Pulling Threads from Small Arcs: Reflections on Complexity, Living Systems and Leadership
July 25, 2017 4 Comments“The difficulty we face is that the ecology of the biosphere is at odds with the ecology of our institutions.”
– Nora Bateson
Image from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, shared under Creative Commons Attribution license 2.0.
In the past couple of posts, I have referenced Nora Bateson’s book Small Arcs of Larger Circles: Framing Through Other Patterns, a collection of essays, poetry, personal stories and excerpts of talks focused on systems theory and complexity thinking. I just finished the book and have underlined and tweeted a number of provocative lines that resonated and gave me pause (in a good way). Here are a few gems from the book that I continue to contemplate in different contexts:
“The problem with problem-solving is the idea that a solution is an endpoint.”
“Systems theory is struggling inside a system that doesn’t actually accommodate it.”
“We cannot know the systems, but we can know more. We cannot perfect the systems, but we can do better.”
“What does it mean to be healthy in an unhealthy system?”
“No living thing exists in just one context.”
Image from Global Landscapes Forum, shared under provisions of Creative Commons Attribution license 2.0.
“It takes a great deal of change to keep things the same.”
“Evolution is what happens when patterns that used to define survival become deadly.”
“To lock down the filigree of life in explanation is to lose it, but not to see it is disastrous.”
“Unity is not about oneness, it requires the process of uniting, which requires relationality.”
“We are all as fragmented as a Picasso. And we are also as whole as life.”
Image by Pilottage, shared under provisions of Creative Common Attribution license 2.0.
“Biology, culture and society are dependent at all levels upon the vitality of interaction they produce internally and externally.”
“Leadership for this era is not a role or a set of traits; it is a zone of interrelational process. Step in, step out.”
“It is reasonable and responsible to ask if life, love and culture can really be described with words.”
“Apocalypse is a linear idea, and we do not live in a linear world.”
“The ultimate act of love is to allow ourselves and others to be complex.”
Image from Kevin Dooley, shared under provisions of Creative Commons Attribution license 2.0.
4 Comments
Wonderful quotes…I’m inspired to pick the book!
I love this collection of thought-provoking quotes, thank you for sharing them. I recently watched Nora Bateson’s beautiful documentary ‘An Ecology of Mind’ https://vimeo.com/ondemand/bateson/116642860. It really challenges the ways we have been educated to think. Thank you for the link to the book, I am hugely looking forward to curling up with it, reflecting on concepts which resonate / challenge, and sharing the thinking with others.
Thanks for your comment, Lorna. And I hope you enjoy the book. IMHO, it is worth savoring and coming back to for ongoing reflection.
Beautiful strands from Nora’s book. Thank you! Each strand offers a new reframing, and possibly for each of us separately and together, a new possibility to steward a more fit world.