I don't remember learning to walk, or riding a bike for the first time, or (in Deleuze's famous example) learning how to swim. But I'm somewhat sure that it felt something like trying to organize people around a philosophy for peace. I have no idea what's going to happen. I just jumped in the deep end and started flapping my arms and hoping for the best.
In some ways, I hope I never lose the perspective that I have right now, by not knowing what I am doing. When you arrive, it is way too easy to stop learning. That's the number one tenet of the Philosophy of Creativity. Keep learning! Revise, revise, revise. Get comfortable feeling uncomfortable.
There are strong voices that will argue in favor of a well-orchestrated plan. A good map will get you there, they would say. I am not going to argue against good organization, planning, or sound thinking. The key I think is to retain the ability to utilize all those skills without ignoring the fact that we are always swimming. To try to force a model on a fluid situation is a mistake that can have severe consequences. So, we must learn how to practice good decision-making in concert with improvisatory insight.
I would absolutely love to have a functioning message board on my new website where people would come and talk about these issues and make plans for initiatives we can take. But you know what, yesterday, I put out a little feeler post, and I received great feedback and encouragement and ideas about what other people think can work. That's awesome. That's swimming! I could be like, "yeah, but I'd like you to participate on my message board," or I can just roll with it and listen to the advice to just keep writing.
So, this is not supposed to be about me. Let me ask you this...what have you always wanted to learn or implement but for whatever reason it felt out of reach? How can you start swimming? That doesn't mean magically reach some lofty goal. Just start working on it, in any small way possible. Begin developing a regular practice.
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