As some of you may know my life has been interrupted by various medical events - all of which now seem to be straightening themselves out. And as usual, when a door closes, something else will open. In this case the opening has been an emergent discussion with my colleagues in the now canceled Asian and European Tours. That discussion started with the following from yours truly - and I thought perhaps some of you on the list might want to join in.
Harrison From: Harrison Owen [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 11:07 AM To: Bainbridge, Brian; BrendanMcKeague; Catherine Lengronne; Gail West ([email protected]); Gijs van Wezel ([email protected]); Karen Lim; Laura Hsu ([email protected]); Mark Pixley; Stanley Park ([email protected]); Pannwitz, Michael M; Anna Pia Hellstedt ([email protected]); Björn Larsson; Eva P Svensson; Funda Oral; Gerard Muller ([email protected]); Gerardo De Luzenberger ([email protected]); Gerardo De Luzenberger ([email protected]); Giulia Fiori; Herrmann, Thomas; Jo Toepfer ([email protected]) Subject: A Next Act Between pneumonia and a bulging aorta I seem to have been taken off the road, but it seems that my absence opened some space for creative efforts in Europe, and I am sure that the same can be true in Asia. Needless to say I am most unhappy that I have missed the parties, but I think there are opportunities here. The basic idea of my book, Wave Rider, is that we live in a self-organizing world, universe, cosmos - and it has been that way from the very beginning, all 13.7 billion years. This means that everybody (all 6.5 billion of us) inevitably rides the waves of self organization - we don't have any choice. But some of us do better than others. In a word we are all Wave Riders, but some have polished their skills and actually seem to enjoy the ride. Of course there are others who feel out of control and seek some way to manage and direct all those waves. Their experience is rarely pleasant. We are all Wave Riders. Some do it well, some do it poorly - and it has been going on for a long, long time. Here's the point (at last)! I may have named the "Wave Rider" but I certainly didn't invent the process. Wave Riding has been going on for ever. When it is done well, great things happen in the human domain. All people in all times and places have been "doing it," and I think we could learn an enormous amount by thinking seriously about how we as individuals and as a species have adapted to this self organizing world. The names and the concepts will vary from place to place and time to time - but the basic reality of self-organization remains present over time and space - and the adaptive response by Homo sapiens will be equally universal. For example I suspect that much of the Chinese tradition surrounding the Tao may have its roots in the adaptive process. And there are others. So here's the thought and the opportunity - with me out of the way, make Wave Riding your own. It is yours to begin with, so claim it. And why bother? I believe that Wave Riding, by whatever name is critical to the continuance and fulfillment of humanity. In short, when and as we "get it" we will find ourselves aligned and flowing with the primal force of the universe. And when we "don't get it" - our succeeding days on Planet Earth will be "nasty, brutish, and short" (Thomas Hobbes). Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20854 Phone 301-365-2093 Skype hhowen Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website www.ho-image.com OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: www.listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html <http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html> * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
