This morning I was pondering some things in my life that I want to do differently. I thought about the habits that I have developed that reflect, according to brain science (I'm not an expert), neurological pathways that I have formed that reinforce that behavior. I realized that, in order to make the change I want, I would have to force myself for a while to do things differently -- even "unnatural" to how my mind is now trained -- in order to create new "neural paths," leading to new habits and behaviors.
So, my neural pathways (how I think, recall, react mentally) are shaped by what repeated actions I take. Or how I think is driven by what I do habitually, where my brain is keeping records -- first like lines in the sand, but over time they can harden into long-lasting contours.
Nothing new here, but then I recalled that the brain is not the only aspect of my being where pathways are carved by my actions.
My muscle memory -- my ability to react quickly, even instinctively -- is based on how I train my body. All athletes, musicians and dancers know this. How I move and react (and how well) is driven by what I do habitually with my body. I can still pick up the oboe and finger the solo from Peter and the Wolf, though I have not picked up the instrument for almost 20 years.
My relationships are cultivated by shared experiences over time. The nature of those experience affects trust between me and others. So, how I relate is driven by what I do habitually with others.
Even spiritual truths reflect the same pattern -- karma, or "you reap what you so." The virtues that we uphold and the vices we shun, in their healthiest forms, remind us that what we do and don't do has profound implications for our lives.
So our actions carve pathways in our lives. Our own history is important, because it accumulates into a path we have carved, patterns that repeat because of those pathways, and even ruts that pull us back into those pathways -- unless we escape those pathways and create new ones.
----
There are lots of things that can attract our attention and lead us one way or another. Our wants and needs for belonging, love, provision, security, pleasure and comfort lead us to do things that could be good or bad for us in the long run. That is to say, they result in pathways in our lives that we may like -- or may not. Those pathways may reflect us with no regrets, like a beautiful portrait that shows us beautiful. But they also may show a portrait we are ashamed of.
I think most of us have pathways that reflect both.
The question for me today is, what pathways am I working on? And how does what I do today help carve them? Am I giving myself enough time on the pathways I want to carve out? Or am I wasting time spinning about and carving up a messy path that I will look back on with regret?
My challenge today is to keep this reality in mind, and not let my wants and needs overwhelm my determination to carve the pathways I want to look back on. If I embrace that challenge, I am convinced it leads to pathways of peace.
Friday, November 4, 2011
2009 needs a hug
[Drafted but unpublished at the start of 2009...until now]
2008 is over. Thank God! It has been a year that will go down in history -- from the most engaging presidential election in US history to the largest global recession in modern economic history. It was a year that shook us so fundamentally that we actually have elected America's first African American president, are taking global warming seriously and have gotten the world's central banks to cooperate almost immediately. If we are honest, most of us would say that 2008 scared the helll out of us.
Or, at least I hope it did.
For many see a common hellish thread at the root of the situations we now face:
Despite just living through a year in which these self-inflicted wounds became part of the global zeitgeist, I have found myself looking forward to 2009 not with anger and fear, but with reflection and hope. I am hopeful because, in our darkest time, we seemed to get the message. We seemed to recognize our own culpability in many different areas. And we seemed finally ready to do something about it. Face the problems of corruption head on. Elect a leader that represents our best hopes and not our worst fears.
2009 is in need of the kind of reflection that will make us careful not to repeat the sins of the past. And it is in need of the kind of hope that will lift us out of our circumstance and encourage us to put our shoulder to the plow and get on with the business of fixing what's broken.
---
When I consider the "hellish" sources of our current condition, it is easy to look at them from a moralizing point of view. However relevant that may be, I think there is a different viewpoint that is more instructive. It is a viewpoint I learned in graduate school, in a class called System Dynamics. It is a way to look at complex cause-and-effect situations in a way that is straightforward and fairly clinical. Looking at things clinically at this point is helpful, because there is so much emotion bottled up in the issues we face, it is easy to lose focus and clarity on what has happened and what we should do about it.
In this class, our last lecture was on the "Limits to Growth" study done in the 1970s. It looked at the world as a system that was facing its growth limits, possibly for the first time: populations were skyrocketing, fueled by the consumption of seemingly limited resources of food, energy, land, clean water and air. It tried to understand the kinds of outcomes we should be prepared for as a planet, and it tried to give us guidance as to what policies would be more effective in sustaining life on earth as we know it.
Limits to Growth included a model of the world -- a complex Monopoly game, if you will -- that a computer could play out scenarios that showed the outcomes of certain policies. Most of the outcomes were pretty grim -- but the grim ones all had something in common, and differed from the more hopeful outcomes in a very specific way. The grim outcomes all included selfish resource policies -- "I got mine, get your own." In those models, the "greed is good" motto ruled. Interestingly, this motto is the corrupted version of "let the free markets work." (For the record, I believe in the free market, but I also believe in the tragedy of the unregulated commons).
The more hopeful outcomes had different resource policies -- "I am responsible for me, but I'm also partly responsible for us." In a subsequent analysis of the study, one person summed up the policies as "the golden rule." Systems Dynamics researcher Dana Meadows wrote powerfully about the approaches people can take to positively (and negatively) affect a system and bring about significant change. The fact that she recognized things like love as supremely powerful to bring about such change is still fascinating to me. A renowned MIT scientist, she proved that love -- the Golden rule; doing for others, even at your own expense -- is a necessary ingredient in the stability of the world. Her theories were sometimes derided as too radical, but she and her colleagues predicted most of what 2008 wrought -- and why.
Reading Meadows' work brought me back to one of my favorite songs, by one of my favorite artists. Stevie Wonder wrote the song, "Love's in Need of Love Today" to open his breakthrough album, Songs in the Key of Life.
He reminds us:
Love's in need of love today
Don't delay; send yours in right away
Hate's going 'round, breaking many hearts
Stop it please, before it's gone too far.
In 2009, I'm imagining a world with less arrogance, and more humility in US foreign policy; less greed and more giving, prudent investment and trust that will stimulate our economy and lending markets; fewer lies and greater honesty and accountability; less hate and more kindness that overcomes hate; less selfishness and more generosity, far-sightedness and respect for our small place in history.
Let's give 2009 a big hug filled with these things. Each time we do, we move ourselves a little closer to the place where most of us yearn to be.
2008 is over. Thank God! It has been a year that will go down in history -- from the most engaging presidential election in US history to the largest global recession in modern economic history. It was a year that shook us so fundamentally that we actually have elected America's first African American president, are taking global warming seriously and have gotten the world's central banks to cooperate almost immediately. If we are honest, most of us would say that 2008 scared the helll out of us.
Or, at least I hope it did.
For many see a common hellish thread at the root of the situations we now face:
- Arrogance that put the US against the world and led us into a unilateral war that almost bankrupted the world's most formidable nation in less than half a decade;
- Greed that collapsed the financial markets and froze credit so much at even a trillion dollar infusion could not thaw them;
- Lies that stole billions from Madoff's investors, from non-profits to retirees who thought they could reap the rewards of a life played well;
- Hate that straps bombs to the mentally ill and unleashes them in crowded metropolises to take as many lives and instill as much fear as possible;
- Selfishness and near-sightedness that threatens to reconfigure our global ecosystem because of an unwillingness to break our addiction to an energy economy that is overheating our planet and killing species our children will never know.
Despite just living through a year in which these self-inflicted wounds became part of the global zeitgeist, I have found myself looking forward to 2009 not with anger and fear, but with reflection and hope. I am hopeful because, in our darkest time, we seemed to get the message. We seemed to recognize our own culpability in many different areas. And we seemed finally ready to do something about it. Face the problems of corruption head on. Elect a leader that represents our best hopes and not our worst fears.
2009 is in need of the kind of reflection that will make us careful not to repeat the sins of the past. And it is in need of the kind of hope that will lift us out of our circumstance and encourage us to put our shoulder to the plow and get on with the business of fixing what's broken.
---
When I consider the "hellish" sources of our current condition, it is easy to look at them from a moralizing point of view. However relevant that may be, I think there is a different viewpoint that is more instructive. It is a viewpoint I learned in graduate school, in a class called System Dynamics. It is a way to look at complex cause-and-effect situations in a way that is straightforward and fairly clinical. Looking at things clinically at this point is helpful, because there is so much emotion bottled up in the issues we face, it is easy to lose focus and clarity on what has happened and what we should do about it.
In this class, our last lecture was on the "Limits to Growth" study done in the 1970s. It looked at the world as a system that was facing its growth limits, possibly for the first time: populations were skyrocketing, fueled by the consumption of seemingly limited resources of food, energy, land, clean water and air. It tried to understand the kinds of outcomes we should be prepared for as a planet, and it tried to give us guidance as to what policies would be more effective in sustaining life on earth as we know it.
Limits to Growth included a model of the world -- a complex Monopoly game, if you will -- that a computer could play out scenarios that showed the outcomes of certain policies. Most of the outcomes were pretty grim -- but the grim ones all had something in common, and differed from the more hopeful outcomes in a very specific way. The grim outcomes all included selfish resource policies -- "I got mine, get your own." In those models, the "greed is good" motto ruled. Interestingly, this motto is the corrupted version of "let the free markets work." (For the record, I believe in the free market, but I also believe in the tragedy of the unregulated commons).
The more hopeful outcomes had different resource policies -- "I am responsible for me, but I'm also partly responsible for us." In a subsequent analysis of the study, one person summed up the policies as "the golden rule." Systems Dynamics researcher Dana Meadows wrote powerfully about the approaches people can take to positively (and negatively) affect a system and bring about significant change. The fact that she recognized things like love as supremely powerful to bring about such change is still fascinating to me. A renowned MIT scientist, she proved that love -- the Golden rule; doing for others, even at your own expense -- is a necessary ingredient in the stability of the world. Her theories were sometimes derided as too radical, but she and her colleagues predicted most of what 2008 wrought -- and why.
Reading Meadows' work brought me back to one of my favorite songs, by one of my favorite artists. Stevie Wonder wrote the song, "Love's in Need of Love Today" to open his breakthrough album, Songs in the Key of Life.
He reminds us:
Love's in need of love today
Don't delay; send yours in right away
Hate's going 'round, breaking many hearts
Stop it please, before it's gone too far.
In 2009, I'm imagining a world with less arrogance, and more humility in US foreign policy; less greed and more giving, prudent investment and trust that will stimulate our economy and lending markets; fewer lies and greater honesty and accountability; less hate and more kindness that overcomes hate; less selfishness and more generosity, far-sightedness and respect for our small place in history.
Let's give 2009 a big hug filled with these things. Each time we do, we move ourselves a little closer to the place where most of us yearn to be.
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