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Culture implies shared meaning,
in which everyone participates.
Culture is inherently participatory.
David Bohm, Theoretical Physicist, On Creativity
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We often consider our collective creative expressions
across an entire society as culture.
At an even higher level,
we may refer to a universal,
collective "oneness" with all things as spirit.
Though we have varied perspectives on this uniqueness -
this creative "essence" -
the crucial point is that all of our creative expressions
are essential and valuable,
though they emerge in a multitude of forms.
We all have a role to play,
an expression to share,
a voice to contribute,
in creating community.
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Life’s natural tendency is to organize.
Life organizes into greater levels of complexity
to support more diversity and greater sustainability.
Life organizes around a self.
Organizing is always an act of creating an identity.
Life self-organizes.
Networks, patterns, and structures emerge
without imposition or direction.
Organization wants to happen.
People are intelligent, creative, adaptive,
self-organizing, and meaning seeking.
Organizations are living systems.
They too are intelligent, creative,
adaptive, self-organizing and meaning-seeking.
Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers, A Simpler Way
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Our collective expressions
emerge in a multitude of forms –
not only as "art" or "work,"
but as facets of shared identity ....
relationship …
organization …
community …
society ...
and, as a whole, these creations
comprise the collective expression
we call culture.
In their book A Simpler Way,
Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers
share a profound truth:
Life organizes around identity.
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Whether it be a tribe, an organization or a community,
systems organize around identity, around meaning –
what these authors call “the self of the system”:
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A system lives in … a world whose meaning it has made.
It becomes who it is by what it has chosen to be.
Every system takes form from the self it has created.
It is the self of the system that compels it
toward particular actions and behaviors.
It is the self that defines meaning.
Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers, A Simpler Way
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Moreover, each self is creative:
Every self is visionary.
It wants to create a world where it can thrive.
What identity does your life revolve around?
What is the true nature of your creative self?
What is your unique creative contribution to the world?
What expression are you sharing
with others in, and beyond,
your ORBITS OF INFLUENCE?
We encourage you to explore
these questions here at ...
and share your creative expressions ...
your sense of who you are ...
in our welcoming community
of kindred, creative spirits ... | |
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