Dear Organlearners,
Chau Nguyen <pchau@rhonin.mfg.sgi.com> writes:
>It's been quite a while since I last post to the
>list, and i have asked myself the question "what
>went wrong?" many times. Finally, i have the
>answer. "I've lost the passion to participate".
>OK, you may say, so what? who cares? Why
>burden the list with your own baggage? Well here
>is why. This list is a virtual learning organization,
>and in an organization, every cell counts. I am
>an element of the group, hence my thoughts and
>feeling. I also wonder if any other cells out there
>suffer the same way?
Greetings Chau,
Thank you very much for such an feelingly contribution. It is very of you
to mail this contribution of yours to a list which you perceive as
ALL-MIND-NO-SOUL..
This month is my second anniversary of participating on the list. I still
remember your name, as well as other who do not seem to participate any
more: Michael Mcmaster, Debbie Broom, Ray Evans Harrel, Julie Beedon, Leon
Conrad, Donald Kerr, Keith Sandrock and others.
In fact, it was Keith (who lives in Johannesburg close to Pretoria) who
told me to look up the message by Donald Kerr "Christianity and 5th
discipline LO9305" <http://world.std.com/~lo/96.08/0510.html>
It developed into a thread which I enjoyed very much despite the barely
concealed hurting in some of the messages. I think it is most important
that our Systems Thinking should make provision for faith (believing). But
to do so, it will have to make provision for "emergent phenomena" in
general because believing is just one of countless many emergent
phenomena. Furthermore, despite the present fashion to deny it, even
emergent phenomana has a cause. This cause, in my own Systems Thinking, is
identified with "entropy production".
Passion, like curiosity, are closely connected to the spiritual emergences
of humans. Your observation that you have lost your passion to
participate, is in my opinion a most important issue. Let me illustrate it
with two metaphors. It is like an automobile, fully operative, but without
fuel in the tank -- it cannot more itself. It is like a daily paid
labourer, capable of working, but arriving at the job without any food in
the stomach. What we have to undertsand, is that it is not the fuel in the
tank or food in the stomach which enable the car to move or the labourer
to work, but the "free energy" in the fuel or the food.
Likewise, when we found our passion to depleted, we must expect this
passion to be IN something just like "free energy" is IN fuel or food. (I
do not want to complicate the issue by saying that passion is nothing else
than the "free energy" of the spirit.) Now in what is this passion to be
found? In the case of fuel or food, it is found in the "chemical
composition" of the fuel or food. Coming from the world of business, you
may think of "chemical composition" as "atomic organisation". Thus passion
is to be found in the organisation of our "spiritual atoms" like thoughts
(mind) and feelings (heart).
Robert Mayer was one of the first scientists ever to have perceived the
Law of Energy Conservation. Today we say that energy cannot be created or
detroyed, but only be transformed form one form to another. Mayer's
perception was very much the same. But he also had percpetion of the Law
of Entropy Production when he wrote in 1851: "bay a law which is
universally true, waste and want go hand in hand". Passion is a want. But
it will also be used up, either for constructive purposes or not so that
it is wasted. Because it will be used up, whether good or bad, we must
make sure to replenish it.
How can we make sure that we replenish our passion -- our "spiritual free
energy"? The answer can be depicted by a simple metaphor. All life in
physical nature is continuously replenishing its "physical free energy" by
"evolution". Just as nature replaces old specimens of a species by new
specimens and old species by new ones, alowing ample time for growth in
specimens and species, we also have to care of our "spiritual evolution".
Without "spiritual evolution", we will eventually reach the stage when all
our "spiritual free energy" has been used up.
>I DO know why i lost the passion. I lost the passion
>because i feel that the list has become ALL MIND AND
>NO SOUL. I don't feel the soul anymore. There is so
>much knowledge, you can get a degree out of these posts.
>But there isn't a sense of togetherness anymore, at least
>not to me.
Maybe I agree with you, but I would rather try to articualte it wiyh my
own systems thinking. I make a distinction between knowledge on the one
hand and information and technology on the other hand. Knowledge is
something which can only exists in a person. Knowledge is an emergent
phenomenon which requires a living human body (by the way, itself an
emergent phenomenon). There is no knowledge which can exist outside a
living human body. We will never find in all the messages of this LOlist
form LO00001 to LO19615 even the slightest piece of knowledge. But what we
do find in massive amounts, are information! I consider information and
technology to be some of the products of knowledge. We can try to image
our knowledge as closely as possible with information and technology, but
they will never become the same, even when a one-to one correspondence
(Winfired, isomorohism!) is reached.
Maybe your problem is the same as mine. There are lots of information
available in the sense of an omnibus (a set of loose elements), but very
little in the sense of an ensemble (a harmonising orchestra). And as it
goes with omnibusses, there are much information not to be found in them.
In other words, little information occur having to do with the
organisation of our spirit (soul and heart and not only mind). The omnibus
which is favoured most on this list, is the one on managerial science.
Luckily for most of us, the difference between an organisation and a LO is
like the difference between an omnibus and an ensemble. This is the reason
why I participate on this list, having many "on" days and only a few "off"
days when I have to jump out of the way of an omnibus.. But I do not mind
all the omnibusses and their passengers moving around in the city (our
dialogue on this list).
>So here is something to think about, a true learning
>organization is an org that grows equally both in size
>and spirit. Most org, when it starts to expand, it
>expands the size but ignores the spirit. As a result,
>you have an imbalance structure for living org. I sincerely
>believe that my feeling is not uncommon. I believe that
>many people feel the same way in big corporation,
>especially those people who started with a company when
>it was small, and stick around to watch it grows big. In
>the growing process, somehow we lost the sense of
>original, the pride of membership, the proud of being part
>of something special. Those are the kind of feeling that
>creates breakthrough in performance.
Chau, I know that you have written this from the soul and not the mind.
But we must never forget that we can also know the soul. In fact, you had
to use yourself your mind to express your soul! Knowing the richness of
the human spirit is very important to my Systems Thinking. The mind, heart
and soul are not passengers on an omnibus, but are players in an ensemble,
namely the human spirit. maybe you do not like the way in which I
rationalise these things, but my soul is restless when my mind does not
take notice of my soul. The same things which troubles you -- more growth
in basic quanities rather than emergent qualities -- have been troubling
me since 1970. But is we do not set our minds to the problem and solve it,
our souls will remain restless. Solving problems is never the task of the
soul or the heart, but always a task of the mind.The task of the soul is
to prepare the mind for this job.
>I'm not sure why i write... maybe because i'm a
>very emotional person, because i like to wear my
>feeling where everyone can see it? or simply
>because i just wanted to find a way to get the
>attention of you all? or maybe because it is late
>Friday afternoon, and I have been working long hour
>the whole week and I need to be mad at something
>or someone? Or maybe because I am mentally
>challenged but don't know it? What ever the reason,
>here is the post.
I do not want to be arrogant or pedantic, but I have this intense desire
to answer your question. I believe it is your soul crying out to your
mind: "Get yourself ready because there is mental work to be done. This
work will be complex and requires you urgent attention. Evolve in your
systems thinking to such a stage that you will be able to guide any
organisation to become ' a true learning organization, .. an org that
grows equally both in size and spirit'." You have said so yourself in your
own words. Is it not that you desire a persisting dialogue on all the
facets of this complex task to assist you? Well, since it is a complex
issue, you will have to begin many threads when the time for each becomes
ready, if they are not already a thread.
Should it be a thread (specimen) which had died a natural death on this
list, there is nothing wrong for it to become alive through an offspring
(new specimen) of the same species. For example, when I was still a lurker
on this list, I remember the exciting thread "The Role of Conflict". I
wanted to participate, but I was to afraid to shock you with terms such as
"entropic force" and "destructive creativity". Well after two years the
thread is back with a new manifestation, namely Conflict in LOs. And I
have partcipated in the dialogue on the new specimen with <
http://www.learning-org.com/98.10/0199.html >, LO19578 in a manner which I
would have loved to do two years ago.
Chau, why did I not do it then? Because most of the participators then
would have deemed (judged) me as "ALL-MIND-NO-SOUL". But I first had to
establish a track record that I am seriously concerned about wholeness.
Likewise we as organlearners have establish a track record for Rick's
LOlist that we are a forum seriously concerned about wholeness.
How about beginning a thread "Wholeness in LOs?" without letting the
thread "Passion to Participate Here" die a premature death. Here is a
number of questions which you can bear in mind.
* How important is wholeness in your 5th discipline?
* Why is wholeness important (or not) in Systems Thinking?
* What is the difference between wholeness and holism?
* Is it possible to have no wholeness at all?
* How will you know when wholeness is immature (deficient)?
* What will you do to grow in wholeness?
* Does wholeness entail we will become part of the gang?
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
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>