Of Ghosts, Blogs and Undigested karma

This month, 'Simplicity at the other side of complexity' is completing one year. When I started this blog, I wasn't sure about how it was going to evolve. One year and forty posts later, the situation remains more or less the same, though some patterns have emerged.

The nature of posts in this blog has become more focused - on Human Resources, Organization Development and Personal Effectiveness (as opposed to being scattered in the broader domains of 'life and work'). The posts have also become more 'experience driven' - with the concept/ theory part limited mainly to concepts/inferences that emerge from the situations/experiences. I got to know a quite a few great people through this blog and I have greatly benefited from the interactions with them. Of late ,I have noticed that the comments/ discussions around many of the posts are longer (and more interesting !) than the posts themselves ! (see 'Career Planning and the myth of Sisyphus')

It is interesting to note that this 'evolution' mirrors (to some extent) the basic theme of this blog - 'Simplicity @ the other side of Complexity'. By the way, I have kept the name of blog as 'Simplicity at the other side of Complexity' (as opposed to 'simplicity on the other side of complexity'), to stress the point that this simplicity is something that one 'arrives at' (with a significant amount of effort) after working through/wrestling with the complexity. This blog also gave me the opportunity to explore the paradoxes and opportunities in the people management domain. I am sure that the process of grappling with these paradoxes and dilemmas has helped a lot in enriching my understanding of the HR/OD domain in particular and life in general!

There is a concept in 'Tantric philosophy' that ghosts get created because of 'undigested karma'. I feel that 'ghosts' could get created in the domain of thoughts also - because of 'undigested incidents' (i.e. the undigested thoughts arising from the incidents). The ideal way to exorcise these ghosts is to listen to them, revisit those incidents/thoughts and deal with them properly to ensure that the thoughts/ideas are digested/absorbed/integrated. In a way, it is very similar to the regurgitation/'chewing the cud' behavior of some animals (called 'ruminants'). This blog has given me an opportunity to exorcise quite a few of such ghosts (see 'Competencies and Carbohydrates' for an example).

Many of my posts contain stories (fables, legends, anecdotes and myths). I feel that it is mainly because of the nature of the thoughts discussed in those posts. Many of these thoughts/ideas deal with things like 'reality', 'essential nature', 'meaning', 'wisdom' etc. that are very difficult to express in words.

Stories have the capability to 'capture' complex meanings , though these 'meanings' are not contained in the words/text of the story. Actually, the role of the words/text of the story is to 'trigger' the 'meaning' in the mind of the reader. Thus, stories can be very useful in capturing and communicating thoughts/ideas/ meanings that are difficult to verbalize. The other option is to use complex (unusual) combination of words and symbols to try to communicate the thoughts/ideas/meanings that we are talking about. This could come across as 'using big words' and often it fails to meet the objective. Hence I feel that stories present a much more elegant solution. Of course, my favorites are myths - as myths allow us to transcend even the 'limitations' imposed by reality! (see 'So true that it can't be real').

I find the process of generating an idea, letting it evolve & crystallize in the mind and capturing it in a blog post is highly rewarding intrinsically. Blogging is also a form of self expression that is aligned to my 'INTJ' personality type.  These along with the opportunity to exorcise ghosts, to make problems disappear and to interact with wonderful people have made my first year of blogging a deeply enriching experience for me!.

U-curve and simplicity at the other side of complexity

A few years ago I came across the concept of a 'U - curve' in anthropology. The basic idea is something like this: Many phenomena follow a pattern that resembles a 'U' - shaped curve over a period of time. They start in one state (i.e. in a particular manner/fashion), then gradually move towards the other end (i.e. the opposite manner/fashion/state) and then they come back to the original state at a higher level/plane. For example, early humans were naked because they did not have any cloths. Then, over a large span of time, humans moved to the other extreme of very elaborate clothing. Over a period of time this in turn has changed to the recent tendency to wear less cloths. Now if we look only at the outward appearance, the third state looks similar to the first state(wearing less cloths). But the third state is, in essence, very much different from the first state because in third state 'wearing less cloths' is a matter of choice which was not the case in the first state.

I remembered this concept while I was thinking about 'simplicity at the other side of complexity' which is the theme for this post(and in a broad sense the theme for this blog). In the case of complex non-linear systems (most of the human systems and business contexts are likely to fall in this category) there is simplicity at both sides of the complexity. Of course the apparent/obvious simplicity is 'simplistic' and it often comes out of the inability and/or unwillingness to appreciate the complexity. This leads to quick-fix solutions and fads (which essentially say "follow these 'x' steps to arrive at the solution") that do not really work in the long term.

However there is a simplicity that is achieved after working through the complexity. This simplicity is at the level of patterns underlying complexity. These patterns can be used to manage the complexity effectively. However there are two difficulties:
(1) One has to work through the complexity to uncover these patterns
(2) These patterns lead to 'directionally correct steps' and not to instant solutions
But these difficulties are the dues we have to pay for operating effectively in a complex world. While we can learn/benefit from the patterns discovered by others, often we have to 'rediscover' the patterns ourselves to fully understand/appreciate the patterns. The dynamic nature of the situation and hence the patterns makes it necessity to learn the patterns through personal experience (often the 'hard way'). The novel 'Siddhartha' by Herman Hesse provides a beautiful illustration of this point.

Related Link : See here for more discussion on this topic.

The art of being a jester

Over the years I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about the kind of roles that would interest me(possibly as part of the effort to 'finding my place under the sun'). One role (image) that often comes to my mind is that of a court jester.

Though the word 'jester' is often (incorrectly) interpreted to mean 'fool', a jester is a much more profound creature than a fool. Of course, at a superficial level both a fool and a jester might appear quite similar. When we look at them more deeply, the similarities vanish. While a fool entertains others by 'making a fool of himself', a jester enables others to laugh at themselves. While the techniques of a fool focuses mainly on the physical plane (doing funny things, acting in a funny manner etc.), jester operates mainly in the mental and/or spiritual plane (generating insights). We can also say that fools represent simplicity on 'this side of complexity' (or simplicity before reaching complexity) while jesters represent simplicity on the other side of complexity (simplicity after going beyond the complexity).

In terms of impact a fool leaves his audience 'entertained' while the jester leaves his audience 'enlightened'. In terms of their influence, fools are quite 'peripheral' while jesters are quite 'central'. Jesters often had the right (or even the 'duty') to criticise the King and get away with that(or even get rewarded for that). Often Jesters possess 'shibumi' (great refinement underlying common place appearances). Actually 'shibumi' is another concept that interests me greatly and it deserves a separate post.