The three-domain version of Cynefin, originally published on Dave Snowden’s blog.
I’m trying to organize my thoughts on containers, complexity and constraints that span a couple of decades of work and grounded theory. In this post, I want to lay out how I see these phenomena in the context of anthro-complexity, largely articulated by Dave Snowden, with implications for complex facilitation, or what we in the Art of Hosting community call “hosting.”
I’ll lay out some theory first that I’m working on, link it to facilitation and then share a case study of a recent meeting I hosted to demonstrate how this plays out. You can let me know if you think there is a good basis for a paper here, and please feel free to ask questions and to poke and prod at these ideas.
Some definitions
- “Constraints”: Constraints in complex systems limit the behaviours of system components but also enable certain patterns or paths to emerge.
- “Containers”: In the context of complexity, a container is often considered as an environment or space (conceptual, physical, or social) that influences the interactions and dynamics of system components.
- “Enabling constraints” and “Governing constraints” are part of Dave Snowden’s Cynefin Framework. Enabling constraints allow certain patterns to emerge and adapt in a complex system while governing constraints are applied to assure specific outcomes in more ordered systems.
- “Emergence”: Refers to the idea that new properties, behaviours, or patterns can arise from the interactions among system components, which aren’t predictable from the properties of individual components.
- “Chaos”: In complexity science, chaos refers to a state of a system where it’s difficult to predict the system’s behaviour even in the short term.
Some basic theory
Constraints form the foundation of what we call “containers” in dialogue and facilitation practice. A container is a stable environment in which actions and thought processes occur. In a complex situation, enabling constraints yield containers which exhibit dynamic stability, such as a dissipative structure, where the emergence of thoughts and actions takes place. The container shapes these thoughts and actions.
Containers that endure over time solidify into stable contexts and ultimately evolve into cultures.
Much of the existing literature on containers merely identifies this phenomenon without comprehending how these containers come into being and therefore, how they can be disrupted, stabilized or managed. However, the literature on constraints and complexity science provides useful insights for understanding and working with containers.
When operating in the realm of complexity, you need at least one effective constraint in place. Without any effective constraints, you’re dealing with chaos – an unbounded, essentially random state. Seen through the lens of Cynefin, Chaos is a state that is approached either from the liminal space of Complexity or from the catastrophic failure of highly ordered systems.
With the establishment of a manageable constraint, you can start creating a stable container with affordances to pursue a preferred outcome or direction. The more stable the container, the more predictable the outcome. When we cross through the liminal space between Complex and Ordered states, we move into governing constraints, and we employ constraints to ensure a specific outcome. Maintaining governing constraints requires power, resources, and control to suppress the emergence typically characteristic of living systems. Even ordered containers can be vulnerable to the emergence and unexpected events. Thus, they are often strictly bound, and the agents within the system are heavily constrained. The connections in these systems are controlled, managed, and monitored for any deviations. In situations where certainty is crucial, maintaining a governing container can be costly, but the benefits are significant, leading to safety, order, and control – key aspects of an ordered system.
Using anthro-complexity to understand containers in complexity
Containers can materialize in a multitude of ways. It may be beneficial to interpret containers through the prism of the three principal Cynefin domains: Chaos, Complexity, and Order.
In an ordered system, or an ordered container, the container can be pre-designed, often drawing upon good or best practices and demonstrating robust stability that actively resists change. Such containers may take physical forms, like buildings, pots, cars, and furnaces. However, they can also be social containers where interactions among individuals must be rigorously regulated and controlled. These could pertain to situations necessitating safety or for regulatory purposes, such as in accounting or law.
In Chaos, facilitation, such as it is, is all about applying constraints – sometimes draconian constraints – in an effort to create some stability or safety and buy some time to find options for action. In this domain, the container can be experienced as being strapped to a stretcher, ordered to remain in place, or, in trauma responses, held in a way that enables self-regulation.
The development of containers within the complex domain progresses through a process of probing, sensing, and responding. In the complex domain, containers, often experienced as a combination of phenomena rather than strictly physical tangible objects, are shaped by the constraints at play. They emerge as phenomena due to these constraints. Constraints at play can stimulate the emergence of this type of container, fostering patterns of behaviour and establishing a felt sense of stability. Within this stability, connections, exchanges, attractors, and boundaries will seem to have a more or less consistent presence over time. and give rise to the feeling or experience of being “in a container.”
When working with patterns in a container we can map or examine the container’s constraints that enable certain patterns to emerge over others. Until a constraint stabilizes in a complex system, it serves merely as a catalyst, as described by Dave Snowden, stimulating a specific pattern of behaviour. If this pattern of behaviour is coherent with a “preferred direction of travel”, it will aid in establishing the felt sense of a container in a complex system that contributes towards useful dialogue, activity and other beneficial activities.
If however, the stability of the container produces emergent patterns of behaviour that are not desired, we can attempt to change the container by shifting constraints in order to stimulate different interactions. While the facilitator plays a particular role in this situation, but the shift in the nature of a container can come from anywhere.
Complex facilitation, therefore, is the craft of catalyzing the emergence of patterns within a container which aligns beneficially with the preferred direction of travel shared by a group or a leader. In this craft, one employs constraints as catalysts and closely observe the nature of the emerging container through the system’s pattern stability. If unproductive patterns emerge, one can attempt to disrupt the container by modifying a constraint. If useful patterns appear, one can aim to stabilize that container to ensure continuity. Thus, the facilitator’s role primarily involves monitoring the situation, assessing the quality of the container, and occasionally using their influence to help stabilize and manage the emerging container in the service of the preferred direction. This is largely achieved by “creating space” for the group to engage in beneficial activities.
In a complex situation, the ideal is generally to utilize enabling constraints to facilitate emergence rather than governing constraints to control it. This requires awareness of the inclination to control interactions, possibly to reduce unhelpful conflict or balance power disparities. It should be obvious that the practice of doing this is fraught with ethical traps (more on this in later posts), and so undertaking this work without considering the values that underlie the ethical use of situational power is perilous. Rather than controlling interpersonal interactions, the focus should be on adjusting the conditions and constraints of the entire container to enable the emergence of different behavioural patterns.
A case study
Recently, I facilitated a meeting with a small group from an organization confronting an existential question. Should the organization continue in its current form, should it be wrapped up, or was there something in between?
Through interviews with board members and staff prior to the meeting, it was evident that the current situation was untenable. The organization had weathered turbulent times, with new board members and supporters who endorsed the founder’s vision. This vision, however, had been pared down significantly, resulting in an unclear purpose and direction for the organization.
On the day of the meeting, two critical conversations needed to occur. First, because many were new to the organization, we needed to discuss the organization’s current state and its projects, with a particular focus on the founder’s intentions. The second conversation had to address the next steps for the organization, providing clarity on a potential partnership that would determine their level of commitment.
I prepared an agenda featuring different ways to facilitate these conversations. The most facilitator-intensive way was to host a scenario-based process, where a small group of eight people would consider three different scenarios based on my interviews with almost all the attendees. The aim was to answer practical questions about implementation and examine implications for the organization, its projects, and its partners.
We began the meeting informally, with a light breakfast and casual conversations. After settling in, I introduced the meeting’s intentions. My decision was to guide us through a check-in part of the meeting, hear from the founder, then take a break and assess where we stood.
Building a relational container was a critical move since the group had never been together before. A well-designed check-in, with a question that elicited stories, was a good way to begin and allowed everyone to understand why they were part of this meeting and this work.
After the check-in, which took about an hour, the group had a more profound understanding of each other. It was clear to us the range of skills, talents, and interests present in the room.
The second part of the meeting involved the founder’s future intentions. It became apparent during the pre-meeting interviews that he had a significant influence on the organization’s course. His connections, desires, and investments were the organization’s driving force. As such, it was crucial to accommodate his interests, needs, and commitments.
Perhaps entrained on the pattern of the check-in, the meeting evolved into a rich storytelling session, where the founder recounted his career and the organization’s lifespan. This story-sharing segment was especially beneficial for new board members with questions about their roles and the organization’s work. This was a helpful direction for the day and kept the work and the inquiry open.
Once the founder finished his tale, a conversation unfolded, touching on the core mission and purpose of the organization and bringing forth existential questions about its future. Again this “natural” flow was likely partially entrained by the pre-meeting interviews, which gave participants a chance to think openly about the existential questions facing the organization.
After lunch, the group reconvened and began discussing different questions about the projects in which the organization was involved. It was evident that everyone had varying levels of information about these projects, which resulted in different levels of participation in addressing the organization’s existential issues. This is not a bad thing at all, as diverse experience meant that naive expertise – the ability to ask “dumb” questions – had a role in pushing the group to consider proposals that were outside of what was possible or desirable. In so doing, boundaries for the organization’s future work came into view.
This was an important moment because a well-defined boundary elicits authentic and informed commitment. Toward the end of the meeting, we discussed practical steps aligned with people’s commitments. It became clear that the next steps were focused on the sustainability of an essential project of the organization, not the organization itself.
The final discussion involved everyone indicating their level of commitment and role over the next 18 months and committing to spend some time formulating a plan and organizing work with simple project management tools.
In sum, this case illustrates how a facilitator can work with constraints to help an emergent container evolve for group work. The essence lies in understanding the connections, exchanges, attractors, and boundaries within the group and using these elements to guide the conversation constructively. The facilitator must negotiate the boundaries and the flow of power, work with strong attractors, and manage the dynamics of exchanges to achieve the desired outcomes.
Constraints at play
It should be noted that it is impossible to fully map all of the constraints that are working together to create a container, nor is it always clear which kind of constraint something is. An exchange can become an attractor, and a connection can become a boundary. The important thing is to carry an easily portable framework into a dynamic situation in order to better see and respond to emerging and changing constraints,
While there are many ways to analyze the constraints at play in the container of this meeting, In my own work, I use Snowden’s typology of Connecting Constraints (Connections and Exchanges) and Containing Constraints (Attractors and Boundaries) and here are examples of my observations and reflections. Dave uses “connecting and containing” as a spectrum. In my practice, these four types of constraints serve as heuristics to help guide my observation and decision-making while facilitating complex situations.
Connections:
- Each board member shared a strong connection with the founder and had different connections with everyone else. The depth of their connection to the organization’s work varied greatly. For some, it constituted a significant portion of their focus, while others had little knowledge of the projects. For the founder, the organization’s work was all-encompassing.
- Board members brought various connections with the stakeholders and the organization’s implementers to the meeting. These connections became crucial when participants realized they could leverage their networks to explore alternative ways to sustain the organization’s work.
Exchanges:
- A critical exchange involved the transfer of information and power between the founder and the board. Over the years, this exchange had turned toxic. The board, in both its and the founder’s view, was focused on the wrong objective: the organization’s sustainability rather than its work.
- After a wave of resignations during the pandemic, a new board was assembled. This board consisted of people the founder knew and trusted to prioritize the organization’s work, helping avoid the toxic relationships that had developed previously.
- During the meeting, the exchanges were mostly linked to the founder’s vision and his commitment to the organization. The remaining participants related their commitments to his. This scenario can be described as a “broadcast flow” of exchanges: from one central person to many, with weak exchanges among the many. However, as we delved into the scenario planning exercise, stronger exchanges developed between participants. Still, the organization was not ready for people to work independently of the founder.
- It became clear during the meeting that more power was being transferred from the founder to the board, along with greater responsibility for outcomes. By the meeting’s end, the participants had a strong sense of personal commitment to the work at hand, which was absent at the meeting’s beginning.
Attractors:
- The founder was the key attractor around which the container emerged. From pre-meeting interviews with the staff and founder, it was evident that the founder’s thoughts and intentions would significantly influence the organization’s future. Sometimes a powerful attractor can distort the container’s work, making it impossible to explore possibilities or escape entrenched responses to the founder’s vision. We acknowledged the founder’s influence and occasionally disrupted this pattern using a lightly facilitated circle process, allowing other ideas and questions to surface and clarity to arise.
- The room’s physical setup emphasized the two key attractors: the founder at one end of a long table and me at the other. The founder, being the closest to the work, naturally dominated past meetings. My role was to provide a counterbalance, interrupting when necessary to check the group’s clarity and occasionally asking naive questions.
- Another strong attractor was the dual focus on the organization’s sustainability and the work’s sustainability. The board’s past focus on the organization’s sustainability had led to numerous conflicts and a toxic environment as the founder and board clashed over differing intentions. The crucial task for this meeting was to shift the focus onto the organization’s work and the potential for its sustainability without the core organizational structure.
Boundaries:
- There were clear boundaries at play in the meeting. We had a six-hour time limit. We had a small group around a long table with the option to use breakout rooms if needed. As a facilitator, my responsibility was to enforce time boundaries, especially around the meeting’s end. With an event scheduled for the evening, I had to shift the group’s attention from open, free-flowing conversation to more concrete matters during the meeting’s final hour.
- Initially, I requested the founder to give a “state of the union” type address based on several board members’ pre-interview requests. They needed to understand what they were contributing to. Setting some boundaries or enabling constraints around the work was essential to creating an invitation barrier, which Peter Block suggests, is key to eliciting authentic commitment to the work at hand. Clear statements from the founder about his willingness and unwillingness provided a framework for the board members to develop a plan that was both focused on the organization’s current needs and compatible with their commitments. It remains to be seen whether one or two of the members present will commit to continuing. However, the clarity evoked should aid their decision-making process.
I hope this gives a good overview of my current thinking and process around working with constraints, containers and complexity. I am continuing to unpack the ideas in this post in more detail and put them into both practical and theoretical contexts. Responses, questions and curiosities are welcome.
Most mornings, when I’m at home, I stroll down to a local rocky beach, coffee in hand, to begin my day in meditation. The beach is a pleasant 15-minute walk from my house. When I reach the water, I step from the asphalt onto a gravel path that meanders through trees, past thickets of blackberry bushes, and ends in a secluded cove facing east, towards the rising sun that crests over the 1200 meter ridges of the Brittania Range, the mountains that make up the eastern edge of the inlet in which I live.
I began visiting this spot regularly the day after my father died. This beach, in all its varying weather and seasons, became my sanctuary for healing and introspection. Whether on a sunny summer morning or during a dark, rainy winter day, it offers a place to simply be. It’s a space where I am held in the vastness of the east wall of Atl’kat7tsem/Howe Sound, where I sit still, observing the ever-changing dance of the waves, wind, sky, and sea. This spot is undeniably a container, but it is one that’s vast and overwhelming, akin to entering a cathedral. It’s a space so grand that my presence doesn’t alter it, inviting me instead to enter and surrender.
There are containers in our lives that we create with intent and control. There are emergent containers, birthed from many small collaborative actions. Then, there are containers like this one, pre-existing, ancient even, that hold us and are accessed by deliberately crossing a threshold that ushers us into a different state of being, thinking, and feeling.
Having a space like this in one’s life is beneficial, as many of the containers in which we work, live, shape, and co-create are embedded within much larger ones, over which we have little control or influence. The practice of surrendering to a larger context helps us fully immerse ourselves in a place and moment, to quiet our minds, rest, observe, and experience. In doing so, we also discover our inner reactions to our surroundings.
Maybe you have a place like this, or you can find a place like this. It might not be the mountains of a fijord, but it could be a forest, a park, a lake, a field, or the heart of a bustling city. Go there, observe, listen, and notice how little your presence in that space changes it, but how much you are influenced by it. Consider the audacity of imagining how you could affect or change it. Familiarize yourself with your humility and insignificance.
Our work in the world requires us to dance between the spaces we make and the spaces we inhabit. We can dance between these spaces and we can witness the dance of these spaces with each other. And all the while, we inhabit our own little containers of thoughts and feelings and intentions and motivations, every so subtly shaping and being shaped by dancing space.
A few months ago, I was immersed in teaching complexity within the framework of the Art of Participatory Leadership program (AoPL). Essentially, AoPL is the application of the Art of Hosting within leadership contexts, extending beyond traditional facilitation and hosting scenarios. With a strong emphasis on personal practice and the use of complexity tools, AoPL encourages a deeper exploration of the connections between the Four Fold Practice, complexity, and dialogic containers – topics I’d previously addressed in my chapter for the book ‘Dialogic Organizational Development‘. My recent revisit to these subjects has sparked fresh insights.
In one of these sessions, a spontaneous thought emerged: “Leadership is all about managing interactions to get results.” This notion, inspired by Dave Snowden’s idea that culture is the product of interactions within a system, made me reflect upon the history of my own fascination with containers.
Throughout my life, I’ve found myself drawn to the concept of containers, primarily, I believe, due to an aversion to controlling interactions between people. This leaning was what initially attracted me to open space technology as an empowering meeting process. It didn’t dictate how people were going to interact, but instead provided conditions conducive to fruitful and creative connections. It left agency with the participants rather than centralizing control with the facilitator – something I’ve always preferred to avoid. Open Space is built on the ideas of self-organization and is therefore a natural method to use in complex environments, to invite groups to organize around important conversations and ideas for which they have the energy and agency to host.
This interest in open space led me to the realm of complexity science and various writings on self-organization, including work on networks, emergence, and community organizing. These concepts strive to vest power in the hands of those actively involved in the work, a principle that resonated deeply with me and steered me towards anthro-complexity and the application of complexity science to human systems.
It was in this field that I discovered William Isaacs’s seminal book on dialogue. Isaacs was among the first to describe the dialogic container in the context of organizational life. This deepened my interest in the topic, leading to my connection with Gervase Bushe in the early 2010s. Our collaboration eventually resulted in an invitation to contribute a chapter to the book he was editing with Bob Marshak, a key text in introducing dialogic organizational development to the world.
Interactions, containers, patterns, and emergent outcomes are all characteristics of complex systems. Both Snowden and Glenda Eoyang offer valuable, and different, insights into how constraints create conditions for emergence. However, the lesson that resonates most with me is the idea that, in complex situations, we can only work with the constraints to increase our chances of creating beneficial patterns.
This approach to working with containers and constraints can be challenging and risks verging into manipulation, especially when massive amounts of power and data are involved, such as in large social media companies. There is an ethical imperative to maintain transparency when working with constraints, a principle fundamental to this work.
In my chapter for Bob and Gervase’s book, I discussed the Four Fold Practice as a guiding framework. It helps leaders focus on four key patterns that make conversations meaningful, while also nurturing an environment that fosters the emergence of these patterns.
This practice grew from the observation that presence, participation, hosting, and co-creation are essential elements of meaningful, productive conversations. Importantly, these patterns should not be imposed but rather fostered through well-crafted containers.
Rather than dictating “be present now!”, we can shape spaces where presence naturally occurs and feels appreciated. Instead of compelling participation, we aim to cultivate processes that promote deep engagement through authentic and impactful invitations.
The same principles apply to hosting and co-creation. We shouldn’t impose facilitation roles onto individuals; instead, we should craft environments in which people comfortably host each other on various scales – from open-space, world café, circle to intimate one-on-one interactions.
Similarly, forcing people into co-creation isn’t the right approach. Instead, we must provide them with the necessary tools, conditions, constraints, and challenges to stimulate collaborative creation and achieve desired outcomes.
I strive to uphold these principles from the Four Fold Practice in every facilitation – to create conditions where the patterns of presence, participation, hosting, and co-creation naturally emerge.
This exploration into the realm of leadership, complexity, and dialogic containers has been a journey of discovery, reflection, and evolution. My fascination with containers and how they impact interactions, outcomes, and ultimately culture within a system continues to grow.
The intersection of complexity and leadership in the context of dialogic containers is a rich tapestry of insights and practices that can greatly enhance our effectiveness as leaders, facilitators, and change-makers. The journey is ongoing, and the learning never stops.
How do these reflections resonate with you? I’m thinking of writing more on the idea of containers, and would welcome your thoughts and questions about the topic.
In Those Years
In those years, people will say, we lost track of the meaning of we, of you we found ourselves reduced to I and the whole thing became silly, ironic, terrible: we were trying to live a personal life and yes, that was the only life we could bear witness to
But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged into our personal weather They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove along the shore, through the rags of fog where we stood, saying I -- Adrienne Rich, 1992, hat tip to Jim
My favourite scene from the Life of Brian starts with Brian appearing at a window, trying to get his crowd of misinformed followers to leave him alone. He is, in fact, not the Messiah, and exasperated, he tries to tell them that they have it all wrong.
“You’re all individuals!” he cries, to which the crowd responds, in unison, “Yes! We’re all individuals!”
“You’re all different!” cries Brian. “Yes! We are all different!” the crowd replies again.
And then a single voice, with a slightly melancholy edge, quietly says, “I’m not.”
He is shushed.
This diabolical twisting of the Individual — Collective polarity has been on my mind over the past few years. At the beginning of the pandemic, I had the briefest moment of hope that the world would suddenly wake up to pulling together and looking after our public good. We created universal basic incomes, which made the most significant difference in poverty alleviation in my lifetime. We undertook mass public health campaigns to keep vulnerable people safe and not allow our medical and health systems to get too overwhelmed. We even briefly saw our planet’s health rebound as cars and airplanes, and industry generally slowed down or stopped, and the skies cleared.
But it wasn’t sustainable. It was a temporary fix to a global problem and didn’t address the underlying causes of poverty, public health crises and climate change. Within a year, we had splintered and fractured. “We lost track of the meaning of we,” as Adrienne Rich wrote in 1992, “we found ourselves reduced to I and the whole thing became silly, ironic, terrible.”
I have been on holiday these past two weeks, on Maui, and I’ve had time to read and think and rest. One of the books I took with me is Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus, a recent book that traces how our attention has been stolen by social media, schooling and the workplace. Deirdre, who recommended it to me at Jessica’s Book Store in Thornbury, Ontario, last month, said it made her quit social media.
The book isn’t entirely about social media – it’s much more extensive than that – but the history of social media’s colonization of our attention forms a big part of the book. Hari traces the rise of surveillance capitalism, delivered through the toxic and amoral algorithms that drive us into deeper and deeper echo chambers at a pace and a way that steals our attention before we are aware of it. The need to keep eyeballs on the app instead of the world around us drives us apart. At one point, he asks the provocative question about why Facebook can’t help us connect physically with friends and like-minded folks nearby so that we can make something together or enjoy an evening together. Why does it not recommend amazing projects and activities we could do with friends? It could easily do all of this. It could quickly help us build community, have a good time together, and make a lasting impact. But it doesn’t, and it won’t because the idea is to keep eyes on the app and keep people out of the physical world, which requires them to put down their phones and play.
Hari traces the origins of the psychology of social media back to the behaviouralist researchers and teachers who taught the cabal of engineer-capitalists that built this world in Silicon Valley. Nothing new there, perhaps, but what is different is that one can see how it works on one’s own mind. It is a chilling read because it lays bare capitalism’s unapologetic agenda that uses everything it can to generate wealth regardless of the impact.
Our attention is a battleground and a landscape that surveillance capitalists will exploit as readily as an oil company will exploit a shale play. The difference is that oil companies are subject to government regulation about what they can and cannot do, and surveillance capitalists are not. There is no environmental protection for the pristine nature of our creative minds. The predators have been given free rein to exploit it all.
The result is that we have become radically disconnected from each other. And the pandemic made it much worse as we retreated into our bubbles and became more reliant on social media for connection while at the same time being fed a steady stream of the stuff that is guaranteed to keep us engaged with apps and not each other. I think I first heard the term “doom scroll” in 2020. I recognize it in myself as the embarrassing desire to read one more stupid thread of misinformed comments. It makes me feel self-righteous. I can take on a few transphobes or racists from the safety of my own house. But that doesn’t make a change in the world. Half the time, I might even be arguing with robots.
But of course, this is precisely the cognitive-chemical loop that creates deep attractor basins that keeps us at home, on our devices, facing a massive barrier of inertia to get up and do something. Hari points out that this is not simply a problem that can be addressed by individual actions and habits, like putting away the phone at night in another room. While those are essential strategies for reclaiming attention, Hari clearly points out how attention-stealing is systemically enabled.
I can feel it in my work with TSS Rovers FC as we build this football club and enlist volunteers, spectators, and fans. To try to make a culture around something positive that requires people to come out and participate is to buck the forces of the entire world of surveillance capitalism that wants us on our phones and not in the stands singing and supporting young men and women, co-creating community, having fun together.
A couple of weeks ago, I was having dinner with a friend, and we discussed the crisis of belonging in our world. This has been an important concern in her research and advocacy work over several decades, which has led to all manner of crises, including mental health, development for young people, and our general tenor of social relations at the moment. I think it even contributes to the most significant issues like climate change, which arise from disconnection from each other, our natural world and the community of living things threatened by the actions of our species.
This affects all of us. Our phones and laptops have handy apps that can tell us how much time we spend on our screens, particularly on our social media apps. It is way more than you think. Thinking about places where you spend MORE time than on your social media apps is helpful. To which community do you really belong? WHOSE community do you really belong to? And, do you REALLY belong?
At the moment, I have a few activities outside of work that activates flow in my life: playing music, cooking, volunteering with both TSS Rovers FC and the Rivendell Retreat Centre, writing, gardening, and hanging out with my beloved and my kids. And altogether, I wonder if I STILL spend more time on my phone than doing these things, WHICH GIVE ME JOY. Even as I am typing this, my little tracker tells me that, on holiday, I averaged almost 4 hours of screen time daily.
These past two weeks, combined with Lent, have given me a welcome respite to reconsider my relationship with the thieves of attention who rule my life. Social media is an important part of my life and is probably how you and I are connected.
But Hari points out that the stealing of attention has existential impacts. It might be what prevents us from concentrating enough and spending the time we need together to address and move past existential crises like climate change, populism, and the threat of nuclear war. Suppose we cannot give more time to the collective problems of now because we are instead tilting at the AI-generated windmills of Facebook and Twitter. In that case, we will not be able to find one another, collaborate and perform out of our skins in the service of a viable future for this planet, its creatures, and its people.
This coast is wet in the fall and winter. We get pummelled by atmospheric rivers that bring strong warm winds and days of rain from the south west. We get drizzled on by orographic rain. We get soaked by passing fronts. And the land drinks it up, the rivers swell and call the salmon back. If you don’t love rain, this is a very hard place to live from October through to March., when the light is dim and the air moist. Me, I’ve grown to love it. I love to be out in the rain, walking about, listening to it on the hood of my jacket, sitting by the sea and watching is dapple the surface.
This is a video of some Nuu Chah Nulth language speakers from Hesquiaht on the west coast of Vancouver Island on the north end of Clayoquot Sound. And not just any language speakers but Julia Lucas, Simon Lucas and Maggie Ignace. I first met Julia and Simon in 1989 on my first trip to the west coast when I visited their village for a week and got to spend time with them. They are revered Elders. Simon, who passed away in 2017, was a a lifelong champion for Nuu Chah Nulth fishing and political rights and Julia has been a knowledge keeper, educator and language teacher for decades. Maggie is one of the many Nuu Chah Nulth language learners who are building up their fluency thanks to videos like this and programs.
Largely inspired by a slow reading through this paper (“Over reliance on English hinders cognitive science“) I’ve been thinking a bit today about the Indigenous languages of this region and how they point at such different ways of looking at the world, while I sip team and watch the rain. While surfing and I stumbled upon this video today, noting that OF COURSE Nuu Chah Nulth has a word for “a person who walks around in any weather” and I was really touched to see Julia and Simon here.