Choices: Life on Dignity or Terror

Choices: Dignity in Life, Choices over Terror and Death

There’s duality in fear for living and embracing death. For samurai, choosing a worthy cause to die for is a means of embracing the presence of life and inevitable reality of death. The result: life is fleeting, live in the present as if you will die today.

Choice is fundamental for human dignity, yes. Terror happens when one’s in a situation that makes severe irreparable harm or death seem imminent and you’re unable to find or create any other choices for living.

Plum blossoms, a close relative to cherry.

-A fragmented note to myself from 11/3/14 found in my draft box

…

Back to the present:

Approaching life from grasping death first can be a very severe, spiritually violent, and overall dark approach.

Even for me today, the opening sentence was a little unclear. I think I was also touching on moments when someone is genuinely afraid of stepping into living their life fully — because with all the joys it can bring, you’re also choosing to accept and embrace the consequences of failures too.

A caveat on foolhardy failure: In my experience, the slogan “fail faster” that gets hyped in silicon valley/startup circles glorifies the downside and understates the resources necessary for recovery. Failing faster also requires proportionate tools and support to respond or rebound quickly. For people living in severe situations where balancing life and death, genuine poverty, etc. are at stake it’s a naive and misleading attitude.

We need to set parameters for failure. It doesn’t need to intrude on the sum of your existence, find ways to contain, govern, or facilitate it. Failure isn’t always bad, if you learn and grow from it. But what we’re really supposed to focus on are controlled or informed risks that we can successfully navigate. Where possible, fail forward — choose to fail in a direction of your preference so you can learn from it and still know how to stay on track. Immersing yourself in failures that go beyond your capacity to move on or focus on what’s worth failing for however, becomes a detriment one’s existence.

But this idea, really deciding to commit to living your moments fully, genuinely overwhelmed me into nihilism at times. The most overwhelming moments looked like shutting down, or believing it was important to stay with any accessible pain because that seemed like an essential part of living fully.

When some aspect of the idea made less sense to use as guidance for life, it also manifested into isolating myself in existential angst and numbness for months at a time. Of course, I still sought to show up online in minor ways and at work to keep me up to date with the rest of reality on topics I knew were important, but bridging the gap between what you think and what you believe can be quite the challenge.

The connection to choice: Life, Death; Dignity, Terror

Understanding the link between choice and dignity matters as much or even more than understanding how terror works. Terror is designed to happen when it deprives people from their sense of choice. Choice is fundamental to dignity. It requires a degree of consciousness to discern and make a genuine choice. Paraphrasing my mom: “Even into death, you have choices.” The trick is to see what they are, choose from the best, or create better ones.

Dignity and terror reflect life and death in their simplest forms. They hinge on your ability to discern, and choose with some sense whether active or intuitive.

The best practical tools for overcoming the designs of terrorism I know of boils down to three things: Joy, Truth, and Love.

It sounds unrealistically naive and Utopian at first — especially when considering that I came across them listed in a song written by my friend, Markita Moore. But the more I thought about those three around the time the Orlando shootings took place, the more I realized each element has clear, practical components that allow most of the public to deal with reality in a way that doesn’t make them beholden to reactions spurred by fear from terrorist acts.

Of course, counter-terrorism work still has an important place in the world, but for the general public in the long-term, I think this goes a long way to prevent or overcome terror:

Joy can be shared, draws people together, and builds cohesion. It inspires curiosity and deeper understanding on a voluntary basis. People are often drawn to humorous and positive moments. It can soften entry to challenging dialogues and conversations through assurance that comes from sharing a common experience — so long as it’s not used divisively at someone’s expense. It’s a significant topic in research for effective education.

Truth, upholding it and understanding it, shows us that we have more choices than what terror wants us to believe. It reminds you that a supremacist ideology is flawed putting your beliefs into proper scope with additional realities. Presenting or facilitating the truth also holds people accountable.

Love revolves around manifesting the best in and with people, which includes celebrating them as they are and the effort, history, and legacy that surrounds them in its most humane light. You can look at it in subtle forms like the discipline it takes to prepare meals for your kids even when you’re dead tired, care for the state of society, or consider the camaraderie and solidarity earned from common hardship and purpose.

Love is one of the most powerful motives used for framing purpose. Military boot camps in part are designed to cultivate an iteration of love — in terms of camaraderie — among service members and for the country. Simon Sinek, an anthropologist focused on leadership, cites similar examples in several of his talks. If you spend time speaking with service members, veterans, or yourself served you probably hear this too.

Coincidentally, scientists notice love and hate share many neurological pathways in common. What distinguishes a lively hate group from a healthy successful organization is the way they force dependent relationships and control information. But they start out and often frame their cause in terms of loving an identity, or protecting who they are. The rest of the hallmarks of their process actually mirror characteristics you’d see in healthy organizations that would appear in a Zappos/Delivering Happiness case study.

As a nation, the same applies: beyond taking care of the basics, don’t react to terrorism out of fear — else you play into someone else’s game by doing so. Focus on the things people would do in the first place when combat isn’t imminent: joy, truth, and love. It draws people to the righteous reality from their own volition, or asserts the truth without necessarily escalating violence.

But I keep returning to the general concept that making choices for death and life presents us. Major turning points basically revolved around thinking: “what’s something worthy of dying for/living for?” there’s more to say about the question itself, but that was a big starting point for my life in 2012.

Last year I met a wonderful woman who demonstrated the same idea but with an opposite (in my opinion, much healthier) approach — I’m still working on going about it from a joyous angle but it’s the same goal as far as living fully is concerned. Perhaps all of the above gives you a jump start too.

REFERENCES

On “fail faster”Example of common narratives around “fail faster” — I may or may not have a tendency to attempt living ideas to straw-man proportions, if you must try in that fashion too, don’t do it the way I did. Resilience comes from the ability to rebound instead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDjrOaoHz9s

What would have been nice to hear more often with “fail fast”
https://venturebeat.com/2015/03/15/heres-what-fail-fast-really-means/ 

I especially wish this was something I read in 2014 to affirm some of my own questions about the slogan, but it’s nice to see today now that I’m reading up on how other people looked at it. Also note that someone created an entire company/consulting practice around “fail forward” — focused on dissecting failures. I guess it was bound to happen:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robasghar/2014/07/14/why-silicon-valleys-fail-fast-mantra-is-just-hype/#27c7ac0124bc

Three Chords: Joy, Truth, and Love (song excerpt by Markita Moore)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0QqQ_zKj1E
[side note for those following our band’s progress: we’ve finalized the recording, moving to fundraise for filming a video with the students who sang in the song and coordinate its release with the video, ideally around October]

Humor in education (need to follow embedded links within this article for the research):
https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/humor-in-the-classroom-40-years-of-research/

Humor in Education via the APA, learning — it seems mostly focused on higher education, I’ve yet to read in-depth for source articles, etc.:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun06/learning.aspx

Other iterations of love, many Latin rather than Greek, a good framework, I think Ubuntu should be considered too though it’s of African origin:
http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/the-ancient-greeks-6-words-for-love-and-why-knowing-them-can-change-your-life

Military — trust, co-operation as interpreted by Simon Sinek in his research referenced multiple times in his talks:
https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_why_good_leaders_make_you_feel_safe

Simon Sinek speaking on “Why Leaders Eat Last”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRcHdeUG9Y

First-hand story on service leadership from Lt. Col. Drowley (the A-10 pilot mentioned in Simon Sinek’s book and talk, “Why Leaders Eat Last”):
http://www.hankschuurman.com/videos/johnny-bravo

Recovering from hate: how hate groups function and the neurological wiring behind love/hate
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/hatred/ 

Delivering Happiness, p. 173 Happiness Framework 1:https://raymkt.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/delivering-happiness_-a-path-to-profits-hsieh_-tony.pdf 

On choosing worthy reason(s) to die. Also contains practical instruction for one-strike swordsmanship (iaido) in addition to the philosophical context that informed/s the martial art: Flashing Steel, Second Edition: Mastering Eishin-Ryu Swordsmanship by Masayuki Shimabukuro (Author), Leonard Pellman (Author)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/833931.Flashing_Steel
[seek out the second edition, supposedly a worthy improvement from an already excellent first edition]

This post originally appeared at: https://wordpress.com/post/iandtran.wordpress.com/3271

Lessons learned in performance and the "entertainment industry"

Lessons learned from an interview and performance on international television/radio; some of these are actually reminders, but they were very clear themes from my most recent performance:

- Even if you’re not ready, be prepared: Opportunities, and life itself, are a one shot operation - When the point lead isn’t there to represent the team's interests, the organizational structure is unclear, and you're part of the team, don’t hesitate to purposefully step up, take the reins, and do what matters
- Sometimes, whispers are more important to listen for than the rest of the din
- I’ve entered an arena where small talk, superficial relationships, and aimless banter are prevalent if not the norm. Even if someone has lots of experience as a TV show host, if they're asking questions to fill time, bring up what I need to say when my gut tells me I’ve got something far better to convey.

I played with Elemental Meaning at the Middle East American cultural festival in Warren, Michigan. Our band was scheduled to perform for a talent show sometime around 5:00/5:30, but (unbeknownst to us) due to changes in the broadcast schedule we were asked to play on stage sometime after 6:00pm instead. We requested to play later in the lineup in hopes that our drummer, David Watson could make it from work. As we waited, we went about separate ways to rest and pre-game.

Fifteen minutes before we were needed on stage one of the people coordinating it asked me "are you ready to be on international television?" Even though I saw a few cameras and some kind of banner that said "MEAtv" earlier in the day, I didn't realize it was going to be on television--according to him, to 40 states and 160 countries.  That scale of broadcasting still doesn't really register in my mind.  I've been to a big conference where 11,000 people attended.  I've been to "The Big House" AKA Michigan Stadium where 100,000 people attended to see the President.  I could see real people there.  This however, was a glaring disjoint.  There were few people in the physical audience nearby (people sat at peripheral picnic tables), just a single camera on the lawn in front of the stage.

To add to the surrealness of the event, the event was sponsored by the CIA. Even though it makes sense [someone's got to update the world factbook about what's happening elsewhere in the world], it still amazes me.

1. I had no idea there were federal agencies that can afford to sponsor events nowadays!

2. I commend whoever it was that came up with the idea of asking them, and actually followed through with asking them, for sponsorship.

3. It was so strange to perform rock music in front of a giant screen displaying a federal agency's seal.

Meanwhile, they asked where our band leader, Markita went (and so did Phelan and I). Markita was straightening out logistics with David as she was told our performance time would be later than it turned out to be as one of the other talent show contestants did not appear, and we were bumped up and asked to get on stage right away. To fill time, one of the hosts interviewed Phelan and I with what I like to refer to as the "superficial small-talk tone". She actually asked fair questions, but if you're not on your game because your mind is elsewhere, rising up to represent something simple like what the band name "Elemental Meaning" stands for and taking the opportunity to do your thing (in this case, make a brief speech) can be a challenge when you're not sure what's going on around you. Taking care of the semi-mundane (I try to believe that they should be treated as very eventful actually) things like sleeping, eating, and exercising properly so that there's no room to wonder what else could have happened comes to mind, and not taking care of oneself runs far from any reasonable explanation of events.

Ian's Open Source Action Projects

If you’re ever bored, depressed, or itching to contribute to society, here are some initiatives I’ve been brewing for too long that might do some good.

Let me know if you can contribute/help/champion/lead, I’m trying to initiate good closure to unresolved things this month and some of these were time sensitive and important enough to weigh on my conscience if I don’t do something about them (some dating back to 2007). Obviously, some of these projects may take years of chipping to happen.  Also, I'd be partial to people whom I've met or those who take time to reach me and convey sincere intentions.

You can comment directly on the google live document (which looks a lot like this note) here:  http://bit.ly/IanOpnSrcAxnPrjcts
http://bit.ly/IanOpnSrcAxnPrjcts

Contents:

[Regional/Big-picture stuff]
1. Tapping a coalition for water
2. Color-Blind Vision Conscientious Traffic Light Legislation
3. New leaders with the Dearborn Sustainability Coalition (DSC)
4. The Open Democracy Project

[UM-Dearborn Specific]
1. Native Landscaping/Bioswale Project
2. Scholar’s Nexus at UM-Dearborn
3. Musicking Guild at UM-Dearborn

Details beyond the jump:

What's in the window? What can you see?

Let's put the petty implications of politics aside for this post.

I suppose John Kingdon's policy windows of opportunity has been around for a while now, but it's brand new for me, and I think that every team player and leader should know how to use this as an analytical tool.

Essentially, the window of opportunity happens when you've got streams of problems, solutions, and politics overlapping into one another at the same time.

This is best depicted visually, and a venn diagram with three circles is the standard image you might find in textbooks and other publications. However, we should acknowledge that it is a dynamic process (ergo the mention of "streams" for problems, solutions, and politics).


First, I'd like to redefine what politics are. Politics is the articulated desire for action. It's about what is seen as wanted or needed, it doesn't necessarily need formal systems and attention to happen. It goes beyond elections, diplomacy, or international statements.

That said, we can apply Kingdon's model beyond the realm of State, Federal, and Foreign policy and test this window on individuals. In particular, individuals like you and I who work with others as team members and leaders.

I like how the circles in the venn diagram work out. You'll always have more information than you can fit in the window of opportunity.

There will always be more information than you can use

Talkin' 'bout my generation--it's going to be thirsty

I've been hearing about "Generation Y Michigan" on the radio recently and saw this posted on facebook.

Michigan Radio:

The first Generation Y Michigan story airs tomorrow during Morning Edition (5-9a) & All Things Considered 4-6:30p.) As we work on more pieces in the series, we wondered what questions you have about Michigan's "brain drain"?

You might be picking up some negative vibes about Michigan right now, and it's easy to see where a lot of it comes from. Unfortunately, I was feeling it from some of the promo for this series, and the responses were equally pessimistic (or at least, they could be depressing). Here's one of them:

I'm sorry but i'm leaving again the moment I have the chance. I've been all over the country and never, ever seen poverty like this. In over three dozen close family and friends I see on a regular basis I know seven people total with jobs. Three of those are part time underpaid positions.

There's no future here. That's why we're leaving.

Ack! Please do not forsake the state! When it comes to Brain Drain, the Bruce Lee allegory about an empty cup comes to mind. You can't fill your cup with anything else until it is empty. Michigan may be emptying, but we're entering the best time for leaders and learners to rejuvenate its systems. Here's my response:

I respectfully disagree: There is future in Michigan, but leadership among its people will determine whether it's going to brighten or languish. There's a lot of raw opportunity despite the fact that (or maybe because) the economic and political climate may slow us down.

That said, there's a myriad of reasons that people need to leave, but there are just as many for people to return or stay.

Think about Detroit; its capacity and momentum for recovery are diminished by brain drain, uncoordinated leadership, and weakened communities to name a few. We'll see similar results if the state is forsaken altogether.

The questions: Pick anything the state has certainly been failing at or can substantially improve. Then ask how can we bring people together to process these opportunities in ways that are socially, economically, AND ecologically sound? There's no shortage of work to do, but find out how value in those three areas is recognized so that we can quickly communicate the benefits of Michigan's situation to current and future talent.

As I was writing the reply, I realized the problem almost boils down to a marketing piece. Do the research, build your community, and communicate the value. Assess, tweak/terminate, and sustain.

But, the solution also has lots to do with leadership that considers more than government systems or America's most talented.

There are three audiences I can think of:
the dedicated (people staying within the state)
the maybes (recapturing those who briefly left)
and the not yets (attracting new folks)

Right now, it's about working with the dedicated people who stay.

Bring out their best, share with them what you know, learn what you can from one another. You'll explore with them, develop a community, and empower them to do the same for others.

Here's where I think the roads are bumpy:

Anyone can tell people what the problems are, and maybe even how to solve them. Your challenge is to pass on the best of what gets you excited about the problems and solutions. This is what inspires people to want to learn and do more. You're sharing the value in what you see for the circumstances around you and the community. To make it relevant, you have to address the triple bottom line of sustainability: people, profit, and planet. Eventually, you'll attract outsiders who seek silver lining (or maybe delicious water from a Great Lakes sub-watershed) in whatever state you're in.

Oh, since the story can't be listened to on the radio right now, in the mean time I'd like to recommend that you listen to The Who's song about my generation as you wait.

From credibility to cohesion

As I was writing a cover letter for an internship, I began to write down what I've experienced as an employee, head of a string ensemble, Co-President of a debate team, Boy Scout, and anything else I've been through where leadership applies. Since most of this was copied and pasted out of my letter, this may be my pithiest post yet. However, I may be tempted to deliberate further.

I have learned that credibility—much like talent—is only a beginning. No matter how good it may be, hoopla can expire. Especially when showing off prior accomplishments won't do your job for you. The delegation of responsibility is an implementation of trust, and when the designated individual successfully communicates reliability, organizational cohesion ensues. Whether working with colleagues as the Co-President of the University of Michigan-Dearborn Debate team, or employers as an ensemble liaison, this process cultivates a conductive working environment and promotes healthy interrelationships. When conflict arises, it interferes with this ongoing exercise of trust, someone—better yet, everyone involved with the issue at hand—needs to find ways to amend their problems, and the best thing to address that there may be a problem in the first place is once again, open communication. Honestly telling someone what's going on. In some cases, it may even require utilizing some self-disclosure.