Dear list members interessted in At de Langes seven essentialities,
dear At,
Steve Eskow wrote:
>At says:
>
>>I want to end this long contribution with the following statement:
>>"Complexity quenches passion, unless we know how to manage
>>compelxity".
>>The statement "Passion is infectious." is too reductionistic to be of
>>much help.
>
>But: At 's statement is the kind of half truth we might want to avoid.
And then, Steve contiunes with a very good example (children facing
puzzles and the effect of giving them all the answers) for the other half
of truth: No (not enough) complexity quenches passion as well.
The mean of puzzles is to gain know how in managing complexity so that we
can handle more and more complex situations.
My daughter (18 months) got a 4 parts puzzle on christmas. When we started
to play with it, she gave me one part after the other, watching me with
high concentration how I put them into the fitting hole. When it was in,
she screamed with enthusiasm. Today, she tries to put the parts into the
holes by herself, she knows which part belongs to which hole, but for she
isn't able to turn the parts, they seldom fit. Turning parts is the next
lesson to learn. Before then there will be some screams of frustration.
I think that one important lesson in learning to gain know how to manage
complexity is not to let frustration quench your passion. If frustration
is valued as something to be avoided, this will lead to the situation
discribed by Steve and is harmfull to our (and our children) skill to deal
with the complexity they are living in without oversimplification.
In the moment, I am trying to gain know how in managing complexity with
the help of a seven parts puzzle: The parts are At's seven essentialities.
The task is to fit them into any given situation and the gain will be new
pictures arising. For me, it would be enough, if these new pictures are
nothing but aesthetic satisfying (as any puzzle), but I guess it will also
help to take more appropriate actions on the situation if any change is
strived for.
Using the analogy of my daughter, I am still in the situation watching At
in dealing with these parts and creating nice pictures. From time to time,
I pick up what I find in the box and have a try myself and I feel very
proud when I recieve a fatherly (i.e. judged within the frame of my
restricted possiblities) "well done".
But learning must go on. Either I stop spending time on this puzzle or I
start to acquire the skill to handle it on my own.
I vote for the latter - I want to acquire the skill to handle reality
within the frame of complexity allowed by the seven essentialities. On the
other hand, there is no worldwide "AM de Lange organistation" where I can
book some courses and follow a prepared path, so it is a bit more of an
adventure.
The appropriate contribution to learning in this forum is dialogue and the
exchange of experience and in best case: triggering of new exprience. If
you are interested in joining this process either active or passive please
send me a short feedback. If there is some interest in this, I will be
glad to facilitate an according thread and I will start with a suggestion
how to proceed and with some questions.
Looking forward to a lot of digestive and some emergent learning and the
experience of a passion for learning.
Winfried
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