Quitting the paint factory

Tue Dec 14 12:46:22 PST 2004

Hi

There's a beautiful essay in the November 2004 issue of Harper's
magazine about the value of doing nothing. Here's an appetizer:

When I was young, my parents read me Aesop's fable of "The Ant and the
Grasshopper," wherein, as everyone knows, the grasshopper spends the
summer making music in the sun while the ant toils with his fellow
formicidae. Inevitably, winter comes, as winters will, and the
grasshopper, who hasn’t planned ahead and who doesn't know what a 401K
is, has run out of luck. When he shows up at the ants' door, carrying
his fiddle, the ant asks him what he was doing all year: "I was singing,
if you please," the grasshopper replies, or something to that effect.
"You were singing?" says the ant. "Well, then, go and sing." And perhaps
because I sensed, even then, that fate would someday find me holding a
violin or a manuscript at the door of the ants, my antennae frozen and
my hills overdue, I confounded both Aesop and my well-meaning parents,
and bore away the wrong moral. That summer, many a windblown
grasshopper was saved from the pond, and many an anthill inundated
under the golden rain of my pee.

You can find the entire essay here:
http://web.ionsys.com/~remedy/Quitting%20The%20Paint%20Factory.htm

It speaks to many of the themes in OST, as one of the few tools that
explicitly values inaction as a tool for change.

Cheers

Alex

Alexander Kjerulf
alexander at kjerulf.com
http://www.positivesharing.com
http://www.projektarbejdsglaede.dk

+45 2688 2373
Tagensvej 126, lejl. 613
2200 København N

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>From  Tue Dec 14 15:56:24 2004
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Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 15:56:24 -0500
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>From  Tue Dec 14 12:52:37 2004
Message-Id: <TUE.14.DEC.2004.125237.0800.>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 12:52:37 -0800
Reply-To: chris at chriscorrigan.com
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: Chris Corrigan <chris.corrigan at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Practice of Peace in Sweden--A reflection on the Issue
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Judy wrote:

> On the other hand, I am a realist and I do not believe that there will ever
> be 'World Peace' because not everyone is willing to use those constructive
> ways to deal with conflict.  I recognize that conflict isn't necessarily a
> bad thing......it's how each party handles the conflict.
>

I'm a realist too.  When I look out at the world, I see a lot more
peace than war.  Even in war torn countries, there is a lot more peace
than war.

This doesn't diminsh the importance of poverty or illness or social
equality and all those other things.  I do think though, that in the
western world, the lens that the media provides into other places
gives us the impression that certain countries are living in a state
of utter and complete war all the time.  When was the last tim we saw
images from Iraq, Israel or Rwanda of people celebrating birthdays,
reading a book or painting their house?

I think in one way we ARE a long way from world peace, but in another
way we're not that far at all.  Almost everyone on earth carries a
little bit of peace with them everyday.  That's remarkable considering
what the world could become with all of the weapons of mass
destruction hidden away in silos on the American Great Plains, the
Russian steppe and the Chinese hinterland.  As long as each of us,
leaders and citizens of this planet holds that little bit of peace, I
think we are not likely to plunge into complete war.

Of course, whatever happens is the only thing that could have.  But we
CAN improve our chances by opening space.

Chris

-------------------------
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com

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