Andrew's Daily Notes

This is an analogy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about mutual aid in the past weeks. I’ve seen many people groups band together for the exchange of resources in the wake of COVID-19. They’ve gone to work to identify what the individual needs of each other are, and who has shareable resources.

This got me thinking about resources, and how resources flow in our society. When COVID-19 hit I had this exchange with a friend on facebook:

I posted the idea on facebook, but it didn’t catch on. Old habits are hard to break.

Capitalism and our market culture demand an exchange. We give dollars in return for a product or service. Even if something is free, the exchange is between my time and attention and whatever it is you’re selling.

But nature doesn’t seem to work that way. Take our bodies. In a healthy system, if particular cells are in need of energy or resources, the body sends it to them. The cells receive what they need to complete the task at hand. The cells calling for resources doesn’t have to pitch the idea to the cells holding or carrying the resources. Can you imagine if that were the case?

The system trusts that whatever activity is being done is good, and right, and beneficial, and the system provides the necessary resources. Break that trust and doubt enters in. Injury is actually more likely. The system doesn’t function efficiently or peacefully anymore. It is broken.

A healthy system also has a way of dealing with the resources themselves. For most, we have a predisposition toward spending or saving that sits along a spectrum. The extremes can help us understand the advantages of each.

Spenders like to feel the energy of resources in use. They concentrate on all the things they can spend the resources on. “Imagine what can be done if…,” they say. When directed towards the benefit of people this focus and imagination can be amazing.

Savers like to feel the energy of resources in waiting. They concentrate on all the possible needs of the future and are frugal in the meantime. “I need to have this just in case,” they say. When connected to people in times of need, Savers have the resources that can come to aid.

In a healthy system Spenders and Savers can’t have simply transactional relationships, nor ones that compound debt. There must be trust and an ethic of gifting. It seems that there will always be some tension between the prudent Saver and the enthusiastic Spender, but I wonder what our world would be like if there was more trusted relationships and the free flow of resources between people of the two dispositions?

This is just scratching the surface of some of the workings in our current economic system. An extremely incomplete list includes understanding how fiat currencies actually function, the prominence of shareholder value as an ideology, and the nature of scale as it has to do with work, currency, and markets.

More to dig into for later, for sure.

A dear friend got me hip to this distinction recently and I’ve immediately adopted it. I don’t get really excited about a lot of things, but this got me going. Here’s why.

Communities are comprised of people who share a common activity or interest. The tap dance community, for example, is comprised of people from all over the map geographically, idealistically, and sociopolitically. We all share a common interest, but the differences in our value sets and our lack of a robust communal imagination, often build friction in our community.

Fellowships, by contrast are groups of people bound together by a common conception of life, relationship, and values. The thing that frames a fellowship is an over-arching way of life that affects every pursuit. Fellowships can have people with common or disparate interests, similar or dissimilar personalities. Fellowships actually tend to function more robustly if the members do have differences. What is common is the imagination of the kind of relationship they all are aiming for, with each other and the world around them.

We need to be careful we’re not using the language of community and actually looking for, or assuming we’re in a fellowship, or vice versa. This is especially true now, when there is a lot of talk about a community and a lot of need for fellowship.

Communities and Fellowships each serve a purpose, and are both good. We just need to know how to tell the difference and know which one we’re in.

This morning I fallen down the rabbit hole.

My mind is swirling around the language of Love.

It’s like an enigma, wrapped in a universe, wrapped in a poem.

On account of not having an answer, when a friend asked me, “What is Love?” I spent three years trying to find out. I documented my journey here. It was an impossible task at which I naturally failed, but some of the things there may be useful.

Some of us know intuitively when we’ve encountered Love. Maybe some of us didn’t recognize it on the first pass, but now, looking back, it is clear. Maybe we thought we saw it, but what we saw was actually something else; a poor imitation, a good attempt, but not the real thing.

Love is not a singular source that we can approach, visit for a while, feel replenished, and then return to our regular programming. Love finds its way into relationship, and into every corner of our lives. Visit the source enough, and we start staying a little longer. Keep hanging out, and the conversations shift from just small talk to things more meaningful, and personal, and vulnerable.

Love opens us up. It tells us things we need to know about who and how we are. Some things aren’t pretty, or comfortable, but they are helpful. That is, if our goal is Love.

If we desire peace, patience, joy, kindness, self-composure, goodness, and all those things that flow from Love, we must bare the learning, the trying, and the rain, along with the sunlight. There comes a time that we might see that the learning, the trying, and the rain are covered in Love themselves, but that might take a second (it has for me).

Love begs so many questions, and gives only the answers that grow our relationship to it. That’s probably one of the harder truths I’ve come to learn. With so much left to mystery, Love remains a journey of trust (no manipulation, no guilting, no shaming, just trust).

Love unveils truth, helping us to see and hear clearly, but never enough that we might think we know all things. Lest we put ourselves in Love’s place and forget the source.

Admittedly a daily note will never be enough to feel like a fulfilling exploration of an enigma, wrapped in a universe, wrapped in a poem.

DISCLAIMER: By no means do I consider myself perfected in my understanding, or exercise of Love. I’ve had my share of learning, trying, and rain – and expect that to continue. I share my thoughts here in the hopes that regardless of what we have faced, the pursuit of Love may be encouraged.

Did we ever think we’d come through a thing like this? Did we ever know that our lives would be changed in the ways they have these past weeks (months?!)?

I come from a family touched by war. Having fled their home country in their early twenties, my parent’s life has been a continual adventure. Any time we look back as a family, my parents are still surprised that they did everything that they did. They catch themselves asking, “Can you actually believe we did that?”

My story has been one of equal surprise. But more along the lines of opportunity. When my family and I look back on the life I’ve been given, we ask, “Can we actually believe I got to do all of that?”

Changed lives come from both immense strife and immense blessing. Neither is devoid of the other. My parent’s journey is not monopolized by strife, and my story is not one of pure bliss. The sun shines on everyone, and the rain does not discriminate.

What is common to both my parents and my story is the fact that our experiences have framed us, and continue to frame us. We are hyper aware of all the aspects of life that seem to be asking us to change.

Experiencing drastic change comes with its own set of stripes. Someone who has walked through an extreme of life as a way about them. Enough of the experience of COVID-19 has passed that some of us can begin to reflect (even as we may still be in it). We can discover something about ourselves by seeing how we have naturally responded.

Maybe we enjoyed the uncertainty? Maybe we yearned for control? Maybe we are just now getting used to what has happened? Maybe we adapted by day #2? Maybe we adapt well, but parts of us still don’t accept that everything that happened is our reality? Maybe our emotions were heightened? Maybe we went numb? Maybe both depending on the day? Maybe we see ourselves, and our lives through a new lens? Maybe we feel like the only thing that’s consistent in this world is our own perspective?

The answers to these questions are our own, and there isn’t any right or wrong one. There is, however, the discovery of more of who we are. The opportunity here is that if we learn more about how we naturally respond (both to strife and to blessing), we might be able to better understand how we respond in relationship. With greater understanding maybe we can lean the change in our lives towards Love, and experience grace in the midst of it all.

Every so often, I’m going to start dedicating this space to someone or something that has inspired me. It makes sense that if I’ve been uplifted by the work of a friend, a book, some music, or a story, that I should share it, right? After all, lights were meant to shine, not be covered, or hidden. Here we go…

I met Kevin Adler through the amazing cohort of TED Residents. He struck me as someone with a deep love for people, and an equally passion-fueled work ethic. The organization he founded is a reflection of those qualities.

Miracle Messages reframes the entire homelessness conversation to be around the people, not provision. They venture to reconnect those experiencing homelessness with loved ones, and they walk with them through the journey of reconnection. They work to strengthen social support systems. Their tag line is, “Everyone is Someone’s Somebody,” and I’m a fan.

Their work includes reunion services for those currently experiencing homelessness, finding services for families wanting to find their missing homeless relative, and case solving services for their network of volunteer “digital detectives.” They’ve even expanded their efforts to respond to how COVID-19 has impacted their people by providing a virtual buddy system.

I don’t get excited about a lot of things, but when I do it’s happens in a big way. From the moment I heard Kevin share his framework, and the work he’s spearheading, I was captivated.

If you’re inspired, too, consider supporting their efforts. I have.

One of the first things I learned while attempt to ski (a long time ago) was this warning: Don’t ski right behind someone else. You might get caught in the grooves their skis make. Getting caught in someone else’s groove can take us off track. Your skis get stuck following their tracks, and the grooves are hard to get out of. Especially deep ones.

In the music world, grooves are equally powerful. They set the tone. The drummers and bassists with the best ability to groove often get the most work. Everyone recognizes their power. Here, grooves are a good thing, and for the same reason as in skiing. They capture us, take us down a particular path, put us in a particular mood, and are able to really affect us. Especially the deep ones.

There is an idea that there are certain grooves that can develop in our thinking, too. Ones that once they are developed, don’t like to change. Muscle memory is the same way. Repeat something often enough and it feels like that’s the only way it can be done. Grooves in our thinking and our doing are beneficial adaptations to our environment and our work, but are hard to get out of. Especially the deep ones.

If our environment or work changes, our old grooves may not be suitable anymore. Yet, they will be difficult to change. It’s their nature. I offer a few things that I’ve found helpful in my own journey:

Take a step back – becoming an observer of our own thinking and doing can help us see what we are getting caught in.

Move more slowly – this applies to thinking, too. Moving and thinking slowly helps us see when we slip into, and doorways out of our grooves.

Outside eyes – trusted observers can help us identify our grooves.

Review the grooves – checking our grooves can help us identify the ones that are useful or not. The grooves can become tools themselves.

Change little things – this I learned from dancing (and muscle memory). The more we can change the little things, the less the power of the groove holds. We see more options, and are able to make more choices. It’s like being able to jump between a bunch of little grooves, rather than getting stuck in one deep one.

Whatever tools we have, and use, the key is to know that grooves are a part of how we are made. Some of the them can be really good, while others may pose more challenges. We should aim to get caught up in the good ones. Then, at least we’ll be able to enjoy the music.

I have to remind myself. My achievement oriented nature gets the better of me. After all, one of the reasons I first got hooked on tap dancing was because it was something I could be good at. But who gets to decide what is good?

In oral traditions, the social network of elders, knowledge keepers, and peer support provide that framework.

In the market culture, the market is supposed to decide value.

But something has happened (especially when it comes to the arts). It’s been going on for a long time, but our recent shift has exposed the fault line. To break in, carve space for your career, and be known in the market, the demands of content creation are astounding. Daily tweets and instagram posts, weekly videos, monthly lessons, and seasonal performances, all feel necessary. I’m in the thick of it, and wonder if there is a better way.

Consider this comparison: Jimmy Slyde and his dance partner Jimmy “Sir Slide” Mitchell had a total of four-and-a-half red hot minutes of content (plus a 1 minute encore, in the back pocket, just in case). That’s a total of five-and-a-half minutes of choreography for their act, that lasted them years of work.

Imagine practicing the same stuff for years! It’s no wonder they were able to attain mastery.

Today we find dancers having to develop new daily for the social sphere, weekly for classes, and seasonally for performances. Always something new, always innovating, always delivering. It is understood that the content will be consumed, never to be revisited. This is an industrial ethic spurred on by the market culture that only a few artists seem to have been able to circumvent (Sade comes to mind, but I’m sure there are others).

For the rest of us, we need to remind ourselves that we are not machines. We are human. We were not made to produce and deliver content at the pace of machines. We were made to share things by bringing inspired work to life that is fueled by love.

If you’re in the thick of it, like me, I’m thinking about what steps can we take to remind ourselves that we are indeed not machines?

How many invites have you received in the past few weeks?

With everyone realizing that their audience can be global, I’ve received emails from events all over the world. “Who cares about the timezone,” they seem to say. Invite everyone!

Most invitations understand that they are battling for attention. They try to impress me with Famous Guest Speakers, 100+ roster of performers, or some other novelty. It’s noisy.

I search for the invitation that is simple, clear, and honest. More signal, less noise.

“Come.”

If I find resonance in the simplest of invitations, I figure there must be something there. Something more than any marketer could convince me of with the right typeface, copy, and timed social media post.

“Listen.” “Enjoy.” “Breathe.”

If I scratch the surface and the resonance stays, then I’m in. I’ll follow through.

The shared experience will become part of my journey. Not just another thing to do, and later forget about. My assumption is that the experience will shape me – even just a little. I intentionally open myself up to that possibility.

We all offer invitations all the time. Invitations to connect in the smallest of ways. What if we were conscious of how the invitations we offered were framed (not just the mechanism of the hook)? As receivers, what if we honored those thoughtfully crafted invitations by listening for deep resonance (not just marketing triggers)?

What if we treated invitations as the beginning of the journey?