Replying to LO27112 --
Dear Organlearners,
Rol Fessenden <rol@fessenden.net> writes:
>It is perhaps theoretically possible that in a constrained
>situation a true 100% dialog could occur, but it is rare.
>Hoping to have one in a fairly rich situation with many
>participants is likely to be a doomed hope. This list
>actually does a pretty good job of it. But once we get
>into the world at large, where we have constant difficult
>conversations with spouses, bosses, friends, kids,
>coworkers and so forth, it is impossible to have a dialog
>conversation with any regularity.
Greeting dear Rol,
Thank you for your too kind contribution in which the focus is on me. I
honestly wish that the focus was not on me.
As I now understand it, the LO-dialogue suffers because of a curious
Mental Model "Fight whatever has seemingly a destructive influence with
destructive means". It is like fighting fire with fire. It works only in
some rare situations. I think your awareness to this Mental Model is
reflected by you writing:
>It is hard to pracice dialog when one is on either end
>of a conversation involving firing, confronting someone
>over their prejudice or abuse, judging someone's ability
>to do a particular job, ........(snip)
However, you also write:
>There are a lot of feelings involved, and it is unrealistic
>to expect someone to enter into a dialog when their
>feelings are deeply involved.
I consider feelings (emotions) as powerful entropic forces of the mind.
These feelings are not as such destructive. They rather drive outcomes
which can either be constructive or destructive.
Feelings are like our legs. We must use them to get somewhere. But we
cannot use our legs to decide where we want to be. We will have to use our
head for that decision. Inside our head we need some definite knowledge to
decide between either a destructive or a constructive outcome.
What is this definite knowledge? For me it is knowledge on the 7Es (seven
essentialities of creativity: liveness, sureness, wholeness, fruitfulness,
spareness, otherness and openness). When I follow a path in which each of
the 7Es increases, then that course is constructive. But when I follow a
path in which merely one (or perhaps more) of the 7Es decrease, then that
course is destructive.
>So in the imperfect world, what do we do? AT
>offered part of the solution when he said that he
>had been part of the Deemster culture, until he
>realized what he was doing, and then he changed
>himself. No one else changed AT, he did it himself.
Today I think much more of a organising-complexifying-evoluting world
rather than the "perfect" world. Let me call it the "living world". This
"living world" becomes more perfect when we create constructively. But it
can also become less perfect when we create destructively.
I cannot guarantee that I will always be creating constructively. But I
promise that should I become aware that I have created destructively, I
will try my best to correct constructively what I destroyed.
I can only change myself. It took me a long time to learn that the vast
majority of my attempts to change anybody else were doomed to failure.
Today I also understand why they were doomed to failure. A living system
has to produce its entropy self drawing upon its own free energy to do so.
As soon the living system begins to rely on externally produced entropy or
external sources of free energy, that system is tinkering with death.
Furthermore, should anybody else want to change, I can help that person to
change and will be glad to help. Yet again I promise that I will help only
in such ways that the person remains the skipper of his/her own ship.
>What AT does -- and undoubtedly others here -- is
>engage in dialog-like behaviors and communications
>mechanisms even when the others in the conversation
>do not do so. This is an example to me of someone
>taking responsibility for his own behavior and not letting
>his behavior be constrained by others' actions.
Dear Rol, were it not for my own knowing of the 7Es, I would have been
easily been controled by others. These 7Es enabled me to to take control
over myself as well as "undo" their control of me. They succeed in
controlling me whenever my own knowledge on the 7Es is too little.
>What AT does is considerably harder than
>just wishing that everyone else would engage
>in dialog. He does it solo.
Yes, a solo dialogue is almost like an oxymoron. But it is not. In the
early years of my desert wanderings I always invited others with me. I was
afraid of being alone in the desert. I seldom could find others willing to
go along. So I learned how to explore the desert alone.
But one day I broke my ankle while being alone. I had to crawl for a whole
day with my hands and knees over rocks to get back to my vehicle. I almost
did not make it. That day I learned how extremely dangerous it is to
explore the desert alone. So, wherever possible, I try to take friends
along.
It took me a long time since 1971 what I now can articulate as the
Elementary Sustainers of Creativity (ESC). The five ESCs which I
have identified so far, are
(1) thought-exchanging (the dialogue)
(2) problem-solving
(3) game-playing
(4) exemplar-exploring
(5) art-expressing.
Language is so incredibly rich that we can actually participate in all
five these ESCs with language. Should you carefully analyze my own
contributions, you will find how much I make use of these 5 ESCs. In other
words, my own contributions are more than "pure" dialogue.
But the question remains -- why do I often participate in our LO-dialogue
in a seemingly solitary manner. It is because of my M&V (Mission and
Vision). My mission is to teach fellow learners about "authentic
learning". And to accomplish this mission, I have to learn self that
teaching even when I have "to explore the desert alone".
My vision is that we can indeed make this world a better place for our
children. I have succeeded in teaching some children and students how to
create constructively. I have seen how they underwent a metamorphosis like
the succulent plants in a desert after rain which dispelled several years
of drought. I cannot say which is the most beautiful -- a succulent in
bloom or a learner having found inner peace and freedom through
constructive creativity.
I try to do with my contributions for the parched spiritualities of
learners what rain does to the desert. I am a realist. Wide spread rain in
the desert is very rare. It is usually a patch of rain here this year and
a patch there next year. But I am also an optimist. Somehow the many
patches which had to withstand many years of little rain, overcome that
drought to show how the whole desert can turn into bloom. In some deserts
it happens less than once in one hundred years. I have been fortunate to
see it happening in such a desert of Namibia -- (West Kaokoland)
It is as if heaven has come to earth. Dozens of different kinds of lilies
(which were dormant for decades) emerged from soft ground which on my
previous visits looked like bare hard rock. In pools of water various
kinds of water birds were tending to their chicks like they do in the
Okavango swamps hundreds of kilometers to the east. They came from these
swamps because somehow they got the message that this year heaven came to
the desert.
I wish I could take all you fellow learners on a trip now to that desert.
For days we would wander around and I will tell you of things which I have
seen happening. And perhaps all of you would tell me while looking around
-- impossible. You were hallucinating.
During that whole trip my overriding thought was one of amazement.
Amazement at what transformation the desert underwent. But also amazement
at my own inability to even imagine such a transformation during my
earlier visits. I used to pride myself that I have an unusually vivid
imagination. But that year the desert taught me that I am just as many
other humans, perceiving death rather than imagining life, judging the bad
rather than promoting the good and staring at the ugly rather than
exploring the beautiful. That transformed desert taught me to question
myself rather than questioning the intentions of others. That desert
taught me to sing with laughter and dance with joy at its incredible
transformation.
I want to stress that the desert's transformation taught me. The novel
future which has become the present taught me in a couple of days more
than all the bleak presents of the past could teach me. It is called the
eschatological perspective which complements the historical perspective.
The transformed desert taught me in a couple of days more about
eschatology than what dozens of theological books could do in many years.
It gave me deep insight into the wisdom of the following.
Seek for constructive creatvity because in it lies the power of all
transformations which will make us sing with laughter and dance with joy,
forgetting the past destructions which haunt us.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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