Jeff's Blog

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” (Lao Tzu )

Politicians use the term revisionist to label both challenger and foe as a liar or as inconstant as a horse midstream. Of course this claim is absurd given that most intractable wars, intolerable religious practices and counterproductive laws are the result of sticking to a tired idea or outmoded philosophy. History is pocked with politician and commander who have dug in and kept on to the grave. Revisionary should not be taken here to mean that we cover up the truth of our past inhumanity or indiscretion but rather that we incorporate all experiences, virtuous and otherwise, in the hope that they may do us good as we learn anew and venture forth.

The long held axiom “seeing is believing” and its whammy zammy cousin “believing is seeing” are both slightly aslant. Scientist and spiritualist alike know well that “unseeing is believing.”  While vision holds us constant on the path to growth ignoring all signs and detours along the way speeds us along to our ruin. Our certainty blinds us to our opportunities. The Oracle at Delphi was given to confounding general and mage with structured ambiguities by which they witnessed only what they wished to perceive. One may see the new with old glasses but not without keeping watch for it. So we are charged with the most difficult task of remaining true to our aim yet adaptable to adjust more than just our course – to change our destination and begin again.

The London Cholera Epidemic of 1854 turned Dickensian streets bleak with the death of over six hundred residents in span of just two weeks. The prevailing “miasma theory” posited that the disease was caused by polluted or “bad air” and brought about a host of remedies that involved everything from chemical treatments rung out from censers like myrrh and frankincense at high mass to an assemblage of large fans to blow the noxious vapors away. In the midst of the panic, while others were devising new ways to move air, physician John Snow made a rather macabre map of the City marking the spot where each victim perished. The data soon revealed that the disease spread from the contaminated Broad Street Pump. The handle was promptly removed from the apparatus and the epidemic quickly dissipated. Unhooking from conventional wisdom, Snow postulated the poison as waterborne pathogen and the science of epidemiology followed.

The heliocentric cosmology of Copernicus and the special relativity of Einstein are both celebrated examples of game changing theories that came from lionized figures who trusted neither their senses nor accepted wisdom. But such illumination requires more than a satori flash of sudden awareness or kindly synchronicity. It also demands that we change what we see and believe to be true. Unmoved, our situation may conspire to turn us around so that we may face a new direction. Things look different after the divorce. There is an aura of growth than can only be seen when we look for paths to defamiliar places in our own lands and become strangers to ourselves. To truly believe is the same as not believing at all for in either case we are not open to what we encounter along the way. Growth travels with us in our age to change our view, our mind and our destiny.

• Make adjustments along the way

Some of the most fantastical advancements in modern science and technology are designed to predict weather patterns. Seeing a hurricane gather in plan view on Doppler radar as it creeps towards an indefensible megalopolis or nameless burg is as menacing as any Godzilla versus Rodan smack down. While we may forecast where the wind blows we cannot forestall it. No matter the domain or occupation from farmer to flight attendant the weather largely affects if not determines what we will do where and when. We cannot hope to tame or transcend the weather in our life but we can endeavor to track it.

We manage and consume our days in efficient patterns – the best route to work during rush hour, meetings in the morning and emails in the afternoon, the best days to travel to New York and such. Though we scurry like gerbils through these carefully arranged tunnels we cannot see them well because they have become transparent within our environs. Larger and perhaps paradoxical patterns are even harder to spot for we have scant opportunity to look up from staggering series of tasks. The business falters, the marriage suffers and the teen is troubled to the astonishment of all. No one saw it coming because no one wanted to look. The older and more accomplished we get the more leveraged our lives become and the less likely we are to acknowledge or embrace the outliers that penetrate the limits of our implicit order.

To track the weather in our life we must look for dynamics and find the patterns that have some real barring on our actions. The aim here is to rise above our everyday view and limitations to harness these transformational forces; not to resist them.

First, consider what is moving at the level of General wholeness: Markets, politics, music, technology, environment, etc. Here we spot opportunities and barriers we cannot control but can incorporate into our plans. Focus only on those forces that have some real impact on our life and have a high probability of occurring. For example, as Asian nations prosper in the new economy millions more of their best and brightest will attend the top universities in Europe and North America making admission much more competitive than in previous generations.  This could significantly alter college and financial planning. Look for the key patterns from all four forces (Collaborate, Create, Compete and Control) that have strong potential to be highly influential and likely to significantly affect our life plan. Consider both positive and negative influences.

Next repeat the process for the level of Communal wholeness: Our family, social affiliations such as church, school, sports clubs, political parties, and social media networks. Finally, examine the level of Personal wholeness: Our Self, identity, persona, skills, beliefs and values. Question what influence these patterns have on our own plans:

• What’s moving? Why?
• What impact will it have on our plans?
• What is the probability of this happening?
• How can we capitalize on this movement? Avoid it?

Now consider these three levels together and look for larger patterns. Focus only on those few forces that may be directing us into a decision. Don’t fight these patterns but rather use them to an advantage. These drivers need to be tracked and taken into consideration when making life plans because they will most certainly influence them.

Like the weatherman, we are often specifically wrong with our forecasts but generally right when tracking the change of seasons in our life. It’s a messy business to interpret what is moving and what isn’t. Gauging the speed, magnitude and probability are all essential elements in predicting the impact on us. Understanding how these forces shape our life is iterative process that must be regularly revisited not only because the patterns change but more that we come to recognize new patterns.

Jeff DeGraff

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“Having just a vision’s no solution, everything depends on execution
The art of making art is putting it together” (Stephen Sondheim, Sunday in the Park with George)

In the old television series Star Trek, the Klingon’s were portrayed as a war mongering race focused on destroying Starfleet, the peacekeeping force for the United Federation of Planets. Beastly and cunning, the dusky marauders would capitalize on every fortuitous situation where they had a strategic advantage over lesser rivals. While their warbirds, predatory starships armed with spectacular weaponry and cloaking technologies, were impressive, the most remarkable of Klingon attributes was their ability to synchronize complex strategic maneuvers and to carry them out in difficult situations. Every Klingon knew their role and responsibilities and the measures of victory or failure. Their appraisal of leaders was brutal and frank, usually accurate, and those who failed to execute the wishes of the Empire met that same fate. In our world, those who create like Klingons make short work of those that stumble and mumble like Starfleet officers. While the sensitive soul moves us toward the sublime the possessive ego drives us ever onward in determined action where we willfully vanquish our foes and accomplish our goals

Aristotle defined art as the organized task of production. While he noted the role of the fantastic in the creative act it was the craft of application and integration that commanded most of his attention. While isolation can be illuminating, we perform in ensembles like the Cirque du Soleil where we practice our trade with high performing freaks connected only by the pulsing continuity of the shared soundtrack.  It is in our communal actions that radical vision (Create), focused goals (Compete), shared values (Collaborate) and integrated processes (Control) become manifest and mated and produce their progeny. We bind them together to bring the psychological to the social, the emotional to the intellectual and the spiritual to the physical. It is through this participation and coordination that the strange and latent deep within us becomes manifest and familiar. This revelation appears to others through our actions and is substantiated by artifacts and symbols. These works taken to be signs are as much our own projections of the inside energy turning out as they are of the outside force returning to us. In this way we experience the creative as secret sacraments, a structured encounter with the mystical converging within us and converting the infideliest. Though our self awareness of inner invention may distinguish us from the other inhabitants of the animal kingdom, we are oblivious to the instability and transience of our situation. While most may walk the road to Damascus, few are moved to change direction or act upon a penetrating experience.

We do indeed become the company we keep. Our world is negotiated. There is no autonomous man who’s life springs fully formed from his forehead like Athena. Our natural attraction to variety may be as much a biological imperative for survival as a diversion from the mundane. Artists and economists alike reside in colonies – The Left Bank, the Bloomsbury Group, the Chicago School. While some recent studies suggest that large groups are more productive in producing innovation they are silent as to the quality of this work. Look to the great and enduring from painters to Nobel Laureates and creative clusters become self evident. We may all be equal in the eyes of God but we enjoy no such luck when it comes to talent. While these movements and schools of thought are the machinations of master artisans competing and conspiring within a geography and epoch they are easily recognized from other cultures and eras because their principles and goals are fixed in the material – Impressionism, the Beat Generation, Magical Realism.

We must forge authentic shared goals with those worthy of our ambitions; not the trifles of the heroic narcissist bandied about – a new boat, unimaginable wealth, a hot babe. These visible articulations of our internal life are to be treasured and pursued as on a pilgrimage for this is indeed our calling or at least the next destination. We dare not tarry. They will keep us on track together and bring back around when we are lost. They are hidden logic of our reckoning and the basis or our ongoing and the basis or our ongoing conversation. More importantly, they give us our only real way to see our blind spots.

• Align the aims and actions

Jeff DeGraff

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In peak moments of flow and manic machinations of enthusiasm unbound we kid ourselves into believing that we truly know who we are in full. Charged events of loss and favor reveal to us in a Satori instant of enlightenment our real potential for depth and insight but often bring only the disappointing intuition that we are too shallow to fully view these transformational moments that transpire just beyond our vantage point. At these moments we may turn to the wisdom traditions which offer potent platforms to pull us up towards heaven or chant us into the void of no-mind and incorporeal serenity. While the tenants of faith may vary the inclination to move us to higher elevations is universally paramount.

While too much self reflection leads mostly to the divine punishment of Narcissus we must advance our Self knowledge if not our awareness in some useful form if we are to grow in fruitful consciousness, action and result. Of course our guiding vision of our Self is essential in moving us forward but it is entirely insufficient. We need to develop a cogent plan based on our real abilities, willing associates and assets at the ready. While Man may be justified by faith alone it is in the communion of works that we do the heavy lifting required to move us hither and yon. This requires constant corrections. We are not sprung fully formed from the brow of Zeus. We schlep along on our pilgrimage to the holy places with an assemblage of unlikely others who join and fall away according to some rhythm we do not follow.

The answer to the question of who we are really is ensconced in the situation and context in which it is asked. We are an assemblage of where we have been and those who have narrated our story along the way. But perhaps we can be truly seen and heard above the rumble and the chatter that bustles and bumps. We may indeed be different people all together depending on if we are at work or church or the school of our children.

There are four basic classes or families of roles we play:

1. Personal: This is who we are when we are in our core social unit such as a family or relationship or close friendship: Husband, father, son, brother, buddy, etc. These roles are defined by intimacy and familial expectations and responsibilities.
2. Professional: This is who we are when we are at work performing our trade or service for some form of compensation monetary or otherwise. Typically some form of training or association is designated for this occupation: Physician, entrepreneur, programmer and all similar nouveau pursuits. We may play multiple roles within this class as our profession spills over into our home life and beyond.
3. Creative/Aspirational: This is who we are when we are creating beyond our personal or professional roles. That is, when we dare to move outside of our ordinary responsibilities and distractions to become something greater: Author, musician, painter or weaver or the like. While these generative pursuits may result in some recognition or monetary recompense, we do them simply because we have a calling. They flow toward growth.
4. Shadow/Stranger: This is the role we play when we are operating in the negative zone. In these roles we are often unsure of our real motives or what triggers their appearance: Addict, philanderer, misanthrope, etc. These roles are particularly frightening and troublesome because we may feel unable to contain their destructive power. In many spiritual traditions the deity responsible for renewal is the also the harbinger of desolation for they are both part of the same process. While we may engage professionals to see our goblins safely out or at least keep them well sedated, acknowledging this ruinous role is essential if we are to be whole where all of our parts are required.

In reality all roles are deeply interwoven and to pull the thread of one is to unravel the others. Still some good may be done by codifying our communities and creating a roster of all of the good souls around in each of our roles. This will serve as an aid to understanding our Self in the context in which we really function and will help us determine who we may enlist in our growth and what they may expect from us. While it’s important to take stock of our roles and responsibilities to others and ourselves, each role brings with it constituencies.  Here among our people we find our “go-to” playmakers, the people who help get us from here to there. Winning coaches, top shelf executives and grandmasters at chess all have a deep understanding of what each contestant is designed to do. Instead of wasting time trying to change their natural purpose, they position them to fully mobilize their natural talents and tendencies for the victory of the team.

To objectively understand how the pieces fit together, inventory and PEG the People, Endeavors and Goals of key supporters. The aim is not to manipulate but rather to appreciate what they seek and how they seek it. We have an existing ensemble of players and plays to work with and we are looking to maximize their range and potential. To sync our actions with our aspiration consider experience and competencies as well as current and emerging reality. This is where we employ what we have to reach our desired future. This is how we give and take from our people. This is where we come to understand the roles we play and forgive others who play along.

Jeff DeGraff

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“I don’t care if it’s a white cat or a black cat. It’s a good cat so long as it catches mice.” (Deng Xiaoping)

While the Spanish conquered the native peoples of the Americas with the cruelty of musket and chains and the disjunctive English starved through the winters at Jamestown, the French enjoyed relative prosperity in the North largely because a young mariner named Samuel de Champlain had a unique ability to deeply understand the languages and tribal customs of warring Indian nations and enrolled them in his vision of a Franco-American society. Though largely known today for “discovering” the lake that bears his name and his Quebec City settlement, Champlain was the first European of significance to unite and organize contentious Indian nations such as the Huron and Algonquin tribes into a cooperative league and fully integrate them into the citizenry of New France – Canada. Champlain is special in that his panoramic plan was realized with penetrating awareness of the environs, functional practicality and the persistence of an evangelical preacher plying his trade. Taking a higher point of view to find the common cause and how it carries forward individual aspirations is essential for bringing our forces together and to marshal them such that all prosper.

There is a dominant logic that pervades any situation. For Seventeenth Century European settlers it was largely that the native peoples were savages and meant to do them harm. Given that they intended to confiscate their ancestral lands and enslave them may have led to this obvious conclusion. Yet, some like Champlain were able to equitably transcend their own biases and limitations to observe the situation with an open mind and realize that adjoining the native peoples was a key part of the solution. He considered what each of the seemingly oppositional parties could bring to the arrangement. The indigenous tribes knew the geography, the patterns of migrating birds and fish, the best hunting grounds for game and the construction of light water craft and shelter. These would ensure that starvation was unlikely for the colonists. Europeans brought metallurgy, navigational technology, navel architecture and the ever popular advanced weaponry. These abilities would safeguard the tribes and repel their traditional enemies.

It is only in transcending dominant logic that we find truly innovative solutions to protracted challenges. They are seldom found in a singular point of view including novel ones. Growth, like its senior sister innovation, happens where opposition is united into something greater and new. Common vision and values don’t excite, super ordinate ones do. To find them we must move to the balcony of our own beliefs and look down at their limitations. Similarly, we must find the useful and the beneficial in the loyal opposition. Those with a Create mentality and commensurate skills would be wise to partner with Control types. Similarly Compete and Collaborate forces will benefit from the other. These four together are invulnerable assuming an adequate level of competency for each and the ability of some to move ambidextrously.  We do not grow by developing our weaknesses, but rather by transiting through our strengths into the company of others who make up for our deficiencies with their own talents. The absence of range between these competing values leads only to convention and cult.

It is both ironic and frightening, but nevertheless true, that when constructively engaged hackers keep our information highways moving just as enemies of the State keep our airports open precisely because they think about new ways to attack them. Like Champlain these alliances are a matter of survival, a prerequisite to growth. This means that we must seek out tribal leaders who represent that which we have come to reject. Underlying differences need to be confronted and acknowledged, but not necessarily resolved. Potential opportunities for growth should be explored and a new covenant negotiated.  Finally, expect conflict but use it productively in the push and pull that expands growth. Begging pardon from both Machiavelli and John Kennedy, we might say “keep your friends close and ask what your enemies can do for your country.”

• Rise above the limitations