What do Quakers have to do with anything?
Hang on...let me first tell you the good news is that I have temporarily taken down my website (which is why if you were looking for it, you're here instead) because I have been so booked, I haven't had the time to re-write the content to update it. The bad news is, that could eventually mean when I am not so busy, no one will remember all the things I've done and can do, if they think of me at all!
Meanwhile, in order to take a break from writing and consulting, and to procrastinate on the website, I thought I would write and consider...Quakers...
Recently, while doing some research for a series of articles on South Jersey (US Airways Magazine 2/09), a local historian brought my attention to a remarkable book: Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer. It's about a million pages long, and so makes a mighty night stand all on its own, but it vindicates itself for being so darn enormous, by being so darn interesting. The book retraces American thought today back to the thoughts our British founders were thinking as they followed the trade winds west.
As I embark on the next ten years it will take me to read this book all the way through, what occurs to me as I pick out the parts that seem the tastiest, is that while they might have been hearing some funky syntax in their heads (all those ye's and thou's and double ff's and e's on the end of everything), our British forebears were not thinking anything we're not thinking.
Annoyed with elitists/rabbel rousers, angry at being silenced by political correctness/not being heard, and full of ire for the king/messiah/doofus/(insert clever moniker here)...or full of ire at some such group or person that somehow seemed to make a perfect world impossible, they knew they were right, even if misunderstood.
This could be America today!
So, they headed over here to a place where they expected to once--and--for--all--dammit, be left alone to think whatever the heck they wanted. Well, oops, okay, so there were already a few native folks living here--some of those British pioneers figured out how to make that work out well, others did not, but the larger point is that as Buckaroo Bonzai once said, "Wherever you go, there you are."
Which is why as soon as they got down to building their New Englands, New Yorks and New Jerseys, they started running into the same old, same old. (Maybe they should have been more creative with the names...)
The Puritans hated everybody while professing the love of God (alright--I actually skipped over most of that part to read about the Quakers instead, but I did study Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" in college!). The agrarian southerners liked their slaves, even if they took offense to being seen as lower than the snobs above them. The Quakers were partial to the "live and let live" frame of mind, which meant they also didn't want to fight (except with each other over who owned what land, among other issues). And all hell broke loose with the wild Scots, Irish, and poor Brits (I think I can skip most of those chapters, since these characters are all related to me anyway).
Everybody felt right at home, as though they'd never left Old England!
Eventually, of course, the English got to be a real drag, with taxes and bowing and scraping and all that, so enough of these settlers shook off their inertia (understanding that EVERYONE in this story gets points for having bothered to cross the ocean in the first place) and staged a revolution so we could finally get around to making things NEW!
Only, just as before and probably forever after, to the victors go the spoils, so"new" is a relative term. All of which brings me 'round to the point (You'd better make it good, girl!). Okay...
I would bet you dollars to doughnuts that you don't know a darn thing about the Quakers. (Wha...? I read all the way to here for this?)
We don't really learn much about them in school, since we're too busy learning about the cranky Puritans (burn, baby, burn!) and their descendants. And the reason for that is the Puritans loved the written word, and so they were, by and large, the ones who wrote the history books. On the other hand, according to Fischer, colonial Quakers were intensely ambivalent about higher education. To them, universities canonized the subjective into the Truth, which threatened the Inner Light of each individual.
Since the Quakers saw no need to cultivate a professional ministry, they didn't bother to shell out the scheckles on universities and libraries, nor did they bother to write much about their experiences (except for William Penn, for whom there is named an Ivy League school and who wrote copiously about the dangers of literacy...go figure). In fact, says Fischer, Quakers "cultivated disinterest" in education altogether.
And yet, it is upon the Quakers' iconoclastic (and to most Puritans, flat out weird) notions of pluralism and civil liberties that much of our Constitution is actually built. For example, in the colony of West Jersey, settled by Quakers in 1674, their charter allowed anyone who owned land free and clear to vote. (By the way, that's why New Jersey's legislators today are known as "freeholders.") Meanwhile, next door in Puritanical East Jersey, if you were an athiest--fugettaboutit! You weren't votin' fa nuttin', baby.
Put another way, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Sound familiar?
This is not meant as an apologia for Quakerism. I am not, nor do I expect I ever will be a Quaker. Neither do I think Puritans were all bad. They got us here, didn't they? It is, however, meant to bring attention to the notion that whenever we think we are the ones who have all the answers, it's just as likely that we are standing on the shoulders of others--probably groups we think are really, really stupid--who thought they did too. And no matter how many liberating answers we actually do have, we're just as likely to be oppressive in other ways.
So just how smart, evolved, and full of fresh thinking are we, really? History might have a few things to teach us about that.
I'm just sayin'...
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
McCullough's John Adams:
United and Apart is Best
I. United--while Divided--We Stand
Fortunately, in our home we share a love of American history--and a really, really good story--and so all have been positively glued to the HBO series based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize winning biography, John Adams. The script is true to McCullough's text--he was very involved in its treatment for the screen. As I watch, I am also aware of how much more my freedom, and the responsibility to protect it, have come to mean to me as I have aged, suffered, celebrated, and lived through 9/11 and a complex war now five years running with no resolution in sight.
The "good story" that the mini-series hinges upon, is the power and paradox inherent in compromise without surrendering integrity. In other words: how to win while losing, how to be true while allowing what you oppose to transpire.
During the debate over how to deal with British King George's policy of taxation without representation in the Colonies, Pennsylvania Quaker John Dickinson made an impassioned--and impressive--case for pacifism, not insurrection. More impressive was his ultimate decision, made when he realized that he was not in the majority, to heed the advice of fellow Continental Congress delegate Ben Franklin, and "be indisposed" when it came time to vote on whether to declare war on Britain. Understanding Dickinson's anguish over what he knew would be monstrous, and perhaps useless, bloodshed--how could one not be moved?
I was. And it caused me to reflect on our current election--a process made possible by men like Dickinson and Franklin who were willing to stay with the dilemmas presented them until they had resolved them. Unlike what I keep hearing from presidential race watchers who say that we need to all just "come together" and stop the partisanship, Dickinson did not unite with his colleagues. Nor did he fight them with intimidating words or intrigue, other than to agree to be "indisposed." He also did not, at least not publicly, vilify his colleagues. He remained true to himself. He was a hero, even though he failed to stop the violence he loathed. His thoughtful maturity showed him that the world is imperfect, and that to have an open heart and mind, and to consider the views of others while still being paradoxically convicted of a Truth, was the best way to serve and protect.
Concurrent with this mini-series are the events unfolding in Tibet and one of the most arresting political moves I have ever witnessed: the Tibetan-leader-in-exile, and non-violent, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dalai Lama, saying he will abdicate his political position (albeit, remain a Buddhist spiritual leader) if his followers in Tibet do not end their violent insurrection. These are people who have been tortured, degraded, and oppressed by the Chinese for half a century, atrocities which the Dalai Lama fully knows--probably better than anyone, and yet he is choosing NOT to unite with his people, i.e., not support their choice. What a paradox! He opposes what the Chinese have done, and yet in order to encourage his people to stay unified with him in principle, he opposes them, too! What will happen? I am riveted.
Knowing that there are guns pointed at you by merciless souls...is there a right answer for how to achieve peaceful freedom in the face of them? Is freedom worth death?
Leaders have to lead and take decisive action, even when they have misgivings. The Dalai Lama has certainly made a decisive statement--what is more powerful than an ultimatum, but the actual execution of it? As for Dickinson, he eventually did support the Declaration of Independence, and the Revolution itself. He didn't condone the violence, but he saw that it was the chosen way to freedom, even if it wasn't his choice.
These men demonstrate that we don't need to all "come together" in the sense that I hear the talking heads suggest. That's for sissies. The pacivists among us, and perhaps the warriors as well, might agree that it's much safer for us to be adults, united and apart at the same time.
II. United while Divided and Standing on Fishes
I wrote this back in November 2004, after hearing John Kerry's concession speech to George W. Bush. I think it's even more true today as we scuffle through election 2008...
The defining moment for me in this year’s presidential election was when my mother, a life-long Republican who lives in a quite un-environmentally sound “McMansion,” informed me that she had joined the Green Party and was voting for John Kerry.
It made sense.
Also an avid gardener, bird watcher and “see-the-beauty” Sunday driver who, when we were kids, taught my brother and me to survive in the woods (but never to hunt), my mother recently had challenged a developer backed by the local Republican machinery and had, against the odds, won. Her efforts resulted in the patch of land in question being declared “open space,” protected in perpetuity from development.
My mother’s subsequent change of parties seemed to me a natural progression of this victory; it was not an act of spite, but a current reflection of how protecting what she loves had changed how she defined herself.
But love in action, whether it is of ideals, of country, or of home and hearth, is a shadowy thing. Sometimes, we twine ourselves tightly around what we hold dear, wringing the very life out of it until, eventually, all that remains is our own form twisted around the memory of what once was. Sometimes we call this “tradition” when what it truly has become for us is a prison of our design.
Other times, we are inchoate and uncommitted, taking our loves for granted, either because we are arrogant or because we are truly incapable of fully understanding something or someone’s significance in our lives, until the day we are thunder-clapped with regret to find that our beloved ideal, lover, homeland, what-have-you has slipped away and we are powerless to restore it to its former place.
So that what we love does not elude us, we must commit to letting the shape of what we love shift. It is as though, as the poet Rilke wrote in his poem, “Moving Forward,” we must be willing to “stand on fishes,” letting the currents flow around us and carry us deeper, ever mindful not to let them carry us away.
Ultimately, my mother is not bound by party lines. Her seeming incongruities—her conspicuous consumption of land for her super-sized home juxtaposed against her doggedness in battle to preserve an oak grove and a fox den—merely indicate she is rooted in the land of her true self: a passionate devotee of all things beautiful. By switching parties, I see my mother as digging deeper into the earth of her soul, not careening around the political landscape looking for a slogan or a candidate to define what matters to her. Other changes in how she sees herself and what choices she makes as a result might still be to come...
Senator Kerry said that in his concessionary call to President Bush, the two, “talked about the danger of division in our country and the need - the desperate need - for unity, for finding common ground and coming together."
Perhaps that “common ground” will be easier to reach if, like my mother, we are willing to first visit the interior landscapes beyond the fences of our proscribed, public identities. Perhaps for many this is “fishy” territory: a place where we fear there are too many surprises to assimilate and so would rather not tread.
Yet, coming together as a nation seems impossible if we are not wise and patient enough as individuals to know it is that interior place that is constant and true, not the boundaries we construct around it. Our convictions might not change, the way we define them probably will. This does not mean we are fractured, simply that we are alive to the currents within and committed to letting them flow.
Which brings me back to what my tree-hugging, house-proud mother’s announcement caused me to realize: we are not a nation divided so much as a nation in-between. Our unity relies not upon resolving our differences so much as living with them.
In order to protect what we love in this nation we must learn to stand on fishes.
###
Fortunately, in our home we share a love of American history--and a really, really good story--and so all have been positively glued to the HBO series based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize winning biography, John Adams. The script is true to McCullough's text--he was very involved in its treatment for the screen. As I watch, I am also aware of how much more my freedom, and the responsibility to protect it, have come to mean to me as I have aged, suffered, celebrated, and lived through 9/11 and a complex war now five years running with no resolution in sight.
The "good story" that the mini-series hinges upon, is the power and paradox inherent in compromise without surrendering integrity. In other words: how to win while losing, how to be true while allowing what you oppose to transpire.
During the debate over how to deal with British King George's policy of taxation without representation in the Colonies, Pennsylvania Quaker John Dickinson made an impassioned--and impressive--case for pacifism, not insurrection. More impressive was his ultimate decision, made when he realized that he was not in the majority, to heed the advice of fellow Continental Congress delegate Ben Franklin, and "be indisposed" when it came time to vote on whether to declare war on Britain. Understanding Dickinson's anguish over what he knew would be monstrous, and perhaps useless, bloodshed--how could one not be moved?
I was. And it caused me to reflect on our current election--a process made possible by men like Dickinson and Franklin who were willing to stay with the dilemmas presented them until they had resolved them. Unlike what I keep hearing from presidential race watchers who say that we need to all just "come together" and stop the partisanship, Dickinson did not unite with his colleagues. Nor did he fight them with intimidating words or intrigue, other than to agree to be "indisposed." He also did not, at least not publicly, vilify his colleagues. He remained true to himself. He was a hero, even though he failed to stop the violence he loathed. His thoughtful maturity showed him that the world is imperfect, and that to have an open heart and mind, and to consider the views of others while still being paradoxically convicted of a Truth, was the best way to serve and protect.
Concurrent with this mini-series are the events unfolding in Tibet and one of the most arresting political moves I have ever witnessed: the Tibetan-leader-in-exile, and non-violent, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dalai Lama, saying he will abdicate his political position (albeit, remain a Buddhist spiritual leader) if his followers in Tibet do not end their violent insurrection. These are people who have been tortured, degraded, and oppressed by the Chinese for half a century, atrocities which the Dalai Lama fully knows--probably better than anyone, and yet he is choosing NOT to unite with his people, i.e., not support their choice. What a paradox! He opposes what the Chinese have done, and yet in order to encourage his people to stay unified with him in principle, he opposes them, too! What will happen? I am riveted.
Knowing that there are guns pointed at you by merciless souls...is there a right answer for how to achieve peaceful freedom in the face of them? Is freedom worth death?
Leaders have to lead and take decisive action, even when they have misgivings. The Dalai Lama has certainly made a decisive statement--what is more powerful than an ultimatum, but the actual execution of it? As for Dickinson, he eventually did support the Declaration of Independence, and the Revolution itself. He didn't condone the violence, but he saw that it was the chosen way to freedom, even if it wasn't his choice.
These men demonstrate that we don't need to all "come together" in the sense that I hear the talking heads suggest. That's for sissies. The pacivists among us, and perhaps the warriors as well, might agree that it's much safer for us to be adults, united and apart at the same time.
II. United while Divided and Standing on Fishes
I wrote this back in November 2004, after hearing John Kerry's concession speech to George W. Bush. I think it's even more true today as we scuffle through election 2008...
The defining moment for me in this year’s presidential election was when my mother, a life-long Republican who lives in a quite un-environmentally sound “McMansion,” informed me that she had joined the Green Party and was voting for John Kerry.
It made sense.
Also an avid gardener, bird watcher and “see-the-beauty” Sunday driver who, when we were kids, taught my brother and me to survive in the woods (but never to hunt), my mother recently had challenged a developer backed by the local Republican machinery and had, against the odds, won. Her efforts resulted in the patch of land in question being declared “open space,” protected in perpetuity from development.
My mother’s subsequent change of parties seemed to me a natural progression of this victory; it was not an act of spite, but a current reflection of how protecting what she loves had changed how she defined herself.
But love in action, whether it is of ideals, of country, or of home and hearth, is a shadowy thing. Sometimes, we twine ourselves tightly around what we hold dear, wringing the very life out of it until, eventually, all that remains is our own form twisted around the memory of what once was. Sometimes we call this “tradition” when what it truly has become for us is a prison of our design.
Other times, we are inchoate and uncommitted, taking our loves for granted, either because we are arrogant or because we are truly incapable of fully understanding something or someone’s significance in our lives, until the day we are thunder-clapped with regret to find that our beloved ideal, lover, homeland, what-have-you has slipped away and we are powerless to restore it to its former place.
So that what we love does not elude us, we must commit to letting the shape of what we love shift. It is as though, as the poet Rilke wrote in his poem, “Moving Forward,” we must be willing to “stand on fishes,” letting the currents flow around us and carry us deeper, ever mindful not to let them carry us away.
Ultimately, my mother is not bound by party lines. Her seeming incongruities—her conspicuous consumption of land for her super-sized home juxtaposed against her doggedness in battle to preserve an oak grove and a fox den—merely indicate she is rooted in the land of her true self: a passionate devotee of all things beautiful. By switching parties, I see my mother as digging deeper into the earth of her soul, not careening around the political landscape looking for a slogan or a candidate to define what matters to her. Other changes in how she sees herself and what choices she makes as a result might still be to come...
Senator Kerry said that in his concessionary call to President Bush, the two, “talked about the danger of division in our country and the need - the desperate need - for unity, for finding common ground and coming together."
Perhaps that “common ground” will be easier to reach if, like my mother, we are willing to first visit the interior landscapes beyond the fences of our proscribed, public identities. Perhaps for many this is “fishy” territory: a place where we fear there are too many surprises to assimilate and so would rather not tread.
Yet, coming together as a nation seems impossible if we are not wise and patient enough as individuals to know it is that interior place that is constant and true, not the boundaries we construct around it. Our convictions might not change, the way we define them probably will. This does not mean we are fractured, simply that we are alive to the currents within and committed to letting them flow.
Which brings me back to what my tree-hugging, house-proud mother’s announcement caused me to realize: we are not a nation divided so much as a nation in-between. Our unity relies not upon resolving our differences so much as living with them.
In order to protect what we love in this nation we must learn to stand on fishes.
###
Monday, March 17, 2008
Good News for Right Brainers
This just in from Booksquare:
We are in fact raising a nation of readers, writers, and publishing prospects:
http://www.booksquare.com/the-market-that-yours-to-lose/
We are in fact raising a nation of readers, writers, and publishing prospects:
http://www.booksquare.com/the-market-that-yours-to-lose/
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Manga Management Redux
Shortly after I pre-viewed it from mere gleanings, not actual readings, Riverhead/Penguin provided me with a copy of Daniel Pink's The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, illustrated by Manga artist, Rob Ten Pas. (Thanks.)
Now I have some questions.
But, first, some kudos and a critical note.
Being over 40, I am old as dirt when compared to the early twenty-something audience Pink and Ten Pas intend to reach, so Manga is not my traditional vernacular. However, being the mother of a tweener, I have retrieved from the backseat floor of my car a fair amount of Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon cards; and working in the publishing industry, I have lugged home enough Manga samples from the BEA, to know what sells. Still, I wondered, why is Diana of the Chopsticks (Bunko's goddess) such a black belt b*tch? In one frame, she chucks a stapler, hard, at Johnny's head. And she is forever mangling the young man's name, on purpose, it would seem. Is meanness a Manga convention of which I am unaware, having seen only what sells, not what is Manga hardcore?
Ten Pas's Manga drawings are entertaining: just enough Westernization of the characters to feel authentically exotic without being distracted, especially if Manga isn't your thing. I also enjoyed Ten Pas's little side stories inserted through out...Bunko and Diana's synchronized kata performance between chapters One and Two being my favorite.
Perhaps Ten Pas's renderings of recognizable cultural references were intentional: was the Starbuck's in one frame a product placement? Is Bunko's bald friend an avatar of Pink pal, marketing guru, and well-known chrome dome, Seth Godin?
With Bunko, Pink and his publishing posse achieve perfect word count. It's hard to tell an effective story in few words. Ten Pas's cheeky illustrations drive the Bunko bus along, but the further an allegory aspires to travel, the wiser (and more ruthless) the edits must be.
And, while it's subtitled, "The last career guide you'll ever need," Johnny Bunko's tale is, make no mistake, absolute allegory. It's the tale of a young man in his first "real" job, hating every minute of it, and going on a Hero's Journey in search of why and how to change his predicament so that he works and lives in harmony with himself. Yay, Dan Pink. Really.
Since we've come to (somehow) operate in a world of professionals with "communications" degrees hanging on their walls and prescriptive non-fiction books about the metrics of marketing on their nightstands, anyone who wants to tell me a good story about navigating one's purpose in life by way of the constellations of commerce is welcome in my world. For a minute there, with the exception of Patrick Lencione's fans of his chirpy-but-lovable consultants, I didn't think there was anyone left who actually read prescriptive fiction.
Once upon a time (excuse the punny literary device), such stories were taught as ways we might engage our imaginations and chart our course. For that reason alone, I hope Pink's book does well. However if what Pink himself in earlier books and articles has predicted is true--that we have entered the Age of the Right Brain, then Johnny Bunko will ring true with readers.
But, will Bunko be a man for our age?
To re-cap the six tenets of Bunko's message:
Sounds good. Harmless, even. But, as we plough the fields of our right brain, and eschew the path to Accounting, we're bound to unearth many dilemmas. Such as, are we prepared to live in a world where our corporations no longer take care of us? (Financially anyway; there is a trend towards providing immediate "quality of life" types of perks--part of the right brain infiltration.) While we are forging the smithies of our souls (a good thing), following our bliss and not our parents' advice, will we be able to support a family, much less ourselves?
In other words, thinking with our right brains requires we have a very stout heart pumping in our respective chests. That's because we will be flying without the so-called security net. Oh, wait. Enron. Arthur Andersen. Dot bomb. Okay, so it requires we ADMIT that we've been flying without a net for a decade or more now. (Stout heart and some solid stones. That oughtta do it.)
I believe Pink is right: the era of heuristic thinking has arrived. What lags isn't our longing to embrace our bliss and run away with it, it's something else--something that if we don't get it together, Bunko's journey will offer us an empty ride.
We do not have a practical system that supports our longings, no matter how devoutly and excellently we adhere to items 1 through 6. Complicating the application of Pink's advice is the bizarre twenty year social experiment we've perpetrated nationally--largely through our schools, and definitely in the media--that in fact, everything is about you.
Which brings me to my first question: are there really legion college graduates entering the workforce today who were exhorted to follow the same general advice my generation and the one before it was? Namely, as Bunko's tale recounts, "If you want to get ahead, you have to have a plan. Major in accounting. That way you'll always have a job." If so, I don't meet these people. Where are they? To be fair, I do meet young adults who have no idea what they want to do, but were actually brave enough to get degrees in philosophy or art history. Now, though, they are either too scared or too jaded by failed attempts to apply their passion in an economy that doesn't seem to have a place for them.
But I also meet many kids who seem aimless and unemployable. They didn't even get "bad" advice telling them to become IT or accounting majors. They have not been taught anything that anchors them to themselves, much less their future. They seem to have a vague uneasiness about them--as though they are aware they've somehow been ripped off. They were taught it was all about them, that the world never says "no", and yet, I wonder if what I am sensing in them is the internal question, "If I'm so special and unique, why can't I impact the world?"
They don't have any practical skills, such as how to communicate clearly or solve basic problems--essential in a customer-intense, touchy-feely world. And they know they're not going anywhere as a result. Just because we're becoming more about our imaginations, doesn't mean we don't need structures for how to interact. We need them even more!
Is this deficiency the fault of our schools? Kinda. Moreso, it's the fault of us all as societal sleepwalkers. We've allowed unevolved thinking to run rampant. It sums up this way: Me, Liberal, You Conservative. Me good, you Bad. AND...Me, Conservative, You, Liberal. Me good, You bad. Insert a little chest pounding, and you get the picture. It's a perfect canvas for finger pointing, but not actually growing our minds.
We've been so weirdly focused on the debate of who has the better solution for how to train our children's minds, that we've devolved into an adolescent us v. them, fighting over whether prayer should be allowed in schools, or to hand all questions of meaning and purpose over to the church of self-primacy. The larger question of how to offer students tools like critical thinking so they could work their own way through the human continuum seems to have never entered the debate. Thought control has been the real battle ground.
The more effective way to prime our minds would be: Me, Human, You Human. Me have power to operate somewhere on the continuum of good and bad, and so do you. Now what do we do?
That sort of attempt at citizenship has to be the ultimate goal of right brain thinking or we're screwed. The right brain being in the forefront doesn't mean we should lobotomize the left. The left brain's skills for money management and creating order out of chaos, remain important. Further, if Pink's tenet "It's not about you" is to really have any power in the world, then it will foster the understanding that it's just absurd to think that one group has the complete, right answer to anything--ANYTHING!
That goes for the trend of today's generation, being "socially aware"--especially by those kids who are aware that they want to connect to themselves and to feel meaning . How effective their attempts to apply Pink's "give back" and "leave an imprint" will be, hinge upon how integrated they are as human beings. Can they handle that the world they wish to improve is filled with villains who are also heroes and vice versa? If they've read enough allegory, and Shakespeare and other Classics--or whatever prescriptive fiction that comes from their respective traditions--while they're at it, they might have a chance. They might then even produce their own stories, a la Bunko, that record their growth in a contemporary way.
And here is my second question: are we, as right brained artisans of a new world, willing to stop characterizing Capitalism as the left brained greedy root of evil (See above "Me Tarzan, you Bonehead" example) and instead teach our right brain-dominant work force how to actually operate within Capitalism? If companies are not going to provide for our retirement as they once did for the Boomers, then what? We're either left to socialize our right brained population, or give ourselves the practical skills for managing our money, investing our money, and allowing our system to actually operate the way it's meant to: freely.
What's that old saying...the one that came up a few times during the 1787 Continental Convention...oh, right: with great freedom comes great responsibility...? If it takes the arrival of the right brain to loosen the stiff chauvinism of the left one so that we actually grow up, integrate both lobes, and follow the six steps of Bunko's journey, then The Adventures of Johnny Bunko is most definitely a relevant tale for our age.
Now I have some questions.
But, first, some kudos and a critical note.
Being over 40, I am old as dirt when compared to the early twenty-something audience Pink and Ten Pas intend to reach, so Manga is not my traditional vernacular. However, being the mother of a tweener, I have retrieved from the backseat floor of my car a fair amount of Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon cards; and working in the publishing industry, I have lugged home enough Manga samples from the BEA, to know what sells. Still, I wondered, why is Diana of the Chopsticks (Bunko's goddess) such a black belt b*tch? In one frame, she chucks a stapler, hard, at Johnny's head. And she is forever mangling the young man's name, on purpose, it would seem. Is meanness a Manga convention of which I am unaware, having seen only what sells, not what is Manga hardcore?
Ten Pas's Manga drawings are entertaining: just enough Westernization of the characters to feel authentically exotic without being distracted, especially if Manga isn't your thing. I also enjoyed Ten Pas's little side stories inserted through out...Bunko and Diana's synchronized kata performance between chapters One and Two being my favorite.
Perhaps Ten Pas's renderings of recognizable cultural references were intentional: was the Starbuck's in one frame a product placement? Is Bunko's bald friend an avatar of Pink pal, marketing guru, and well-known chrome dome, Seth Godin?
With Bunko, Pink and his publishing posse achieve perfect word count. It's hard to tell an effective story in few words. Ten Pas's cheeky illustrations drive the Bunko bus along, but the further an allegory aspires to travel, the wiser (and more ruthless) the edits must be.
And, while it's subtitled, "The last career guide you'll ever need," Johnny Bunko's tale is, make no mistake, absolute allegory. It's the tale of a young man in his first "real" job, hating every minute of it, and going on a Hero's Journey in search of why and how to change his predicament so that he works and lives in harmony with himself. Yay, Dan Pink. Really.
Since we've come to (somehow) operate in a world of professionals with "communications" degrees hanging on their walls and prescriptive non-fiction books about the metrics of marketing on their nightstands, anyone who wants to tell me a good story about navigating one's purpose in life by way of the constellations of commerce is welcome in my world. For a minute there, with the exception of Patrick Lencione's fans of his chirpy-but-lovable consultants, I didn't think there was anyone left who actually read prescriptive fiction.
Once upon a time (excuse the punny literary device), such stories were taught as ways we might engage our imaginations and chart our course. For that reason alone, I hope Pink's book does well. However if what Pink himself in earlier books and articles has predicted is true--that we have entered the Age of the Right Brain, then Johnny Bunko will ring true with readers.
But, will Bunko be a man for our age?
To re-cap the six tenets of Bunko's message:
- There is no plan.
- Think strengths, not weaknesses.
- It's not about you.
- Persistence trumps talent.
- Make excellent mistakes.
- Leave an imprint.
Sounds good. Harmless, even. But, as we plough the fields of our right brain, and eschew the path to Accounting, we're bound to unearth many dilemmas. Such as, are we prepared to live in a world where our corporations no longer take care of us? (Financially anyway; there is a trend towards providing immediate "quality of life" types of perks--part of the right brain infiltration.) While we are forging the smithies of our souls (a good thing), following our bliss and not our parents' advice, will we be able to support a family, much less ourselves?
In other words, thinking with our right brains requires we have a very stout heart pumping in our respective chests. That's because we will be flying without the so-called security net. Oh, wait. Enron. Arthur Andersen. Dot bomb. Okay, so it requires we ADMIT that we've been flying without a net for a decade or more now. (Stout heart and some solid stones. That oughtta do it.)
I believe Pink is right: the era of heuristic thinking has arrived. What lags isn't our longing to embrace our bliss and run away with it, it's something else--something that if we don't get it together, Bunko's journey will offer us an empty ride.
We do not have a practical system that supports our longings, no matter how devoutly and excellently we adhere to items 1 through 6. Complicating the application of Pink's advice is the bizarre twenty year social experiment we've perpetrated nationally--largely through our schools, and definitely in the media--that in fact, everything is about you.
Which brings me to my first question: are there really legion college graduates entering the workforce today who were exhorted to follow the same general advice my generation and the one before it was? Namely, as Bunko's tale recounts, "If you want to get ahead, you have to have a plan. Major in accounting. That way you'll always have a job." If so, I don't meet these people. Where are they? To be fair, I do meet young adults who have no idea what they want to do, but were actually brave enough to get degrees in philosophy or art history. Now, though, they are either too scared or too jaded by failed attempts to apply their passion in an economy that doesn't seem to have a place for them.
But I also meet many kids who seem aimless and unemployable. They didn't even get "bad" advice telling them to become IT or accounting majors. They have not been taught anything that anchors them to themselves, much less their future. They seem to have a vague uneasiness about them--as though they are aware they've somehow been ripped off. They were taught it was all about them, that the world never says "no", and yet, I wonder if what I am sensing in them is the internal question, "If I'm so special and unique, why can't I impact the world?"
They don't have any practical skills, such as how to communicate clearly or solve basic problems--essential in a customer-intense, touchy-feely world. And they know they're not going anywhere as a result. Just because we're becoming more about our imaginations, doesn't mean we don't need structures for how to interact. We need them even more!
Is this deficiency the fault of our schools? Kinda. Moreso, it's the fault of us all as societal sleepwalkers. We've allowed unevolved thinking to run rampant. It sums up this way: Me, Liberal, You Conservative. Me good, you Bad. AND...Me, Conservative, You, Liberal. Me good, You bad. Insert a little chest pounding, and you get the picture. It's a perfect canvas for finger pointing, but not actually growing our minds.
We've been so weirdly focused on the debate of who has the better solution for how to train our children's minds, that we've devolved into an adolescent us v. them, fighting over whether prayer should be allowed in schools, or to hand all questions of meaning and purpose over to the church of self-primacy. The larger question of how to offer students tools like critical thinking so they could work their own way through the human continuum seems to have never entered the debate. Thought control has been the real battle ground.
The more effective way to prime our minds would be: Me, Human, You Human. Me have power to operate somewhere on the continuum of good and bad, and so do you. Now what do we do?
That sort of attempt at citizenship has to be the ultimate goal of right brain thinking or we're screwed. The right brain being in the forefront doesn't mean we should lobotomize the left. The left brain's skills for money management and creating order out of chaos, remain important. Further, if Pink's tenet "It's not about you" is to really have any power in the world, then it will foster the understanding that it's just absurd to think that one group has the complete, right answer to anything--ANYTHING!
That goes for the trend of today's generation, being "socially aware"--especially by those kids who are aware that they want to connect to themselves and to feel meaning . How effective their attempts to apply Pink's "give back" and "leave an imprint" will be, hinge upon how integrated they are as human beings. Can they handle that the world they wish to improve is filled with villains who are also heroes and vice versa? If they've read enough allegory, and Shakespeare and other Classics--or whatever prescriptive fiction that comes from their respective traditions--while they're at it, they might have a chance. They might then even produce their own stories, a la Bunko, that record their growth in a contemporary way.
And here is my second question: are we, as right brained artisans of a new world, willing to stop characterizing Capitalism as the left brained greedy root of evil (See above "Me Tarzan, you Bonehead" example) and instead teach our right brain-dominant work force how to actually operate within Capitalism? If companies are not going to provide for our retirement as they once did for the Boomers, then what? We're either left to socialize our right brained population, or give ourselves the practical skills for managing our money, investing our money, and allowing our system to actually operate the way it's meant to: freely.
What's that old saying...the one that came up a few times during the 1787 Continental Convention...oh, right: with great freedom comes great responsibility...? If it takes the arrival of the right brain to loosen the stiff chauvinism of the left one so that we actually grow up, integrate both lobes, and follow the six steps of Bunko's journey, then The Adventures of Johnny Bunko is most definitely a relevant tale for our age.
###
Sunday, March 02, 2008
If I were to Eat, Love, Pray on my publisher's dime, I would perform a spiritual epiphany, too
After resisting it for two years, reluctant to spend time reading a book I predicted would be exactly what it is, I succumbed to the urgings of several friends, and I have just finished Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Love, Pray.
I enjoyed it. But did I find it to be the de facto 21st Century spiritual journey it is marketed to be? Not so much. (As it has been on the NYT Bestseller list for scores of weeks, and has been re-printed a trillion times, I dispense with giving an overview, and write as though you've already read it since you probably already have.)
At the risk of being relegated to the ranks of legion atheists and anti-spiritualists currently stomping through American letters, (some more amusing than others; to wit, the shaggy, school-boyish Christopher Hitchens, whom, when he is not being paraded around as a cash cow carnival attraction for his publisher, Hachette's Twelve, I imagine stumbling around his home, sucking on ciggies, dressed in a coffee-stained T shirt that says "I Hate Everyone"), I would like to point out the under belly of Eat, Love, Pray.
But first, a disclaimer. Gilbert is a wonderful writer. Faced with a choice between reading Gilbert versus another writer, especially another travel writer, I would likely choose Gilbert for her companionable and witty style. As an innocent reporting abroad, she is inimitable: comical observations of the natives without diminutizing them (Peter Mayle might take note), sensual descriptions of her surroundings, and delight in her good luck to be our eyes and ears.
And, at a rather large book signing in New Jersey, where the usual hazards for authors were in place--audience members who won't cede the floor, sputtering question after irrelevant question at the author once the original has been answered, and worse, the audience member who has come to witness for one and all how much she and the author have in common, in fact, are probably soul sisters!!!--I observed Gilbert taking the silliness in stride, and with grace. I liked her from afar and would be hard pressed to believe it if she were reported to be an overbearing diva in person.
So what's my gripe?
Pilgrim Gilbert was paid to have an epiphany.
Viking/Penguin, her publisher, funded Gilbert's forays into the land of I's (Italy, India, and Indonesia). With the obligation to transform hanging contractually over her head, there was little doubt she'd morph from damaged divorcee into spiritual sophisticate. True, the arrival of Felipe in her life was a nice bit of lagniappe, and a bonus for Viking--here comes the sequel!
But, even before Felipe's arrival, Gilbert was never fully alone. Never--not that we saw. She always knew she was writing for an audience, and so, really was engaged in "performance healing".
What about all the raw, utterly raw, filth that typically gets poured forth into journals during times of crisis? The self-loathing, the anger, the abject terror, the blame, even the morbid but funny observations about ourselves? That is where the real work is done. If Gilbert's account of transformation is even remotely authentic, it must be a sanitized version of what she really penned. To be fair, who wants to buy a book of mentally torqued ravings? Viking would have revoked its advance.
But, thinking in this manner, I couldn't help but wonder if Gilbert has written herself into a trap.
How deeply could Gilbert really have delved, if at all times she was editing her experience? Similar to how studies have shown that people act differently while under observation than they do when in private, I had the sense that Gilbert's book was similar to a spiritual "reality" TV show. Had she written it as a roman a clef, with an "objective" narrator's voice offering perspective, rather than as strict memoir, I would have found it more believable.
According to promotional materials, Gilbert's sequel, Weddings and Evictions, due in 2009, is about marriage to Felipe and, among other things, about her setting up house with him in rural New Jersey. No clue about the evictions part.
As it is under contract, she will have to live up to her reputation for discovering the spectacular in the mundane. But, what happens when things in Gilbert's life get boring, as they inevitably will? No trips abroad, no Latin lover romance (she's re-married, remember), no palm reading soothsayers to explode her consciousness into enlightenment.
(One theory: as a resident of our nation's most populous-per-mile state, the only "rural" I can think she's found in New Jersey are the Pinelands, which, unless she has encountered the Jersey Devil, really makes me think she is setting herself up to test her threshold for boring. If this is indeed where she is, I suspect we will hear much about the Mullica River and the Leeds family's 13th spawn, aka The Devil, and what encountering it has taught Gilbert about herself...I could be wrong, but I am willing to bet you money...)
Reading Gilbert's lovely prose, it's easy to forget that sometimes in life, there is just nothing special about the day. Or, worse, sometimes the meaning we assign the little things turn out to be misguided, or even wrong. We don't really know until we can look back with wisdom.
This is the trap I am speaking of: all those glorious epiphanies Gilbert had...they will fade. Some of them might even become irrelevant. Then what? Will she ever truly experience her life for what it is? Or, will she have to glam it up, ham it up, in order to fulfill her obligation to sell books?
Time is an essential lens for truthful perspective. To continually give the play by play of our lives, or even the instant re-play, we can hamper our ability to appreciate the long view, the one seen only from a quiet place where editors and publishers and readers and friends are not invited.
It brings me back to the woman at the book signing who practically threw herself at Gilbert, so akin did she feel their lives to be. No, no, no. This is not possible, dear woman, whoever you are. Please pull the plug on that fantasy immediately and get back to the work of living your life.
Gilbert's journey is decidedly NOT like most of ours. She might very well be a spiritual person, but to the public, first and foremost, she is an entertainer. She has an obligation the rest of us do not: to instantaneously assign meaning to every detail--or to explain, entertainingly so--why there is no meaning in a detail. She must do this because she must sell books.
Gilbert's memoir recounts a journey, a very entertaining one, but as for the quote she offers to open her book, "Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth...", it's best to remember that reality shows and reality itself do not necessarily share the same truth. That doesn't make one of them a lie, it just makes it a tad imprecise...
I enjoyed it. But did I find it to be the de facto 21st Century spiritual journey it is marketed to be? Not so much. (As it has been on the NYT Bestseller list for scores of weeks, and has been re-printed a trillion times, I dispense with giving an overview, and write as though you've already read it since you probably already have.)
At the risk of being relegated to the ranks of legion atheists and anti-spiritualists currently stomping through American letters, (some more amusing than others; to wit, the shaggy, school-boyish Christopher Hitchens, whom, when he is not being paraded around as a cash cow carnival attraction for his publisher, Hachette's Twelve, I imagine stumbling around his home, sucking on ciggies, dressed in a coffee-stained T shirt that says "I Hate Everyone"), I would like to point out the under belly of Eat, Love, Pray.
But first, a disclaimer. Gilbert is a wonderful writer. Faced with a choice between reading Gilbert versus another writer, especially another travel writer, I would likely choose Gilbert for her companionable and witty style. As an innocent reporting abroad, she is inimitable: comical observations of the natives without diminutizing them (Peter Mayle might take note), sensual descriptions of her surroundings, and delight in her good luck to be our eyes and ears.
And, at a rather large book signing in New Jersey, where the usual hazards for authors were in place--audience members who won't cede the floor, sputtering question after irrelevant question at the author once the original has been answered, and worse, the audience member who has come to witness for one and all how much she and the author have in common, in fact, are probably soul sisters!!!--I observed Gilbert taking the silliness in stride, and with grace. I liked her from afar and would be hard pressed to believe it if she were reported to be an overbearing diva in person.
So what's my gripe?
Pilgrim Gilbert was paid to have an epiphany.
Viking/Penguin, her publisher, funded Gilbert's forays into the land of I's (Italy, India, and Indonesia). With the obligation to transform hanging contractually over her head, there was little doubt she'd morph from damaged divorcee into spiritual sophisticate. True, the arrival of Felipe in her life was a nice bit of lagniappe, and a bonus for Viking--here comes the sequel!
But, even before Felipe's arrival, Gilbert was never fully alone. Never--not that we saw. She always knew she was writing for an audience, and so, really was engaged in "performance healing".
What about all the raw, utterly raw, filth that typically gets poured forth into journals during times of crisis? The self-loathing, the anger, the abject terror, the blame, even the morbid but funny observations about ourselves? That is where the real work is done. If Gilbert's account of transformation is even remotely authentic, it must be a sanitized version of what she really penned. To be fair, who wants to buy a book of mentally torqued ravings? Viking would have revoked its advance.
But, thinking in this manner, I couldn't help but wonder if Gilbert has written herself into a trap.
How deeply could Gilbert really have delved, if at all times she was editing her experience? Similar to how studies have shown that people act differently while under observation than they do when in private, I had the sense that Gilbert's book was similar to a spiritual "reality" TV show. Had she written it as a roman a clef, with an "objective" narrator's voice offering perspective, rather than as strict memoir, I would have found it more believable.
According to promotional materials, Gilbert's sequel, Weddings and Evictions, due in 2009, is about marriage to Felipe and, among other things, about her setting up house with him in rural New Jersey. No clue about the evictions part.
As it is under contract, she will have to live up to her reputation for discovering the spectacular in the mundane. But, what happens when things in Gilbert's life get boring, as they inevitably will? No trips abroad, no Latin lover romance (she's re-married, remember), no palm reading soothsayers to explode her consciousness into enlightenment.
(One theory: as a resident of our nation's most populous-per-mile state, the only "rural" I can think she's found in New Jersey are the Pinelands, which, unless she has encountered the Jersey Devil, really makes me think she is setting herself up to test her threshold for boring. If this is indeed where she is, I suspect we will hear much about the Mullica River and the Leeds family's 13th spawn, aka The Devil, and what encountering it has taught Gilbert about herself...I could be wrong, but I am willing to bet you money...)
Reading Gilbert's lovely prose, it's easy to forget that sometimes in life, there is just nothing special about the day. Or, worse, sometimes the meaning we assign the little things turn out to be misguided, or even wrong. We don't really know until we can look back with wisdom.
This is the trap I am speaking of: all those glorious epiphanies Gilbert had...they will fade. Some of them might even become irrelevant. Then what? Will she ever truly experience her life for what it is? Or, will she have to glam it up, ham it up, in order to fulfill her obligation to sell books?
Time is an essential lens for truthful perspective. To continually give the play by play of our lives, or even the instant re-play, we can hamper our ability to appreciate the long view, the one seen only from a quiet place where editors and publishers and readers and friends are not invited.
It brings me back to the woman at the book signing who practically threw herself at Gilbert, so akin did she feel their lives to be. No, no, no. This is not possible, dear woman, whoever you are. Please pull the plug on that fantasy immediately and get back to the work of living your life.
Gilbert's journey is decidedly NOT like most of ours. She might very well be a spiritual person, but to the public, first and foremost, she is an entertainer. She has an obligation the rest of us do not: to instantaneously assign meaning to every detail--or to explain, entertainingly so--why there is no meaning in a detail. She must do this because she must sell books.
Gilbert's memoir recounts a journey, a very entertaining one, but as for the quote she offers to open her book, "Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth...", it's best to remember that reality shows and reality itself do not necessarily share the same truth. That doesn't make one of them a lie, it just makes it a tad imprecise...
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Manga Management
Dan Pink, author of "A Whole New Mind" and "Free Agent Nation", has entered the American office by way of Tokyo. His latest work is Manga-inspired The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, a graphic book of advice for the young careerist ("graphic" = "comic book", not violent and bloody, for non-publishing industry people).
BusinessWeek offers the first Pink peek at Bunko, and its promise is fresh. For a career guide, it's kinda light on the advice.
According to BW's Susan Berfield, there are only six lessons from Bunko:
There is no plan.
Think strengths, not weaknesses.
It's not about you.
Persistence trumps talent.
Make excellent mistakes.
Leave an imprint.
Since I can't confirm or deny Bunko's Zen factor entirely, (it's not out until April and no one sent me a review copy), I don't know if these few words are all we get or if these are only morals to larger stories.
But, I have a feeling Pink is ushering in a trend. And, oh, how the publishing industry loves a trend--think, safe! think, whew, our parent companies know this will make them money!--especially when the last one is no longer a Secret. Get ready for Manga Management Mania!!!!!!!
As for Bunko himself, Berfield writes that he "is an office jockey at Boggs Corp., a bumbling Everyman trapped in a job he loathes, wondering how he got there. Enter a supernatural career adviser, Diana, who emerges from Bunko's chopsticks late one soulless night at the office. She is sarcastic, tough, and wise. All the boys fall for her."
What's of particular interest to me is that Pink is generating a spirituality-tinged community right in the middle of our nation's cubicles (now THAT sounds graphic!). Whereas religion is taboo in schools, and most offices, (making many phobic of spirituality, too) here is a way to assign meaning to the inexplicable (like, why are there unhappy Gen Y "office jockeys"? Why aren't they out snowboarding?), and offer connection to the beyond, without violating the Constitution.
But, is it sinister, or is it sincere? If you take Douglas Atkins's book, The Culting of Brands, to heart, then it's neither. It's just "a whole new church" (I made that up, not Atkins) where communities are made up of people with similar affinities, e.g., PCs evil, Mac book, revelatory.
Berfield reports that Pink and publisher, Riverhead/Penguin's Geoffrey Kloske, will encourage readers to "send in photos of the Johnny Bunkos in their offices, suggestions for the seventh lesson, and narration to accompany drawings."
Bunko sounds like what it is: a way to spend money (on Pink's book) while also helping to shape a world that is largely post-religious-precepts-for-the-meaning-of-everything, where generating one's own mythic tale of the meaning of it all, and then living it accordingly, is more dependable than taking someone else's word for it.
Which might be why Pink is light on specific details in the How To department, and leaves his six lessons open-ended. Such vagaries are reminiscent of Pink's jubilant jag--"Write a mini-saga! Consume experiences! Tell someone a story!" in A Whole New Mind. That bugged me when I read it, because it seemed shallow advice at the time.
I wondered, How was all that jumping and leaping in our hearts and minds possible at any mass, meaningful level after decades of us being underfed any stories of real signifigance? Absent the bible and the Classics, we were bereft of any durable references by which to chart our human journey. That we would suddenly sprout silver tongues and boundless imaginations like Athena from Zeuss's forehead seemed preposterous. But, now I think I was wrong.
Maybe the point is that we don't need those references any more--or not as much, because we're supposed to make them up ourselves. If that's true, then I predict that, if we're paying any attention, we'll be pretty amazed at how much our stories mirror the ancient ones. Not because the heroes' journeys will look the same, but because the heroes' hearts will fill with similar longings.
BusinessWeek offers the first Pink peek at Bunko, and its promise is fresh. For a career guide, it's kinda light on the advice.
According to BW's Susan Berfield, there are only six lessons from Bunko:
There is no plan.
Think strengths, not weaknesses.
It's not about you.
Persistence trumps talent.
Make excellent mistakes.
Leave an imprint.
Since I can't confirm or deny Bunko's Zen factor entirely, (it's not out until April and no one sent me a review copy), I don't know if these few words are all we get or if these are only morals to larger stories.
But, I have a feeling Pink is ushering in a trend. And, oh, how the publishing industry loves a trend--think, safe! think, whew, our parent companies know this will make them money!--especially when the last one is no longer a Secret. Get ready for Manga Management Mania!!!!!!!
As for Bunko himself, Berfield writes that he "is an office jockey at Boggs Corp., a bumbling Everyman trapped in a job he loathes, wondering how he got there. Enter a supernatural career adviser, Diana, who emerges from Bunko's chopsticks late one soulless night at the office. She is sarcastic, tough, and wise. All the boys fall for her."
What's of particular interest to me is that Pink is generating a spirituality-tinged community right in the middle of our nation's cubicles (now THAT sounds graphic!). Whereas religion is taboo in schools, and most offices, (making many phobic of spirituality, too) here is a way to assign meaning to the inexplicable (like, why are there unhappy Gen Y "office jockeys"? Why aren't they out snowboarding?), and offer connection to the beyond, without violating the Constitution.
But, is it sinister, or is it sincere? If you take Douglas Atkins's book, The Culting of Brands, to heart, then it's neither. It's just "a whole new church" (I made that up, not Atkins) where communities are made up of people with similar affinities, e.g., PCs evil, Mac book, revelatory.
Berfield reports that Pink and publisher, Riverhead/Penguin's Geoffrey Kloske, will encourage readers to "send in photos of the Johnny Bunkos in their offices, suggestions for the seventh lesson, and narration to accompany drawings."
Bunko sounds like what it is: a way to spend money (on Pink's book) while also helping to shape a world that is largely post-religious-precepts-for-the-meaning-of-everything, where generating one's own mythic tale of the meaning of it all, and then living it accordingly, is more dependable than taking someone else's word for it.
Which might be why Pink is light on specific details in the How To department, and leaves his six lessons open-ended. Such vagaries are reminiscent of Pink's jubilant jag--"Write a mini-saga! Consume experiences! Tell someone a story!" in A Whole New Mind. That bugged me when I read it, because it seemed shallow advice at the time.
I wondered, How was all that jumping and leaping in our hearts and minds possible at any mass, meaningful level after decades of us being underfed any stories of real signifigance? Absent the bible and the Classics, we were bereft of any durable references by which to chart our human journey. That we would suddenly sprout silver tongues and boundless imaginations like Athena from Zeuss's forehead seemed preposterous. But, now I think I was wrong.
Maybe the point is that we don't need those references any more--or not as much, because we're supposed to make them up ourselves. If that's true, then I predict that, if we're paying any attention, we'll be pretty amazed at how much our stories mirror the ancient ones. Not because the heroes' journeys will look the same, but because the heroes' hearts will fill with similar longings.
###
Friday, May 06, 2005
With half my brain tied behind my back...
"Meaning is the new money."
~Daniel H. Pink
According to Daniel H. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age (Riverhead Books 2005), it is now artists, creative writers, designers, and other so-called right-brain dominant thinkers who are winning in the market place.
In his well-researched and highly-accessible book, Pink asserts that this era of Abundance, Asia, and Automation has turned American "knowledge workers" into dinosaurs.
Because Target, Walmart, and our corner super-super grocery stores now offer us an overwhelming number of choices on the cheap, Pink explains that price point is no longer a major factor in the market place. It is not material quality that counts anymore, he says.
It is design. Art. Beauty.
Says Pink, in a world where Target now partners with bona fide designers to create its own lines of clothing (Isaac Mizrahi), home furnishings (Michael Graves), and make up (Sonia Kashuk), Kohl's and kmart (no longer the Big K) can only hope to catch up.
Then there is this: according to Pink, what was once considered a point of both pride and practicality--receiving a degree in math or science, before going on to become a computer programmer, a doctor, or an engineer is now not so smart.
Cheap Asian labor means American computer programmers who once earned, on average, $50,000 or more, are being replaced by college educated Indians who, with their $14,000 earnings a year, can live The Good Life in Mumbai.
And when an American accountant earns $5,000 a month and a Philippino one earns $300; when an American computer chip designer earns $7,000 per month and an Indian one earns $1,000; and when an American aerospace engineer earns $6,000 per month and a Russian one earns $650, says Pink, such outsourcing is here to stay.
Automation is the final peg to Pink's poisonous troika: computers now not only are capable of automating most rote functions, but can also be used to perform tasks as complex as writing software. Reports Pink, "Where a typical human being...can write about four hundred lines of computer code per day [the British software company] Appligenics applications can do the same amount of work in less than a second (p.44, A Whole New Mind)."
What is left, argues Pink, is actually what is right: Americans who formerly banked on their left brain lobe must now cash in on their right one if they are to succeed.
The so-called "left brain aptitudes", those easily sliced and diced units we love to measure with SAT's, LSAT's, and MCAT's before turning their owners into CPA's, JD's, and MD's, will still remain important, says Pink.
But, it's the marriage of these steelier qualities to the squishy portions of ourselves, or as Pink outlines them: design, story, symphony (seeing the big picture), empathy, play, and meaning, that will save the day.
He cites many examples of this "revolutionary" pairing, including how several prominant training hospitals have begun stipulating that medical students take art history and English literature courses because faculty have noticed that studying paintings develops an eye for detail and understanding narrative makes it easier to capture essential information when patients "tell their story."
Even though I am gripped with the urge to respond, "No duh!" when being told that listening to what people have to say is a way to know what they are trying to tell me, I agree with Pink that empathy's "time has come".
So then why am I, an unrepentant bohemian of the business world, wrinkling my brow instead of setting the Veuve Cliquot on ice?
First, there is this little matter of counting the costs incurred by the reflexive marginalization of at least half of the members of our society because of their softer sides.
In devaluing what is different and unquantifiable (everything right brained) about ourselves as a nation and as individuals for so long, we've created a class of people who have turned to entitlement for succor: artists who feel misunderstood; gays who feel alienated; minorities who feel unappreciated; women who feel used.
But it is not only the "special" people who pay the price for this social lobotomy; it is every one of us.
Here is why:
Since Merriam Webster defines insanity as the state of being "mentally disordered", it's fair to say that our national love affair with left-headedness has loosed a torrent of insanity that affects every level of government, business, and community relations in this country.
Rather than balance the schizophrenic set of voices searing through our collective head, where one voice shouts that all is relative and nothing is sacred, and another demands that there is only one fundamental answer, we have allowed claims from both sides that "life in America is unfair" to drown out the subtle, but deep and rich, voice of Reason.
If Reason could be heard above the din of our chauvinism (which the American Heritage Dictionary defines as "the prejudiced belief in the superiority of one's own kind) I suspect it would point out to us that despite--or perhaps because of--our nation's half-headed approach to solving problems, we've done our best to try for "fair"--as evidenced by the billions of federal, state, and local dollars spent on social programs every time people in our nation say they've gotten the bum's rush.
Public education, public broadcasting, public assistance, public housing, arts and humanities funding, Social Security--no matter how much money we throw at them, one side or the other remains angry and we grow further derranged as a country.
This is not to say there is no pain and suffering in our world or our nation. We Americans know that and so we continue turning to our uniquely humane spirit of goodness and compassion in an attempt to make life equitable.
But, as Albert Einstein, who arguably walked that diaphanous line between genius and insanity, said: "Insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result." (With apologies to the 12 Steppers, Bill W. did not say this first.)
So, then isn't it fair to say that our methods of trying to make life fair in this country are insane?
Perhaps, Reason might gently reassure us, what we seek is not for life to be fair, but even. Maybe it's time to even the--no, not the score--the tones, like in a picture. Not all black, not all white, but a blending of the two for shades of gray--and a more real picture.
That does sound reasonable, doesn't it?
Better hold off on that bubbly.
Until we honestly acknowledge the consequences, good and bad, resulting from how we've chosen to think--or not to think--as Americans, we risk losing the real opportunity before us: determining what matters most to us as individuals and as Americans.
Put another way, if as Pink asserts, meaning is to be the new money in America, we might want to have some way to describe it.
How's this: a wholly-functioning brain, and thus, a wholly-functioning economy, and--dare I dream it?--a wholly functioning government.
Enter design. Art. Beauty.
But, after decades of half-baked thinking in this nation, are we really prepared to integrate the mystical and mysterious powers of our collective right brain in this new era in Humanity's Search for Meaning?
I don't think we have the tools.
In our narrow-minded (or, shall we say, "demi-mindedness"?) state, we have removed any traces of who we are as a people in this country. Whether it is by turning over our fairy tales, including our Native American and other indiginous creation stories, to Disney; or by decimating any reference to our shared Christian, Judeo, and Muslim Abrahamic heritage by practically outlawing the Bible in our public schools, we have very little available to help teach us about our common humanity.
In addition to forever implanting only Hollywood's mostly vapid images of our common stories into the imaginations of our children, rather than empowering children to read for themselves the words on the page in order to stir the pathos in their secret souls, most commercialized renditions of who these blockbusters tell us we are usually paint a picture of shallow, wise cracking know-it-all "heroes" who might undergo an epiphanal experience.
Even so, much of the story's intended wisdom is either made overtly literal and thus overtly sappy, or is missing all together.
Along with Greek classics, Norse myths, and our own American legends like Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed, Bible stories were once commonly read to our nation's children because they contain the wisdom of ages, not just of a specific religion. Educators once freely relied upon these stories to help students mark their place on the continuum of human experience.
Such tales once assured us, however consciously or subconsciously, that we are not the first to ask about the meaning of life. They taught us that if we pay attention to the details, we can find the clues and symbols that help us find the answers we seek.
But in the interest of being meticulously fair (How left brained!), not wanting to appear biased towards one faith over another, rather than deepen the wealth of our own traditions by incorporating the "newly discovered" tales of others, we sterilized our curricula and washed away the collective byways we once traced between our hearts and minds.
What remains besides legions of dry, uninteresting textbooks that assure students that the world is filled with insurmountable problems like global warming, over-population and nuclear proliferation but gives them no psychic tools--our myths and legends--with which to cope with the despair this view of the world causes?
The answer: a generation of people who, because they have been given precious little to help them establish value and meaning in their lives, now largely rely upon anti-depressants to staunch the flow of anxiety they feel that perhaps in life, there really isn't any meaning--no matter how much money they have.
We are numb, and waking up is hard to do.
That's why, despite being largely impressed with Pink's book, I believe his dilettante-ish exercises (Write a mini-saga! Consume experiences! Tell someone a story!) intended to meld the Left with the Right, fall short of preparing readers for the bigger implications of his claim that the Conceptual Age will transform the world.
Put another way: as the Right Brain elbows her way into our collective consciousness, America is birthing a new way of being.
And, uh, giving birth hurts. (Especially without the drugs.)
But birth also has the potential to strengthen the resolve and maturity of the ones who create the new life.
And, since the strongest relationships are the ones where both sides agree about what role money, er, meaning, plays in the mix, perhaps the marriage of Mr. Left Brain to Ms. Right Brain will make for innovations in how our national commerce is spent on making things "fair."
This might take a while. Better pour myself that drink.
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