can love be violent? can love be angry?

a few days ago, my friend ambroise and i were talking about things we’d learned about love this year. one of the things he mentioned was learning about different types of love. i, too, have been reading, experiencing, and learning about different kinds of love.

one interesting point was that as he has been exploring, his new experiences are having the effect of expanding and/or destroying his previous ideas about love. there are some types of love that, once experienced, make you realize that something you previous thought was love actually was not. sometimes this is a difficult experience (because learning is), but in the end the lessons are always valuable.

we also discussed whether or not love could be violent.

i learned a lot from reading bell hooks’ all about love earlier this year so a couple points on that question.

1. a good working definition of love is this one from m. scott peck: “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” - the road less traveled: a new psychology of love, traditional values, and spiritual growth 
2. based on that definition, love cannot be violent.
3. anyone who is saying or framing violence as love is either being oppressive or being oppressed. by calling something bad (violence) as good (love), power can be held over someone by claiming that they aren’t being good (loving) and that is oppressive. this oppression can (and is) happen on levels from the individual up to the societal.

now, can love be angry? absolutely. i was just listening to the recent ruby sales on being interview on the radio at stitchdown and a few points either came to me or were given by ruby.

1. anger and love are not opposed; in fact, they often go together (point from ruby). 
2. anger and violence are different things.
3. ruby believes there are two different types of anger: redemptive anger and non-redemptive anger. non-redemptive anger is destructive and unproductive. redemptive anger moves you to productive action, based on love. for example, non-redemptive anger is what white supremacy is based on. redemptive anger, driven by love of a fellow human, can cause you to take action (creating an intervention, protesting, using resources) on their behalf.
4. anger, anchored in love, is a powerful force that, if channeled properly, brings justice to life. this idea is from an audre lorde essay on the uses of anger. (see the book “love that does justice" by thomas schubeck).

on matching skills, needs, and passions

this weekend i’m in vermont visiting my friends andrew and rita on their farm (which is dope: @stitchdownfarm!). i had a few conversations last night with folks and in explaining what jungle is and does, i had a tiny little breakthrough. this may not be new info, but i think i understand a piece of the jungle system in a new way.

as i explained to people the vision (which is fulfilled people doing and building world-changing things), someone compared jungle to a recruiting firm. and in some ways, that is a piece of what we do. actually, i’m not totally sure what a recruiting firm does, but i think that comparison is apt.

what i realized, though, was that by adding in the passion to the matching of skills with needs (which is what conventional firms do), we’re bringing in new value. on one hand, we help people with a passion for something connect to work relevant to that passion. on another, we help people looking for team members find skilled workers who are motivated by that passion and interested in non-economic forms of compensation (network, prestige, creative outlet, etc.).

i’ve written about this before [link coming someday when i have time to find that other post], but someone asked how to differentiate between all the different people with the same skillset. like, there are already TONS of photographers, graphic designers, djs, etc. i think adding the passions to the calculation will help differentiate different skill/service providers from each other. darius foroux, one of my favorite coaches and researchers, believes something similar…

and on top of that, different people have different levels of profiency within their skillsets. that will provide another way with which to facilitate matches. for example, if you are looking for a basic or beginning level of photography, it’ll be important to match your “budget” and needs with the skill level of someone in your range.

so, in short, in a world where people do work that they’re passionate about (which should not be a luxury), people doing the same types of work get sorted out based on differential skill levels, styles, and complementary sets. in addition to matching the budget of resources offered to the particular person offering the skills.

ok that was messier than i had hoped. oh, well.

standing on the shoulders of the digital nomad innovators

sometime last week my friend, jason, sent me this article: Ditching the office to work in paradise as a “digital nomad” has a hidden dark side.

it seems like the overall thrust of the article is this: the digital nomad lifestyle is actually not that great.

ross, my jungle partner, and i think about digital nomad lifestyle (it fits into what ross calls the #5to9) a lot. we’re both actually really excited to try it out/we’re already doing it. 

i think maybe the above article is an example of first wave digital nomadism and what we’re doing/thinking about is part of the second wave. i think the following factors/thoughts are some of the distinctions:

• endless vacation is not the goal (it’s also a myth and actually a terrible thing); seeing the world and making your work better is A goal.
• travel in itself is not valuable. it’s all about what you learn and then do with the lessons that is valuable.
• community and relationships matter. travel is not a replacement for meaningful, long-term relationships (family, friends, lovers) and the benefits (and downsides) of community.
  
• traveling the world may feel urgent and important in one phase of life and totally uninteresting in another. one might want it in varying degrees at different points in time. i have many management consulting friends who would do anything for three months at home. i also have other friends would do anything to quit their jobs and travel for a year. as with most things, there is a balance, the balance changes over time, and the real highest value happens when people have the flexibility and ability to live life how they want at any given time.

so basically, the first wave of digital nomads did a lot of testing. maybe we’re a part of round two.

ps - there’s a particular phrase that floats around the queer world that seems apt here. “partnered/married but with a long chain…” do with that what you will. ;)

my approach to the quantified-self is revealing who/what influences me

if you know me personally, you know a freaking love tumblr. not so much as a consumer, but as a producer. i use tumblr to keep track of SO many things in my life. in fact, i currently operate 11 active tumblrs (meaning they get updated at least once a week) and have started more than 20. i use tumblr because of its flexibility, simplicity, and it’s interoperability (is the right word for ‘functional on multiple platforms’?).

part of my personal system is to keep track of everything that goes into my brain. i started doing this because i was impressed by michael felton’s annual reports. my old roommate, ben golder (love you, ben!) introduced me to the reports and not only they were beautiful, but they allowed him to surface hidden patterns. having those patterns surfaced enabled him to make strategic decisions to live more like he wanted to.

that idea inspired me so i started keeping tabs on everything i consumed. well, not exactly everything (maybe i’ll get there someoday), but at least all the digital media i consume.

so my digital media tumblrs are things i read (web content), watch (video), see (static imagery/photography), listen to (mostly podcasts), and like visually/graphically (graphic design mostly). there are others, like stuffiusedtoown (inspired by my friend, erin) and puns, but they’re less relevant to this convo.

a few months ago, i started adding a brief description of who sent me a piece in the tumblr post (example here).

and then randomly (or not randomly?!) the other day a quote attributed to jim rohn popped into my head:

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

i realized in that moment that by correlating my blog (the tumblr you’re reading now) with my other tumblrs, someday i might be able to quantify exactly which people have the most influence on me and my thoughts. i also imagine that, say i were to thread all the tumblrs together into a single timeline or feed, i could map major changes in my thinking and consciousness backwards down the data and resources that led to those changes.

:O

resource

somewhat interesting article that expands on the jim rohn quote a bit. 

most stress comes from not finishing what you've started

david allen, one of my productivity gurus, has as one of his pillars the following idea:

“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they’ve started.”

even as i read it, i understood the depth of what he was saying. since then, the truth (and implications of the truth) of that statement are essentially everywhere i look.

i notice it in myself when i look at my todo list and thing “dammit. i really was supposed to get more done today,” or “i wish i hadn’t gotten sick so i could have finished everything.” i notice it in others when they feel stressed and they make statements like “yea, i was going to ___ but then ____ got in the way,” or “i really wish i hadn’t committed to __, and ___, and ___, and ___… i’ve just got so much going on.”*

so what’s the remedy? i don’t exactly remember what allen said, but my experience of what he mentioned is two-fold:

1. make fewer commitments to myself and to others. this allows me to focus more fully on the one’s i have made. it also lets me follow through on those things well and sometimes even add extra value. this is diametrically opposed to being committed to too much, getting everything done (barely), but feeling shitty about it. to me, this shows up as practicing how to say no.
2. have a clear process for renegotiating commitments and get comfortable with doing it regularly. sometimes, i just need to look at what i’ve committed to and say that i’m not going to get everything done. it’s important, to take some time (if possible) and set new due dates for say when i am going to get those things done. but the process of looking at a task and being explicit with in my inner monologue (“ok, i’m actually just not going to finish those three other things today. that’s fine.”) is way more important than i thought it was.
   
   after learning how to do that renegotiation with yourself, it becomes much easier to do it with others. and the funny, ironic thing is that most other people are totally fine if you renegotiate a deadline for something. this is a surprising truth, but once you recognize it, it becomes even truer that most people’s stress comes from their own ideas of commitments they’ve made.

over time, making fewer commitments minimizes the number of times the renegotiation process needs to happen, but i suspect it will still always happen.

learning the truth of this idea has been a long journey and one that i’m still on, but the power in it to reduce my stress level has been pretty profound.

* if you happen to be one of my friends and you think i’m quoting you, i promise that almost all of my friends make statements like that on a very regularly basis.