My friend Adam Yukelson wrote and asked me about how I hold questions instead of goals:
I was speaking with Gabe Donnelly last night and she was sharing a conversation the two of you had last year in which you said you don’t set goals, but rather, live in a question or questions. We were both drawn to this idea, and curious how it works for you. Do these questions tend to be broad and existential? Short-term and specific? Both? Neither? Are there subsets of questions? How do you know when a new question has emerged? I’d love to hear a little more….
They tend to be both…for a while now I’ve been carying these questions with me…they are varied and they take different forms and they even come and go, but they lead me into fascinating places: Sometimes they appear as research projects, other times they are direct and specific, and sometimes they float, nebulous and seem to inform everything I do.
- What is the role of community in organizations?
- What are the essential practices of hosting that can be taught?
- How do we build relational fields between people?
- What are the ways I can express myself in song?
- How can I use body practice more in my work and life?
- What can my daughter and I do to co-create a shared learning journey?
The community question seems to be the most broad and pervasive in my work right now and I’ve held that for over a year. It helps me to see things the same way, for example, as when you buy a new car and then notice that everyone else seems to be driving the same car as you. The second and third questions relate to learning new ways to teach and communicate what people want to learn from me about hosting. The last three questions are about my life and practice as an artist and a father. I don’t have these questions written down anywhere, I just sort of hold them lightly and they focus my attention.
What are the questions you hold?
My business year usually follows the wet seasons, running for September to June. I’m finally back home on Bowen Island, relaxing and recovering, feeling rather burned out from a very heavy year of travel and work. Here are a few links that crossed my path recently:
- Euan Semple on why flashmobs are beautiful.
- Johnnie Moore on change myths and “best” practice.
- Holger Nauheimer has a series of posts on skills and change worldviews.
- Dave Pollard‘s unschooling manifesto.
My friend Adam Yukelson took up rock balancing after hanging out with us at the ALIA Institute last month. He made this sculpture on the shores of the Dead Sea a couple of weeks ago.
Beautiful.
Back in Halifax after a few days on PEI staying at Rob Paterson’s place. Right next to the house we were in was a striking contrast in field ecology, comparing a monocultured wheat field with a former horse paddock which has become a meadow. Rob and I spent the better part of an hour talking about these two fields and drawing analogies between them and the kinds of organizations we work with: some are monocultures and some are communities. The above video is a five minute summary of some of the things we discovered on our own.
Prince Edward Islanders like to caution vistors to drive safely and not to speed. I understand this, coming as I do from a slow island. However, the motive here seems to be different: after driving around eastern PEI today I have concluded that Islanders like vistors to keep a steady speed so they can pass you 15 km/h over the limit!
Glad to know that. Happy to do my part!