"In continuing to offer prayer for the repatriation of southern resident orca Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut from the Miami Seaquarium to her home waters of the Salish Sea, Lummi Tribal citizens and the Bellingham, Washington community gathered Sunday, March 20, at the sacred site of Cherry Point — named Xwe’chi’eXen in the Lummi language."
Wow, this is really close to the time that some Vietnamese villages celebrate their whale festivals too!
My maternal grandmother's village in Vietnam had responsibilities for mourning any deceased whales and annual celebrations for good fishing and support on the water. Based on what I've been able to read online however, it often gets portrayed more like a transactional or even extractive relationship where people hope for good fishing and safety etc. and whales are moreso harbingers of wealth and luck. Yet when someone finds a dead whale, there's a responsibility to take it ashore for proper burial and someone from the village would be tasked to mourn it like a direct relative for 100 days. In some villages, the bones even become enshrined and kept at a small temple.
But it's so good to see other nations like the Lummi with care for the return when one is taken away being done, especially for a pod like the Southern Residents which are sort of famous in the scientific community for their own cultural.
The Southern Resident population has led the way with sort of fashion/ways to play with their food (known for wearing a piece of salmon or other meat on the head in the 1980s), and their dialect of language plus matriarchal leadership roles are comparatively very well studied too.
Updates on transforming conservation-oriented investments into experiential investments; i.e. carpool for 20% mobility transit energy reduction into karaoke carpool experience; sharing native plant seeds to plant at property boundaries for habitat corridor creation; inviting rotation of friends for special vegetarian meals 3x per week (equals 1 day of meals) or more. ; \\ to how modeling and acting celebrities are sort of the ultimate existential/experiential industry expression [and professional dancers sometimes get to a point where the work is about their body and life culminate in expression], or how apple's store and brand was about the experience rather than the tech, or starbucks being about a gathering place rather than just its coffee, or McDonald's about its convenience, "non-judgment" and "happiness"/loving it happy meals and play place for kids. Very similar to how CK Raju would state corruption and religion being the two primary vehicles for colonialism; good experiences are the essence of what often fuels religion. Instead of corruption, systemically positive alchemic/allegoric transformation can be the appropriate and compelling alternative to outmode.
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"A word on perspective: for this image, I chose very, very wide vanishing points. The result is what I occasionally call “middle-class white people perspective.” Rather than feeling immersed in the scene, the viewer is looking at it as if from across the street or from the warmth and safety of his or her passing car. I have a small hope that this Christmas image will come to mind when we see other “down and out” people huddling outside of gas stations, reminding us that our Savior’s parents (and indeed, Jesus himself) were at one time similarly troubled."
-Everett Patterson, illustrator of Jose y Maria
Worth considering again: would Jose and mother Maria find a place to stay for baby Jesus (pronounced here as Hey-Zeus for those who prefer to "speak American" only) this past Christmas Eve/Day?
Or would the town offer thoughts and prayers (and maybe send profits) to build a wall to keep them out so shop owners and employees can go home for the night without troubling themselves with someone else's problems?
Some people insist on celebrating Christmas while pushing to turn away refugees who seek a safe place to find a home for their children who are getting separated from them when they arrive at the border--despite the fact that coming to the U.S. border is a necessary step for seeking political asylum.
While there's relatively little most of us can do when a nation's population suffers from war, understanding the causes and developing ways for aiding the displaced with dignified hospitality is among the most visceral ways to take responsibility as someone who's part of the bigger world that more of us would like to create. A place where people do the right thing and can take confidence in finding shelter, knowing there are places that care for their children, a place where they safely find work and contribute to a society that once carried a reputation for bringing together cultures from around the world.
Domestically, a liquor store clerk or owner isn't in business to tell people where to find a place to stay, and probably isn't interested in letting a tired couple from out of town stay in the store for the night even if it's open 24/7. But one's job isn't the same as one's responsibility to others in the world. Profit isn't the same as prosperity, and true wealth can be found in our collective health.
We now have the benefit of lots of perspective to learn from: from retrospective allegory to lived and learned history -- all on our side in a way that at least gives us an opportunity to make better choices when national policy works against us.
As a son of South Vietnamese refugees from the Vietnam War, we would be wise to heed refugee stories and understand how delicate calling a nation the place of one's home can be. Knowing and witnessing refugees firsthand from Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, many of the unfolding stories in current and recent events echo the experiences I hear in my parents circles too.
Witnessing firsthand how gaps in payments from government shut downs or employer shortcomings can lead to missed payments, foreclosures, and evictions, the line between homelessness and someone who suddenly seeks help from people with different privileges becomes just as delicate and thin.
Having lived amid domestic abuse during the holidays, we also would benefit from knowing why people would choose to stay out of the house rather than come home to their family -- it's often the same reason a family would try to leave their neighborhood or country when gang violence gets so bad and look for help from others who seem to be doing okay. It's the same reason families will try to flee or--if they can afford it--fight when corruption and war sets upon their homeland and country.
People tend to shy away from issues like homelessness because the causes for the problem normally carry a bundle of nuanced root causes that are bigger than what one person or organization can carry and solve. It calls us to create and steward a cohesive community that's more committed to care than the stigmas that are associated with the problems.
It takes empathetic moral and ethical imagination to consider what the right thing to do and follow through. It takes courage for people who are insecure about trying to address more than what they're accustomed to dealing with to find assurance in learning how to navigate the consequences of their action or inaction.
But I imagine that when we don't learn from those consequences as individuals, as a community--or if we're really fortunate as a culture, there's a good chance others will meet an unnecessary suffering that one decision could have spared.
Or maybe we can just ask "what is the courageous choice?" before doing our best with whatever answer we may find along with our responsibility to the consequences that arise.
I'm not providing all the answers here, for most of us, this week is an opportunity to celebrate and reflect with loving moments away from our usual work pattern and that's important too. Heck, maybe it'll take a few people who actually read this the whole week to get through all this text I've written.
Yet the meaningful work and opportunities for change will continue exist beyond Christmas day just like any other incident that's notable enough to stir up "thoughts and prayers" for some group of people and merit sustained action.
But if the business you work for doesn't account for ways to care for the community it operates in beyond a bottom line and its usual budgeted priorities, it may be time to envision what the difference between profit and prosperity means and take steps to demonstrate it.
Meanwhile, there are many people and causes worthy of effort in Detroit and certainly around the world. You can help Dior Gabrielle and others with Operation Care Kit Detroit--which will continue to operate long after the holiday season closes and into the most critical winter months for survival that a homeless person will often face without sufficient aid.
You can read more about the picture used in this post and what went into the illustrator's story behind creating it here:
In reality, when people get angry, they'll do it in whatever way seems to suit their needs.
The only way people can really determine what's "appropriate" is to decide from within whether they believe their actions will align with their values, and if their actions also align with the mutually agreed upon (or yet-to-be-established) parameters of the relationship.
At the same time, having worked with angry people often, myself and family included, I believe I've found a few ways that can make it a little more dignified and mature. In the spirit of living the life I wish already existed in the world, I hope the following guidelines are helpful for you and anyone else you care about.
When angry, you either:
1) Know yourself and the situation accurately (it may take some time to calm down and careful re-examination)
Then: Confront the issue as you recognize it so that the other party/parties can work toward resolving the issue.
2) Don't know what's going on within yourself and/or the situation but need to express yourself
If you need to express your frustration and have yet to figure out exactly what needs to be articulated for other people to engage
Then: Create clear parameters for what and how you choose to express your anger so that other people can better engage or avoid you as you get yourself grounded. Otherwise, it becomes toxic as other people around you don't know how to appropriately respond to your behavior and it risks escalating the situation.
Being aware of both choices conscientiously choosing one of them are the only mature actions I'm aware of at this time.
If/when someone capable of and consents to doing either or both of the above but fails to do so in-the-moment:
Kindly maintain shared responsibility and integrity by helping or reminding them of their choices, to act as their better self, and in the interest of the greater relationship you share.
Return and resume humane resolution when things calm down. After all, you'll probably wish someone would do the same with you if you were in a similar situation and cared about them.
The only judgment needed happens from within, not upon one another. It may be applied internally, and to the relationship, but never imposed upon the other individual.
I saw American Beauty for the first time this weekend at a house screening as a friend's guest. The person who chose the film explained it was "a classic", and another mentioned it was a "dramedy"--humor to be found in the absurdity of emotional extremes.
Desperation was a key theme to a lot of the behaviors that drew most of the snickers and laughter. If willing, conscientious choice is fundamental to dignity desperation then serves as its converse.
Example: an insecure suburban WASP mom archetype forces a smile and recites capitalistic mantras for success as her work in real estate continues to fail.
For those who rely on one belief or another as a way for finding self-worth and meaning in life, ridiculing desperation quickly skirts the line toward becoming a demeaning and disempowering act. It's mean-spirited if not cynical humor shrouded in the laurels of being an iconic film for mainstream U.S. Cinema.
It's also a negative feedback loop [here's a place better suited for diagrams than text]:
A desperate individual's chosen actions for self-preservation are demeaned when subject to ridicule (bullying). If it's vicious enough, giving up on the practice out of fear becomes a probable outcome, further reducing their choices for a willing existence.
Also, what happens when the topics and subjects of laughter are current and real for members of the audience?
For the sake of self-preservation, the characters are constructed to have little to no choice--they operate from a default stance of desperation--and as a result, little room for realizing dignity. The few who embody a glimpse of dignity are killed or kicked out from families unable to cope with the way their perception of the world unfolds around them.
It's not far from me either: what difference does it make if someone like me ascribes to outdated religious and moral codes like Bushido, or draw from Buddhism's principles, or Christianity's in the hopes that ancestors and family knew what how to cope with their reality in resilient grace?
The answer comes from asking another question I've overheard Cesar Gonzalez emphatically ask: What is the courageous choice?
The courageous choice doesn't involve choosing a particular religion for the sake of having to believe in--unless you have to. If one recognizes holes in any of the religious and spiritual frameworks above, it is courageous to forgo holding onto an ineffective and rigid belief for the sake of faith in oneself and one's capacity to engage the future by embracing the present.
As easy it is to write, that's a tall task for one, myself included, to instantaneously take to heart and keep.
Similarly, is it better to leave a familiar source of suffering for peace of mind or choose to endure it for the sake of seeking meaningful actions out of repetitious exposure?
Side note:
Circa 2011/2012 I adapted Hamilton's Rule from evolutionary biology:
(Relatedness * Benefits)-Costs >1 for altruistic behavior to be likely
as a way to roughly rank experiences with a film:
(Relevance x Benefits) - Costs > or = to 1 for a good film
If it's really relevant, and it benefits you in some way which outweighs the costs of cognitive/emotional/time/physical load, it's a good film.
Definition: good? I'll reference Aldo Leopold's characterization of good:
A thing tends to be good when it preserves the integrity and beauty of the human and biotic community.
American Beauty, at least on first impression, does almost the exact opposite. We find glimmers of hope in one or two individuals, not the community.
Originally I adopted the rule out of anger at Pan's Labyrinth--which takes viewers through a fantastical and terribly oppressive world, and the end reward for the audience is a glimpse of the protaganist entering eternal life as she leaves the rest of the real world behind to carry on in dystopic chaos. It was a disproportionate benefit and the movie left a bad taste...
Just as Pan's Labyrinth, American Beauty was a relatively disempowering film. Yes, grace in American Beauty could be found in the protagonist's moment of transcendent acceptance (to paraphrase: "there's so much beauty in the world, you just have to let it flow through you"), and two teenagers deciding to leave abusive households. However, the overwhelming chain of events in the film lead to negative and destructive fragmentation of many relationships and some resulting in killing. The reality depicted in the film echoes much of what we already see in the world or grow up with. The emotional impact calculus burdens the viewer with more vivid problems than they can engage or resolve, and the "one to many" nature of communicating content in film and television to large audiences more often than not makes it an isolating endeavor.
Honesty without humanity is brutality, to paraphrase...
"Artist friends,When you are feeling hopelessly uninspired (and frustrated/desperate enough about it to post a Facebook status asking for help), how do you fix it? Any and all advice appreciated." -K
I take comfort in the following guidelines when making art for myself. Hopefully they're useful in showing possible paths to making meaningful work for others and pulling the uninspired out of their ruts: 0) Approach art as a form of communication that stirs curiosity and wonder. Curiosity for yourself, or for others--it's up to you. How? Choose one, some, or all of the following as a start: 1) suffer and/or empathize 2) explore, experiment, play 3) mix all of the above
0) Consider art a form of communication that evokes a deep curiosity—about yourself, about the world around you. Do you have something to say or convey to the world? Make it so.
“Art ain’t about paint. It ain’t about canvas. It’s about ideas. Too many people died without ever getting their mind out to the world.” — Thornton Dial, SR.
1)Suffer or/and empathize If you find nothing compelling within your imagination and memory, then expose yourself and empathizewith genuine suffering or an injustice that can capture your heart's attention. OR re-imagine something familiar from a different perspective or through a different medium. It might be an analytic endeavor at first, but sometimes those will yield artful discoveries too. In any case, find the contents of a story worth telling/making/re-presenting. In the sense of finding and creating stories worth sharing, good artful acts of creation can exist in conversation too.
2) Treat creating as an act of play or experimentation--where the process of exploration matters more than the outcome [1], then revisit with intention.
3) Sometimes, you'll mix all of the above, or discover integral themes emerge, or poetic parallels.I may hear a snippet of melody that compels me to experiment. At the same time, I may witness or work on something that galvanizes the idea in time with current events and overarching themes of human endeavor [2]. I then set out to bridge meaning between the two. Sometimes it's an organic blend from the start, others I force together before they melt into one, and sometimes, it's creation without attachment or any explicit meaning necessary.
Angular study in azure--familiar subjects and experimentation.
Compelling outcome? Perhaps not to most.
I did, however, learn that corners of rooms can be
interesting for experiments with image composition.
[1] I really enjoyed hearing Eric Gordon's characterization of play (where process matters more than the outcome) at the IADB's 2014 Demand Solutions summit in DC. Imitating play (whoa, meta!), by playing around with odd notes on a piano? Yes, you can do that too! [2] Emotive Mechanics started with me pondering experiences in life, and then sitting down to improvise on a tune of mine as my mind processed the ideas (see video description for initial circumstance).
Edit: I recently read Sabina Berman's [most excellent] novel, "Me, Who Dove Into the Heart of the World" and really appreciate the notion of "letting the world think through you." That's exactly what I'd use as the core principle for the above: let the world think through you. That said, I believe my guidelines can remain useful for retroactively thinking about what you've done or getting into a frame of mind that allows creative processing.
"I agree that you will be happier if you are able to forgive. You are not condoning or accepting her behavior if you forgive her. Instead you are making a choice not to allow hurts from the past to steal your joy in the present and in the future." -Mara (in comments about emotional abuse in childhood from here)
I've gone through a lot of statements about forgiveness, most of them tend to be glib and life-coachy in the sense that they're removed from practical focus.
The above characterization by Mara reminds me of mercy and subtle forms of courage.
Science is the conscientious process for discerning Truth. Ethics are a qualitative science for discerning what is good. We seek to discern what is truly good, yet the process of discovery goes beyond understanding, it is also lived. When we do good, life can be beautiful. I strive to find beauty through experiencing, recognizing, re-presenting and creating reality in its truest forms.
Engaging experiences in the arts and amid the built and natural environment can elicit a tremendous curiosity. "The sense of wonder", a phrase coined by Rachel Carson, captures this phenomenal experience well. It awakens a timeless reverence for beauty that is inspirational, simple, and mysterious at the same time. To contextualize the significance of this phenomenon, I'll refer to the wisdom of a quote from Baba Dioum:
"In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught."
We can surmise that we'll best learn when our interests are ignited for discovery through exploratory inquiry. Discovering these facets of creativity and inquiry through the sense of wonder, I believe, is key to authentic learning and appreciation for the people and world we live with alike. Engaging experiences--the arts, outdoors, courageous conversation, etc.--compel us to relate with the world through our sense of wonder, present a nexus between living and deeper learning. For that reason, I champion pedagogical methods that foster deep learning through exploration, mutual inquiry, reciprocity, and re-integrating our connectivity for a better understanding of the world and one's abilities to purposefully live with it.
When the insight of an individual or community can discern and constructively elicit beauty from parts of life that were once mundane, they've discovered what I call the reality aesthetic. It's how people find profound inspiration, dignity, and meaning in their work. It's the art of living and shines brightest when our basic needs are met with love.
"Choose to take care of yourself, or else you won't have a choice." ~paraphrasing Minda Zetlin
(I'm overcoming some health challenges at the moment too)
"Fair isn't an option in your life. You'll have no choice but to go forward." -a grandmother
This quote stuck with me today as it captures how I used to, and likely still look at a lot of social and environmental justice issues. It's why I don't see much productive in protests on their own aside from its fleeting public presence and media attention, nor do I share news that's devoid of or taxes my ability to find actionable next steps to change what's going on around us. I'd call that attitude proactivism: make the solutions that don't yet exist. Yes, if you need to talk it out to process what's going on, that's fine and important to heed stories too, just don't get stuck.
It normally isn't an issue or something I think too much about. Today's a bit different, here's how it knocked me in the gut:
I heard it from--here come the labels--a black female entrepreneur who cited her grandmother's advice for resilience. Hard wisdom from the oppressed. I say oppressed because the quote says a lot about a status quo that denies the dignity of choice to a certain degree.
I think it resonated so much because I realized that's where my perspective comes from--a lot of us are still on the ground or digging ourselves out of a hole of problems made by someone else's legacy of hatred, apathy, neglect, or unknowing. A core part of my worldview still comes from reacting to what's a painful reality for a lot of people in the world.
This evening, in the same day, I sat down for soup a restaurant in "America's most educated city" where a woman asked me where I was from. When I answered "Michigan" she tried correcting by saying "no, where is your family from"--this line of questioning normally entails that a person thinks I'm from another country, usually China, sometimes Korea. Today, she thought I was Chinese and then Korean. When I got up to pay my bill, my waitress cashed me out and asked if I was a professor and then with certainty claimed I was an engineer "because I looked like one".
To be clear, I don't view being Chinese, or Korean, or an Engineer as wrong, or bad--I have friends who truly are of those nationalities, one of them is among the most brilliant people I know. For many people, their nationality isn't an item of choice. As a profession, engineers tend to strive to create and improve things.
The issue is this: Starting a conversation with "where are you from" creates a narrow set of assumptions when asking that to a person who looks like they come from a different ethnic background. The assumption being that their identity can be simplified--even stigmatized--into a specific set of characteristics, values, and behaviors. It's a question set up to impose an identity and denies the person being asked an opportunity to represent or fully create the reality of who they are.
Choice is fundamental to dignity. Your choices become very limited when you're asked to represent something you had little to no control over choosing.
By the way, I honored the first woman's curiosity by answering the question. After I ate and was willing to put up with conversation, I politely shared that some people can find that question offensive and culturally insensitive.
Sometimes the only solution to oblivion and apathy is empathy.
Empathy and patience for education take a lot of energy to educate someone who could have cared less about what they do or say. It's an odd paradox--more work for the people who need to be heard and heeded than the people who make the problem.
Yet it's your responsibility to tell them else it keeps happening.
This quote didn't cross my mind today until I started writing, but since the arc of the universe needs some bending, and since the content's just as timely and topical, I figured I'd throw this picture off Martin Niemoeller's quote from the Boston Holocaust Memorial.
Fair isn't an option in your life. You'll have no choice but to go forward. Hopefully, you're quick enough to create it as an option for others before choking on your own soup.
Fairness isn't an option in your life. Eliminate it as an option and you can adjust faster, hope to create it for others.
Fairness isn't an option in your life. Eliminate it from your expectations and you can move forward faster.
It hurts a bit to realize the insight comes from a place of oppression. It's good to know it was embraced by personal choice and from a creative stance. There's a subtle and equally important difference between being told to accept a reality versus choosing one for yourself.
Fairness is an option in our lives. Embody it in our intentions as we move forward. Will you choose that?
Extraordinary people inspire empathy. Intuition brings our attention to what astonishes us first, then what distinguishes an extraordinary individual from everyone else. By most merits, that's how we often interpret it. Yet when we look beyond all bedazzlement, something deeper calls us to the extraordinary.
Art is a special form of communication. Art compels us to heed that calling, to explore with a sense of wonder and seek to understand. We identify our own aspirations in relation to the extraordinary, whether we strive to live them in modesty or overtly as exemplars in our ordinary lives.
In that sense, extraordinary feats, works, people and places elicit deep empathy from their presence and actions. A trick for making your own life extraordinary?
Whenever you encounter the extraordinary, use the encounter as a reminder for who you are. Remember to look into yourself, as there's more to the ordinary found within that can inspire others us to bridge the gap between remarkable and mundane.
By doing so, chances are you'll find something about yourself worth cultivating and sharing as well. Your wisdom for discerning the extraordinary originates from bridging life's experience with inward learning. When living life fully and honestly, even in making your own mistakes, your life becomes too extraordinary for anyone to reproduce. That's perfection for heartful humans, an irreplaceable art of living.
Photo credit to Margaret __ in Ann Arbor, MI
. . .
The Detroit Institute of the Arts has an exhibit on ordinary people by extraordinary artists. Check it out, the typecast for the exhibit sparked the above thought. Whomever the graphic artist was has my appreciation--I hadn't parsed "extra" and "ordinary" until looking at the pamphlet for the exhibition.
As displayed, it made me think (ineloquently): "what if extraordinary people are remarkable because they make something MORE ordinary, more identifiable for those who encounter them?" thus, it makes us think of the more ordinary and inspires us to bridge the gap between remarkable and mundane.
"To me, perfection is honesty--live your life as honestly as possible, even your mistakes. That's perfection."
- Danny Perez (paraphrased?)
"Study you. After you've studied everything in the world, I want you to study you." -Stuart Mitchell (transient man in Lansing, MI)
Editing note:
I initially wrote: "Your wisdom for discerning the extraordinary originates from bridging life with learning." and realized I was pulling nice sounding words from thin air without really thinking about what it means. Still sounds like a nice line, but it doesn't really register.
Yesterday I met with an East Detroit school principal at his school. Few things ground human relationships like concern for the safety of people who have been harmed, and you could see it in his face as he spoke about the number one thing his students ask for help with: safety from violence in and outside of school.
You can read about that in the news or a policy report. Hearing it directly from Detroit youth, or taste gunpowder in the air from a recent shooting, and see it momentarily tug at a grown man's composure takes the experience to a different level.
The issue moves him and his staff, he's doing things to cultivate a culture of empathy and appreciation to help the most "at risk" youth in the school move forward from within and beyond the city. I call that emotive mechanics. We aim to change the way people look and feel about the world with tangible actions, but we're guided by a judicious mix of our own emotions and tools for making sense of the world. In that sense, we're emotive mechanics too.
If it quavers and shakes in fear:
let it be for the reasons we share with you.
Speak your truth with courage, and all your heart.
Inspire, then move us--with each word you expel, and each breath you spend. We'll catch our breaths, and then we'll respire.
We'll breathe as we move closer toward something worth every spirited breath of speech, story, and song before our lives expire.
But it ends not at your life, nor ours. Greatness flows over and through endeavors of legacy everlasting.
Free it with your voice and contribution to the world.
Let it ebb and flow from heart to heart: yours to mine, theirs to yours.
Call again!
Through sacred passage of wisdom in your call and listening--let your curiosity open the greatness of others, share your reliable truths, and always ask for the greatest of truth even when the only answer may be silence from your fellows.
The echoes of utterance will be great, and the world may quaver and shake in new movement as it awakens with the warmth of your voice for the reasons we share with you.
About a year ago, I contemplated a lot about existentialism in marketing: if a product engages an audience (especially the consumer) with an actual experience, the product--and in turn, the brand--becomes priceless, the added value becomes invaluable. I also made an ethical distinction between outreach and marketing. You can read that post here. Now, I'm finding a continuum between community-based ethical enterprises and stories: stories humanize our relationship with whatever good or service we engage.
Ironically, my revelations are heightened by the fact that I'm starting to work closely with an Australian company to examine the "story of stuff" for sustainability in global supply chains--while many people whom I know are focused on very exciting sustainability and community building on a local level.
Hansen and Lydersen: "Exquisite Smoked Salmon"
Playing music as Ole smokes the salmon gives a story that differentiates his product from others, and adds value to the smoked salmon altogether. It's clever marketing that makes consumerism a bit more humane thanks to the touch of a story and a product procured with passion. But how integral is the music to enriching a customer's experience?
Interface: Net-Works
Interface is a carpet company. For those who might not be familiar with building materials and sustainability in industry, carpet companies pack a surprising punch when it comes to re-imagining how our economy can function [1].
Interface's net-works program might be considered a "social enterprise", but they're throwing in a fine new phrase that's worth noting in the lexicon of commerce: "restorative enterprise", which asks: How can a company improve a place or process for the human and ecosystemic community?
While they might not explicitly say so in their marketing, it's focused on using their supply chain to cultivating a coherent thread of sustainability that removes discarded fishing net from coastlines and benefits island communities.
I recently got back from a summit (check out the highlights from ReRoute) in New York which poses the same kind of question for business and economics in general: "How can we make business and economics more enriching and non-degrading to the people, and other co-habitants we live with?"
There's a movement/field of study called solidarity economics, which looks at this, and from discussing with conference luminaries, it's clear that the "new economics" movement is well underway.
Telling the story of our stuff looks like an excellent start in a global economy. Yet at the end of the day, I think we beam the most when people we know, see, and embrace directly do well.
I'm really excited at the prospect of consulting Interface's Australian company to show the global story of their sustainability initiative, and will look forward to the time when I do the same here in the Great Lakes bioregion as well.
[1] The Ellen MacArthur Foundation's "Circular Economy" video gives a good big-picture overview of how the carpet industry's business of "cradle to cradle" material reuse happens.
Perhaps a truer test of strength comes from resilience. It's an act of strength through fortitude. In times of duress, we learn most from our body, mental acumen, character, integrity of the team, community, etc.
Surges in our strength can surprise us when considering our momentary capacities to handle a situation, but our sustained commitment and endurance allows us to glean a more authentic understanding and confidence for ourselves.
Today I played music outside of the Mardigian Library. I was approached by a girl who said she was unfamiliar with a lot of music, though she shared wonderful insight into the ways verses of the Q'uran can be sung (according to her, 10 melodic guidelines can be applied to every verse when reading). She asked me if the music I played had any meaning or symbolism.
. . .
{according to my mother 20:28 28 IV 2013}
American FM radio was a source for interesting music and news in Vietnam, but during these days, all they could hear was "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas"--that's what my mother and grandfather heard as they stayed in their Saigon home under a curfew that began on the 27th of April in 1975. Instead, my mother listened to her music on reel to reel audio tapes or tape players. Around April 26th and the 27th of 1975, a few skirmishes broke out and airplanes trying to leave the country crashed. Some of the planes were too overloaded with people, others were piloted by mechanics who didn't know how to fly. The music persisted throughout the 28th and 29th, and at night the skies were pink from combat. From the windows of her home, my mother could see a lot of bloodied uniforms, jeans, and guns strewn on the street behind her house. The uniforms belonged to the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam fighters, while the jeans were almost certainly of the Viet Cong. Meanwhile, my mother and grandfather listened to the radio. They didn't know what it meant at the time, but for the U.S. nationals in Saigon, the ongoing broadcast of "I'm Dreaming..." signaled evacuation.
At noon on April 30th, a famous Vietnamese singer-songwriter [Trịnh Công Sơn?] was in the palace to receive the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. The Communist flag was raised (yellow star in the center, red field), and no matter where one looked, the South Vietnamese flag with three red stripes on a yellow field could not be found. With the change of regime, the curfew no longer remained in effect and people were in the streets to see soviet supplied T-54 tanks roll in bearing with many skinny young men (approximately 16 years old). At this time, my mother chose to wear her scout uniform over her Red Cross uniform since the Red Cross was restricted to certain areas, whereas the scout uniform, especially that of a young Scout Master, was recognized and respected by the North and South Vietnamese alike. She spoke with two of the youth who appeared to be soldiers, still wearing fresh jungle vegetation on their helmets. They turned out to be students--North Vietnamese honor students promised to see and liberate the people in South Vietnam.
Drawing parallels to what we hear about malnourished and impoverished people in North Korea today, the North Vietnamese Soldiers and Viet Cong were all skinny, and the students wanted to know why the South needed liberation when the South seemed so opulent: everyone in the South seemed rich, or fat. Ladies were well dressed, and you could smell their perfume in the breeze. The city still had a modernized mark from the presence of U.S., French, and other international forces. After days of curfew, florists had their finest flowers on display in the streets--and they were exotic to those from the North, where the selection of flowers weren't as diverse and tended to be mixed with edible crops in the city.
My mother and grandfather took a taxi cab rather than their own vehicle to save gas. With all of the people in the streets, travel was slow. They had a boat prepared and tried to leave on the Saigon River to the ocean, but since the draw bridge had no operator were unable to pass.
They went to see my grandfather's brother and their 85 year old mother, a suburb where high-ranking officers lived. Though they couldn't leave the country, my grandfather said he'd continue to try to leave and my great grandmother sadly agreed. It was a sad affirmation for everyone as they knew it was likely the last time they'd see each other.
On the return, they stopped by warehouses and food stores to purchase non-perishible foods (canned goods, dried foods, etc.) the warehouse which had nouc mam (the Vietnamese fish sauce), rice, and sugar was looted and ransacked--my mother could see people carrying goods away as if they owned them.
Grandfather and my mum got home while it was still light outside, likely around at 6:30 p.m. they ate very little and began pulling photos, documents, and books to burn. They heard a noise in the street and overheard someone in the street offering a bounty to neighbors. The description was for my grandfather. Since it was too soon for outsiders to know who was who in the neighborhood, especially for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong to know anyone there, my grandfather and mother realized one of their neighbors must have been supporters and informants to the communists. My mother and grandfather tore up any books that were translated so that they could burn them throughout the night. My mother got exhausted and was told to sleep as my grandfather continued burning books throughout the night and next morning until 05:00-06:00.
On May 1st, my mother went to a friend's house. Her friend was a schoolmate and fellow scout. her friend's family, where she overheard their plans to leave. Mum asked if she could leave with them, and her friend said yes--but the fishing boat leaves at 10:17 (or possibly at 10:47--my mother now forgets). Mum left for home to tell her father.
On the way, she saw South Vietnamese Soldiers on the street calling out each other's names at their homes and asking neighbors if they were planning to leave the country or go to the jungle to continue fighting. They gathered weapons that littered the street and planned to rendezvous. In retrospect, my mother says when people refer to the jungle, it's a jungle that's in the mountains where the Hmong people lived. The Hmong are respected for continuing the fight long after the U.S. had left, and she suspects it's likely the South Vietnamese resistance soldiers had joined them.
### (recollected from a previous conversation in early May of 2010) ###
My mother and grandfather left for the boat by automobile and she watched as her dogs disappeared behind the car as it drove away from the house. As the boat departed from the dock, she saw her dogs swim after them. As she told this to me, she wept.
#01:49 2 V 2013
Throughout the week, and especially as I re-wrote the frantic notes from Monday's phone call into sentences, everything in the present seems to relate to these events. I suppose that's a good sign--I hope it means I'm living life eventfully and well enough to relate so much to someone else's life and consequences of history that still shake the ground I move upon with its echoes here on the other side of the world: yesterday a Vietnam War veteran called my father to express his thanks for an e-mail my dad sent in observance of the fall of Saigon and in respect to those who were part of the armed services. As I've said last year to several people, I can attribute much of the circumstance of my existence to military conflict and aid. While I believe there's something important about writing all of this down, I'm also detached from the events enough to feel neutral and ramble my writings like a fool in hopes of finding something that resonates with greater coherency.
I spent much of my evening yesterday reading and working in a library writing about organizations that promote literacy, higher education, public service, and peaceable conflict resolution. I imagined the smell of chemical smoke from burning your own books and family photos in your house at the base of a grand staircase. I can also imagine my grandfather's heart pump through arteries that stiffened from being persecuted for his involvement with a government that lost its legitimacy again (Vietnam was susceptible to coups and regime changes).
As I wrote my mother's account of the past few days, I also wondered what would I do were I there and what I would represent.
Isaac Asimov was quoted from one of his novels that "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
Despite my belief and interest in non-violence, the fires of youth and bonds of loyalty compel me to imagine myself joining the South Vietnamese even after the capitol and government had fallen if I were part of the armed forces. Yet last year alone I've seen people get brutally beaten over notions of loyalty and an ethos of escalation. I also know some people who are in prison for similar reasons. Myself a musician, I could also see why the musician who greeted the North Vietnamese at the palace might have thought it was appropriate and meaningful to welcome the re-unification of Vietnam. If it is the person I suspect, he certainly advocated for peaceable action and probably had the imagination to envision a co-creative outcome between both regimes. To move people toward a peaceable path in the midst of a major event requires so much work that I can hardly imagine it working--the resilience of a peaceable infrustructure must be established in advance, and the sustained opportunity to authentically engage all stakeholders involved must happen as well.
I'd probably do as my mother did to engage the youth riding in the tanks in a curious conversation, and calculate possible ways to escape the country too.
I explained to the girl who asked me about music that it can bear intrinsic meaning as well as carry extrinsic meanings--history on personal and collective levels can imbue new meanings onto a tune or song. White was once a color of truce, but also a color of surrender under the Hague Convention. In some Buddhist countries, it's seen as a color of mourning. Is it odd or fitting that someone chose a song which wistfully celebrates the birth of a Christian icon as the signal for evacuation? In this case, there's too much life to meaningfully unpack. People died, many in terrible ways, over notions and an ethos of escalation, nationhood, manipulations of our appeal for humanity, and aggression. Others, including members of my own family, would suffer from a legacy of oppression in "reeducation camps" and strife once released.
There's a lot of truth to this article: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/06/how-memoirists-mold-the-truth/?ref=opinion
Within the first few lines of my mum's account, I found myself trying to articulate it with narrative devices as a story that fills the gaps and highlights the salient points. While I certainly see pockets to further explore and flesh out, I understand how my fellow memoirists of the Immigrant Memoir project can find it so challenging to write down their own family histories, and I now also know how the awkward gaps in a possible narrative can occur. This is the first memoir I've completed (relatively) about my parents' past.
I'm still inclined to write some kind of satisfying resolve to the events described above. The best I can offer follows: many of the people I know are alive today or have passed on for reasons other than the war, I remain privileged to write about this and partake in the telling the story of other people's misfortune. While this might not solve a lot of problems in the big picture, we can at least continue to live with gratitude for memorable stories that continue to be made today and our ability to share them.
I think people (especially the author of this "article") confuse buzzwords with "fuzzy concepts"--ideas or words that can mean a lot of things depending on who you are and what you know. But here's the good news: when you hold the people slinging these "buzzwords"--which may actually represent something transformative and invigorating or simply reflect superficial frenzied hype in our communication--accountable through intentional dialogue (yes, another "buzzword"), eventually you'll find common ground. That's the whole issue with sustainability: people say "we want a sustainable future" and don't actually want things to continue as they do. They want something better. I champion (another buzzword?) for comprehensive sustainability--which means it coheres social well-being along with prudent economic action and environmental integrity. Many people might assume sustainability means installing twirly CFL light bulbs to end anthropocentric climate change and recycling to solve all our other environmental challenges. It's a "wicked problem" or "wicked process".
People seem take issue with not seeing the words he uses in the way that the community of foundations and community investment institutions do, but I suspect that's why he talks about dialogue and participation--so that everyone can find common ground and language to move together with. Pardon the contrary opinion, but I think Jason's statement is probably the most respectful approach to action: to explicitly declare actions beyond seeking participation and dialogue would be arrogant--he'd have to impose initiatives and look like he's doing so on behalf of Detroit. If people's participation and involvement are there, it's a bit simpler, but looking at his work, I think he recognizes that lasting change requires an inclusive co-creative approach. At this point figuring out sound actions probably matter more than imposing grand statements and agendae. For those whom the statements and agendae do matter, he's opened the door to discuss it and establish some degree of trust with them. That makes a lot of sense for the wicked problem/risk governance/democratic/restorative practice processes I've come across.
I've never met the guy in person, nor do I know his tendencies beyond the few items of information I've seen so far. That said, I don't think anyone's in a position to judge an individual in such a context. Have we had the opportunity to meet and maintain some degree of meaningful dialogue with the guy? Very few of us can say so. In sustaining our relationship with the person, is it possible and can we know whether our interactions have shifted their character and ideas over the course of a few years? People can change. Can you help highlight better paths for them to engage?
Yes, and for the sake of where and how we all live, I hope you'll strive to do so. Let's dialogue?
(buzzword? I think not, link goes to a thoughtful definition posed by the Public Conversations Project.)
Friday, March 15, 2013
American Indian Health and Family Services of Detroit offers a free (valued at $275) [note: I find it really odd that the prevention of someone's death is "valued" as "FREE"/"$275"; life is priceless.] suicide prevention training workshop on March 23rd and 24th, 8:15-6:30PM in Ann Arbor.
East Hall
Rooms 1084 & 1060
530 Church Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043
If interested in attending, send the following information to Nickole Fox at AIHFS: nfox (at) aihfs.org
To proceed with registration (LIMITED SPACE):
· Full name
· Address
· Email
· Phone number
· Organization/department
Last year I called the suicide prevention hotline and found out it was ridiculously busy. Fortunately I got the police to take care of things, but I've experienced a few later instances where I was the only person with the opportunity to intervene and did so seat-of-the-pants. This workshop offers a preferable alternative to seat-of-the-pants intervention, but even the support of a dedicated and skillful individual is no substitute for an active, compassionate and loving community.
... there's more to this notion of love for sustainability (I feel like the ideas are 3/4 baked at this point). In particular, the role of concepts like compassion, love, hocma, and their relation to appropriately bringing one's courage, wisdom, and capacity for expressing it in life that signify the significance of an individual in the world. I can see it, but it'll take me a while to put it all down into writing. For now, here's something I call the conundrum of compassion: How an unsustained instance of kindness can create tremendous pain through disempowerment.
Good education allows us to discover, and some of what we learn from discovery enables us to wisely live through whatever truly matters in life. Oddly enough, increased exposure to the sensations of a holiday like Valentines day, or for those who experience it, exposure to loving people (even those with non-amorous intent) can be painful and disheartening.
When suddenly lifting the burdens of oppression and anticipated threat creates trauma in itself. When realized opportunities for that kind of reprieve are unsustained or non-existent, it doubly serves to break one's hope. It's a different kind of growing pain.
Sometime last year I started to realize it was very likely I was still clenching a few grudges so closely that they might have influence over how I trust and engage other people. I know of a few people who always have "an ax to grind", and could feel myself teetering in and out of bearing preemptive hostilities in almost every situation I came across. I frequently considered it mandatory that I prepare something to validate and assert about myself or my presence before I engage another person, or whatever event or activity before me. I'd come to an event out of curiosity, but find ways to point to bigger responsibilities or obligations beyond self-interest. For the most part, it works--people might know there's something more to what you do or they'll find out if they do something to trigger the unveiling of whatever you had to say for yourself. Yet working in many public forums and among passionate and injusticed community activists, I also recognized that this kind of armed or hostile mental mechanism quickly becomes a detriment to the intended consequences that people seek.
Exposure to a genuinely compassionate person or event that makes any anticipated hostilities pointless can become profoundly painful experience of remorse. You spend so much of your life living in anticipation of hatred only to realize that some people currently don't or never had to deal with systemic injustices the way you had to for all or most of your life. You also realize that their life and community might actually have all of the things that allow them to express themselves in ways that you'd have never conceivably done before.
If you carry a burden on your shoulders for long enough, your body undergoes a kind of traumatic shock from its sudden release and removal. I've experienced this physically several times in my life, but taken as a metaphor, it's a fairly new phenomenon that arose for me in 2012.
The best illustration of this experience might be seen in a film. To make this a bit more realistic, imagine a film where a malicious dictator was apprehended and eliminated from a country, or where the oppressed people were extracted and rescued from the grips of the regime. After having endured and been rescued from a terrible situation, a person of few words and grim resolve suddenly breaks down even though they're in a safe environment and one would think that they should be overjoyed about their favorable new circumstance.
To the casual observer, it's a bizarre token of sadness in humanity, but sometimes it represents something really profound: suddenly lifting the psychological burden of living in anticipation of threat and oppression creates trauma in itself. It might be good, but it's almost unbearably profound and it hurts almost as much, if not more than being in a state of consistent oppression. In essence, they're growing pains, but the brevity of the phrase doesn't do justice to the extent of the challenge some people have to endure.
I most keenly realized this phenomenon last year after speaking with a person whom I initially was extremely guarded around and was taken by surprise when she allowed a long phone discussion for me to address a lengthy array of personal concerns, and much later I realized she had sincerely entertained the possibility of being a girlfriend to me. Months before, as smitten as I might have been, I was convinced that people were more disposed to using each other for temporary personal gain and let that overshadow and sabotage the reality and opportunity presented in our relationship.
I later noted something similar when I shared conversation with a few people who considered me a friend over drinks in Detroit as we discussed transformative ideas for social justice and proactivism. Simple acts, but a taste of ambrosia--you've discovered a brutal possibility about compassion, love's prerequisite. It's something that everyone should be able to live with, but for some, it's rare to find in the environment they live in. A moment of genuine reprise from a struggle so constant, you never knew there were other ways of living life that don't require hindrances from hostility as a preemptive defense. Instead, you discover what it's like to live with a part of yourself that's exposed and unfamiliar. For some, it triggers an overwhelming kind of grief that results from suddenly lifting decades, lifetimes, or generations of burden. It's a traumatic appreciation--good grief in a literal sense--that has you wishing you had found and embraced the opportunity to act without hindrance or burden sooner. It's a naked consciousness that's as fragile in its being as it is mysterious in its resilience. At the same time, I think some people, myself included, are inclined to fight the signals of reality so as to minimize the pain of trauma--especially when we see those opportunities to openly live remain rare, inconsistent, or non-existent. We uphold facades of hollow identity to keep excuses at the forefront of our existence to the world that we're willing to engage.
Last summer, Willie of the Wellness Center at UM-Dearborn had said to me: "some people don't know what love is, or how to love--they never grew up with it" (paraphrased). In the context of his story, he was talking about juvenile delinquents in Detroit but it was profound to me given my circumstances. Thrashing through a mix of hardened oblivion, self-hatred, and what
almost certainly amounts to an iteration of unknown behavioral triggers for acute-traumatic stress coupled with behaviors to patch disingenuous actions [listen
to Paper Cuts by Broadcast for a sense of this "the things you miss out when you try to mislead..."], I know I've squandered even simple
friendships. From here, the only
solutions amount to giving up—which doesn’t fit with my ethical framework—or
belief in ideals that hold little other than disparate possibilities. Belief, and perhaps faith then becomes a requisite for
social sustainability as well.
"In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught." -Baba Dioum
“What we need to match the science of human health is what the ancient Israelites called ‘hocma’—the science of the heart. . . the capacity to see. . . to feel. . . and then to act. . . as if the future depended on you. Believe me, it does.”-Bill Moyers
Alright, in heed of Valentine's Day, I've realized love is necessary for sustainability.
Again, there are some who’d argue that love goes well beyond romance, it's really about finding ways to embrace life to its fullest with other people whom you can trust, even in trying circumstances [1]. Perhaps in essence, much of the world is enamored with romance because it exists as the opportunity and hope for lightening discovery. But overall, love's about fostering relationships and circumstances that celebrate others as much as it invites and encourages them to become the best they can be at all times. Perhaps that's a key element for distinguishing love from compassion.
Love then becomes a requisite ideal for sustainability because people must move beyond a sense of duty in compassion. Compassion wholeheartedly considers a humane cause or misfortune, and like love, it may operate on a notion or ethos of improvement and hope. However, without commemoration or celebration-- outcomes from possible merits also fosters awareness about the products of something deeply appreciated. On some level, this can imply a deep understanding as well. The more you know, you're more capable of appreciating, and thereby loving. Which brings us back to Baba Dioum's statement:
"In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught."
Those who find pain in loneliness or comfort in solitude have learned something profound as well, and in many cases, have an opportunity to articulate the experience in profound ways, often in the arts or through their commitment to substantive endeavors [2]. That's what makes the arts so elusive: they can commemorate an experience and guide us toward our shared humanity in tremendous ways. They can also inspire deeper appreciation and learning about the world we live with, and why the things we live with matter. That's necessary for sound conservation--the practice of ensuring near-term and long-term well-being.
... there's more to this notion of love for sustainability (I feel like the ideas are 3/4 baked at this point). In particular, the role of concepts like compassion, love, hocma, and their relation to appropriately bringing one's courage, wisdom, and capacity for expressing it in life that signify the significance of an individual in the world. I can see it, but it'll take me a while to put it down into writing...
After a day contemplating existential ethics of romance and time-sensitive self-promotion, here's my say: There's a possibility I'll perform a cookin' handful of early jazz and blues tunes for a Valentines swing dance night with Alex Belhaj (or with him and his quartet) this Wednesday evening in Ann Arbor [1].
Even for those without a valentine, Ann Arbor has one of the best swing dance scenes in Michigan where you can pick up the basics of swing dance--no partner or previous experience required! For me at least, dancing and music yield vibrant moments and memories in life. There are some who’d argue that that’s what love’s really about. More than the romance, it’s about finding ways to embrace life to its fullest with other people whom you can trust [2]. In a vague way, I suppose that’s a shallow iteration of love to everyone reading--it’s not always obvious, but there’s a community willing to step forward, take your hands, and go for a dance. There’s a community willing to share the best music that they can make. And if instead of finding content in your solitude you suffer loneliness [3], I hope you’ll recognize and offer solace to another who shares a similar state, as you've got an opportunity to improve the community at large with fundamental compassion.
That said, I’ll hope the music and dance are enough to content the hearts of several who do attend.
