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Pointers for the Unsettled, Unsituated, and Uncertain

March 25, 2021 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

Thanks to our brain we have a sense of a constant, relatively unchanging world. We’re pretty confident we can distinguish reality from unreality. In fact, we’re pretty confident about a lot of things. But neuroscientist Anil Seth refers to our perception of the world as a “controlled hallucination.” And theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser says we can thank our brain for tricking us into building a sense of the “real.”

The universe is in a constant state of flux. Since we are part of the universe, so are we. And just because we’re convinced that we experience reality as it is doesn’t make it so. Our brain regularly makes best guesses about what’s out there, based on its mental model of the world, and we aren’t in the habit of questioning its conclusions.

It’s no wonder we get tripped up by the unexpected, or stuck when we try to pin things down, or flummoxed when we turn out to be wrong. The remedy is to embrace being unsettled, unsituated, and uncertain because doing so is more effective, more powerful, more exciting, more interesting—and it’s actually based in reality.

Unsettled

We have these prior ways of seeing things and the brain likes that, likes closure, likes to be settled, and letting go of that requires a lot of mental energy. —Ray Land

The unconscious part of the brain prefers to make definitive statements and declarations because it wants to cut to the chase. It wants to figure out what’s what, who’s who, what’s going on, and what we should do about it. Any number of cognitive biases—mental shortcuts taken by the brain—are based on this drive to pigeonhole everything so we can move on. So:

Remember that life is dynamic and in a constant state of flux, not fixed or static.
Generate provisional assessments based on your current perspective, knowledge, and desired outcome, rather than seeking or accepting definitive statements.
Recognize that everything is a work-in-progress rather than a finished product.

Unsituated

Wandering aimlessly, trickster regularly bumps into things he did not expect. He therefore seems to have developed an intelligence about contingency, the wit to work with happenstance. —Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World

Being situated means being located or established in one place and having a narrow perspective as a result. Being unsituated means putting ourselves in a position to expand our horizons and our understanding. Trickster is a good metaphor for being unsituated, as he can generally be found on the move and often far from home—on the road, at the crossroads, on the border or the boundary—pursuing one thing or another and encountering new sights and sounds. So:

Identify and actively pursue what you want as opposed to trying to reduce uncertainty.
Spend more time exploring what you don’t know than exploiting what you know.
Take on the role of a quester rather than the role of an expert.

Uncertain

The world makes much less sense than you think. The coherence comes mostly from the way your mind works. —Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

Our brain craves certainty and it really wants to be right—so much so that we can experience feeling uncertain and/or wrong as an actual threat to our survival. But aiming for certainty and being right are not part of the recipe for a satisfying and meaningful life. Certainty is often ephemeral, if not illusory. And being right is the booby prize. The recognition that we could be wrong, on the other hand, is downright liberating. So:

Remind yourself that you could be wrong instead of trying to prove that you’re right.
Evaluate feedback in terms of actions and outcomes rather than as self-judgment.
Always ask questions. Value good questions more than good answers.

Click here or on the graphic below to print or download the pointers.

Embarking on a New Year

January 13, 2021 by Joycelyn Campbell 1 Comment

January. The start of a new year. An occasion for new beginnings. I dislike the winter months, but I’ve always had a soft spot for January for its sense of openness and promise—or at least potential.

But the promise or potential of January can be illusory because we cannot predict the future: none of us can know what it holds for us, good, bad, or indifferent.

I think back to January 2005, when I was commuting five days a week to a job in an office downtown. My partner was retired, tending cacti, composing and recording music, writing, and doing the vast majority of domestic chores. He was an excellent cook, and he didn’t mind grocery shopping or cleaning up the kitchen. My biggest gripe with him was the clutter of partially read magazines and books everywhere.

We’d lived in Albuquerque a little less than three and a half years. We were humming along in a groove. Dealing with some car issues, a couple of chronic but manageable health issues of his, and my on-and-off-again dissatisfaction with my job.

In late March, he began feeling more tired and achy than usual, but neither he nor his doctor were alarmed. On the morning of the 30^th, he said he felt much better. Before I left for work, he told me what he wanted to fix for dinner. Shortly after 9pm, he was dead. Whatever I had thought about what I might be up to in 2005 did not include responding to the sudden death of my partner of 30 years.

Double Troubles

I think back also to January 2016, when I was about a year and a half into “going public” with Farther to Go! The engine was revving; my sights were set; all systems were go. Patricia was my closest friend in Albuquerque. We had been going on day trips at least twice a month for a couple of years. In January, we drove up to Santa Fe, where we walked around the Plaza, had lunch at the San Francisco Street Bar and Grill, and popped into some favorite shops. I bought a really warm winter hat with tassels on both sides.

We went to the zoo early in February, an unusually warm day. Both of us had been experiencing some odd physical symptoms—sinus issues with me, stomach issues with her—but we were doing well that day. By the third week in February, though, I was having significant trouble breathing. On the 29^th, a Monday, I asked her to drive me to the ER. I thought I had an upper respiratory infection.

Instead I was diagnosed with severe mitral valve stenosis, atrial fibrillation/flutter, and congestive heart failure. They admitted me to the hospital and kept me there for a week. I was told I’d likely need to have open heart surgery to have the valve replaced. Over the next year, several ablations attempts were made to stop the flutter. The last one gave me four flutter-free months.

That April, Patricia was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer. Her doctor suggested she had about eight months. He was spot on. She died three days before Christmas.

It’s an understatement to say 2016 didn’t turn out the way I imagined it would. While I’m doing significantly better than anyone predicted, my energy level is permanently diminished—sometimes more so, sometimes less. And I miss Patricia.

When my partner died in 2005, I didn’t have the kind of focus I did in 2016. By the time I was diagnosed, I had determined exactly what was important to me. Vitality was at the top of the list, so I didn’t have to be persuaded to take care of myself. But Farther to Go! was just as important to me. And nearly five years later, both of those things are still at the top of the list.

Last January, none of us saw Covid-19 coming. I think it’s safe to say that the events of 2020 were not on anyone’s list of expectations. I know that wanting to maintain as much vitality as possible and being immersed in Farther to Go! has made it easier for me to cope with the drastic upheaval and uncertainty. It already seems quaint, doesn’t it, to think about how eager we were to change the calendar to 2021? In addition to the continuing ravages of the pandemic, here in the U.S., we have more civil unrest than we’ve had since the 1960s. And we haven’t yet hit the mid-point of the month!

January, I think, is a terrible time to create resolutions, which usually take the form of concrete objectives or self-improvement. But it’s a great time to clarify what’s important to us and to identify desired outcomes: how do we want to change our status quo. There is always more than one way to get a desired outcome. If—or rather when—we encounter the inevitable surprises life throws up, we can adjust course instead of being sidelined. As long as we know where we want to end up, we can keep trying different routes until we get there.

Here’s a virtual toast to what will be lost this year and what will be found.

Bon voyage!

Pandemic Pivot

September 27, 2020 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

The Past: Some Context

We live in a vast country. We are people of different ages, different ethnicities, different genders, different levels of education and economic circumstances, different histories, different (or no) religions, different experiences, different beliefs, biases, and political leanings, and different personalities. And we are just one country among many different countries on this planet.

We humans have a need for other people (one of only six things we can genuinely call needs), and we desire to have a sense of belonging. So we identify ourselves with various others: maybe the citizens of the country where we live, but also with other groups, both large and small, including immediate and extended family, circles of friends, fellow-hobbyists, co-workers, spiritual or religious organizations, business associations, and political parties.

Sometimes our loyalty to the groups we identify with can lead to an attitude of tribalism: us vs. them (those others). It’s not a coincidence that tribal mentalities are strongest in wartime. Is it also possible that extreme tribalism promotes a wartime mentality? It’s a question worth asking for several reasons, one of which is that it doesn’t seem we can blame our Pleistocene-era brain for our tendencies toward either tribalism or violence—at least not directly.

It appears that our ancestors gravitated toward violence only after they transitioned away from a nomadic lifestyle to what is referred to as sedentism or sedentariness (the practice of living in one place for a long time). Their—and our—allegiance may be more to the territory we have staked out and less to the people we have staked it out with.

Here in the 21^st Century, “territory” can have multiple meanings and associations, of course; it can be less geographic and more cultural, contextual, or even abstract. We are living in the digital age, as well as the nuclear age and the inter-connected age. That makes territoriality and tribalism more widespread and more dangerous than they have ever been—and a perfect breeding ground for the worldwide pandemic we’re experiencing now.

So this would be an excellent time to take a look around and acknowledge that there is only one tribe to be concerned about and that is the one we all belong to. This is certainly not a new or original thought, and it’s also clearly easier said than done. That doesn’t make the point less valid.

What makes the situation most pressing, even urgent, is that many of us are now quarantined, which means we are stuck in one place for a long time without knowing how long a time it will be.

The Present: A Plethora of Self-Soothing Advice

Remember the Eisenhower box? It’s that matrix with four quadrants:

#1: Urgent and Important
#2: Important but not Urgent
#3: Urgent but not Important
#4: not Urgent and not Important

Essentially, the purpose is to help us classify our to-do lists. According to its proponents:

What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important.

The Eisenhower Box is widespread enough to have helped turn “urgent” into a dirty word. Could there be a link between our attitude toward urgency and our nearly pathological desire to avoid stress and so-called negativity?

The pandemic is, factually speaking, both urgent and important, so it falls into the first category. We don’t necessarily have a lot of experience dealing with such situations. And we’ve been sidelined, told to stay home if we can, for an indefinite period of time. Furthermore, we don’t know what the world is going to look or be like when we move back into it.

Responses to the situation vary: squirmy, angry, frustrated, worried, bored, depressed, content, etc. Some of us find ourselves with a lot more to do than before; others may be doing much less. But no matter our individual responses, the vast majority of advice being dispensed about how to cope encourages all of us to find calm, balance, and meaning (which hopefully are located within your home or at least on your property, since that’s about as far as you can go to look for them) and to treat yourself well.

Yes, these are trying times, disruptive times, uncertain times, in which we certainly do need to take care of ourselves. But this blanket focus on managing our feelings instead of solving the problems that contribute to them is absolutely not serving us. The world is in distress; bright-siding is not an appropriate response. Contrary to suggestions otherwise, lounging on the sofa watching Netflix is not actually contributing to saving the world.

If you’re OK, good for you. The more people who are OK, the better. But being OK is not an end, it’s a means.

These trying, disruptive, and uncertain times require something of and from us

The Future: Disturb the World

DREAM BIG

I’ve heard the optimistic belief expressed that we will somehow emerge from this better people in a better society. I have no expectation of a spontaneous occurrence of betterment. In fact, it’s more likely we will easily and quickly return to the situations and circumstances that led to this—or worse.

But I do believe we have the capacity to change that trajectory, or at least to begin the process—if we act intentionally and start now.

In order to do that, we need to use our imagination to generate a vision of what we want the world to be like, whether or not we have any idea how to make that vision a reality. We need a big, bold dream of a better world. We need a compelling vision we can share with others because it will take many people to create that kind of change. It will take many different kinds of people.

TAKE BABY STEPS

A big, bold vision generates creative tension. The bigger and bolder the vision (meaning the greater the difference between where we are now and where we want to be), the more creative tension is created. The more creative tension there is, the more dopamine is produced and the more motivated we are. Once we have a compelling vision of a desired outcome, we can begin to identify some objectives and then some actions we can take immediately. The best way to change the status quo is via repetition and perseverance—taking baby steps. Interestingly, taking action to make things better often has a side effect of making us feel better, but the reverse is seldom true.

As Serena Chan wrote in an article on complex adaptive systems:

Systems that are forced to explore their space of possibilities will create different structures and new patterns of relationships.

What new structures and patterns of relationships do you want to create for yourself? What do you want for the world? What can you contribute? What action can you take in that direction?

Creative Destruction:
Painting Over the Underpainting

June 18, 2019 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

This is a guest post from my friend and client Cathy Ann Connelly, who recently completed the “Trickster Makes the World” module of the Create Your Own Story course.

Definition: In painting, an underpainting is a first layer of paint applied to a canvas or board and it functions as a base for other layers of paint. It acts as a foundation for your painting and is a great way to start your painting off with some built in contrast and tonal values.

The attributes of Trickster in any culture, era, or life all add up to being one thing—a change agent.

To embody the Trickster attributes in our lives can be intense as we refine how to make change a friend rather than an anxiety-producing enemy.

And yet, isn’t that what we want? To be able to enact change? To develop more intensity—more juiciness—in our daily lives? And believe me, you don’t get that unless you make friends with your inner Trickster and Trickster’s sometimes more challenging attributes.

So, it occurred to me that overcoming some of the resistance to the Trickster package might be eased if we examine one of Trickster’s less alluring attributes through a different lens. The attribute I’ve chosen to look at in a different way is that of destruction—an essential element for change, but one we often shy away from.

Destruction or Under- and Over-painting?

I’m in no way a professional artist, but I do like creating visual art—taking painting classes and learning new techniques.

Along my art journey there have been two thoughts that totally match the concept of destruction as integral to creating something wonderful:

Nothing is so precious that you shouldn’t be willing to paint over it—because anything can be recreated or improved upon, and
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Underpainting is critical to producing a great work of art—and anything you create and don’t like can simply be called underpainting (the constructive act of destruction)!

Both these concepts tell me that in my entire life, nothing is useless, wasted, broken, or ruined, and that everything “destroyed” contributes to something better—even if the little parts I once thought were “perfect” have disappeared from view. In essence, everything can be seen as a jumping off point to be improved upon, full of surprises, and all of it can be viewed as valuable under- or over-painting for the next round of creativity in life.

Often, I find that simply playing with marks, colors, and images on a canvas—and then painting over them again and again—results in “changed art” that I could never have created through a controlled, single layer of predetermined brushstrokes. It is often the things that show through—the uncontrolled, playful surprises—that I take advantage of and embrace to make a painting far better than its original, solo layer.

Even if a specific corner of a painting starts to seem special and precious to me, and somehow I linger over the concept of preserving it, I force myself to paint over it if the entire canvas needs another rework.

It is the willingness to do this—to embody destructive change—that for me is juicy and that I ultimately know will produce even better results.

It is the very act of embracing the under- and over-painting that in and of itself can bring change that is wonderful, renewing, and liberating. It is the act that brings the juice of Trickster-change to my world.

Creative Destruction in Life

Outside my art, I believe I try to embody the Trickster attribute of creative destruction when traveling through liminal space—the threshold space of change. When my narrator tells me, “I know what’s going on and I can out think the things trying to run you off the path we’ve charted,” often that proves just downright silly. Liminal space is all about exploring alternate paths, often “destroying” the one you’ve started down. Who knows, just because you’ve started off one way doesn’t mean going a different way isn’t juicier, and might not be a better over- painting route to your desired destination. How can you know? After all, that first path might just be under-painting for the greater work emerging.

“Paint” with your personal agency and try out another path that could have fewer obstacles and might be a hundred times juicier. It’s uncomfortable, but “destroying” our “I know best” attitude with Trickster’s influence is exactly what gets us the change we want.

Cathy Ann Connelly lives in New Mexico and takes Farther To Go! classes because they’re juicy for exploring how to better use her brain for what she wants it to do, rather than her brain using her. Currently, her focus is on reawakening her own Trickster while encouraging new, longer-term intentions. This blog post sprung from that focus.

Building Blocks of Creativity: Curiosity

June 8, 2019 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

If we really want to understand and shape behavior, maybe we should look less at decision-making and more at curiosity. —David Brooks

Having an open mind and being open to experience go hand-in-hand. And if you’re open-minded, you’re curious. You don’t believe that what you know about something—anything—is all there is to know. You want to explore and you want to learn more. You’re not afraid to put yourself in unfamiliar situations or to expose yourself to people and ideas that challenge you or your beliefs.

Curiosity, by its nature, implies uncertainty and ambiguity. Your brain doesn’t like uncertainty, which is why the experience can be uncomfortable. But if you choose comfort and the illusion of certainty (because certainty is an illusion) over curiosity, you’re turning your back on the very characteristics that make humans human.

Besides, curiosity can also be rewarding. Mario Livio, astrophysicist and author of Why? What Makes Us Curious? says:

[The] lust for knowledge is associated with a pleasurable state, and in our brain activates regions that anticipate rewards.

It makes sense that curiosity activates reward pathways in our brain. Curiosity and openness to experience give us the ability to be inventive and creative, to solve complex (sometimes life-or-death) problems, to imagine things that don’t yet exist, and to accomplish great undertakings in the face of enormous odds.

Curiosity is the essence of human existence. ‘Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?’… I don’t know. I don’t have any answers to those questions. I don’t know what’s over there around the corner. But I want to find out. —Eugene Cernan

Curious, open-minded people see the world differently from other people, both literally—in terms of basic visual perception—and figuratively. They tend to screen out less visual information, so they sometimes see things others block out. And they “see” more possibilities as a result of being divergent (rather than convergent) thinkers.

Are You Intentional?

In order to be creative, we need to be able to change something in the world. But we also need to be able and willing to be changed by the world.

Of course, to a great extent we do create our own reality, so our interactive relationship with the world could be said to be creative. But the reality that we create for ourselves happens outside our awareness and outside our control. It’s pretty amazing, but we can’t take credit for it. It doesn’t require anything from us, and we can live our entire lives taking it for granted, having no curiosity about it and paying no attention to it whatsoever.

If you have no curiosity about yourself and your relationship with the world, you may want things to be different, but you’re unlikely to engage in the cognitive investigation and exploration that can lead to creativity and change. So you’re unlikely to do anything to change the status quo.

If you’re curious, however, the questions are more interesting—and more alive—than the answers. As a result, you never stop exploring. You take very little for granted. And you’re intentional about changing your brain, yourself, and your world.