1. Memories
Old age brings certain gifts, as long as we are open to receiving them. For me, one of these gifts is sudden and unexpected recollections from a past fast-receding from temporal view. Now and again, yet increasingly with each passing week, shards of memories long forgotten break surface with astounding precision. I am able to watch my past self with wrapt fascination. The pattern is always the same. A sound, scent, or some other sensation triggers a hiatus in what I happen to be doing. Nebulous mists clear to reveal vaguely familiar shapes before intimate details mob me and stop me in my tracks.
I had such an experience yesterday while watching a new movie. Greyhound tells the story of an inexperienced World War II US Navy captain, played by Tom Hanks, who must protect an Allied convoy of supply ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean while being stalked by Nazi U-boat wolfpacks. Towards the end of the movie Tom Hanks sinks to his knees, giving thanks to his God that he and his crew survived the ordeal. Instantly I realised what I was viewing was a mirror of a long-buried childhood experience.
Having embraced Buddhism at the age of 13, casting aside the doctrine in which I had been raised, I had also inadvertently purged most memories relating to that time. Only now I remembered...
Each evening as a child my mother taught me to pray on my knees to her Christian God. A kindly soul by all accounts, but one who stubbornly refused to make himself known to me. Nonetheless from the age of eight, whether at home or in the school dormitory, I knelt and prayed. My petition was simple, and it was the same each evening. God, look after mummy. Make me a good boy. And if you see my daddy please tell him that I love him. Amen.
At that stage, you see, all I knew was that my father had suddenly vanished from my life. As my solitary idol, he left a vacuum that could never be filled. I would not discover the truth of what happened to him for another 37 years - after I received a letter. A hand-written note, barely legible in an unschooled scrawl. A note from a stranger. My father. In the note an awkwardly expressed affection, along with an intimation he would like to see me.
The note arrived too late. I would not see my father again. There was no grieving at the news of his death. I had been through that torment decades before. There was no pain left. But the instant I realised how I used to pray so dutifully every day was shockingly poignant.
How did that daily ritual affect me? What good did my prayers do? Did they bring relief and comfort to my sorrow? Or did they simply prolong ingrained uncertainties? What bearing did the routine have on my state of mind and emotional development? Was it to blame for how I feel today about the covert menace of religious righteousness?
2. Righteous
I do not know. I cannot answer these questions. But there is another point to all of this. As a Buddhist, I try to live by tenets resonating from the spiritual praxis acquired throughout my life – particularly through grief. For me, this means tolerating those whose attitudes do not accord with mine – even when they detest me and everything I value. Humility. Doing what I can to be a worthy ancestor. Showing compassion for those who struggle. Mindful reflection preceding action. And a deep love for the sacredness of life. Not bad values to live by, and undoubtedly shared with many others.
Most importantly though, these tenets have taught me not to impose my beliefs on others. My credo is as simple as that childhood prayer. In spite of our heritage, acquired status, and superfluous titles, nobody enters this world any more or less inferior than anyone else. We are all born into conditions over which we have no control and very little influence. The only significant disparities between a monarch and a pauper are the inheritance of wealth, the delusions arising from that accident of birth, and deference shown by minions who hope to profit from their fawning behaviour.
What we are able to accomplish during our brief time here differs only inconsequentially. Expecting nothing in return for an act of kindness, offered in a spirit of generosity by a poor person towards a stranger, or from a child to an elder, is worth far more than a truckload of philanthropic dollars distributed by billionaires who want to feel good, look good and, if possible, get a tax break.
Eventually, we are all condemned to an end-game over which there can be no appeal. I have no right to judge others when I cannot read their story, feel their suffering, appreciate their circumstances, or truly put myself in their shoes. To do so is old-style hubris.
3. Hubris
Yet business schools still happily churn out old-style managers who are constantly told to apply such hubris – based upon a plethora of conflicting excuses for why others should heed their wisdom and in the warped belief that their status bestows upon them the right to motivate others - or to inflict penalties when those they aim to inspire are insufficiently enthused.
Likewise, organisations managed by armies of freshly-minted MBAs still incorrectly assume that controlling people is as easy as applying statistical methods and software development routines to improve processes and manage projects. This is the industrial-military method applied uncritically. Indeed, even the most recent management fads are bound up with these mechanistic derivatives.
The imposition of pointless, mind-numbing, often humiliating work today is the result of such hubris, together with the continued fragmentation of knowledge that occurs when we continue to compartmentalize organisations for reasons of efficiency and control.
Up to 30 percent of all work can be sorted into categories where it is impossible to find adequate explanations for its existence. In fact, many jobs seem to be designed purely to keep us busy doing something. Anything!
And while technology has advanced to the extent that many jobs are superfluous, and a 15-hour working week is certainly feasible and has been proven beneficial in any number of experiments, the puritanical work ethos that demands we labour for 40 hours or more seems to be ingrained. The result is a plague of pointless drudgery in an ocean of unrelenting tedium.
4. Tedium
It is hardly surprising that such drudgery would lead to high levels of staff disengagement. The managerial feudalism that persists in so many corporations puts people off work and generates mental health problems. According to Gallup, only 13 percent of all employees find their work engaging. Meaningless work, inadequate resources, a chronic misuse of talent, and a lack of trust in management are the major causes of this disenchantment.
But if we examine the 20 percent who are actively disengaged, one major factor stares us in the face: it is the obstacles self-motivated and creative individuals face when taking the initiative, experimenting, or attempting to dispense with age-old protocols they know to be hindering productivity.
Irrespective of the industry, market, location, or size of the company hubris, together with the delusions of control or power arising from such vanity, invariably stand in the way of exceptional performance. Traditionally managed organisations will have none of this of course. Boards and senior executives operating within the mainstream corporate power structures get far too much pay, preening attention, and other incentives to contemplate changing their command and control mindsets.
Believe it or not, even when agile, adaptive, or navigational approaches are regularly used by the most shrewd and forward-looking enterprises, an unhealthy preoccupation with targets, critical success factors, performance indicators, and appraisals, as well as a host of other teeming distractions, can deter collaboration, hijack the learning metabolism, and compromise the productivity potential of the entire enterprise.
It is not difficult to eliminate tedium from any enterprise – assuming a flat structure where talented, self-motivated individuals can take risks, collaborate, and experiment. Indeed, many entrepreneurial startups are able to rapidly scale-up using liquid structures where the dynamic flows of information and activities, lightning-fast decisions, peripatetic teams, and fractal leadership, interact transparently.
Working for companies like Valve, Zappos, Tik Tok, Atlassian, Canva, Legal Monkeys, or Aurecon, for example, is intrinsically inspiring. In these open environments, purpose and passion drive effort while management simply morphs into collaboration. Work becomes a fearless, fluid adventure, where no one is there to tell you what to do or to reprimand you when you make a mistake. Of course, you might not think it sensible to inflict this kind of open structure in companies demanding the precise coordination of complex activities, such as an international airline, for example. But to impose management orthodoxies in organisations like those above would be an act of sheer folly.
5. Folly
The British physicist Steven Hawking asserted that greed and stupidity would be the downfall of humanity. Although I am hesitant to contradict such a proposition, I venture to suggest that love and compassion are the two things that might yet save us. Nevertheless, even that small step will require us to see things differently, accept new ways of relating to each other and nature, and develop a new moral consciousness.
Actually, the more haunting question for me is whether or not we Sapiens are wise enough to survive our own undeniable ingenuity and ability to endure. This was the question that provoked the founding of the Centre for the Future. It is a question that continues to preoccupy me.
Examples of extreme stupidity are all around us of course, but none more so than in the indefensible ways we choose to relate to each other and to nature.
Individuals can be very smart – such defines the spirit of entrepreneurship. And most entrepreneurs consult widely in order to scale their ideas collaboratively. But when even the most intelligent people get together in board rooms and parliaments, any collective wisdom we might have assumed can vanish in a confusion of ego, dogma, risk aversion, and a tendency to rebrand what is known rather than venturing into new realms of inquiry.
Part of our collective stupidity today derives from an innate self-confidence. Today this is boosted by our unprecedented capability, via social media, to connect with and to hear what everyone else is thinking. This coupling can lead us into situations where it is easy to assume our opinions are equally valid to others - even when it is not based on verifiable evidence. For example, you might establish your views about climate change on scientific data from a panel of experts, whereas I have simply adopted the opinion of a celebrity I happened to see on television who gave me the impression he knew what he was talking about.
When emotionally amplified, this coupling of confidence with connectivity can also give rise to situations in which we are either offended or outraged. That too is a problem because both emotions open us up to easy manipulation and there are always unscrupulous people ready to take advantage of that.
Certainly, it is the case that stupid, outraged, or easily offended individuals are far more convinced of the accuracy of their views than smarter people who tend to sustain doubts and uncertainties. Moreover, because of our predilection for educating by fragmenting knowledge to fit highly specialized work structures, rather than the other way around, we have created conditions that amply demonstrate the hazards inherent in allowing this to continue.
Take science, for example, which is one of the best ways we have of understanding the world in which we live. Science is inevitably provisional, as is truth. Yet stupid people seek certainty in science. Once having found their truth, they then latch onto it with unwavering passion.
This penchant many of us have developed for trusting our instincts over objective data partially explains why incumbent plutocrats find the conception of a world where conflict, wars, and other forms of violence exist, utterly acceptable. In their world, it is legitimate to bully the weak, rob the poor, threaten those with whom they disagree, and assassinate those whom they fear.
As for ordinary citizens like us, we have meekly tolerated this state of affairs. It endures because of our apathy. We stand idly by, paying no attention to constant warnings that the breakdown of our climate and the unravelling of so many natural ecosystems must be treated as a global emergency. We continue to elect corrupt and uncaring officials who stigmatize and stereotype the homeless and the poor as parasites and workers as lesser mortals. And all the time we put up with this, cocooning ourselves in a zone of delusion where our ultimate purpose is to own more and more stuff we do not really want.
In effect, we are all contributing to a world in which the gradual emaciation of any moral or spiritual imperative is becoming normalized.
6. Normal
Normalcy is in the news – as is talk of the “new” normal – whatever that might mean in what is already looming as a decade of disruption. Most public attention at the moment is focused on the current pandemic and speculation concerning a “post-pandemic” world. Given the likelihood of further, potentially highly virulent outbreaks, from known and new viruses, I would have thought it highly imprudent to frame the short-term future in terms of a post-anything world!
Although the universal public response to COVID-19, rather than the virus itself, has led to the most fundamental socio-economic crisis experienced by our generation, it is still unclear as to what extent we will be able to carry on with life as usual - least of all what we should take with us, and leave behind, from that period prior to the outbreak when so many of our life-critical systems were already beginning to stutter and fail.
What the coronavirus is doing in such spectacular fashion is to reveal the deep fault-lines and systemic fragility existing in the world we have carefully crafted. It is as though nature has given us this virus as a dress rehearsal for what we might expect going forward – the chance to bring a regenerative consciousness to bear on human activities.
Human brains possess a great deal of plasticity, so there is little doubt we can adapt to new circumstances once the fog has cleared, as long as conditions on the planet remain conducive to life. But too many of the current batch of politicians and industry leaders, eager to see a return to business-as-usual, remain trapped in the mental coordinates of a world that no longer exists. They yearn to return to the comfort of a familiar past, over which they assumed they had control.
The truth is becoming clearer each day that passes. The longer the current crisis persists, and much depends in that regard on how soon we acquire herd immunity or an effective vaccine can be invented, the greater the likelihood we will underestimate the damage being done to the social fabric of society and, as a consequence, the degree to which massive change will be required. Then again, if it is bad for more affluent societies, the potential collapse of all economic activity will be catastrophic for the least-developed, most vulnerable nations.
Critical questions, too, concern the nature of the emerging world order. Will we see the unravelling of financial and trade globalisation? Will national interests dominate? How will the international community treat an increasingly formidable yet intrinsically problematic China and a deeply divided US at the point of civil conflict? Will economic integration be a fading dream as the relatively free movement of people across national borders ceases?
And what about business? Will retail malls, the daily commute into the city office, the law firm, the schoolyard, and the university campus fade into the memory? If so will innovation be unleashed in sufficient amounts to replace these institutions and generate the dramatic improvements in productivity where it is actually needed? I must admit this speculation of massive change and its consequences is making me feel nostalgic for the world we might be leaving behind...
7. Nostalgia
Nothing is permanent of course. As we have seen, even science is ephemeral. Nostalgia is also a seductive liar. Attachment to the material world and old habits such as those briefly mentioned above are ultimately of little consequence. In the end, though, the manner in which we are able to deal with our various attachments shapes and defines us.
These days my attachment to material objects is declining in alignment with my pursuit of a more peaceful, less hectic, existence. Of course, that quest has been accelerated by the current pandemic. Even in this remote part of Thailand, it is impossible to escape the aura of fear that has us in its grasp. Here though I am surrounded by my art and music. To lose these would be a great sacrifice. My MacBook, too, has become the repository of ideas, feelings, and projects stretching back over two decades. I would not want to lose it. But if I did I would cope.
In terms of affiliation, the affection I feel for humanity and for this planet our home, grows stronger and more resolute each day, while a committed detachment from the deeds of greedy, powerful, individuals, and the ways in which they have designed systems for their own benefit, at least gives me the courage to do the work I do.
I think back on those memories of my childhood with growing affection. Even those that are cocooned in sadness and grief, like the loss of my father.
What I have found exceedingly difficult to deal with is my attachment to these memories along with some highly personal artifacts from the past. Many years ago, an entire collection of my music, which had been recorded over a period of seven years, and which had been left in trust with one of my children, disappeared. There were no copies. After the initial anger had subsided, and I managed to work through the grief and sense of personal loss, I felt as though a part of me had been rubbed out, leaving only a fading, blurred daguerreotype.
More recently I discovered several hand-written letters dating back half a century, were missing from an antique Chinese chest in which I keep original scores and other assorted memorabilia. There was a pen and ink letter from the poet Ted Hughes, for example, responding to my setting of his poems Eros and King of Carrion, from this book Hawk in the Rain, which had received its premiere at the Edinburgh Festival. And another very brief note from my teacher Nadia Boulanger to my mother, assuring her of my talent.
Such bits and pieces are irreplaceable. The sense of loss inevitably cuts deep, even when they remain intact in the memory and are assuaged through the lens of Buddhist practice.
Buddhism teaches us not to become too attached to things. Indeed, one of the four noble truths in Buddhist scriptures asserts desire and attachment to be the sources of so much dissatisfaction and suffering. I must confess that I still find this a difficult precept to live by and a dilemma I have constantly wrestled with. Most material possessions I found easy enough to discard. I never owned property until I was 70 years old, for example, though my fondness for books, contemporary art, and music scores provides me with the greatest joy imaginable. Old age certainly brings gifts in its wake. As long as we are still open to receiving them.
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