The art of work
the art of work
inter – view
Question:
To start, could you describe your work?
Answer:
Yes, of course. What we do is take the accidents of work and innovation and turn them into a way of seeing.
Q:
The accidents?
A:
Yes. The accidents. As in, the invisible attributes. The weave, the structures, forms, feel, rhythm, tempo, intensity … the way things fit together.
Q:
Do you mean that you can see the invisible? How can you teach people to see the invisible?
A:
It is not necessarily something to teach. Rather to learn; learning to see. Not so much seeing, as in seeing, as in vision, but seeing as experience; seeing as a way of being; seeing as a way of interpreting the world.
Q:
So the work is experiential?
A:
Yes. And no. It isn’t the experience that makes the difference. It’s being the difference you see. In other words being the difference you experience. That’s a shift, which shifts your experience. So in that sense it is experiential.
Q:
Interpreting the world?
A:
Yes?
Q:
What does that mean?
A:
We can’t say yet, we haven’t finished the conversation.
Q:
Are you saying the world doesn’t have a meaning?
A:
Oh no, the world has many meanings. It depends who is telling the story.
Q:
Which story is that?
A:
The story that determines the meaning.
Q:
Does the meaning of the world change every time someone tells a story?
A:
Absolutely.
Q:
Then the world isn’t….
A:
Exactly
Q:
Are you saying there is no reality except story?
A:
Not exactly. There are levels of reality. Story is one. Agreement is another. Measurement another. Objectivity is another. Story binds them.
Q:
So there’s nothing but story?
A:
No. But there is nothing. In fact there is only nothing. In order for their to be something first there has to be nothing
Q:
Sounds like the emperor’s new clothes
A:
The people who saw the emperor’s new clothes, or didn’t, were under pressure to conform, or not. This isn’t about conformity it’s about freedom.
Q:
I’m lost
A:
There is only one thing to do when you are lost. Stay still and experience the silence. It’s the essence of work and innovation.
Q:
How can doing nothing possibly contribute anything to work or innovation
A:
Anything that does not stem directly from nothing is habit. Only nothing can create something. That’s freedom in-form-ation, in potential.
Q:
Why in potential?
A:
Freedom manifest is in the result.
Q:
Which result?
A:
Whichever result you manifest
Q:
What is the process from potential to manifestation?
A:
There is no process. Process implies beginning, middle and end.
Q:
Are you saying results have no beginning, no middle and no end?
A:
I’m saying that is only one way to think about it. Results may start in the middle and end in the middle without ever starting at the beginning or finishing at the end. Beginning, middle and end are only a question of syntax. They are only one way of seeing the world.
Q:
Well what about the process of change?
A:
There is no process involved in the change. Change happens. It is.
Q:
The result?
A:
The real result you are after is nothing. The result that will make a difference is freedom.
Q:
But doesn’t freedom only exist in the mind?
A: Freedom exists in the mind at the same time as not existing in the mind. Anything that exists in the mind is a trap and prevents you from being free; at the same time nothing actually exists in the mind, which is freedom; our mind just thinks that things exist in our minds. This is imprisonment.
