Everything becomes easy (eventually) when you allow for complexity

For years I have been struggling with identity.  Who am I?  What do I do? Why do I do what I do?  And for whom?  So much in the stories of todays world is about clarification.  “Keep it simple stupid!” The messages we meet on newspapers, billboards, TV goes like this:

“Become a better XXXX in 20 days”

“This is how you XXXXX”

We are offered answers to everything, even before the questions are asked. I hate that.  I have always hated that.  I love the world to be wonderfully complicated.  When we allow the world to be complicated we can also look at patterns without judgement and prejudice.  If we think that the world is wonderfully mysterious and that we each have our own story of this mysterious world, that is the point when the world becomes interesting.

The paradox is that when you allow the complexity to be present, this also creates possibilities to make things more simple.

In my last post I wrote about the Essay in Two Voices and attached the first Essay I wrote together with Madelyn Blair: Space.  Later  the same day I got an email from Belgrade, Serbia.  Rosemarie Cairns is editor for the digital magazine of International Association of Facilitators (IAF)

We had contact before and she has previously published some material from our network in the magazine.  Rosemarie had read theessay on Space and had become interested…

Hi Leif.
I just saw your Essay in two voices through Facebook. I am intrigued! I wondered if there might be a way I could reprint some of this in the IAF Europe Newsletter - what do you think?

I was so struck by one thing you said in the essay, which spoke to where I feel I am at the moment:
"But then, from times to time, it is like the ability to weave space disappears. The fragility ofthe web overwhelms me and I find myself without purpose and energy. I loose connection with the network of people. The switch is turned OFF and the Space of Dialogue is gone. This scares me."
And then you said, in response to Madelyn's response:
"The infinity of choices can easily overwhelm us and we can react very differently to the space of opportunities. While we have the opportunity to venture out to find unchartered land and unknown opportunities in the infinity of space, this can also cripple and paralyze us. For a creative person this is both an opportunity and can be a deadly trap."
How do you deal with this when it happens? How do you turn the switch back on?
Best regards, Rosemary

So now I have to spend some time to think about Rosemary’s questions.  How do we deal with weaving space in the new world?  And how do we deal with the unlimited space of opportunities?

Maybe you can help?  What do you think.  By the way, this is exactly 500 words, the length of the first Essay in E2V