Joyfulness as Resilience
The unstitutional commons, a collective journey, is deep-spirited down to our roots and into our bones.
SpUNky spirit, soul and inspiration infuse everything we do.
pUNk embraces all that is raw, real and full of life.
Facing the ups and downs…surfing with the turbulent white water of life and work, we cut through to the heart and speak from the heart — with no bullsh*t and plenty of [tough] love.
…pUNk, is really all about spirit and soul of all kinds. Solar punk , lunar punk and other iterations have emerged. Perhaps aging well like old wine— pUNk in its varied forms stands the test of time — old vintage in new bottles remembered…newly savoured. Essence lives on. It reflects the timelessness of the human spirit that shines through no matter what challenges we face.
Our spUNkiness helps us resist anything that sucks-the-life out of people — diminishing life itself…
At its core, pUNk is life affirming, and bursting with love and joy.
🎶 Joy as an Act of Resistance…a famous album by the IDLES 🎶…a source of inspiration…a variation on the theme.
Definition of resilience: The ability to be happy again after something difficult or bad has happened ~ Cambridge Dictionary
The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness; the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity ~ Oxford Dictionary
We are relentlessly and unwaveringly optimistic and radically real at the same time.
We don’t downplay the seriousness of escalating meta-perma-poly crises. We embrace futures literacy, grounded in the present here-and-now while inspiring, holding and living into imaginative possibilities.
We dance with paradox, holding the tension of polarities. We resist dysfunctional polarization. We work hard to understand and to be understood, recognizing and accepting how difficult this can be for any and all of us — at any given time — depending on the context, our lived experience and [ad]vantage points.
Perhaps…we need to learn how to ‘acclimatize’ to the existential messiness of life and living. What becomes unimpossible when we individually and collectively zoom in and zoom out…inhaling/exhaling…adapting to the realities of the ‘climate’ we experience and shape…within and across the changing contexts and landscapes of our relational work and life experiences?
We can’t know unless we try. And if we don’t try with intentionality…going with the flow-of-living…what then, do we make of the sacred meaningfulness of life? And…if we don’t feel and create joyfulness along the way…how can we strengthen our healthy resilience for the ongoing journey?
Resilience is not a trampoline, where you’re down one moment and up the next. It’s more like climbing a mountain without a trail map. It takes time, strength, and help from people around you, and you’ll likely experience setbacks along the way. But eventually you reach the top and look back at how far you’ve come. ~ Katie Hurley LCSW
We are all living through challenging times, navigating through sh*t…We call it deep SHfT. This can easily wear us down if we lose sight of the joyful, creative moments that are here, right in front of us in the present — often hiding in plain sight.
Not all the moments can be joyful…some of them…many of them…are [necessarily] anguished. That is life…We let those feelings ebb and flow. We feel. We observe. We choose [as much as possible] not to allow our spirits to dim for too long.
The capacity for joy is as essential to the human spirit as the capacity for suffering ~ Gabor Maté
Resilience helps us bounce back, bounce along and bounce forward — fully recognizing that some of those bounces are painfully experienced hard knocks…
Some are more like a beating drum 🥁 that helps us find our rhythm, stay-the-course and stay true to our heart-centred purpose…
Resilience has sticking power. In the midst of complexity and uncertainty, resilience is an enabling life force that can see us through the long haul. Widening our [trans]contextual lens…becoming more fluent and fluid contextualizing our interconnected and interdependent experience — helps us build resilience.
Sometimes it helps to play with spirited sPUNky words — ways to bring what’s on the inside…out…and what’s on the outside…in — to shine a light or cast new light…to bridge the [artificially inflicted and/or imposed] divides…
Living between worlds, we are also living between words. Our words can captivate or widen gaps. Too often they also trap and ensnare. We need our words to build bridges…to invite ways of seeing with fresh eyes.
Many of our labels, words and metaphors ring hollow…and so we endeavour to find new labels and words, new (re)combinations, new metaphors and symbols that might reach out wider and deeper — (re)igniting the imagination of our spirit and souls.
Perhaps more than ever, we need our words to spark joy…to inspire hope…to reach and touch our souls…
We need our words to shape new stories while honouring time-honoured old stories, tapping our capacity for love-of-life and the living-ness that matters above all else — where meaning resides.
Nora Bateson coined the term symmathesy. Derived from Greek, it means learning together. It encapsulates,“how living systems are in constant (trans)contextual mutual learning….ever-learning, ever-combining, ever-forming and in-forming… nature never does one thing at a time.”
Living is learning…learning contributes to our resilience. Resilience enhances our capacity for joy and joy deepens our resilience. The implications of that simple reality…profound.
Collaboration and co-creation contribute to mutual learning and co-intelligence. The noun coalition comes from the Latin word coalitiō — meaning to grow together. Bringing people together from across all divides — sectors, disciplines, cultures, generations, genders and all walks-of-life — is the lifeblood of our commons mission to reboot society’s operating system. Strength in diversity, like all adaptive living systems, also enhances our resilience.
Rare or obsolete words can also be pulled out of retirement and put to good use. Here are a few others that resonate, found in Paul Anthony Jones’s book The Cabinet of Calm: Soothing words for Troubled Times:
…Respair and Meliorism
Respair [a noun and a verb] is the return of hope after a period of despair and to have hope again.
To sustain the energy to keep going, the human spirit is fuelled by optimism and hope — grounded hope, not blind hope that wears thin.
Out of this darkness a new world can arise, not to be constructed by our minds so much as to emerge from our dreams. Even though we cannot see clearly how it’s going to turn out, we are still called to let the future into our imagination. We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts. ~ Joanna Macy
Meliorism is the belief that the world, or society, may be improved and suffering alleviated through rightly directed human effort.
We all need a big dose of respair, and meliorism. Together, there is much we can be, do and are doing to live and live into these. Our maxims about teeth, wisdom and hope playfully cut to this, along with adaptive navigation strategy and stages that are both organic AND by design.
“Civil society needs teeth and business and governments need to gain wisdom…for all of us to have hope.”
“We need wisdom with teeth!”
So…yeah, we definitely need a good replenishable supply of joy, respair and meliorism to build up the resilience needed that keeps us persisting, collaborating, co-creating and learning — pursuing our big hairy mission, dancing with monsters and embracing our messy humanness.
Joy can be infectious. We can catch it. We can share it. We can spread it around…
If this resonates…you’ve got spUNky spirit too.
What gives you joy?
Join us in a joyful dance. We can explore some of the special moves that move us. We can uncover, recover and co-discover more joy. We can co-create together — nurturing a deep [reframed] sense of belonging.
Some after notes…
The words we choose, craft and use are important. The meanings and possibilities we attach to our words — matter. Our tendencies to become too attached to our words and labels can also create barriers. Our ability to let go of some of our words and experiment with new ones can open up new portals to understanding and creative possibilities.
We are barely scratching the surface here…
We’ve been crafting and adapting an Unstitution Lexicon over the past three years — an interactional source of inspiration for our work and the articles published and regularly updated here on Medium. We seek to build and bridge greater clarity and understanding — crucial to all aspects of collaborative engagement.
A living work-in-progress, the lexicon reflects many of the concepts and words we choose, adopt and use. We’ve observed that many commonly used words conjure varying interpretations. We’ve redeemed and/or reframed some words and concepts that seem to have lost their original meaning or value. Inventing a few new terms or expressions captures some of our unstitutional spirited intent.
The lexicon provides another fractal-like glimpse into the unstitutional ethos. Sometimes we labour to mindfully choose our words. Sometimes we spontaneously let them flow…then we reflect and adapt. We recognize that language can be a clumsy tool. The power of this stuff meaningfully comes alive and activated in relationships — as we engage, interrelate and make sense and meaning within and across the ever-changing contexts of our ongoing work.
*This article was updated April 2024, with additional reflections and links to several articles as we continue to observe, listen, assimilate, curate and adapt — a learning journey for us all.
Unstitution was birthed as a collective creative commons and nested ecosystem. We (co-)catalyze and support collaborative communities, initiatives and coalitions where people from across sectors, disciplines, cultures, generations and walks-of-life work together on mission critical issues. From readiness through to regenerative progress — moving beyond polarization — is how we roll. The links embedded throughout this article are a warm invitation to go a bit deeper, at any time. For more insights reflecting our ongoing journey, our suite of Unstitution articles are published on Medium. They portray a small sample of the ways we are adapting and contributing among ever-expanding commons-based communities and initiatives inspired and fuelled by citizens — perhaps better described as denizens — anywhere in the world — living into the principles and spirit that govern our collaborative work.
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