Space Bar
Turns out that writing "Twiddling Thumbs" at LinkedIn is not sufficient to describe the present state of my current calling, which far from being a call to action is a call to in-action. As I explained to Dean Owen over at LinkedIn, the title of my post there could have been Space Bar, which got me thinking, that the title at beBee should be exactly that.The Space Bar is the biggest single key by far on my keyboard. Yet why is the largest piece of keyboard real-estate the very key which performs one primary task, which is to create spaces. In this very moment this is exactly where I find myself, not having any inclination or have any desire to do anything that one would count as purpose or value creation. I am turning down projects and working with partners who do have their hands full, for the brief moment of moving towards "doing nothing", except getting to that point is actually tougher than I had imagined - because we are naturally gravitated to some kind of temporal purpose, we are not comfortable with dealing with space. In this regard I identify currently with Peter Gibbons in Office Space, and I celebrate the luxury of being in such a moment :
Now no one hypnotized me though I do agree with my good friend Dean Owen that social media has a hypnotic effect if we are not careful and simply treat it as a thing that has become a part of our lives. We know from some research that social media can have an addictive effect for the simple reason that it can have hormonal effects of which dopamine (the happy hormone) can somewhat perversely be exercised, but the hypnotic effect comes from forming habit rather than hormonal or addictive effects. We can turn social media into an unquestioned habit and not be conscious just how many time our thumb hits the space bar - assuming that we are touch typing. At least that is my personal connection between my thumbs and the space bar.In the movie Office Space, it is not Peter Gibbons whose destiny it describes or the waste of TPS repots, but the character Milton whose stapler is taken by Bill Lumbergh. The movie happens to be funnier because people identify with it and its characters because they can relate it to their work situations, but here I am relating it simply to a space bar. The one that I needed to complete my thinking in this very paragraph but which is also a metaphor for all of this. This is not a funk or a retirement or a giving up, it is an embrace of not having any definitive plan other than see what continues to emerge through serious play and then figuring out what that remotely has to do with this future state we like to call renaissance.
Articles from CityVP Manjit
View blogWhen one looks at Liverpool and their high press game with similar assets on the field in the year S ...
The Paradox Wisdom Collection: The Barrel [Paradox Wisdom #44] · Reference: Ali Anani Phd Buzz : T ...
Finally football has returned after the lock-down and it is a much welcomed return of live sport. · ...
You may be interested in these jobs
-
Merchandiser
Found in: Talent CA C2 - 2 hours ago
Shoppers Drug Mart Canmore, Canada Part timeJoin a locally owned and operated store to help deliver health, beauty and convenience services in your community, and keep the customer at the centre of everything you do. · Why this role is important? · DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES: · MERCHANDISING: · Organize backroom product ...
-
Warehouse Associate
Found in: Talent CA C2 - 3 days ago
Sobeys Pointe-Claire, Canada Full timeRequisition ID: 181916 · Career Group: Distribution Centre Careers · Job Category: E-commerce Fulfillment Centre · Travel Requirements: 0 - 10% · Job Type: Full-Time · Country: Canada (CA) · Province: Québec · City: Pointe Claire · Location: 3802 CFC 2 · Postal Code: H9R 1B ...
-
chargé(e) de cours – droit
Found in: Talent CA C2 - 1 day ago
LCI Education Montreal, CanadaLCI Éducation est présente sur 5 continents, LCI Éducation compte 12 institutions d'enseignement supérieur comprenant 23 campus et quelque 2 000 collègues impliqués chaque année dans l'éducation de plus de apprenants à travers le monde. · En tant que chargé(e) de cours – droit, ...
Comments
CityVP Manjit
6 years ago #9
Dear Sue, saved the PDF to a bit.ly link here http://bit.ly/2uD9u8u that is a pretty tough road that you emerged from and consequently evolved. My life has been unusually blessed but also significantly protected and where there was a rebel spirit but tempered greatly to steer me down safer paths and that credit does not belong to me but my parents. What I learned growing up was that the family network was the highest value and freedoms that other people take as a given are one's that I am willing to trade but in that communal setting to find a space which was my own is more challenging - where the extent of my shared space is phenomenal. What is different now is that in the current time there is no desire to achieve, so eliminating that as a social and local pressure is something good, because where there is no answer to the question "what do you want to do" in terms of defined purpose, that moment in our existence should bring us back to our fundamental nature, but it strangely does not. Instead the social and cultural edict is always at play and this edict translates everything from work as the center of meaning. Translating home as the center of meaning is not anywhere obvious as I would have thought it could be, simply because society looks at us from the work we do rather than the space we create. When we create the space that is us, we become home, we become work and from within us those spaces enlarge as us.
CityVP Manjit
6 years ago #8
Dear Sue, saved the PDF to a bit.ly link here http://bit.ly/2uD9u8u that is a pretty tough road that you emerged from and consequently evolved. My life has been unusually blessed but also significantly protected and where there was a rebel spirit but tempered greatly to steer me down safer paths and that credit does not belong to me but my parents. What I learned growing up was that the family network was the highest value and freedoms that other people take as a given are one's that I am willing to trade but in that communal setting to find a space which was my own is more challenging - where the extent of my shared space is phenomenal. What is different now is that in the current time there is no desire to achieve, so eliminating that as a social and local pressure is something good, because where there is no answer to the question "what do you want to do" in terms of defined purpose, that moment in our existence should bring us back to our fundamental nature, but it strangely does not. Instead the social and cultural edict is always at play and this edict translates everything from work as the center of meaning. Translating home as the center of meaning is not anywhere obvious as I would have thought it could be, simply because society looks at us from the work we do rather than the space we create. When we create the space that is us, we become home, we become work and from within us those spaces enlarge as us.
CityVP Manjit
6 years ago #7
The great thing about Jim is he has this new partnership with Bulletproof and his partner Charlene Norman is someone I ironically know very well having met 6 years ago. Having read his recent buzzes I know Jim is in a very good place now, I would say keep the Whiskey Bible closed and keep the Bulletproof fully open. I know when people have found a sweetspot in their life, it starts showing through in their words, their enthusiasm and their focus. The Whisky Bible also may well have been written in Japanese for me because I am the biggest teetotaler of all time, coca-cola or pepsi is the limit to my "hard drinks".
CityVP Manjit
6 years ago #6
Pascal you have mentioned what I was thinking out in Structure and Space. Space is what we are and structure is what we build. If we think life is an ongoing economic pursuit about structure, the only structure that kind of life is, is a prison. What is the difference between paid work and unpaid work other than one finances a bigger structure through the former than the latter. I was never happy doing the TN1 visa thing, the hassles of flying, the staying in hotels, the meetings in boardrooms and the expensive restaurant lunches with clients (where I never get to actually enjoy what I order and never get to say what it is I really think) and that comes with structure. It is a different thing altogether if we don't have a choice in the matter, but that is not the case now. Years of my life have flown by in this same kind of groundhog day experience. Imagine me having to update my LinkedIn status with the words "I don't give a shit", we can never say that as a LinkedIn status because our bondage is what others think of us, and that reputation status is called our personal brand, do you dig now why I have begun to hate that word - a condition for prisoners of it. For sure it is great luxury not to give a shit about engaging work for the sake of work, but that luxury was not created today, it was invested and earned through structure, and when we HAVE TO work we are actually taking a break from life, that is the most stupid irony of all - it is so ironic that having a temporary reprieve from obligation is considered taking a break - no this is life and now I am going to think about how to have this and get paid to have it and how that life is sustainable for a period of three decades. Space is what we are, structure is what we think we are.
CityVP Manjit
6 years ago #5
Pascal you have mentioned what I was thinking out in Structure and Space. Space is what we are and structure is what we build. If we think life is an ongoing economic pursuit about structure, the only structure that kind of life is, is a prison. What is the difference between paid work and unpaid work other than one finances a bigger structure through the former than the latter. I was never happy doing the TN1 visa thing, the hassles of flying, the staying in hotels, the meetings in boardrooms and the expensive restaurant lunches with clients (where I never get to actually enjoy what I order and never get to say what it is I really think) and that comes with structure. It is a different thing altogether if we don't have a choice in the matter, but that is not the case now. Years of my life have flown by in this same kind of groundhog day experience. Imagine me having to update my LinkedIn status with the words "I don't give a shit", we can never say that as a LinkedIn status because our bondage is what others think of us, and that reputation status is called our personal brand, do you dig now why I have begun to hate that word - a condition for prisoners of it. For sure it is great luxury not to give a shit about engaging work for the sake of work, but that luxury was not created today, it was invested and earned through structure, and when we have to work we have to do is when we are taking a break from life, that is the most stupid irony of all - it is so ironic that having a temporary reprieve from obligation is considered taking a break - no this is life and now I am going to think about how to have this and get paid to have it and how that life is sustainable for a period of three decades. Space is what we are, structure is what we think we are.
CityVP Manjit
6 years ago #4
Lisa, if we are not doing what we love then work is the interruption in our lives. I don't see me taking a break from work but more about this time being how I will break in work that will satisfy me for the rest of my life and that could touchwood be three more decades after this one. The last thing I want to do is figure this out, instead what is written here is a self-organizing process where the mindset is about emergence. That is a different mindset to the planned existence where we are more likely to see life as getting our ducks in a row. There is an additional mindset which puzzles me which is those people who think too much about how much runway our life has left. The only guarantee that life gives us is knowing we are going to attend funerals of people much younger than us and there is no point in worrying about things which are completely out of left-field, instead life I think is better as possibilities rather than probabilities.
CityVP Manjit
6 years ago #3
Dean Owen wrote a buzz about why he thinks it is lame to use the expression "learning journey" and when I thought about it, I knew he was right. It is not a journey, so I shifted or pivoted or whatever that change is called and I am now referring to "Learning Pathway" - so Learning Pathway 56 means I am 56 years old on this particular pathway. Now there are only two pathways - the first is the complex header picture above that is titled "Renaissance" currently numbered Release #54 and the pyramid that serves the latest "Paradox Wisdom" currently 27th which is found here https://www.bebee.com/producer/@cityvp/non-verbal-life are the "Learning Pathways". When I go to my earlier Renaissance or Wisdom Hive pathways I find my earlier pathways. So it is not a fixed definition or model, but an evolving picture based on trial and error, serious play and personal definition. My two principle learning spaces are online and offline. beBee happens to be the current hub of that online learning space and this is where principally I have moved my two pathways. I have 15 elements which transcribe to 15 hives and fortunately I got in early enough at bebee to be able to name all 15 hives with their respective colour. https://www.bebee.com/group/gray the other 14 colours are white, black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, magenta, bronze, gold, cyan & crimson There are other hives I have for additional purposes but the these are the 15 core pathways for my learning.
CityVP Manjit
6 years ago #2
Dean Owen wrote a buzz about why he thinks it is lame to use the expression "learning journey" and when I thought about it, I knew he was right. It is not a journey, so I shifted or pivoted or whatever that change is called and I am now referring to "Learning Pathway" - so Learning Pathway 56 means I am 56 years old on this particular pathway. Now there are only two pathways - the first is the complex header picture above that is titled "Renaissance" currently numbered Release #54 and the pyramid that serves the latest "Paradox Wisdom" currently 27th which is found here https://www.bebee.com/producer/@cityvp/non-verbal-life are the "Learning Pathways". When I go to my earlier Renaissance or Wisdom Hive pathways I find my earlier pathways. So it is not a fixed definition or model, but an evolving picture based on trial and error, serious play and personal definition. My two principle learning spaces are online and offline. beBee happens to be the current hub of that online learning space and this is where principally I have moved my two pathways. I have 15 elements which transcribe to 15 hives and fortunately I got in early enough at bebee to be able to name all 15 hives with their respective colour. https://www.bebee.com/group/gray the other 14 colours are white, black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, magenta, bronze, gold, cyan & crimson There are other hives I have for additional purposes but the these 15 above are the core pathways.
CityVP Manjit
6 years ago #1
Dean Owen wrote a buzz about why he thinks it is lame to use the expression "learning journey" and when I thought about it, I knew he was right. It is not a journey, so I shifted or pivoted or whatever that change is called and I am now referring to "Learning Pathway" - so Learning Pathway 56 means I am 56 years old on this particular pathway. Now there are only two pathways - the first is the complex header picture above that is titled "Renaissance" currently numbered Release #54 and the pyramid that serves the latest "Paradox Wisdom" currently 27th which is found here https://www.bebee.com/producer/@cityvp/non-verbal-life are the "Learning Pathways". When I go to my earlier Renaissance or Wisdom Hive pathways I find my earlier pathways. So it is not a fixed definition or model, but an evolving picture based on trial and error, serious play and personal definition. My two principle learning spaces are online and offline. beBee happens to be the current hub of that online learning space and this is where principally I have moved my two pathways. I have 15 elements which transcribe to 15 hives and fortunately I got in early enough at bebee to be able to name all 15 hives with their respective colour. https://www.bebee.com/group/gray the other 14 colours are white, black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, magenta, cyan, gold, cyan, crimson There are other hives I have for additional purposes but the these 15 above are the core pathways.