
I've been thinking a lot lately about patterns. It started intellectually enough. For my birthday, a friend of mine had given me the small book by Stephen C. Lundin, Cats: The Nine Lives of Innovation- Companies Don't Innovate- People Do. In a nutshell, it's all about how to stimulate, organize, and express creativity and new ideas at work. It's a new take on the whole think outside the box phenomenon. Now, months later, I've finally gotten around to reading it, and while most of it are thing's I've heard before, I was struck by this passage by the author:
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During those IMS years, I was also actively involved in teaching MBA students. Being someone who is always looking for ways to use what is happening in one part of my life in another part of my life, IMS provided a way to enhance my lectures as a business school teacher, so I attended all the lectures and took extensive notes, in Mind Map form, of course. The years passed, and my Mind Maps became quite extensive, but with each new lecture on change, I added fewer and fewer branches.
Then something interesting happened. The body of knowledge began to shrink. It began to move from complex to simple. Branches were merged, and core themes became more obvious. Once I found the simplicity inside the complexity of one subject, I began looking for it in all that I did. My knowledge files became elegant and more available. I now believe this can happen in any field when you reach the level of mastery.
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The notion came to me that this was indeed what was happening everyday in all aspects of life. And certainly, it's something to aspire to. But how does it happen? Therein lies my conjecture. It happens through habit, repetition, and patterns. One thing I've come to know is that people don't change. In reality this is so freeing, especially when you realize this about yourself. Everything that was me before is me after- the good, the bad, and the so-so. If what Lundin says is true, then maybe it's those patterns that contribute to the circling around and through of the universe...the phenomenon of the lessons we need to learn circling back to us. But if people don't change, then where and what is the journey? It's not about change, it's about fulfilling purpose.
I haven't changed, but through my experiences, the dormant aspects of me have become powered up and amplified out of necessity, out of demand. And the unsavory ones, yeah they're still there too. I procrastinate as much as ever, and my predilction for dick hasn't gone anywhere either. But they're part of me. If you take something away, you take something else away with it, too. The journey isn't about making every aspect of a person positive, it's about equanimity, balance, and nature. If 2007-2008 was about discovering my strengths, 2009 has shown me what to do with them. And already....something complex has cycled back and become simple again. And the universe will demand from you ultimately what it needs from you. If not now, then later. But it will always call to you, and beg of you to listen.
And it did
For three years, the labyrinth called. Yesterday, I answered.
There was one at the church, but Maestro had something different in mind, so 40 minutes NE of Toledo I found it on a hillside amongst the pines. It was quiet, and still, except for the rain. It had been sunny and hot in T-Town, but here the clouds rolled in. At the entrance to the center, it was a downpour. He explained the process and left me to the woods. I almost changed my mind, soaking wet, grass and mud squishing between my sandaled toes. Yet I couldn't have been closer, and I believed that everything had a purpose. I walked silent and drenched, but I didn't dare wipe my dripping face. This wasn't about vanity.
At the center, the rain stopped, and the test of faith evaporated into the cool breaths of a baptism. At the center, God remained both present and mysterious. Isn't that his way? But this I know; There are so many good things ahead, "And some things," he said, "I'll have to figure out for myself." Fair enough. But I know that the labyrinth I walk everyday is the right one.
Walking back to the car, I turned to look once more: "Wherever you are, so shall I be."
And as I walk forward the branches will indeed continue to be merged, and all of those things that seemed at once so complex will become something beautiful in their simplicity.