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????

 

Case of Suresh Sen -- The small entrepreneur

Suresh Sen migrated to Kolkata from Faridpur, Bangladesh immediately after independence. It was just after independence and employment was scarce. Not knowing what to do he joined a ceramic making factory as an apprentice. He got a pittance with which he was unable to maintain his family. Suresh Sen used to work throughout the day trying to learn the tricks of the trade.

 

A decade past by. Suresh was deft in handling the job. He knew well almost everything of ceramic clay pottery ---- the types of clay, the right temperature, designs, marketing of the products. Suresh had a dream of opening a ceramic factory of his own. He approached four of his friends who were also in the ceramics profession to pool in their resources. They agreed.

 

They had built their own dream factory and started by selling bone china pottery. Selling was brisk but volume was large. He had to acquire more space for keeping his finished products. Another problem arose was of different designs and the luster of the product. He had to keep pace with the designs. With Chinese one up in the race he had to compete with them. Soon he started loosing in the race. His sales figure dwindled. His friends deserted him taking away their share of profits. His workers did not desert him. They had faith in this man.

 

Suresh was crestfallen. He thought heavens had fallen. His savings were unable to sustain him for a long time. He wondered around for advice. Many consultants drove him away. Suresh was not to be cowed down for long. A reputed consultant advised him to change his product. They told him to switch over to ceramic power insulators. He quickly approached the power sector manufacturing units. There was huge shortfall of the products and they wanted more.

 

Once again the factory smoke bellowed from the chimneys. Production gained momentum. Now he made only ceramic insulators. There were no friends as partners. His grown-up sons and daughter-in-laws helped him. Within a couple of years he bought another factory at Kalyani, 15 kms from Kolkata. Many people approached him for work. But he trained them in ceramic making so that they earn their livelihood. Many people under his influence opened up shops selling ceramic products. They also earned handsomely.

 

There was a stream of mourners when Suresh Sen died. After all the people owe to him a lot.

Was he a successful businessman or did he only listen to advices? What made him successful? How did he contribute to society?

Entrepreneur King; his Pink City & the Future

Maharaja Jaisingh - 1688 - 1743 - (photo taken from the murals of the Jaipur museum).

Maharaja Jaisingh was an exceptional king. Amongst many of his great achievements in the 18th century was building of the city of Jaipur, which is still intact, vibrant and fully operational. But he built this city with a purpose. He wanted it to be a great trading center rather than a fort like city which was the prevalent style during those days.

And he hit upon a very novel idea. He thought to turn his subjects into micro entrepreneurs and traders so as to transform his desert kingdom into a wealthy and flourishing one. With this in mind he built small shops within the city with wide roads for transportation of goods. He also wanted to make it aesthetically pleasing. Therefore all buildings were made out of pink colored stones from which the city got its name the 'Pink City', where none of the buildings could be built beyond a certain height.

It was a rather exceptional idea to rent out these newly constructed shops in the heart of the city to commoners rather than to noblemen of his courts. He charged them a very small rent in exchange of letting them run their family business from these spaces for commerce. Even after 200 years of their existence the value of the rent has gone up to measly sum of Rs 30/- a month (under $1). The idea was not profiting from the rentals but letting people learn and do business and add wealth and cultural value to the princely state of Jaipur. A casual round of the place shows us the great variety of trades and professions the people were engaged in, most of which continues till this day. Businesses are passed down from one generation to the next. Artisans (read freelancers) flocked to this place from all over India not only to enrich the culture of the place but also put a permanent signature of their unique quality at affordable prices.

This had far fetching repercussions and implications on the development of the nature and structure of Indian businesses, some of which are the following:

1. Created a class of astute and die-hard business families called 'Marawaris'. They hate to do anything other than business.

2. Augmented the concept of 'family business', which is the prevalent style of doing business in India.

3. Promise and trust were the cornerstones of doing business where verbal agreements were equally honored like written agreements.

4. Promoted local crafts that pulled together designers, artisans, businessmen, freelancers, entrepreneurs, job seekers all over India especially from Bengal and Gujarat. The impressions of their fine art work of Bengal and Gujarat seem to be all over the place in Northern India, which even found a prominent place in Muslim and Mugal artifacts. Over time people from Gujarat were also sucked into becoming small and big businessmen but Bengalis stuck to their nomadic freelancer and micro entrepreneur life style. In that way they not only became the second largest community scattered all over India but also the eleventh richest community in the world.

5. Preservation of traditional crafts and professions till date, which the British wanted to obliterate with standardization of their products supported by efficient transportation connecting thousands of villages across India. It is in the desert region of Rajasthan that they miserably failed to push their concept of standardized and cheap products carried through an efficient railways system. This happened because British goods did not suit the local needs or matched the culture of the place. Their products weren't life centric as the traditional products were.

6. This brings up the unique topic of designing 'life centric products'. For instance, in these markets, one would find a blanket that weighs about 100 grams, which can be folded into a very small size. The unique life centric feature of such a blanket is that it is cool on one side and warm on the other. Such an artifact is completely life centric to the nomadic tribes of the region. It is light and small to carry and can be used both in the daytime when temperatures soar and in the night when the mercury dips too low. The brass vessels used for storing water serves as another live example of a life centric product. People in the desert have used brass vessels for storing brackish water to turn them into potable drinking water for centuries. So the traders still sell brass vessels so useful in a place used to having scanty or no rainfall during the whole year. Even today, these traders are busy selling such life centric wares, which as I saw kept evolving over time with changing contexts.

7. The business models that operate are built on three vital principles -- a) Robustness b) Resilience c) Natural cycles and rhythms linked to patterns of living. They have cleverly blended the concepts of robustness/reliability with resilience into their products and business models. The products are cheap, aesthetically pleasing and reliable over long periods of time. As opposed to concepts of robustness and reliability these businesses, which have stood the test of time, primarily evolved around the concepts of resilience and patterns of living tied to Nature. The businesses were resilient to stand the test of time since they had the innate ability to detect changes in the likes, dislikes and changing demands of the people and times (a sort of collaborative effort) to quickly adjust and adapt to those changes. It means rather than think in terms of fixed and often larger volumes, scaling up, improved infrastructure etc the businesses were in tune with the patterns of living of the masses that varied with the rhythms and cycles of nature. People needed different artifacts at different times of the year hence the supply was not tuned to a pump out a steady constant volume pushed month after month over the year based on average 'customer needs' to minimize operating costs to maximize profits but churned out in variable volumes in collaboration with the customers' patterns of living to meet variable demands at different times of the year. Hence these family businesses never felt a need to grow beyond the space their small shops provided them for the past 200 years. They persevered in adapting, maintaining and creating wealth within the constraints of their given space. I was indeed fascinated by the remarkable business model that not only obviates the need for constant capital infusion to keep one's neck above water but also creates unimaginable wealth for the families and others. (See a live success story of such operating model being used as a strategy in competitive environment here)

(A glimpse of the old shops running their family businesses in the Pink City, October 2011)

My visit to the Pink City was more than enlightening. I was rewarded by sudden but deep insights in to the business psyche of the Indians and a possibe model that would serve us in the future.

The new questions that arise in my mind now are:

1. What are we doing to preserve these principles in the present context?

2. Can start ups and new entrepreneurs take a leaf out of these old lessons to model their business?

3. How can we create a platform or network of such budding entrepreneurs and make them thrive and grow over the years just like Maharaj Jaisingh did in his Pink City?

4. What we need to do to move from the business models based on robustness and reliability to a business model that primarily focuses on resilience without sacrificing resilience.

5. How can we bring down the operating, inventory and product costs through design rather than through scale ups, speed of operation and the constant need for capital infusion to increase infrastructure to accommodate growing volumes?

6. All our notions about business models and operating our businesses would change once we adopt the resilience model over robustness model. That would throw up hundreds of new questions to be answered.

I have just grown to love entrepreneurs -- design thinkers of sorts, who operate in seemingly impossible situations, solving problems with their heart & guts.

I feel this resilient way of doing business through micro entrepreneurs, where individual capital investment need not be high, holds the key to shape and inspire the future economy of the world, which presently is collapsing to its death crying out for a major transformation.

Do you think the same?

 

Sex & Design Thinking

I loved studying this story from a Design Thinker's point of view.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15309357 (How the Joy of Sex was illustrated)

The challenge was to bring out an illustrated book on sex, which the publishers feared would not be accepted by the prevailing social consciousness of Europe.

The story has all the necessary ingredients and the intrigue that make up a thrilling story for a Design Thinker providing the necessary excitement to continue in his/her professional journey. I think it is a great story of how the publisher and the author overcame the challenges of the day to bring out something that was not only desirable but also needed to improve quality of life.

I feel this might be a good case study for Design Thinkers to ponder over and learn from.

 

Insights to be gained:

The important points on Design Thinking, well illustrated by the story, are the following:

1. Design and Design Thinking start out by challenging to change the existing reality. The manner in which it is done is 'counter-intuitive'.

2. It does so by understanding the present context and the constraints inherent in the context. It attempts to answer the question why.

3. It challenges given assumptions

4. Design Thinking feels, perceives and creates a mental construct through understanding

5. The learning takes place through prototyping and testing.

6. It then comes out with a Solution/Product and documentation

7. It constantly changes, evolves and adapts through 'becoming' matching new realities akin to Nature's cycle of creation, growth and destruction.