In the past, I’ve tried to express that I keep seeing all of these patterns around me and I’m noticing that these patterns are converging into a greater narrative. For example, I keep seeing all of these notable people writing books around seemingly diverse different topics. Yet if you go deeper below the surface of what’s being said, all of these books are talking about the same thing but just from different perspectives or disciplinary languages.
Today, I feel like I’m going insane with the weight of what I’m seeing because I keep seeing all of these patterns around me and they are almost everywhere I look now. Why it’s overloading is because of the repetition of the pattern. It’s like a tornado approaching me and everything is being picked up and tossed into the air. You don’t know which way is up anymore because you’re overloaded by all that you see.
And yet what I’m slowly realizing is that all of these patterns have a commonality in that they overlap and connect with each other. The best way I’ve tried to describe this in the past is imagine what it was like being an early astronomer studying the heavens. At first, you just saw a jumble of patterns that seemed chaotic. But over time, after seeing the patterns over and over again, you begin to see a relationship between them and behold the chaos transforms into a unified and integrated order of our solar system.
The Web of Life
Now while the above patterns are almost effortlessly for me to see on a daily basis, the difficulty of course is trying to explaining what I’m seeing and put into words. One thing that I can be sure of though is that this greater narrative goes way beyond just business and changing the way work works. It almost goes to a more universal level and changes the very notion of what it means to be human and our potential both individually and collectively.
To put this another way, I’m seeing how this greater narrative relates to both not only organizational development but also personal development. In effect, the pattern and approach is the same for both. Therefore collectively combined together, it is a social development approach that can help humans take the next step in their evolution.
Therefore just as our organizations today are trying to break down their silos and boundaries to release their untapped potential, so too are individuals doing the same very thing. As I’ve said in the past, I don’t want my identity to be tied to my job title because my past jobs have never adequately encompassed all that I am. Therefore, I’m trying to express myself, all that I am, in a new way by taking all of the seemingly fragmented aspects of myself and making them one integrated whole.
Value The Marginal
Now while this may seem grandiose, it doesn’t feel this way to me. If anything, it feels simply essential. And more importantly, it is not something I’m so much creating as something I’m just seeing emerging. Therefore I more often feel like a messenger than a creator, witnessing this emergence. And in terms of communicating, my struggle is in trying to simplify what I’m seeing and trying to put it into words that anyone, even a child, could understand because I want it to be understood just as universally as I’m seeing it.
What I’m also realizing is that this is not something new. In effect, life is cyclic in nature and to me it seems like we are not discovering but instead rediscovering these development approaches, just in the same way that we are rediscovering ourselves. In effect, some of our best potential often arises from the aspects of ourselves that we have discarded within ourselves in the past because society didn’t deem it of value.
It is only when we take these marginalized aspects of ourselves and of our society and integrate them completely together that the many fragmented parts finally become one purposeful entity. This relates to what I’ve said before about the need for leaders with sight and vision. It is not about recruiting new talent out there. It is about seeing the potential and talent already within your organization and already within you in your personal life.
Use edges and value the marginal.
Permaculture Principle #11
One reply on “When The Many Become One”
“Therefore collectively… it is a social development approach that can help humans take the next step in their evolution”. I’ve been looking for someone else to have this ideology somehow naturally ingrained. I believe once there are sufficient ‘believers’ (if you will), we will choose to evolve humanity. The final frontier is the connection of mind, body, heart, and of course, spirit. I can imagine a world full innovators with the single goal of human progress, how far could we go? Thanks for your post.