the only question that mattered to him.

He was most definitely participating.

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Leaving the hat at the rock...

Heading back to the other world 24 hours from now.

I just took a walk through the plain towards the mountains to the East. I didn't make it to the mountain. I had a strong feeling that something else was there - it told me to go away. It was a strong sense of something present and that didn't want to have to tell me twice.

It is a part of the area that becomes a dead-end to the South of a massive valley system. You can climb over it but I never made it - or simply chose the wrong paths. I can do that.

I thought I heard a low growl to accompany the instruction but that was almost certainly my imagination - or possibly the wind in the rocks.

Imprinted on my mind will be the tiniest things as I head out of Dodge. The simplest things.

For example. 

There is no real desert (if we are meant to believe that that word suggests a paucity of things).  Only quite the opposite. Being in such a seemingly desolate place inspires the most rich and elevated state of the all the senses. This hasn't surprised me because of all we get told about such things. But to experience it has been one of the most amazing things I've ever done. Ever.

I have been more short on things to do and think about in London.

I didn't come here to see animals or plants or geology. I came to get away from anything predictable or arranged in any way. I didn't come here to find myself or some inner peace. I didn't come with anything but an open mind as to what to find and so it found me.

I don't expect the visual specialness of this place to survive long in my world but the sharp reminders they have given me will surely live on.

Some of the things this place rammed home to me:

• Get some sense of space back inside your head to even allow yourself to look, let alone think.
• Walk around and take those other perspectives much more seriously. Things can begin to look a whole lot closer and further and different. And as a result they will definitely tell you things you never knew.
• Always have a good quality tyre guage handy. Even when drinking coffee.
• Just because you are part of a system, and may even have voted for it, don't feel you can't kick up a good storm.
• Remember that even in surprising places something vibrant and long lasting can grow up and survive. Don't begrudge the occasional Pygmy Falcon.
• Listen to the energy that is all around you. If you hear nothing then you are either dead or you need a hearing aid.
• Leave the hat at the shack by the rock. You will look utterly ridiculous at the airport with 400 others.

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The Journey Not The Destination

I'm writing this 24 hours before reaching the dunes at Sossusvlei. World famous for spectacular systems of sand, structure and visual magnificence. Getting up at 4 30 am to drive South-East 120 km along the splinter track.

In most cases I hate getting advance notes about stuff. Reviews that aim to set (and then more often than not disappoint) expectations. A really distasteful facet of our modern Western mediocrity. Reviews on almost anything fall short - by a long shot. Movies, Restaurants, Hotels, Pizzas - almost always fiction.

I'm much more optimistic about Sossusvlei.

Nothing here in Namibia has disappointed me. This country has so much beauty in its people and its land. Its people have a difficult life of course - 53% unemployed - but they have a wonderful passion for life somehow. I am not here long enough to figure out why but it is apparent in every move and sense.

Everywhere seems neatly kept, the roads, when tarmac, are smooth and smartly maintained. The airport is one building so not much can go wrong in there. I have only seen a very small part.

24 Hours later.

Hmm.

It's not the dunes fault. They didn't ask to become a destination. The observation is that we 'Western fools' are spoiled of course. We expect cable cars and neatly decked vantage points with easy access and HD. For Sand Dunes read Ski-Resort.

Sossusvlei is amazing but mostly because it is a journey not a place. It is not to have arrived at it. It is a road that lasts for 62 km and spears itself as far as it can go into the natural and vast desert of sand. It was 40 degrees. It has mirages, empty rivers and salt flats at the base level. Everything is in a state of death and rebirth. For every dead tree that is burned to a cinder there is a Springbok herd grazing away under a very green tree. It is certainly the oddest blend of place. Part Ramatualle, part Chamonix, part Sahara, part Richmond Park.

The mistake I made was thinking of it as a place.

PS.

Hints, tips and notes to intrepid travellers who hire 4x4 and then actually go off road. 

To avoid getting stuck 62 km into a desert. Reduce the bar (pressure) in all 4 tires from 2.5 to 1.5 (possibly even 'comma' 0,8) to avoid getting stuck (like me) in soft sand. Also maintain momentum on inclines in dunes. Only stop facing downwards. Turn off energy wasting air-con. And hire a fully grown 4x4. Not a Nissan X-Trail - apparently. Also be sure to find a highly competent South African holidaying 4x4 expert/genius/super-hero close by called Herrold. He will have all the tips, pressure guages and towing equipment required to save you from certain death - in 8 minutes.

In The Midst, an Oryx and an Ostrich graze…

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Zebra's Crossing

5 30 am, very light but with some dark still left in it. 

I heard an unusual thudding from behind the shack. I walked quietly (I thought) around the rock. Just in time to see a herd of around 20 Zebra shuffling smartly but closely past. 

Not quietly enough.

They had seen me before I had even emerged. An already anxious initial scamper turned into a furious run which broke the stillness for a good few minutes. Dust flew, birds shot into the sky. Grass mixed with shards of marble filled the air - their incredible strength impressed even the very wind they were on.

What was in their mind?

Me. Something quite rightly to be feared and definitely not of their animal world-view. Their rituals are perfect and balanced. Unspoilt in the main. Wandering and scavenging endlessly within a vast desert of rock and parched grass. Although at the mercy of man these systems just about remain - and should be safeguarded at all cost. The only rules for them being the need for pro-creation, water and food.

Unfortunately they have also had to wise up and gain a healthy understanding of the human. They have unnatural restrictions placed on them by us - crazy and endless territorial fences and the occasional idiot in a missile 4x4.

The Clash Of The Systems.

Being at peace and remote anywhere in the world is a great privilege in these times. Alone with just our thoughts -away from the unrelenting rapid-fire attack of the daily daily of our effluent societies.

A privilege for many reasons.

Of course - and not least - the ability to stop and think about the hamster wheel from a healthy distance. If every routine could slow long enough, or return us to a more natural routine - a more sustainable system - imagine how different things could be. It ain't gonna happen. I can't think of that many folk who I could persuade to give much of anything up.

Time places demands on us that we simply accept. We are conditioned to just want and need more. We now have our millions of fences. Sadly we seem to have little choice in our shrinking Western bubble.

Interesting though, why watching a herd of Zebra, caused me to think differently.

Because it was such a unique sight I took my rightful perspective on my place in this natural system. I'm the idiot missile 4x4. However unintentionally charging around the place helping to erect the fences - adding more dopey rules. Imposing stupid regulations on something that naturally works very well. Sadly humans pro-created faster than Zebras and we will probably end up killing them all off by taking all their lands and by maintaining our demands for luggage and shoes.

Staring at this incredible landscape I think how tough it's going to be to recall the moment - aim to be that wee bit more intentional. In a few short days time I will be back in the midst of it all.

We've smothered, then killed, almost everything natural in our lives. We've done it out of sheer fear. We've done so by our silly rules and systems. Mostly ruinous to creativity - designed to control and minimize freedom and expression. And worse - stupidly/consciously implicated - we've allowed it to happen to us. We didn't run. We didn't cause the wind of dust and rock that we should have.

I'll try to recall my encounter with the Zebra's in the line at Terminal 5. I will certainly see them before they see me.

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The Winds Of The Khomas

Sound plays real tricks on you -especially at night - wherever you are in the world.

My home, KuangaKuanga is, fundamentally, a large rock with a shack attached. It aches with sounds at night. It pings, clangs and dings as its corrugated tin roof shrinks. Naturally it contracts and it contorts as it cools from incredibly high temperatures by day - a whole lot less by 3 am. The lizards in it must think they are under perpetual enemy fire. I did find a bullet today.

Strange then to be shocked by the wind by day. I hadn't thought of it before but every living system on the planet has its equivalent of the wind. From the driving energy of the immense currents at sea, to the photo-synthesis of the light from the sun.  

As one wanders around these remote lands a blast can come from nowhere. It hits you like a punch to the head. It is intoxicating and its story is always different. I can't read it yet but watching the movie has made me interested. Like a thought the wind is there and then gone. Like a thought I can't enjoy it long enough so I try to imagine it again when it has left. Impossible.

Where does it come from isn't the question I have. How can I understand and harness its deeper message is more interesting to me. What part does it play in my own system of things?

For some reason the wind seems to have something far more important to say out here. It has pretty much single-handedly shaped the people and the land for millennia. Everything here has been affected by it. It has lifted the very rocks, smashed them into tiny pieces and moved them hundreds of miles. It decides when the clouds come. And when they go. They are not invited at present.

Like much of this place you don't get to see what is here - but you know it's out there. Keeping an eye on you and at any moment - if you disrespect it - you will die.

Like every living system there is something indefinable and yet present that drives it on. The energy within it and within all that it embraces.

There is an invisible force that owns this place and the wind is its hands and fingers - touching everything.

Wandering in any potentially hostile terrain ensures that all your senses are very alive. In tune to each rock and every inch of the arrid soil. A snake, a leopard - anything could be lying in wait and watching for any slip. Flies hurt your head and remind you of all that is wrong in the world. Airports for example.

A lizard shoots along the path in front of me.

The direction I am taking is aimless yet trodden by something much larger than me - or the lizard. The wind blows long white grasses into the reptiles way. The wind's strange and invisible force whips this entire micro-fantasy up into intense musical notes. Whilst messing with the reptile the same wind reminds me of the searing heat - the bass drum of hot coals just got unloaded into my face.

My eyes are half closed from the white wind and the glare from the white ground. The rocky pass up into the higher mountain is suddenly not a pass. Enormous boulders that house the cats and the Oryx are far bigger than London buses and stand in my way. It is dark.

This forces the wind to whistle through any remaining narrow spaces - like a diabolical organ it reaches a deeply impressive tone. At this height the only competing sound is that from my own heart pounding inside my head.

The wind is telling me to back off this mountain. I nod. I'm off.

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Road Kill

The music of the road is rock. An impossible barrage of the sharpest shale assaulting the underneath of the poor 4x4.

Along the way, of the 8 or so vehicles in all of this long day, 3 of them now destined to be the tire mans customers. Their cars bowing down into to the ditch or praying upwards into the air - their inhabitants now furiously learning how to 'jack' the thing.

The desert 'Moonscape' is relentless. Rising and falling like a drunk only interspersed by spectacular red dunes on fire with their duty. A haze of dust, history and my squinting eyesight is set at what must be 100 miles away. I know it should only be 15 or so at this altitude but it's a 100 here.

On one implausible escarpment is perched a dozen sinister black shacks. Later I find out they are 'luxury' tents playing host to certifiable rock climbers. I imagine they will wear asbestos gloves and suits to scale the Mountains Of Lava. These suits are presumably illegal now.

Mile after mile of sand, shale, dust, shredded tires, more mountain and splendid desolation. Stunning.

On the horizon I know there are 65 Million year old petrified dunes. I've driven for long enough so when the smallest of signs confirms the road I need to turn off on is ahead I'm right there.

A track turns into nothing.

This place is so remote and so alone in its own spatial cosmos imagine my surprise when the man at the gate asked me my room number.

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Choice or Random Act?

A fork emerges in the road that probably wasn't even a road. Now most definitely a fork.

It's a tangled sprawl of wire and cactus, dust and busted tires. As I drive slowly into its haze I'm starting to make out a filling station, a hotel/church combination with carols being sung inside the open windows. 4 Camels dressed for dinner. Incredibly a sign for an ATM alongside a car graveyard scene direct  from Pixar's cutting room floor. It's 11 am and heading towards 40 degrees. My mind is playing Laura's theme from Twin Peaks.

I've arrived at Solitaire.

Several movies have had scenes filmed here. That is completely unsurprising.

My thought is 'Why here?' How did this choice get made? Was there a rock or a tree or a specific set of circumstances that caused it? Well yes but I don't know what they were. I will Google it when I can.

Solitaire is only sort of on the way to somewhere. The dunes of Sossusvlei to the South-West. A loose gravel hell - a road of immense length stretches North. South. The Namibian desert to the West. The Moonscapes of Nauklufteberg and Rotterkaum to the East. South Africa a million and a half miles to the South.

Solitaire rocks.

It is the complete article. A travellers oasis. 

An oasis of random acts. It has everything it needs squashed into a fork in the road. Whoever started it, and they or their offspring may well still run it, gets my vote. A stunning visual cacophony of what life here is all about. Solitude in one way, brutal and naked terrain in another but utter connection at the human level in every way.

The store sells everything. Poetry carved into rocks, wing mirrors, carved garden chairs and as much beer as anyone could want. People smile at each other as those who congregate knowingly at the top of the baddest black run at the swankiest ski-resort. An achievement just getting this far. I bought a hat fit for Clint Eastwood.

The most busy and popular chap at Solitaire is the dude repairing tires. A long queue of sad 'there, but for the grace of God, go I'. He works 24 x 7.

Nothing punctures his dedication.

The Town…

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There is no switch

Nothing quite prepares you for the sight as you round the bend in the road. Now high up on the Rantberge about to descend into the desert. The Spreetshoogte Pass.

I can see for a thousand miles. The breath definitely taken away.

Impossible to describe a desert - this simply inexplicable geological masterpiece. My home for a week. Living in such a remote place with no compute connectivity and deafening peace is at once beautifully chaotic and positively disturbing. Positively.

The immense distances mean nothing. 

1500 million years has not changed the impossible volcanic landscape stretched out before me very much - but I feel completely different. It's interesting how my Western mind pokes and challenges me as to how long I could feel inspired by this place. I will find out.

The relentless search for fresh input has slowed in its pace. Data to my brain now gets translated through uncommon bird sounds, snakes, lizards and insects crawling through my mind. 56 varieties of Scorpion.

The minute sparkling silica at my feet constantly shifted around by weird bugs and ants. Petrified twigs still slightly attached to the main branch are banging against the skeleton of a once proud antelope - or whatever it was. In other times I would be standing neck deep in a river.

An extraordinary performance is in continuous play that will outlive my time here.

A stark absence of all the usual western stimulus forces me into a random form of active seeking. Intrigue comes from a shadow now. And as the wind wanders over hot rock and dead grass my eyes follow and my brain rushes to cling on. In vain mostly.

I find myself bathing easily in this release from the everyday. The word to describe this could be contemplation but I know it isn't. Contrasting this new state with all the stuff - that becomes so stifling and irritating back in the other world - I could say I'm reflecting - but I'm not. Happily now a million miles from anything that I used to call important. Peace of heart and mind - that's enough.

What's the point comparing this place, my current mind and emotions with that totally other world. None - other that to realise the futility of needing to.

I have to break through needing to.

There is no switch.

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Revealing Inspiration

Staring at something - one thing - for an extended period has the bizarre effect of inducing myriad other thoughts. The mind forces this to happen. It wanders. I guess it does so to ensure we don't lose our minds with the compression and pressure of that amount of blinding focus. 

It can unsettle - but mastering it has big rewards.

What's interesting about the phenomena is to consider the puzzle it suggests. To in some way have fathomed how this actually works. Figure it out so that we might ride the wave - always on the hunt for creative inspiration as we train our minds to deliberately flitter around searching a breakthrough answer. Seeking that bigger and better thought.

By being tuned in to being tuned out - and in - yet all over the idea of the conundrum is a mercurial and confounding skill.

People around you - watching and listening would get concerned that you have lost interest in them or their conversation when in fact they have inspired you to go find new mental pay-dirt. You are off in search.

Locking into this state of mind is a hard thing to do. It is tough to describe in a way that people can understand or indeed be taught.

In Search Of The Bedouin Mind

Listen to what your eyes are telling you. Look for the stuff that they aren't. In your head turn the scene around through as many dimensions as you can. Pull the scene apart. Juxtapose the ordinary items and let the narrative in your head go wild. Throw stuff into the scene. Play with the words and related suggestions that enter your consciousness. You won't know where they came from. Imagine you are seeing what you see now for the first time – afresh.

Imagine you have stumbled across this arrangement and you weren't supposed to - it has shocked you.  

This is a recognized state of creativity that flies in and out within a nano-second. The cheating comedian that occupies the brain laughs at our poor performance. This gymnastics will tire you out but it's the life of the bedouin mind and you have to learn to follow its tracks.

Pay attention to its dance. It's disturbing and heightens your flow of adrenaline. You feel on edge. Bits are flying past your mind, your eyes and that inner voice is abusing you for fun. You feel a fraud, a traitor and a killer celebrity all at the same time. The thrill of it is unlike anything else.

You have had an idea.

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I haven't reached the desert yet.

I can feel the pull of it though. Empty but full. Simple yet highly complex.

My imagination only has the typical stuff from third parties to go on. Countless (but brilliant) documentaries of animals and plants that can survive the apparent vacuum and the heat. All in HD of course. People asking me if I have completely lost it. Why.

No room service, no internet. No respite from what it is. No problem.

I've heard horror stories, seen the movies where you just have to eat fellow travellers. Some of whom you have chosen to award less value to - in terms of the escape. You are close to going mad with lack of water or hope - you were certainly looking the wrong way when the sinister music started. You are living in the broken fuselage of life.

So this time tomorrow I will have covered the several hundred kilometres to arrive beyond contact from the rest of humanity. I will have travelled from minus 20 degrees C. To plus 35 or more degrees C. That's a lot of C. In 48 hours.

My mind pictures the scene. The arrid land, the sparse bush, the occasional animal, spider or snake. The unknown and unplaceable noises amid the cool of the night. The sound of new winds, sand and silence. All rolled up. The amazing and diabolical graphic statements of the dunes. 

From the air it looks like the moon. From down there I am expecting something far more distant and yet human - far from Hollywood. I am expecting to hear my mind working.

I can imagine a place that has been utterly ravaged by the sun and the wind. It has been hit by a violence that I can only imagine and nothing survived. I can also forsee a microscopic abundance of life itself. Not a microcosm but life. Itself. I can sense a different air, I can conjur a thrill of a different nature.

Will I be right!

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Living Systems & The Curious Case Of The Sociable Weavers

Strange. I like strange. 

I'm happy with it because it reminds me never take anything in life for granted. We are all living with Pygmy Falcons and Strange Attractors. Let me explain. 

Peoples, animals, insects - indeed every species and individual within them are all drawn to different things. Good job too of course otherwise everyone of them would be watching X-Factor.

However it does make for interesting challenges when developing, transforming and changing anything.

The Sociable Weaver is a bird found all over Southern Africa but particularly common here in Namibia where I'm writing this. When you first see its nest you are struck by the sheer audacity and crazy scale of it. Next your mind admires the beauty of it and then finally the complexity. Each structure hosts many families and a single tree can host many similar thatched constructions. 

Like all complex systems it embraces some strange stuff too. 

In the case of the Sociable Weaver's 'system' that has to be the Pygmy Falcon. The Pygmy Falcon shares the structure - lives there too. It probably does no work to help the Weavers build it. It mostly eats small insects, grasshoppers and geckos and yet it will also occasionally take one of its hosts as supper.

Anyway, how did the Weavers make this outrageous thing? 

Stuck, defying gravity in the fork in a tree or the cross rails of a telegraph pole. How did they all work together to achieve this? How did they know what the end result would look like as they weaver away? 

No drawings that I can see.

Well they do and it is an incredible living system. It houses many birds - a social network. In the telegraph pole versions the nest even has data connectivity. Not yet broadband though. Although they are probably too sensible to sign/switch on. The structure creates the perfect temperatures, air cooled to survive the heat and sufficient strength to survive the incredible winds. The downside - with too much rain (not much chance) it can get too heavy and break the branch it's built on.

So, in complexity theory, and given certain important parameters, communities, Birds, Zebra, Ants, Meerkats or Human teams all become self organizing around a mission - or just anyway.

Teams, and the individuals that make them up, become naturally attracted to certain 'flowing states'. These states are effectively the patterns that they make up - which are in turn the system.

These flowing states are known as 'strange attractors' in chaos theory. This metaphor is helpful in understanding the value of the visual frameworks in our work too. Without a frame of reference, or a vision, it is simple to see how easily unintended consequences would show up. We don't really want the Pygmy Falcon but the tax we pay gets us to live gecko free.

By observing the patterns of any organization, and in our case that's typically the people - their knowledge and the data, we can start to gather valuable clues about the business or the community itself. Armed this way we can then begin to map the way in which the 'enterprise' thinks and works.

Initially (and as in the case of the Social Weaver - the need to mate and survive) it starts with identifying the existing strange attractor. And then in our case a Vision or a better outcome. By degree we start to build the frame. As it emerges we are agreeing the shape (or that an existing shape needs to alter in some way).

During the evolution of the framework we - and the Sociable Weavers - are building a new shape - and as each new stick or twig gets added - setting the new course by plotting fresh patterns to operate by. Every season repairs are made to the nest as new families get accepted or new improvements/repairs need to be made.

Somehow the Weavers get there by some instinctive engineering and us by having a proven and logical framework and blueprint.

Not consensus though.

Why? It's not a viable objective in nature - nor is it in business. 

There are deaths along the way and fearsome battles. So it's important to figure out how to feel good with disagreement. I watched the Weavers attack each other - Sociably. Fighting for territory and not allowing newcomers access. It gets vicious. It's real life.

Our work in simplifying complexity is creating an agreed vision - the 'strange attractor' - and in some basic way the shared meaning that needs to come with that. It's hard. Many people attack the newcomers. They fight for their territory. Their twigs get criticised. It can get very emotional. Kill your own damn gecko then!

It's worth understanding a working definition of the idea of a shared mission.

We often observe agreement in teams out of the lack of a better idea. Terrifying. An almost last ditch acceptance. People can easily just give up in the face of strong opinion. Good or bad. This is not a good place to be. But at least with a framework in mind it is often better than the opposite. A bland and open vacuum devoid of real thought. I don't know where the Social Weavers get their grand design from but it sure works for them. 

I'm sure a new nesting system will see a few blind-eyed Sociable Weavers at the end.

Because in developing our visual framework we attack the ultimate objective (strange attractor) from multiple directions and at different stages, a lack of an answer or agreement earlier on will become the breakthrough idea later. 

It's not consensus necessarily but a greater revealing of a shared sense of something. That's a big part of our grand design. It saves on the medical bills.

This 'something' emerges by degrees. Over time it starts to add up more to the participants. It has arisen, surfaced if you like, after leaving some form of positive vacuum of 'good enough' - returning later to a far better thought. It is becoming in some way instinctive.

All this happens because the framework is already there. 

It is in our heads and on the wall just and just as present as the grand design exists in the DNA of the Weaver. It insists on each member of the 'team' tackling different dimensions of the same objective. Different patterns start coming together in the search for a 'system' of things that will suit everyone. Well hopefully everyone.

This is the power of reasonable logic. There is an innate energy being applied. Whether natural and instinctive (as in the case of the Sociable Weaver) or us working as a co-creative (if not consensual) team this is the real value of developing 'systems' within visual and logical frameworks.

We are all Sociable Weavers. Bring on that Pygmy Falcon

If you want to be yet more impressed by this bird check this out! http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1170/is_2002_Jan-Feb/ai_80903894/

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Life On the Road

4-30am

Very early alarm. Very. Suddenly standing in the shower. For a long time. Fast reboot to Awake Mode. Urgent e-mails first. Ghostly coffee machines, trouser presses stand idle. Who uses those things? Mind numbing, arcane - poorly written entreaties to conserve toiletries interrupt these precious moments with sufficient toxicity to ensure their destiny – they go in the trash. The hotel room is starting to throttle my mind. Gotta leave.

6-00am

Arriving, coffee in hand (with luck) to the empty shell that in a few days will entertain the big cheeses. A combined emotion of anticipation and creative determination to beat the scene before me. The walls are a mixture of challenges. Barriers to a fast start.

Despite requiring 'flat' walls there is a language barrier. Yes they will be flat. So why the fascination with ornamentation. Walls that were guaranteed to be clear of any protrusion – now a profusion of clocks, switches, whiteboards, wires, dado rails, oil paintings, hooks, wooden fish, mooses heads, windows, doors, spanish arches, medieval chests full of lead, helpful cabinets full of hand wipes – pizza trays, felt pens and thousands of paper clips, curtain rails, architectural follies, overhead screens and the like.

Shortly after 6-00am

The room is always a further obstacle course. Always unhelpful and ugly chairs - oddly assorted tables with the attendant rats nest of cables, phone leads, data cables, routers, modems, biro's, broken floor traps, dead pigeons and unwary carpet tiles, now soaked with the stain of previous ceremonies. Yes the death meetings or conferences of yore.

Sooo...

Firstly the big decisions. Can I cut round the ditritus before me? Will Roger find enough flat surfaces to cling to? Can I find sufficient space to draw even a thought bubble?

Or?

Build an entire wall. An inner skin of 8ft x 4ft lightweight panels joined together with the worlds most ingenious material - gaffa tape. Gaffa tape is compulsory kit for all high level strategic thinking. Build a wall. Yes a wall.

8-00 am.

The room now has the appearance of 'flat' walls suitable to create something elegant, meaningful and worthy. I can relax. There will be decision quality today.

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Free To Think

Flying is a great opportunity to think. I think. Nope it's not! Crap, what's going on.

The freedom and space to think can completely blow my head to pieces - release from insane schedules and pressure cooker thinking now becomes a hurdle. Great. Thanks. Right now thinking is the hardest thing to do. Am I even awake to what's going on.

Thought seems to demand me to scan an infinite universe of conundrums while harvesting conflicting implausibilities. And that is when I can even latch onto something. That’s not often. Each useless fragment taunts me with violent shrugs of utter contempt. I know where writers block lives. Possibly even the precise cave. Anything of any value guarded by fogged out sprites - lurking like some ferral pimpernels in the inner walls of my mind.

Vapour thin cloths hanging, messed up bits of something dart for a second with the thought seductively exposed and then gone. A second earlier I'd projected the diabolical ideas that were mine alone. I thought. Now lost.

I start giving in to the more easy to catch mediocre notions. I capture and commit to my selection of meaningless junk. Then tear them off the big screen that suddenly assembled with the rush of a jet plane. Fooling me into thinking that I'm thinking. It's like slashing at the neck of an infinite snake to finally pull something lucid into the real world of my real world.

What's so bloody annoying is that I know the better stuff is in my fucking head - I am just bloody useless at trapping.

Now look.

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Roll over Pareto. 80:20 Vision

Change is an unfortunate term isn't it – it's overused and misunderstood.

The bringing together of 'easy to say' things like increased collaboration, systems appreciation, creativity and fresh ideas can only really happen when conditions for them to flourish exist. Change will be deeply resisted if their meaning is left open to interpretation.

Change can therefore only happen when the conditions are developed. This means that there is probably a leader with vision - or at least a hunger for what's next. There will be a culture for teamwork  - or at least a recognition of the need for it. And a 'burning platform' or passion of sorts - clear recognition that things just have to change - at least a few folk looking outside at the gathering black clouds!

This form of 'smart' change means being aware and connected in ways we haven't even begun to imagine.

Developing 80 : 20 vision

Real strategy and smart thinking means charting a course through the unknown. This is where there is the need for real reconnaissance, vigilance and peripheral vision. Change means a massive distortion to our traditional and safe vision - literally and symbolically - and especially so at the edge. This is where 21st Century businesses need the help most. Things that can be observed to need change, are probably well trodden territories and don't strike so much fear - let's call that 80% - it's not even the remaining 20% of the issue that cannot be seen which gives us the problem – it's 20% of that 20% (maybe less - it doesn't matter). It's the edge. The edge of our known stuff and the cause of all the woes or the root of all opportunity.

Problem is most enterprises spend almost a 100% of their time reacting to the 80% - worse the effect of it. And very little time getting out ahead of it. At the very least business needs the 80% tick smoothly and then get a strategy for that critical 20% of the 20%. In this blurry, noisy, irritating fog lies all the opportunity you can imagine. Competitive advantage, critical insight, innovation, early warning and massive risk. Great.

Why I spend so much time fooling with the edge is because I feel that only there am I training my filters, sharpening my sensitivity and preparing my mind for what might happen. Yes we need to leverage networks of people, systems and clever connected 'social' media to help us think about all this and we know these systems are already there but very few traditional businesses leverage this stuff properly. They don’t know how to create the ground for them to exist. The 80% gets in the way.

These new tools are already not new - decision tools - things like Google, Facebook, Twitter and their close cousins. They will soon be making smarter choices - creating better filters that improving every decision you make. Don't ignore them. Discover them. We may not recognise them soon but they are the pioneers of our new world. They are the pathfinders. They, and many others that you won't have heard of yet, are the networks for increasing peripheral vision. From 80:20 to 20:20

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Loving Travel Again! (Well the comedy of it)

So the App finally arrives to aid weary air travellers. Great.

Actually the BA Application does work and while it's got the utility to recognise you, check your bags and all that - someone needs to tell their staff and systems that they have it.  As you file towards the 'thing' that scans the traditional paper ticket you see the attendant squirming with apprehension of what to do with an iPhone. Instead of scanning it they turn round and hit a key on their desktop and then tell you to show it again to the flight crew - who in turn just look at your phone and wave you on. So what's going on? Could I be anyone with a weird barcode on a phone?

Hey I am not complaining.

What I am complaining about is the seriously expensive 'check in friendly' new bag that supposedly means I don't have to take my prized Mac out of it's duvet and place it precariously in a grubby Tupperware box for x-ray. It worked fine in T5 but despite me pointing to the instructions saying it is check in safe the idiot in Geneva said I still had to take it out. Fucking idiot.

Did I really believe that global airport systems would align on this? Stupid.

Anyway the last few months has seen me witness 39 check ins (writing this in mid-air) so I know what I am talking about. Actually no I don't. I have come to realise that I have no freaking idea what to expect or how to navigate any check-in, any customs or passport check - anywhere - ever. It's always diferent. You would think that would be exciting or interesting right? Nope.

As regular readers know I am a big fan of travelling but the leading opponent of airport systems. Well now they just raised the game. So check this - Armed with an iPhone and a suitable Airline App we can now add another feature to entertain us throughout our travels - battery failure at check in.

Bye!

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Flying Thoughts

Intriguingly counterintuitive. What?

Well most smart things.

For me it's depressingly easy to identify cases of the wrong problem having been solved really well. So well in fact that the effects caused by the first wrong thing being solved have now been solved too - by layers of additionally annoying 'sticking plasters' - solutions to the initial incorrect diagnosis. The result is a stuck, layered, systemic mess of stinking proportions - held in place by armies of folk defending it all. That’s because they either were or weren't responsible for the creation of this hairball in the first place. Systemic Stupidity as I call it.

I'm talking about every level of business and western society when I describe this phenomena. Elinor Ostrom a professor at Indiana University and Nobel Laureate describes the systems we see and often suffer from as ‘polycentric’.

This is an important concept to understand.

Fundamentally she means that in an ideal state - multiple public and private organisations at multiple scales jointly affecting collective benefits and costs. A system where many elements are capable of making multiple adjustments for ordering their relationship with one another within a general system of rules where each element acts with independence of other elements. That makes sense.

The key word/idea here is 'capable'.

This capability or lack of is completely at the heart. To me for capability read thinking. Joined up and collective thinking that can avoid this rubbish and cause the kind of transformation business and society is crying out for. There are lots of eager folk describing the state of play when it comes to the need for better 'thinking' these days. Illustrating a gymnastic need for leaders to hold multiple paradoxes in their heads - complex data and seemingly impossible conundrums.

Complex systems are a fact of life and to add further complexity within all these systems of things Elinor describes 'nested attributes' - critical pools of activity within the system itself. Meaning that there can be very significant sub-systems happily operating with little connection to the whole system for most of the time. But very very important that it exists in the grand scheme of things. Imagine when sweeping national dictates come along and ignore this happy little community doing it’s thing for all the right reasons. Insanity.

What to do?

Reading, as I do often, what the great minds say about all manner of things. It's increasingly obvious that there is energy around the case for dismantling best practices, challenging traditions and developing a new language for us to turn this tanker.  Get at the root causes of systemic stupidity. A note of caution - let not what emerges, new tools, techniques - this new language be a fig leaf for the old thinking carrying on under new management. New language has a habit of being slammed as ‘speak’. Challenge the following trendy but true - for example.

Just a few simple changes  - a new approach to thinking. How brave is your firm?

Develop scenarios - the likely, the possible - the worst case. Have quality conversations - forcing questions – they are vital tools if your teams are going to stay afloat in these times.

Co-creation and collaboration internally and externally - versus - command and control management.

Messy non-linear relationships between things - versus - traditionalist line of sight - cause and effect thinking.

The need for context over the point (or focussed) solution – avoid solving the wrong problem really well.

Patterns and connection versus the well trodden historical evidence - data is king - hmm well maybe.

Breakthrough creativity and radical innovation - versus – evolution/more of the same.

Comfort with paradox, conundrums and seeming chaos - versus - a long-term plan.

Curiosity and freshness - versus - certainty.

Simples.

All important if we are to avoid systemic stupidity but will we? Will anyone?

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Delirium

I’m so delirious it’s incredible.

The idea of being in an altered state is intriguing don’t you think?

For me at least it’s become an increasingly attractive and relevant strategy.  Adrift long enough to enable me to rethink the plainly toxic - stupid world we seem to have created for ourselves. Oh no I must have been through an airport again. Well yes but also been through the recent elections in Great Britain reminding how awful the experience of almost everything in our beautiful land has become.

Delirium works for me

I’m completely out of it. My bearings are completely changed - beyond recognition - everything different. I don’t recognize a thing. How good is that? Inexplicable. Fantastic. Mischievous. Adorable. Sane.

This is how it goes.

I’m probably staring a little too much and for too long at something. My mind, at least what’s left of it, toying crazilly with an idea. Neurons in my head and my body fizzing and crackling like a wasp in a blender. This feeling is like one you probably haven't had since you were a child. It's a kind of freedom you thought possible but you stood it down because the 'system' would frown.

What worked in your head before (desperate to secure a clear choice and a safe direction of course) delirium set in now seems utterly ludicrous. You are laughing at how stupid the prior idea now seems. “The system wanted me to do what? How much? But I pay my taxes already! Another six forms? Are you messing with me? Ha, ha....”

Your perspective on everything shot to pieces - your brain agrees to multiple ‘cahoots’ with a demon - it's done a whole new deal with it and yes you were looking. You can see it conspiring and you play along. Because it makes utter sense. You insist on odd reasoning about precise if wacky details like “I know - let’s do it once – I’m paying so shouldn’t they serve me? Does filling out this form eight times actually mean anything?”

Hang on – the voices are suddenly making sense, that stone must be turned, that system IS ridiculous, that spreadsheet is beautiful. Well perhaps not quite THAT altered. I must be delirious. No I must!

Imagine if we could reach that state at will and ask ourselves entirely different questions. Challenge the predictable and the not-working. Get out of our box long enough to challenge just how stupid, stuck and boring we've become as a race.

Hmm, I love the smell of delirium in the morning...

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