“Millennia(l).” A poem for the impatient.

National Blog Post Month — Blog 2

I am a blip.

A blip on a blip.

A point on a wave, imperceivable to anyone able to perceive the wave.

Notionally, this blip, at the turning of the millennium welcomed the dawn of observing waves. Taking note of wake. Being woke.

As rocks fold over, under pressure of their own existence, waves of hard stone coalesce to impress upon this soft, fleshy blip, the consequence of time.

The static folds are easy to perceive. The waves carry a message in the grains and layers: it is meaningless. It is what it is from when it was, in the midst of constant change.

Notionally, this blip can choose what to be. Where to have wake. What to awaken to.

This blip will be a grain, amongst others, in just one layer.

For this second blog (on the second day… I’m keeping up so far!), I’m cheating a bit.

I wrote this poem a while ago. I may have been contemplating existence or mortality. Perhaps I had a hard day.

I was more likely reflecting on my general alignment to stoicism. That is possibly a result of my grounding as a geographer studying geomorphology (pun intended) and other grand processes. There are some things that are easy to let roll off one’s back when contemplating the violent long game of folding rocks.

I say general alignment because I also have difficulty with feeling impatience. As much as I know those fleeting moments of irritating delay are in fact fleeting and inconsequential, they are in the place of moments where there can be progress or momentum gained toward some better state. I only have moments, all of them inconsequential in the scope of rocks folding over. But they are my moments, often shared with people I care about. (I could also muse about accumulation here, too.)

My husband and I chat about our shared frustrations on this front often enough that he’s shifting towards my (darkish) side, and I’m contemplating being more like him. We’ve both experienced our own kinds of hell being too patient or not enough. So maybe we can coach each other on the boundaries we’ve tested?

“Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.” — Marcus Aurelius

Ultimately, I want kindness to prevail through all my actions. I believe there are multiple ways to be kind, some of which can make people feel uncomfortable, but that I still feel good about.

Related to this, there are two kinds of impatience I experience.

1. The unkind version that results from an elevated level of stress and leads me to give less Fs and have regrets.
2. The kind version, that is executed with precise intention to advance the interests of everyone, despite collective contribution to delay.

The second version often includes candor, or radical transparency as my friend rumon carter, expresses. Honesty leads to clarity, and being clear is being kind.

I think finding clarity should be everyone’s job in group process, but rarely do individuals step up to my unreasonable expectation. I’ve had only a few team experiences where this rough and tumble kindness comes naturally and fills everyone’s hearts. Even then, it takes time to nurture.

Most of the time, people are at the mercy of the trauma they’ve experienced from lack of care, lies, abuse, and other damaging relational behaviours that trigger them to avoid exposure through candor. Particularly if the candor is about a problem and especially if there is the toxic variety of appreciative inquiry to re-enforce self-soothing.

I could probably quote all kinds of Brene Brown here but I committed to write every day and it’s getting late already.

These are underlying reasons why I believe that (good) facilitation is so critical. It makes things easier to clarify, and unblocks us from progress, because people are able to release insights and sentiments that are important to our shared reality and work (and often, required collaboration).

I’ve contemplated just committing to show up as a facilitator, which would structurally limit my inclination for impatience. However, I think it’s pretty jarring for others, when there hasn’t been agreement that someone is going to facilitate…

Possibly, this is a practice I could start supporting in a more constructive way, rather than channeling my inner foldy rock blip.

Maybe I’ll just start asking: “who is facilitating us?”

I mean, I have yet to meet someone that will disagree with the sentiment that facilitated meetings are better meetings. (And now, if you’re in a meeting with me, you’ve seen my inner impatient asshole, so, you’re welcome.)

On the flip side (there’s always at least one): group processes don’t always need to do the things that make obvious progress on a particular matter. My wise and much more patient colleague Codie reminded me of this today. We can gather for other objectives, of course. Sometimes, it can be about settling into a team, or context, and creating the space for comfort or curiosity to emerge. That all makes candor easier, too.

I still want facilitation though. Being clear about the intention to gather for whatever purpose is still kind — even if the need to shift the purpose shows up in the middle of a meeting.

Candidly

I don’t need anyone to agree with my half-expressed philosophies, here. The exercise of #NaBloPoMo is to write, and my writing and sharing is useful to me. Bonus if I find a connection and exchange some wisdom.

I’ll also express though, that there’s always trepidation with conveying an inner thought to the outer world… as though it might fall to the ground and become some kind of permanent mark upon the strata of my identity… actually, that’s almost exactly what this is.

However, like the cumulation of rocky layers — folded, faded and worn — this one blip on the internet might be an interesting moment to inspect. Someday, it will be a dusty deposit of my momentary essence, shaped by the climate I’m experiencing now. A blip.

H