"Transcend and Include That Which _________"

Lynne Feldman continues to keep my thinking sharp - she threw the wrinkle mentioned above into the mix a couple of weeks ago as we were talking. "Transcend and include" in and of itself is great directionally, but doesn't really help you discriminate. "Transcend and include that which ______" is more helpful for actual application. It's fine to leave some stuff behind.

There should be some criteria for bringing some things forward. For example, as someone who feels reasonably comfortable with Spiral Dynamics second-tier approaches, I might consider something like "transcend and include that which helps me best engage people within their value structures, supports "healthy" action and thinking within that value structure and development forward, either further along that level or gently toward the next one." Now, that was a mouthful, but you get the idea.

Transcend and Include - "'For' Times Two"

OK, I dig this principle - we develop by including earlier stages of development and transcending them. Very cool to help us consider those inflection points that occur when where we've been isn't completely satisfactory anymore, and we really need to move forward. This doesn't happen in a healthy way if we disown the earlier stage, but only if we include it as we go beyond it - my becoming a teenager didn't require me to become an anti-pre-teen - I brought some of my pre-teenness foward with me and added to it. In fact, we often see the disowning of previous "stages" as an immature reaction - "Ewww, I know I used to like Power Rangers/ Speed Racer/Robin Vinkimulder (my girlfriend in first grade)/Creed/Britney Spears/etc. but that's soooo embarrassing now! Don't you dare tell anyone!" Own it, dude!

And what does this have to do with creativity? Well, I'm becoming more and more interested in how some of these big principles can be brought down into practical action. Here's a shot at transcend-and-include for smaller things, not just stage development.

We all get the notion of doing some sort of pro and con evaluation...often going straight to the cons! Bob Sutton at Stanford calls this the "Smart Talk Trap" - we seem more intelligent if we can point out what's wrong with something, and, if just appearing smart is all that matters, then we're unlikely to take much actual ground, as most of our time will be spent showing why something won't work.

What if we looked at the pros first? What facets of an idea might we actually be "for?" What might be some of the benefits of a particular idea? What piece of it could we do something with if forced to do so? Let's take a step back first and see what we might be "for."

Then, instead of going straight to what we don't like, why don't we go into it a little more and get clear on what we truly "wish for?" It's frankly a bit of a cop-out to point out what doesn't work for us - as the saying goes "if you bring the problem, bring the solution." It's actually more helpful/actionable if we take that next step to show the way out, or at least tee the problem up so our minds can actually start to speculate on the solution.

Next post - an example.

Some Faltering Steps Forward

A great conversation with my good friend and Integral University-Vice Chancellor Lynne Feldman earlier today (my shameless name-dropping outweighed by greater desire for fair attribution/assignment of credit), in which we kicked around a few ways of figuring out whatever Integral ________ might be, in this particular case, Integral Education. What seemed to be a promising approach was the following (assumed - some basic familiarity with Wilber's AQAL [all four quadrants, all relevant levels of development, all types, all the different developmental lines, etc.] ... Good Lord, excuse all the Kerrey-esque nested parenthetical insertions!):

1. Generate a lot of descriptors for the current state of education/lots of answers to what's currently true about education; e.g., institutional, mechanistic, consumerist (buyer and seller, "product"), conquest-oriented ("mastery"), objective, etc.
2. Consider various stakeholders and come up with descriptors for their current experience in education. Helpful here might be a consideration of what's happening in all four quadrants from each stakeholder perspective.
3. Consider what education looks like at different developmental levels (helpful here might be some familiarity with the Spiral Dynamics model and its color-coded levels of value-structure development), and generate descriptors within each level.
4. Look at education within different types (e.g., the classical masculine/feminine or a personality-type construct like Myers-Briggs) and generate even more descriptors.
5. Using Wilber's notion of the "pre-/trans- fallacy" (e.g., pre-rational and trans-rational are different than just rational, and thus often confused for each other, but pre- really does mean "before" and trans- really does mean "beyond"), put the prefix "trans-" in front of each descriptor and see where that might take you as you contemplate new ground for Integral Education. Important here is the idea that "trans-" doesn't mean "anti-"... it incorporates all the helpful stuff from the previous stage. Trans-institutional, for example, says, "OK, let's keep all the great work coming from the institution and then consider how parents, friends of the family, the community, etc. might play a different role in education." Trans-objective says, "Let's keep some objective measures in place (maybe we'll even consider other objectives measures from other developmental lines/stages/types/etc.), but let's also see what subjectivity and intersubjectivity might do for us."

So, turning to Integral Creativity, what's true about other types of creativity, or what are some of the current sacred cows about creativity? A nice place to start for the next blog entry! I may actually have the next handful of entries here!

Napoleon Dynamite, Trends 2005, and "Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda"

I have too often experienced the manifestation of one of "my" ideas later through someone who actually bothered to bring it into form. I guess discipline and craftsmanship are 9/10s of the law.

One of the DVDs scored this Christmas was "Napoleon Dynamite", which I would recommend to everyone, although I admit that much of my delight in it is that I grew up about 10 miles away from where it was filmed (Preston, ID) and I know far too many people like those portrayed in the film. I have always wanted to tell a similar story, but now feel somewhat trumped. Good for Jared Hess for just doing it!

Now, something that my intuition told me over a year ago was a good idea - according to trend mavens, live band karaoke is coming on strong in 2005. I love the notion of a more participatory karaoke, with others filling in on instruments, and backing tracks just covering some of the crucial holes and keeping the tempo where it should be. Something in between open mike/stage and full-on karaoke seems like a great idea. I worry that we are becoming/have become too much a spectator society vs. a participant society. Everybody should have a shot at the limelight, even one bathed in cheese. I have always wanted to do this, and will in 2005.

So, Timmy, the moral of this post is that "woulda, shoulda, coulda" sucks. Trust your intuition, try it, fail at it if necessary (and if you absolutely need to label it so), but get out there and make something.

Hmmm...

The temerity. The cojones. The naivete. Just what is it that makes me believe that anyone else will get anything out of this blog? The act of formulating thoughts enough to put into coherent entries (ideally) and organizing the all-too-random synaptic firings for my own benefit should be enough. If anyone else does happen upon this and can contribute...well then cool!

So what is Integral Creativity, anyhow? Is it, as Ken Wilber suggests that some people might overcompensatingly argue, always incorporating all quadrants/ levels/ lines/states/types into every facet of a creative endeavor - an overwhelming Wagnerian sense-arama at every turn? Is it simply any creative act perpetrated by any integrally informed person? OK...what the hell does that mean? Is it skillful means applied to any creation, so that more might jump in and play along, coming from whereever they are psychospiritually? Maybe it can be all of the above.

What role does Integral Creativity play across the spectrum of human action - from art to commerce, from personal transformation to parenting, from spirituality to daily tasks? How important is it ultimately to be creative anyhow?

OK, enough questions for this introductory piece. Let's see where this experiment in hubris goes!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. I have a drum set to put together for the kids tomorrow...as if it were only for them!

Adam