Kashmir's Shak

Wit To Lose

"Thus hath the candle sing’d the moth.   
O, these deliberate fools! when they do choose,   
They have the wisdom by their wit to lose"

Merchant of Venice (Act II - Scene IX)

We are imperfect. We are impermanent. Not a hard notion to get your head around. You would think so, but thinking warps reality as much as it clarifies it.

Our imperfection is an elusive and beautiful butterfly. We catch a glimpse of it, but fail to appreciate its tender beauty. Instead we turn into the moth of attachment and are consume by the flames of our own vanity.

The luxury of debating and writing about learning and growth is sexier than the act itself.

The act of improvement involves shattering carefully constructed self images. We have to confront our own 'deliberate foolishness' as if it belonged to another person.

We are all flawed in one way or other.

Some of us lack the ability to connect to other human beings (listening, empathy, interaction). Others struggle with keeping their life tidy and organized (time management, planning and organizing). Others struggle with thinking openly (defining, designing and leading change).

We know our fatal flaw, our wings have been clipped and sing'd many times in our past, but we continue to move forward (or around the flames of vanity) with a sublime disregard for the inevitable crisp of fire that is about to consume us.

Sometimes we can even see the flaws of vanity, we are conscious of the political and social power that we and others are wielding and yet we persist because the allure of our vanity is too deep, too over powering to abandon.

Perhaps we are condemned to weave the silk of the self consumption and then expire. Perhaps we can see beyond ourselves and through the caterpillar steps, walk gently around our vanity and discover the buds of May and freedom of the spring? This is a very vulnerable position to be in and that is why patient courage is the antidote to self annihilation.

I know caterpillars do get crushed under big feet of busy-ness, but I have never heard of a caterpillar making the long arduous journey into the tip of a burning candle.

Rash Embraced Despair

”To be or not to be, that is the question"
Hamlet  - (Act III, Scene I)

When I am at the mercy of indecision, not knowing what to say or do, society tell us to 'cease dithering' and make a decision. To do something I am told is better than to do nothing.

Doubt, indecision and procastination are my friend. When I have no doubts, I am equally at the mercy of ignorance and it's cousin arrogance. Indecision allows me to sharpen my saw, to question openly the issues and alternatives.

Doubt is the needle a poet uses to tear apart the seams of what seems to be true and to thread together a new meaning that is so obvious but often out of grasp.

Doubt allows the scientist and the pioneer to break out of the comfort zone and uncover new paths.

Why then is doubt and indecisiveness given such a bad name? Inquiry is the complete opposite of decision and action.

Perhaps it is because when we are busy making decisions and taking actions, we are safe from our own ignorance and insignificance. Perhaps we would not be caught dead admitting that we don’t know what to do. Our substance would fall apart. No one would take us seriously. Our very being would be torn apart in ridicule. So we choose to tuck our hearts and heads into the dullness and illusion of certainty.

If we allow doubt to flow freely, fearlessly, cutting through the morass of our opinions and certainty, to a fresh field of fears and precious doubt, perhaps we could awaken to a more poetic and scientific reality?

We do not need to be held hostage by our own certainty. We do not need to fear being wrong or now knowing. Once our emotional turmoil has subsided, perhaps we can know ourselves better and each other. Nothing wrong with that, even if the journey to this discovery is a messy and decidely undecisive.

"How all the other passions fleet to air,   
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac’d despair,   
And shuddering fear, and green-ey’d jealousy.
O love! be moderate; allay thy ecstasy;   
In measure rain thy joy; scant this excess;   
I feel too much thy blessing; make it less,   
For fear I surfeit!"
The Merchant of Venice (Act III, Scene II)

Sound The Ocean

"Sirs, take you to your tools. You, cousins,
Shall go sound the ocean, and cast your nets"
Titus Andronicus
Act IV. Scene III.

To be successful in any aspect of life we need to master five fundamental tools or instruments of change.

These tools are often assumed to be so obvious that they are taken for granted and ignored. They are fundamental to the human condition. They are the tools by which we construct all our relationships and shape our life.

There are tons of mechanical procedures and theories about change out there, but it always boils down to these 5 essential instruments:

1. Listening
2. Conversation
3. Stories
4. Experimention
5. Reflection

Our ability to use these five tools individually and collectively shapes the purpose, direction and power of our community, the impact of and on our environment and the consequence or our lives.

These five tools cut across every cultural, language, gender, political, religious, personal and social order.

These tools do not exist ‘out there’. They are part of our make up ‘in here’.

These tools are integral to our very existence. We would not be who and what and where we are today if we did not possess and apply these instruments. When we use them together our life elevates to another level.

Have you played any of these instruments today?

"Nay, nothing; all is said: 
His tongue is now a stringless instrument"
Richard II
Act II. Scene I.