Saturday, January 18, 2003

"We can't control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them! I already knew that, in a way before I began to study systems. I had learned about dancing with great powers from whitewater kayaking, from gardening, from playing music, from skiing. All those endeavors require one to stay wide awake, pay close attention, participate flat out, and respond to feedback. It had never occurred to me that those same requirements might apply to intellectual work, to management, to government, to getting along with people." A better reason to pick up kayaking I have yet to find. In this article, an excerpt for Donella Meadows' unfinished book on systems, she discusses what to do when systems resist change. You don't charge them head-on, you dance with them. Interesting stuff. Living successfully in a world of systems requires more of us than our ability to calculate. It requires our full humanity—our rationality, our ability to sort out truth from falsehood, our intuition, our compassion, our vision, and our morality. Yes.