12/12
JW: Not sure it rose to the level of irony. I actually love having an open calendar … until I look at all that empty space and think, “What the hell is the matter with you, Joyce?"
I just found out Substack can be private … so we could make one and it would serve the purpose of our journey and be a repository for future pubs or sharing if desired. Better than Evernote I believe, so I’m glad you mentioned it.
If you want, I could set up a private Substack by Friday and we could assemble a first agenda and respond to it with comments for what might turnout to be a good tracking process.
I just came up with a few thoughts which might be for this agenda or future ones:
Defining success
Gathering ideas from existing sources
Overall paths … personal development, brain preferences,
Barriers … fears, etc
Using Substack
Schedule
Add to, modify, delete as desired.
And, although we seemed to think this was a tango, Substack, if it works the way I think it might, would allow involvement with others. I don’t know anyone else that would be a candidate but thought I’d mention it.
ER:
JW: Gotcha … makes sense … and only a little shadow wanting to be heard perhaps. Paying closer attention is probably one of the rules of the road.
One agenda item for Friday … the Parking Lot
ER: Hi just a quick response on the "staying on track" caveat. Staying on track implies that there's a set path to follow and one should adhere to it. But if I understand the spirit of the quest correctly, it's about wandering off paths or making your own path (and having the courage to do so) which is very different from following a path that's already been established.
And scattered is related to this because although my mind can go in some very strange and unusual directions I seem to run out of steam after a little while with an idea and then abandon it because I don't know what to do with it, because I can't see any way to “operationalize” it. So being scattered is a source of creativity but it's also a source of anxiety for me because I don't know how to bring things to fruition, and I have a hell of a time selecting between alternatives.
I realize I'm documenting my real and imaginary barriers here which is probably something I should pay closer attention to :-)
Good morning, Eric … questions are mounting. I’m curious about the use of “scattered." (Which I identify with.) I’ve been thinking all this overing I’ve been doing was related to not feeling worthy or needing validation … but, for me, the “scattered” sense is related to creativity, idea generation, over-abundance of possibilities. Maybe it’s both … but does the answer (the Holy Grail perhaps) lie in the direction of personal psychology or in the direction more of brain activity/preference … and does it matter?
I get the comfort of a structured job … although having been deemed unemployable (humorously) after taking a Kirton Adaptor/Innovator assessment, I recognized the restrictions of the structure and my tendency to want to do things my way and concluded I agreed with the unemployable designation. The years of InnovationNetwork gave me a happy medium. However, since then, out on the wide blue ocean bouncing around like a cork obviously has its own set of challenges.
I, too, value productive time and don’t quite grasp doing nothing. Does anyone ever do nothing? I have a long running challenge of understanding the doing vs. being thing.
"Stay on track" sounded good to me so I’m having to think about why that’s not a good analogy. ;-)
Perhaps this is a function of overdoing and another rabbit hole to avoid … however, I’m thinking we might want to document this journey in some way. We can’t be the only people having these challenges … could we?
Anyway, maybe some more conversation would clarify a few things and give us a starting point … something TO DO!!
Joyce
On Dec 12, 2022, at 7:48 AM, Eric Roth <ericwroth@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Joyce,
I can relate to the feeling of overdoing. One of the things my continued work life brings with it is that gnawing sense that I am suppose to be doing something productive Right Now! It still has me in it’s grasp because I can feel it bubble up duing the course of the day when I am wondering what to do next. As I reflect back on it, a big part of the reason I gravitated towards structured, salaried positions was the fact that they largely planned your life for you. Every decision about what to do had to be made in light of these “mandatory” obligations about where you would be and when, and what you would be doing. Change is indeed difficult.
I still privilege productive time over time doing nothing, despite my wish and intent that it were otherwise. For me this takes the form of being “scattered”, i.e. getting so many different things going that I don’t give any of them the attention they deserve, if I am to take myself seriously.
Which circle’s back to the Hero’s Journey and the promise it brings. As you point out it gives us the chance to talk, to engage in an on-going dialogue, to help each other keep with it (I almost wrote “stay on track" but then realized that’s the exact wrong analogy!) I wish we were closer as well as well, nothing stimulates a good conversation better than a walk in the woods.
Eric
12/11
ER:
That’s interesting. I have wanted to share particular passages from book with other people and have never figured out how to do it so this intrigues me - let me know how it goes…my immediate concern is I can barely keep up with the newsletters and such that invade my email inbox on a daily basis.
One another note, I have some additional things to add to our mix of ideas for the Heroes Journey, to wit: one, a biographical look at our personal heroes (and what made them such). That’s something that has rattled around the back of my mind for a long time, and this project can provide the impetus for actually doing it.
The possibility of a psychedelic retreat at some stage (maybe stage 8?). Another idea that has has been simmering for some time. Remember the references to a “heroic dose”?
I’m beginning to awaken to the possibilities of using this Hero’s Journey as a framework upon which to hang a lot of loose ends.
Let’s talk soon, maybe this week, about how to advance our agenda. Like you, I have a history of letting these ideas come and go, and I am impoverished when I do that.
ER:
The New York Times book review publishes a column every week in which they interview an author, 20-questions style, and among those questions is “what’s on your book stand? Apparently I am not the only one who has multiple books going at the same time, it appears to be a widespread phenomenon. So here’s my current list, lightly annotated:
Falling Upward by Richard Rohr, subtitled “A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life” This was loaned to me by a new friend who said “you sound like a seeker”
Neurosis and human growth; the struggle toward Self Realization by Karen Horney. Horney’s work is the theoretical basis of the personality surveys I use in my work.
Freedom and Accountability at Work by Peter Koestenbaum and Peter Block. Peter Block was one of my most significant mentors back in the day. Trying to import Existentialism into the business world is an incredibly courageous and possibly quixotic thing to do.
Cultural Backlash by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart. Subtitled “Trump,Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism”. This is my possibly misguided attempt to understand the forces that divide us. I say misguided because it’s pretty wonky (🙂) and runs to over 400 pages. So I don’t anticipate finishing it anytime soon - possibly not until after the issue is no longer relevant!
Unforbidden Pleasures by Adam Phillips (audiobook). Phillips is a psychoanalytically- trained, philosophically-inclined author who writes these meandering disquisitions on all manner of cultural customs that grab his interest (such as flirtation and tickling). He pretty much turns all our conventional assumptions on their heads and then shakes them up and sees what falls out.
I say all this to underscore how difficult it is to winnow down if you have an active imagination and are omni-curious, as you aptly put it. Which is another reason I am excited about the Hero’s Journey and also why I welcome the structure of book clubs, even if I resist it at the same time.
Peace,
Eric
12/9/2022
JW: I wonder if we’ve already set something in motion?
After an amazing session of work this am, I was dancing to NIA (an exerise/dance program I fell in love with years ago and which is finally On Demand on Internet). Midway, the words … “Say yes to change” repeated …
The question that arrived along with it was …
Might we already know what our Holy Grail is and it’s simply a matter of opening our eyes and having the courage to say “yes!”?
I don’t know if you read the post Soul Notes but it was about the imagined idea that when we come to earth, there is quickly forgotten note put into our pockets … our lives are spent noticing or ignoring the note, but when we finally “get it,” our whole life makes sense. It wouldn’t surprise me if we find that we received similar notes.
Probably enough for now.
Thanks for being on the journey.
12/8/2022 I’ve been looking for a cross-over version of the hero’s journey for personal growth rather than fiction.
What do you think about this one?
An interesting 11 minute video and good write-ups on each stage.
Lots of info from someone not trying to sell something.
Eric: That’s a nice and succinct description of the stages and a good summary in the video. I think the chart is the “heads” to the other chart's “tails”; the yang to the other chart's yin. Are we bringing our shadows along on this quest?
It’s not clear to me how to turn any of this into a personal, intrapsychic adventure but I remain open to the possibilities. Heroes remain fantasies to me, mythic figures that populate our imaginations but rarely show up in our quotidian world (have you noticed that none of our recent military adventures have produced war heroes?). But perhaps I’ve seen too many movies and I’m getting too literal here. I can see where the journey can be enlightening, edifying and even transformative but how do we replicate the challenges, ordeals and Herculean, death and rebirth elements of stage 8? Is that something we would even want at this late stage in our lives? The movie, Finding Joe talks about the need for courage. Makes sense to me. How would we test our mettle? Do we even have to?
It again strikes me that there’s commentary about how “most people don’t accept the challange/cross the threshold/ get stuck in a cycle". Ok then, who are those rare few who make it through and how are we like or not like them?
Perhaps, to answer my own question, we seek to define the big change as the outcome of our initial efforts. And the mentors who could guide us.
At any rate, I’m engaged with the questions and ready to give it a go….
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