Monday, June 3, 2013

Take the Chance: Go Quantum!



1. Today’s world is Quantum.
2. Persons do not automatically adapt to Quantum.
3. Failure to adapt leads to loss of vitality.
4. Persons do not necessarily know they’ve lost vitality.
5. The drive to adapt depends on contact with vitality.


Elaborations
1. Today’s world is Quantum.
I don’t claim special knowledge about “quantum.”  About six months ago, I was drawn into a Conference on Quantum Storytelling, developed a paper for the conference, and continued to develop it as the proceedings are becoming a book.  Getting background included reading closely Karen Barad’s
Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning.  My involvement in these projects helped me make sense of many experiences that were just off-tilt in the dominant paradigm; helpful concepts include indeterminacy (instead of uncertainty), diffraction (instead of reflection), agential cut, and timespacematter/ing. See Barad and my previous blogs for elaboration.
2. Persons do not automatically adapt to Quantum. 
Living with indeterminacy is not comfortable.  Neither is holding multiple perspectives and accepting that more than one is simultaneously true.  To live within, and even more so, to lead from a quantum orientation requires letting go of the pretense of advance organization as if authentic outcomes can be engineered outside the lived moment.  That’s hard and feels vulnerable. Even when persons suspect that the dominant paradigm isn’t working, dulling out is easy and losing power hard.
3. Failure to adapt leads to loss of vitality. 
The costs of persisting in a dead paradigm are increasingly evident.  In education, persons becoming teachers have too little authentic experience with the joy of learning.  Having been stunted in 16 years of dull curriculum, driven by external assessments, they lack the feel needed to inspire.  A recent critique of the latest big assessment for teachers nailed the problem: “These conditions negate the importance of relationships in the development of teaching, preferring the pretense of objectivity over trust, authenticity, and cultural responsiveness.”  The pretense of objectivity points directly at the old paradigm; trust, authenticity, and cultural responsiveness distinguish the quantum paradigm.
4. Persons do not necessarily know they’ve lost vitality.
Everything is “great” (like Tony-the-Tiger’s cereal that’s full of scary-bad corn) and there’s nothing better (even if the hero is fake & “education” has never been joyful).  Persons do not automatically know what they’re good at, capable of, or what really turns them on.  If Micky D is the norm and it’s considered great, where’s the taste to drive the dedicated training needed to become a master chef?
5. The drive to adapt depends on contact with vitality.
While persons come into the world pretty charged up, the battery runs down without dedicated engagement with the life force.  The search for passion comes from a person’s inner core; no one else can name it but some can tell when it’s burning or burnt out; finding it takes risks and sacrifice.


We can go quantum.  We’ll have to risk leaving perceived comfort and security, but that train’s going over the cliff.  Time to take a chance.

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