Quantum Lessons From My Dog LO27884

From: John Dicus (jdicus@ourfuture.com)
Date: 02/21/02


A couple of days ago, our 13 year old Pomeranian, Dusty, taught me a
lesson in quantum thinking. I'm reasonably sure he didn't imagine it to
be so, but nonetheless.

He was at the base of the single step separating our kitchen from our
family room. Although it's only about 8-9 inches tall, it's at chin level
for Dusty. (Sometimes I lay on the floor with him and look at the world
from his perspective. He operates from a different set of visual and
audible cues. And he seems to appreciate it when someone comes to visit
at his level.)

I leaned down and handed him a tiny bite of muffin. In his eagerness to
get the morsel, he caused it to drop on the kitchen floor, just out of his
reach. I watched him study the dilemma. I said "go one, Dusty, get the
muffin." But he continued to ponder.

He stretched out as far as he could, but was still about an inch short.
A few times I saw him make the wiggles he usually does as he prepares to
hop up to the kitchen level. But he wavered, back and forth, between
stretching and thinking about jumping.

Finally, he made the jump and landed in the kitchen about a
dog-and-a-quarter's length beyond the edge of the step. Completely
overshooting the bite of muffin. I looked for the muffin, but discovered
that he had scooped it on the fly as he jumped up -- a tiny crumb still at
the corner of his mouth.

Then I realized that he had been thinking on a different level than I.
He was aware that zero jumps was too few, and that one jump was too much.
He had to decide between none and one, and neither decision was working
for him. There was no in-between state. I think he finally gave it a go
when he decided that he could snag the muffin on the fly.

I seem to remember a phenomenon in physics called "tunneling." I think it
occurs when you manage to go from one state to another, apparently
crossing over an intermediate state that's impossible for you to cross
over. It's as though you had somehow managed to cheat and tunnel through
the wall.

I hope you all aren't waiting for any grand conclusions here. I don't
have any. But the lesson from Dusty has planted some questions in my
head.

Like, how can we bring the stuff we keep packing into our heads about
Organizational Learning back to a human level?

What are the lessons we've already accumulated (that we've forgotten or
don't think apply) that can help us understand, providing pathways for
moving forward?

How many times have we avoided mustering the courage to move ahead toward
some desired future state simply because we didn't think we could ever get
there from here? Or because we didn't have a detailed plan that we could
"sell" in common organizational currency?

Sometimes I think about Oliver Wendell Holmes when he said that "he would
give his life for the simplicity beyond complexity." And I think that we
make a wall out of complexity. That is, we approach our study and
understanding of it in such a manner as to make it a seemingly
insurmountable barrier and an untenable place to exist -- both at the same
time. All the while we could dial our lives down a notch and find some
peace and calm. Or we could learn make the jump into another realm on the
other side of the wall. (What could we scoop on the fly?) It feels like
we spend too much of our time trying to climb over the wall or discover
ways to cope while banging our heads into it.

Dusty made the leap (and back). Maybe I can learn to do it too.

(Hmmmm!!! "quantum leap," "leap of faith," "hyperjump," "supersonic,"
"flow state," "paradox," "duality")

Take care,

John

-- 
John Dicus  |  CornerStone Consulting Associates
- Leadership - Systems Thinking - Teamwork - Open Space - Electric Maze -
2761 Stiegler Road, Valley City, OH 44280
800-773-8017  |  330-725-2728 (2729 fax)
mailto:jdicus@ourfuture.com  |  http://www.ourfuture.com

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