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In working with groups, especially doing planning, I am constantly struck by how hard it is for people to move from ideas to action. A lot of the time people are happy to brainstorm, and then consider action planning to be little more than a list of things starting with “we need to do this” or “we should do that.” Sometimes (!) groups will even get as far as making tables or lists with responsibilities assigned to specific names. But that is still not action.
I often wonder if the size and magnitude of some tasks dissuade people from taking action. In fact, action is a process and it unfolds in stages. One need not do everything right away. All one needs to do is the first thing. And then the next thing. Doing this makes things easier. When I am working with groups on planning, whether in Open Space or with another process, I always invite people to identify the one things they can personally do to get ideas out of the room. Often this is a simple as setting a time and date for a follow-up conversation. Regardless, it is the simple, small, steps that bring big ideas to life.
I was trolling through the weblog of guitarist Robert Fripp the other day and I came across his advice to his students on action. Fripp has only just started to use permalinks, so I’ve quoted him at length as the piece now seems to have disappeared:
Here is a question: what do you do when you have no enthusiasm, no interest, and no energy? The answer is simple. You cook lunch. And then you wash it up, clean the bathrooms, run the office, practice guitar, practice silence, and cook dinner.
Here is another question: what do you do when you can’t do anything? The answer is simple. You do what has to be done. Like cook lunch, wash it up, clean the bathrooms, run the office, practice guitar, practice silence, and cook dinner.
The principle is this: suffer cheerfully. You are now being asked to deliver on your commitment to the course. Any fool can change the world, but it takes a real hero to cook lunch without demur, without complaint, and with a smile. This point of reliability is the basis of the spiritual life.
The one greatest single thing that I have learnt from Guitar Craft, this remarkable and unfolding action of which we are all privileged to be a part, is the inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse. The Creation is creating itself all the time. This is not a finite event. It is ongoing. And we are part of this ongoing creation if we wish to be, and if we wish to place ourselves at the service of the creative impulse. Guitar Craft is only one example of the remarkable emergence of a major action of healing within our troubled world. The creative impulse, which invents Guitar Craft as it goes, is itself a vehicle for a far greater power, the power which maintains the Creation. In a word, love. The healing power, the power of making whole, of making holy that which is already holy but fragmented, acts through agents. Love does not exist, because it is not a power which can be constrained by existence. But, as we all know, love is quite real. To be present in the world it must be borne and carried by loving agents. The creative power is also a power which is beyond existence. To be present in the world it must be expressed through play, this creative action which is quite necessary. Play is spontaneous, in the moment and seeks no outcome, no result. The play of craftsmen and artists is in the moment, but moves from intention and seeks to generate repercussions.
I suggest that all of us have some sense of this, whatever words we may use to express it.
If we wish to participate within the loving, creative unfolding of our world, we place ourselves at the service of this unfolding. Because this is so much at variance with what we would call “a normal way of living”, most of us need instruction, techniques, exercises and help. If we are clear that this is really what we wish, we test this wish.
The particular challenge of a Level Three course is crossing The Great Divide. The Great Divide is with us in many small processes throughout our day, but generally we can escape from it, for several reasons. But over a period of three months it hits hard. The Great Divide is a necessary and inevitable part of any and every process. It is where we are too far from the beginning to go back, and too far from the end to go forward. It is the point where processes break down and go off course.
If we wish to be vehicles for the creative impulse, it is no good falling apart en route. The passenger gets thrown out. Our friend love gets dumped in the mud, and our pal healing action gets helped into the ditch. So, we must introduce a small point of certainty. This is commitment. Commitment carries us through The Great Divide. Commitment comes from who we are, and exerts a demand upon what we are. I have just read again the aims declared at the beginning of the course. Consider them again for yourselves. Is this real for me or just fine words?
Commitment is to be practised daily. And here is a small beginning to this practice. It is an exercise called The Job For The Day (exercise omitted). There are three areas in which jobs may be done:
1. For ourselves;
2. For the house;
3. For the community.
The principle which I find helpful when confronting The Great Divide is this:
Establish the possible, and then move gradually towards the impossible.
So, when nothing seems possible, look and see one small action which is possible. And then discharge it. It may be as heroic as getting out of bed. And then cleaning your teeth.
The Level Three gives you a taste of what is actually involved in basing one’s life on craft principles, whether we have any interest in playing guitar or not. Our rule of life is this: act on principle, move from intention.
Basing the significant on the insignificant, the great on the small, the impossible on the possible.
