Arborescence and You

The other day I found myself comparing the growth of individuals to the shape and bark of trees. Its odd how we strive for a view of perceived outer perfection in humans, and yet when looking at the gnarled bark of trees there is inherent beauty in it. There is no embarrassment in blackened trunks, or lost branches, there is unashamed intertwining of trunks and almost a majesty no matter the shape, structure or spread of any tree. Tall in their existence regardless. There is a lot we can learn from trees.

Writing in a post about emotional growing pains, I noted that there is often this embarrassment, whether coy or hiding, about our growth and changes. The slightly uncomfortable stretch of skin in passing through one phase to another. And yet, trees can do it so elegantly, making no excuses for growth or change; whether pushing rocks out of place, repairing broken limbs, or reaching for light. They are who they are no matter what state or form they happen to be in at any given point.  

Arborescence: adj: Having the size, form, or characteristics of a tree; treelike

Wistman's Woods, Dartmoor

While visiting these very ancient woods, I was struck by their remarkable youthfulness. For tree's well over 1000 years old, they seem barely over 300 years. These stunted oaks, where in many other regions grow to great heights, here they are comparative children in size.

 

An exert from the poem '(Explorers of) The Fifth Element'
MJCC May 2011

Life force, it moves in cycles so that,

it can continue to change and adapt

like passing of the moons above

the seasons shift and so this does

show us how we need to be

relaxed, at ease; more wild and free.

Quantum forces seen in motion
the apple gave Newton his notion
Act on yours, its your ability to give
in sharing can good memories live
relating creates strong family
no blood ties needed for this tree.

Fresh Starts and Constants - updated

Taking the road of your own journey is never easy, no matter how many books you read, how much you talk to others, it is just hard... but then daily life is hard...and so is following someone else's view of what we should do or who we should be. 

Perhaps the only option then, is to chose to deal with our own version of what we think is right and wrong, our own version of what a good education is, to develop our own ideals and goals. So that goals are away from what the media protrays or what we are told we should and shouln't do. Then we choose what tough stuff we have to deal with, and find ways to make that our own advantage.

I don't think the goal should be eternal happiness and everlasting joy, but perhaps instead to be simply contented in knowing who we are, how we fit in to the world around us, and how we can make the best of it for all. 

In the first instance there is perhaps a task to find out who we are; what we like and what we don't like, and to find the right support to nuture this. In the second instance it could be to find the environment that you want to be in, where you feel drawn to and the most at home. In doing so, it is possible to create a great sense of calmness with emotions, as anxieties disapate, fears dissolve and we bring the right elements into our life. This does not mean that you will find peace in theis process, as you will very likely need to deal with some deep rooted issues that surface, but there can also be a greater sense that whatever happens you will be ok. That if a tragedy befalls you, you will work it out; and if good things happen, that’s fine too. So that you can get to a place where its possible to recognise that either way things change. Life can be great one day and shit the rest but mostly it’s a little bit of both all the time, and that is fine.

The only constant in life is change - this is something that we can take for certain - that things will always change. So rather than be afraid of it or for change to be unexpected, you can always prepared for the next wave that inevitably comes. Nothing ever stays the same. In observing nature it is possible to be more aware of this; the trees can change colour from one day to the next, the stars can change place in the sky within a month, a patch of land can become overgrown in a week. Nothing stays the same.

In thinking about the nature of life, I see more and more each day that life is organic, it moves, changes, grows and dies all within the same space of time. It is neither beautiful nor ugly, it is not good or cruel, it just is. It exists. Difficulties always seem to arise when we try to place a framework on it, to project a way of looking at it and try to change it according to our views. “It’s not right because... (it doesn’t fit my view)”.  The beauty of our world and our human existence is that no one person sees the world exactly the same way, not even twins. We all have our own unique view on the world, that we are the only people who can see the world through our eyes. Just as all the trees despite perhaps growing in the same field, being the same species and receiving the same food, will all be different.

It is not our similarity that binds us but our uniqueness, our differences. 

Often I like to puzzle the greater questions in life and seek solutions, I play with ideas looking for universal rules... frameworks that can fit complex scenarios with a single unifying answer and yet all I come up with are more and more and more solutions. The only sensible conclusion that I can reach is that in perception the only constant is difference. That there is no right or wrong way to see the world no matter your opinion, or how it conforms with society, there is only difference in how we each experience and translate what is around us. To utilise this as an asset would be a great advantage to our race, however we would need to become more objective and less subjective to be able to more succinctly assess differences and their uses between one another. 

Emotional Growing Pains

I have been giving some thought to the challenges in recognising, dealing with and overcoming the stages of changes in our life. In identifying periods of change from one stage of life to another the clearest frame of reference would be teenagers: they are often uncomfortable to be around, grumpy, messy, rude at times, only interested in their friends, antagonistic and often physically awkward. All these outward signs that we have learnt to recognise and identify, and yet how much thought do we give to what is going on within? The emotional near-trauma that can be suffered through when changing from a child to a young adult, like a snake breaking through its old skin into the new one, underneath it is an intensely painful experience. However familiar teen-age has become it has only relatively recently been recognised as a period of life opposed to a passing of age (15 to 16 or 17 to 18 or 20 to 21) or ceremonial rite. Thanks to 1950s American culture it is now a much more widely recognised framework encompassing a period of life ranging from 13 upto 18.

It is plausible to further identify general categories of growth such as from 18 to 22 where intellectual and personality have deepened formation or 22 upto 30 where we establish as young adults; from 30 to 45 as a more formal responsible Adult, and 45 being the benchmark for ‘middle age’. Other ‘periods’ in life are also changing in the way we identify with them for example the period between 50 and 65 is no longer ‘old age’ it is the age of the grey panthers, the Saga years, for those nearing retirement with grown children, still looking ahead to their twilight years whilst enjoying the offerings of the latter stages in life. However we recognise and identify the characteristics of the different stages of human development, how much attention do we really give to the emotional growing pains experienced at the passing of one stage into another?

We know that the changes we go through and the perception we have of life affects us significantly and can last a lifetime, especially strong emotions or feeling ‘hard done by’ or wronged, or perhaps a feeling of arrival, or greater certainty. Yet most commonly these times of change seem to signify uncertainty leading to sense of insecurity in one or more aspects of life. Fear appears to still play such a great part, rather than an enjoyment of passing through the stages in life; each stage carries its own fears, whether the increase in responsibility (decision making) for ourselves, responsibility for others, loss of independence and freedom due to the demands upon us or to physical restrictions, also fears of growing up or getting older ~ ultimately a fear of change whether physical, circumstantial or perception.

 

There should be a serious question over where this fear comes from, is it really generated within us or is it generated and perpetuated within our social and societal framework? In either case, fear of change is a state of mind not an actuality, it is reality for us as that is how we experience it, and yet all too often it is possible to see alternatives and examples laid out by others if we chose to seek and observe them. I am a great proponent of tacit learning, whether you want to call it social learning theory, or just learning through the example of others, it is one of the most powerful personal development tools in our world today. So do we choose to have people around us perpetuating a fear of change? Fears that our innermost feelings are abnormal rather than normal? That we shouldn’t be feeling what we are; that there is something wrong with us, or that we are a problem. The continued struggle to cope with daily life whilst experiencing these awkward and challenging emotions; the way in which we reveal these emotions to others – passive aggressively, with confrontation, with uncertainty, with judgement, like a crashing wave or a perpetually lapping tide... What those precise emotions are will be unique to each of us, and yet the experience of them is common to us all. It is in part what makes us human.

Why am I saying all this? Because I believe emotional growing pains are not something to be afraid of, or to ignore, or to exacerbate with insecurity. They are normal, natural, to be acknowledged and accepted for what they are... periods of and for change. They are a chance to develop into an evolved version of yourself, not be feared but instead to be celebrated. There is on the whole quite an unhealthy attitude towards change and addressing our innermost feelings. There seems often a pain and an uncomfortability, a feeling that something is wrong with us, that we shouldn’t be having these feelings towards our family, or friends, or towards our lives... 

I think we should. I think it is really important to address and reassess our relationships to people and to the aspects within our lives. How else can we make improvements or things that little bit easier, or more comfortable or smoother? How else are we going to know what needs adjusting, more or less attention? To look at the natural world, we can accept freely and willingly that it changes on a near constant basis that plants continually grow and die, that seasons change, and yet our emotions can bind us so strongly to ideas or concepts of how things Should be that we lose sight of addressing how life Could be. This does not mean a pining towards an unachievable goal...”oh if I had money I would do this”...but a question of “what can I do about this now”? a recognition and acceptance of how you feel including, and especially, the negative emotions. It is a physical offering of reflection from your body to your mind, a way of saying ‘perhaps it is time to have a think about how I really feel about this’; an opportunity for greater understanding of ourselves and how we interact with life around us; a window to learn a lesson from life that can help us overcome the challenges we experience. It is also highly likely that within our environment (the things that we see and experience in the widest sense) there is atleast one positive frame of reference; whether a book, a person, a film, a song, a report or news item that can be used to encourage new or developed ways of thinking that support the adjustments that are beneficial to make.

I believe it important to make a clear distinction: emotions are not who we are but simply a guidance system to help shape and adjust our experiences through life. We can experience them to such depth that an emotion seems as though it becomes who we are, but it is not Us. The essence of who we are is apart from our emotional state. Even our personality is only in part, a physical representation of our life experiences and, learnt behaviour. Many mystic’s and religious texts talk of a soul or higher being, this is the frame of reference I chose to use as the most basic element of Who We Are. I would identify it in this context as a sophisticated collection of light strands whose composition provides us each with our own unique hue. Light does not have a personality, it has only what we project on to it, whatever we identify or perceive that colour or hue to mean. Why am I saying this, what is the context? I am using it to emphasise that our personality and the emotions we experience are a physical representation of this light and hue but they are not It. Making change does not mean that we are changing who we are, but merely adjusting the relationship we have to our external experiences. This is a far less threatening idea than the concept of change as changing our personality. More often than not it is only a change in perception where, like applying a colour filter to a picture, it does not change the components of the picture only how it is viewed. 

The essence of what I want to communicate is that from my perception, we owe it to ourselves and to those around us to take emotional growing pains seriously, to seek to recognise and identify their root cause and to seek a positive solution. That emotions are not who we are but an internal guidance system to help adjust and change the experiences we have; and that more often than not our experiences are due to our perception, not our personality. And finally that change whether internal or external is never to be feared, it only needs to be understood.

Pathfinding

The last few weeks I have spent a lot of time doing research for my forthcoming book Hello! The research has taken me on a wonderfully interesting journey chronically figureheads of science, astronomy, philosophy and theosophy from 4000BC to the Middle Ages to Present day. All the while I have been pondering what I can do right now. Whilst writing is my focus there has been something missing... something missing from the initial stages of this vision I am consumed by. I seem to work from large to small with the vision always starting at the outer levels: the grandest scale and then I have to work backwards to find out how to bring it to life. My mind has been searching for the starting point; every now and then an idea will pop up, I try it out, it hasn't worked so I go back to the drawing board, I've been looking for the atom of the idea...the catalyst. Then this week it finally hit me: Pathfinding. 

Pathfinding is a process of uncovering the factors that are most important to you. This can be within the content of yourself, your career, your home... There are a range of applications but here we are focused on the Professional and Career aspects. This process is designed to help you uncover what you really want to be doing, assess how that fits into what you’re doing now, and discuss what changes can be made to help you begin on the path as soon as the session is over.

It is something I have been doing since 2004 following a conversation with a friend who was having trouble working out what they wanted. This grew into a habit as people open up to me, those who were actively seeking to understand themselves better in a professional capacity would come and talk to me. We sit together for an hour and through a series of questions we draw out what is important and how these factors link together. The feedback I have consistently received is that these plans help set the blue print and journey that is realized by the individual over the coming years.

The focus is to help individuals identify their current purpose or role in life, to work out what function they want to play for wider society, with the concept that when we are doing work that we are happy with, we are 'feeding' ourselves and in doing so more able to help and support those around us... This founds itself in the concept of humans as a Self Organising System - the idea that when we are working in our truest capacity, fulfilling functions for ourselves and our communities (which includes our family and friends) we naturally create more cohesive environments. 

In thinking about how pathfinding fitted in to my overall vision I ended up with this diagram!