Below is a response sent today to someone wondering about the mornings ICW talk. I have not included even a summarized portion of the original email. Didn’t seem the way to go. So what you have hear is one side of the conversation. The other side is left to inference.
I hear what you are saying. And, yes, it gets hot on occasion and it gets hard at the bottom of the bowl.
The particular practice that was/is being presented through the Ashram Ground Floor City Planners experiment would not have been facilitated by handing out step by step directions with proper preparation and planning.
If the goal was to make a pretty little town with houses — ticky-tacky all in a row — then absolutely the instructions, video tutorials, photographs, diagrams, assignment of roles, with due practice and prep would have been essential. However, that was not the actual goal. That is the contextual target.
Some of the beginners did extremely well, in fact, I take that back. Everyone did extremely well. Production was not the point. Getting a handle on where we are and beginning a journey together was more to the point. And everyone did extremely well with that. The process has been engaged.
Because some of the instructions did not seem clear and/or consistent, folks were provided an opportunity to learn patience, and more importantly how to ask for help. One person discovered that her property could not fit the house any which way. They shrunk the house to fit. I thought this was imaginative and made note of her ability to adapt. Later when it was made clear that shrinking the house wasn’t okay, she learned how to ask for help on “how the heck to make it work.” She asked this question very well bringing about some instruction and some modification of the ground to make it work. It was a fun interaction as well.
I’m not saying that anything was unclear or inconsistent. I’m just saying that the experience of this by some individuals provided opportunity for learning. Learning what? Learning how to jostle well together. How to help each other. How to scramble. How to ask for help effectively. A bit of patience. How to deal with a bit of confusion and maybe even a little panic.
None of that was deliberate. We did not set out to cause a confusing or tribulating situation. Those we coincidental — maybe even a little consequential.
For myself I had a great time working with folks — bobbing and weaving with the hubbub.
EJ referred at one point in this morning’s talk to “rant.” It’s not really a rant. It’s better characterized as a heads-up and making clear of the underlying dynamics of what is happening.
I certainly felt it was important to let folks know that even though we are making huff and puff efforts to get the building done, they should not sweat if their building skills are just beginning to develop. That is not the actual goal. Building is a context. Some people are doing good with building and some people are not doing as well with the building — they find it more of a challenge. However, doing good at building or not so good is not the skill being exercised. When it comes to the actual skills that need to be developed everyone is doing well.
It may not look like everyone is doing well. But, they are. As long as they are doing.
Here’s an example from kidhood. If everyone in a gym class learns to do one more push up, who was done the best? Some people would say that the kid that does 100 push ups is doing the best. No, no, no. It is the kid that does 1 push up that is doing the best. The kid doing 100 push ups went from doing 99 to doing 100. The kid that is doing 1 push up went from doing zero to doing 1. That is much more of a journey.
It is very hard to judge progress from the outside. And, it’s hard to judge progress from the inside. I think a better measure is in the doing.
What I saw in the Ashram was a lot of doing. How much doing, how much progress, how much change, … those are not good questions. Or, at least there are so many factors that go into the judgement that for all practical purposes they aren’t good questions.
Let’s hold off on feeling good or feeling bad about how it is going until we’ve been at this for a few dozen or a few hundred Saturdays.