We Are All Weavers
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We Are All Weavers
If there is ONE raison d'être of these Sunday musings, it would be to inspire myself and hopefully others to avoid living in the world of "other" and rather focus on what it is that we all can do to build the world we'd like to live in.
Sadly, the discussions about responsibility we hear are almost always about SOMEBODY ELSE'S responsibility. This discordant aspect of our public conversation has been a source of both frustration and inspiration for me for a very long time. In fact, my entire life’s work centering on contributing toward a more responsible, just, and sustainable form of business sprung out of this very observation.
The only sensible posture any human can take is to focus our responsibility inwards and simply do the best we can to be the change we seek in others. Easy to say, but, of course, harder to do, and most of my work has centered around what type of incentives, systems, and structures best help us act as more responsible beings at scale.
As you also know from these weekly newsletters, I sometimes link to writings by David Brooks. I find that he, unlike so many other opinion writers, focuses on exactly this. What WE CAN DO. How we can live better and more full lives. His many columns and books have helped shape my own thinking and often act as fodder for inspiration and reinforcement of my own, often less well-articulated, instincts.
This week, I was thinking a lot about David's own journey and work and wanted to highlight just two aspects I find most relevant to where we find ourselves right now.
First, is the notion of the Second Mountain. This is the title of his latest book, in fact. It’s the idea that we all are culturally more or less programmed to reach the peak of the first mountain. This personal peak is about achievement and success and the accumulation of status of all forms. There are, of course, many good things about that climb up the first mountain. Most of the progress we have seen, and much of the innovation we benefit from, are the results of the inner fuel that our desire to reach that first mountain peak provides.
However, what most people that reach that first peak often realize is that this achievement doesn't come with automatic joy and happiness, and fulfillment. Life events, whether death, divorce, disease, or even just disruptions of a less profound nature, bring with them larger questions. We fall into the valley. That's where, if we are lucky, we find our inner calling. Our deeper meaning. We connect with our truth. This is where we make deeper commitments to the things that truly matter. David speaks about them as spouse and family, vocation, philosophy or faith, and a community.
I believe we are at such a crossroads right now. We are to some extent all in the valley between the mountains.
So many songs, poems, philosophy, and ancient texts try to inspire us to make better choices, to walk the road less traveled, but Led Zeppelin seems so perfect here. Here are my favorite lines from the classic “Stairway to Heaven”:
… If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now
It's just a spring clean for the May queen
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on…
We clearly have achieved a lot. More than most could ever have expected. Think about our grandparents and envision telling them about where society finds itself today. They would never have believed it. And as the historian, Yuval Harari often says, "Today is the best day ever in human history to be born as a human being. Our problem is that it doesn't feel that way."
So, we can find strength in the valley even as we are staring some really bad things in the eye right now. Whether political dysfunction, civil unrest, shootings, wars, or inflation. Pick your poison. But I don't think climbing back up the first mountain is the path. We can and will choose a better path. I am sure.
And let's also recognize that we don't have muscle memory for these types of transitions. None of us have really experienced anything similar. Neither have our parents. I often remind myself that during the last major transition, when we left the agricultural society and headed into the industrial age, 25% of my native Swedish population left Sweden for the Midwest of America. Yes, it's not lost on me that it took me some 250 years to follow! But seriously, can you imagine the level of cultural anxiety and concerns that must be present for people to risk their lives and leave for another continent? And, of course, this is just one example close to me, and history is filled with large migrations due to wars, famine, and strife and we are sadly seeing more of the same today.
The second aspect of David's work that I wanted to highlight is the Weavers Project. It's both a beautiful metaphor as well as a very powerful community. Our social fabric is clearly being ripped apart right now. People are, at best weaving their own fabric but few are weaving OUR fabric. Society, in order to be whole, peaceful, and beautiful must be one strong fabric bound together by healthy and strong individual threads.
I love that metaphor for so many reasons. First, my mother was a passionate weaver. And the fruits of all her work sit proudly in our homes and we are reminded daily of her work. And on this very day as we remember and honor the 4th year since her passing I thought an ode to weaving felt very special.
Second, we are all weavers. Every action we take, every connection we make, every opinion we have, and just about every single thing we do is a thread in the fabric of society. And third, anyone touching, holding, or using any kind of fabric knows well that a great fabric is not judged by quantitative measures, always by qualitative ones. Or to paraphrase David when he says that on the first Mountain our connections are mainly driven by a spirit of "how much" and on the second mounting more by a spirit of "how thick".
Here are a few links if you want to go deeper on this.
First on David. Here is his book, Second Mountain. I highly recommend it. Here is one article he wrote that best summarized the ideas in it. Here is his TED talk. And finally, and perhaps most relevant to this post, here is an interview he made with Oprah on his own journey, his book, and what this all means for society.
Second, here is the Weavers Project by the Aspen Institute that David Brooks is chairing. You can learn more, join, support it and share with others. I find their work to be inspiring.
We are in love with freedom. For sure. We all love economic freedom, religious freedom, and political freedom. But social freedom is terrible. We need each other. We all want strong and healthy relationships. We have to use the other freedoms and build social and cultural coherency. And it's about the depth, richness, and quality of our relationships that the climb up the second mountain is really about.
I love this community. You are all fellow weavers. Please continue the weaving. Please share our threads with others. Let's make more and deeper connections every day. That's the path. So, let's just keep walking and weaving.
