A Vision -- The Creative Middle - A life of Non-Fear

On the evening of 10th of December 2011, I was suddenly presented with a rather unusual vision just after my regular meditative session that slowly and carefully unfolded before me.

At first it presented me with pictures of the present reality where a human being controls and captures another and everything he/she has by manipulation of minds. Once the captive's mind is confused and muddled the captor constantly sucks out the life force from the generally helpless captives turned into willing slaves surrendering all they have to offer to serve the ulterior motives of their captors.

The usual attitude that helps such manipulative captors are any of the following:

'I am holier than thou'

'I can have you because of who I am and what I can pay'

'I know more than you do'

'What I am telling or asking you to do is for your good'

'God wants this to happen to you'

And many more of such...

Though the words change, the underlying attitude of 'captors' remains the same. In some way a captor feels superior enough in some way compared to the captive and therefore reserves the unquestioned right to dominate, control, exploit and manipulate their captives forcing them to live a life of real and imagined 'fears'.

We are also constantly confronted by theories of all kinds framed not only to inform us but guide and rule us even through moments of personal crisis. It happens all the time. Whether it is a decision on where to park your money or your car or what to do after marriage or what to eat or how to work, play, live or die or what to study, take care of one's health or how to treat women in our society.

We are surrounded by theories, opinions, ideas of someone or a group of people forcing us to join this group or the other or forcing us to believe in this theory or that or forcing us to become capitalist or socialist or forcing us to be this or that. It is as if we have just surrendered our spirit and will to a conqueror. We have no time to feel, reason and experiment with what we are offered with before we accept it to be helpful or good to us. In most cases we are not presented with alternatives. It appears that we aren't left with any choice of our own. And the truth is nothing has worked well for the majority so far. 

In brief, this is the age where a small set of people take on the responsibility to decide for the majority through their usually deft and disguised manipulative moves. People must be free to decide their own lives and how they want to live it in the way they like to live it owning the consequences of their actions themselves.

Why can't we stay right in the middle of opposing tendencies and opposing currents of thoughts where possibilities of all creative movements unfold?

The vision had more on offer.

It revealed to me that the new age would be the age of the 'personal educator'. Learning anything from practical situations would be a matter of personal choice where deep learning that moves from essence to deeper essence would emerge to inform our mindful actions shaping our way of life.

If this is to be so, the teacher and the student would be the same. It means everyone must invoke the spirit of the 'teacher' and the 'student' in oneself. While such a journey might be helped by other educators or teachers who have walked the path authentically, their help and support would be restricted to sharing the learning process illustrated by their real live examples that incents and initiates similar feeling-thinking-learning process in others.

Understanding and imbibing the process of feeling-thinking-learning and using the process recursively to reach deeper and deeper essence of the interconnected but changing whole in order to find solutions for oneself would be more important than relying on the understanding and wisdom of others however lucrative or brilliant they might seem to be.

Soon this turns into a movement that leverages ones strength, which liberates oneself and others to live a live free of fear. How? The personal power of such 'self educated' men and women would attract similar men and women to walk the same path or make the same personal journey. And the process can be passed on from one to the other. 

Other than the process no more principles are to shared or information need to be passed on. Everything has to be learned 'just in time', 'in its own environment' and 'holistically'. No generalizations. No old formulae. No blazing ideals. No constant guidance of enlightened gurus. That is what a liberated fearless self educator would do. Once done, a liberated non-fearing self educator would not hold anyone captive in his/her influence by any means. No domination by any physical/psychic/sub-conscious devices. Each live by his/her own perceptions along with the responsibility of facing the consequences such perceptions bring about. 

It would be a age of infinite collaboration based on mutual respect and trust, self organizing in nature where means of living are self designed based on learning and understanding of one's own 'moment to moment' experience thus enriching the ever changing, connected and interdependent whole of humanity.

However, this would also need a disease free body, a trained mind and a healthy self esteem born out of mindful actions and helped by a learning process to discern the changing reality and acting upon it to live and enjoy a life of 'non-fear'.

What a life that would be -- a life contextually designed (life centric design) by an individual's learning helping him/her to lead a life free of fears.

This is what the splendid vision was....The Creative Middle -- A Life of Non-Fear!!

Is it time for action????

 

Rapidinnovation -- A Room with a View

Observing Real Life Systems

To me, observing real life systems is something like this:

“A real life System comprises of a meaningful set of objects, diverse in form, state and function but inter-related through multiple network of interdependencies through mutual feedbacks enclosed by variable space, operating far from its equilibrium conditions not only exchanging energy and matter with its environment but also generating internal entropy to undergo discrete transformation triggered by the Arrow of Time forcing it to behave in a dissipative but self organizing manner to either self destruct itself in a wide variety of ways or create new possibilities in performance and/or behaviour owing to presence of ‘attractors’ and ‘bi-furcations’; thereby making it impossible to predict the future behaviour of the system in the long term or trace the previous states of the system with any high degree of accuracy other than express it in terms of probabilities since only the present state of the system might be observable to a certain extent and only a probabilistic understanding may be formulated as to how it has arrived at its present state and what would keep it going, thus triggering creative human responses to manage, maintain and enhance the system conditions, function and purpose and create superior systems of the future for the benefit of the society at large.”

Such a represenation of an observation looks quite involved. Perhaps it might be stated in a much simpler way. Most real life systems behave in a complex manner creating multitude of problems of performance and failures. But how do we get rid of complexity and uncertainty as exhibited by systems? We may do so by deeply observing the complex behaviour of the system to improve our perception to gain insights about the essence of the system; find out the underlying ‘imperfection’ that causes the apparent complexity and uncertainty and then find ways to improve the existing system or create new system and maintain them in the simplest possible manner. We do this by applying the principles of chaos, reliability and design. Surprisingly, the same process might be used to troubleshoot and solve problems we face on a daily basis. If done, we are no longer dominated or dictated by the ‘special whims’ of the system. 

The crux of the matter is how we observe reality and understand it so as to make meaningful choices as responses to life and living. 

Rapidinnovation

In my previous post I promised to introduce Rapidinnovation -- a school of practice on innovation, which exists but not made know to the world so far. I feel the time has come to reveal this school of practice.

For the last 31 years I have been solving problems in engineering and manufacturing industries. Though it wasn't exactly the profession I started out with but over time the love for solving problems snowballed into an insatiable passion. Soon the passion overflowed and spread to almost all areas of various types of manufacturing industries working on a variety of difficult, wicked and seemingly unsolvable problems.

Unique solutions were found that gave stakeholders benefits year on year. But there was something that was odd. The way the problems were solved did not match any of the existing methods and so called processes of problem solving and innovation. It did not follow BPR (Business Process Reengineering) techniques. Neither did it use Six Sigma or TQM (Total Quality Management) tools. Nor did it apply tools of TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) or TOC (Theory of Constraints). Neither did it completely resemble Systems Thinking or Design Thinking nor did it completely follow the traditional lines of CBM (Condition Based Maintenance) and RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) for addressing or solving machinery failures and problems. 

Soon, I understood that there was something unique in my Rapidinnovation practice, something "unnamed". It is definitely working in some way to which I could not put my finger upon for a long time. But the point was it was giving nothing less than outstanding results all the time. My teacher and mentor Prof Henry then named it Rapidinnovation, where the acronym stood for Reliability Availability and Performance Improvement through Design Innovation (Rapidinnovation).

That more or less defined the purpose and the approach in broad brush strokes. The purpose of innovation was clear. Any product of innovation, whether soft or hard must be reliable for the intended purpose (must not fail while working), must be available to perform for the desired time and also provide the desired Performance (for example, protect ecology, ensure safety, ensure value, alleviate sufferings, improve productivity etc..). And the approach to achieve the objectives would be through Design Innovation or Design Thinking. 

The area of application was also clear, which is as follows:

Innovations must be based on the 'NOW' (N). Innovation must be based on 'Present Failures' (F). Innovation must solve some 'Present Problems' (P). And NFP innovations must be guided and informed by reality. Otherwise it is mere distorted thinking or imagination to cover some unreal risks.

Looking more closely, I soon realized that it is different to all other schools of thinking on innovation. The difference was that while other schools insisted on specific tool set, techniques, processes Rapidinnovation was based on a few principles. The other important difference was stress on human understanding. While other schools of thought grossly ignore this aspect of development of human understanding which is the corner stone of Rapidinnovation approach.

To summarize, the important issues of Rapidinnovation are:

1. It is based on the basic premise of 'interconnected' and 'interdependent' whole.

2. It is based on a few principles of "becoming", "flow", "balance" and "change of states".

3. It is based on the development of human understanding rooted in 'non-fear' rather than heavy use of tools and techniques

However, it does not do away with domain knowledge expertise though at the same time it urges one to do away with firmly held notions, ideas and pet theories, which when often repeated exhibit hidden fears rather than confidence to make sense of reality, so essential to problem solving and innovation. In brief, it strongly discourages Fear Induced Innovation (FII).

There is another thing. Innovation is not only about 'exploration' that seeks new perspectives and ways. After an innovation is designed, implementing and putting it to proper use is 'exploitation'. Exploitation is doing routine things efficiently whereas 'exploration' forces us to think differently. So the two parts of innovation are 'Exploration' and 'Exploitation'. For balance, both are equally needed. One can't be separated from the other.

Since we need both Exploration and Exploitation we need both the skills of the left and the right brains. We need to think in both parts and the whole. We need explore as well as exploit. We need to be effective as well as efficient. 

Clearly we have now come to the ''inclusive'' age not the age of excluding this or that or trading this for that or insisting on 'one true way' or exhibiting 'holier than thou attitudes'. It is therefore time to get free of jargons and sound bites (efforts to create sort of myriad 'self identities') of all sorts and focus on what needs to be done to get inclusive results that help many. This is because Ideas and concepts of 'exclusion' do not resonate deep within and stir the human soul to do what it was always meant to do -- create and adapt.

And following the trends towards increasing openness and collaborative efforts Rapidinnovation conveys 'Openness' that allow people to create their own approaches, tools and techniques within the given principles of understanding the dynamics of Nature and Life. Weighing it down by any dogmas, insisting on specific tools and techniques would be not only unfortunate and counterproductive but also disastrous. It must remain open to reality and must remain contextually relevant to the time of application helping people solve their problems both personal and professional by their own 'free will' within the given contextual constraints of apparent 'determinism' aiming at balancing the dynamic paradox of the opposites. 

 

IOU - Meaning is Meaningless

Basho was born a prince but gave up his life of a king to live a very natural life by the side of a pond, under an ancient tree where he had a small hut. He renounced his kingdom when his father died. The family was worried and urged him to take the throne. They said, “This is not the point. Your father is dead and you have to take care of his kingdom.”

Basho said, “I was waiting for him to die. I wanted to see that everyone dies. Even my father has died. One day I will die and who will take care of this castle and the kingdom? Somebody will take care. Now I cannot remain here, because there is danger of dying any moment. Before I die, I have to know some undying principle as my foundation.”

He was a very loving, joyous and a dancing mystic. He said, “Moor: point my horse where birds sing.”

Let us go to the birds because they are the only people left in the world who are still singing.

Moral

Man has dropped singing far away. Now only professionals sing. Have you seen in birds any professional singers...professional musicians...? Birds simply sing just out of sheer joy. It does not matter whether it means anything or not. Meaning is not the point; expressing the joy is the point. “Point my horse where birds sing.”

He always wanted his haikus to be just spontaneous singing like birds...and he succeeded in it. There is no parallel to the haikus of Basho in the whole history of mankind.

It is simply a waste of time and energy to search for 'meaning' in everythng we want to express. Expressing from joy never goes wrong. The more we express from joy more joy floods our lives.

Question: Do you still 'sing' simply for the sake of 'singing' to express the joy of living?

Improvisation the Heart of Innovation

This video shows the great master, Ravi Shankar, at work. Notice how with the change of locale the music or the melody changes instantly. When in India (depicted by the famous Taj Mahal) the melody has a distinct 'Indianess' about it. But as soon as the locale changes to China the melody highlight strains of typical Chinese melody. Again the mood changes with changes in nature and times of the day. Isn't is quite remarkable that while the tune (or raga as it is called in India) remains just the same for every situation the melody changes to reflect the master's feelings or his responses to the changes in the locale, mood, timings etc.

This is a brilliant piece of music or innovative music at its best. But this is what the Ravi Shankar calls improvisation or instant improvisation. Such instant improvisation is nothing but human responses to his/her situations and environment. Improvisations reflect human feelings at that particular moment in time. 

This helps us to understand innovation much better. The other name for it would be improvisation or a response to a given situation.

There would be many ways to understand this response. But one of the easiest would be -- 'going with the flow' -- responding to the feelings the situation evokes in us.

But that is tricky business. Much more tricky than what we might care to imagine. It is tricky to feel and stay in the present. This is because our feelings can take us back to the past experiences through our memories or transport us quickly to a future that is yet to be born through unbridled imagination, which is again distorted memory. Both are bad for us. The risky balancing act is to stay with the feelings and be intuitive about it without falling back on memory or false imagination. That is a risky tight rope walking. But that is what all masters of their games have mastered. 

For example, Sachin Tendulkar in cricket from whom rival captains have a hard time setting a field to hold him down by closing gaps.

Or take Ravi Shankar, the musician, for whom feelings flow from the depths of intuition.

Or the World chess champion Viswanand Anand who invariably finds a gap in the strongest armour of his opponents.

Or Michel Angelo who 'saw' entrapped figures trapped in uncut stones waiting to be freed by his hands. 

There is one thing that is common to all of them and one thing that sets them apart. The common thing is they all intuitively find the gaps or the existing imperfections in the present moment with their uninhabited awareness. They improvise their games based on those gaps or existing imperfections in the most intuitive manner -- no copy book styles for them. They have learned the rules of their games so well that they now break them with impunity.  

And what sets them apart? They apply the same principle in whatever game they have chosen to play. The games differ but the principle does not.

They are constantly responding to the existing 'gaps' or 'imperfections' by understanding and balancing numerous resistances the system offers. They intuitively sense these resistance and respond through improvisations accordingly. They seem to see the parts and the wholes at the same time within the same space.

This is what innovation is all about.

The Japanese have a name for it. They call it Wabi -Sabi, which means understand the imperfection in a given situation and improve upon it to make it stronger and more reliable.

The Chinese have a name for it. They call it Shan Zhai, which originally means balancing numerous resistances, see what is possible to be done cheap and effectively, start small and then grow in strength.

The Indians have a name for it. They call it Juggard, which means understand what is to be done, start with whatever is available at hand, go with the flow and build up over time.

These are all present moment responses to the feelings evoked. That to me is the best way to harness 'uncertainty' that clouds our lives.

Being in touch with one's feelings without distortion of any kind is being in touch with one's essential nature.

Or as Gregory Bateson said, "When man lost touch with nature, he lost touch with himself"

That touch has a magical creativity about it. It is innovation through improvisation born out of intuitive feelings.

This is the only way to create a good sustainable future for all since “The future is never empty, never a blank space to be filled with the output of human activity. It is already colonized by what the past and present have sent to it.” (Fry 1999)

How do we develop that is the question?

Understanding that involves deep learning.

And having an answer would be nothing short of 'Know Thyself'. That is living in freedom with heads held high.

 

 

 

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