Business lessons from the AT part 18 Meta

Last article I asked a question. What could it possibly mean when we take such umbrage to asymmetry and imperfections in our (man-made) manufactured world of things and people but consider it endearing, beautiful, and cathartic when encountered in the natural world? Basically, we give these offensive imperfections a huge pass, because that’s what we do all the time. It seems like a terrible contradiction of human behavior. Is it simple social convention?  A shared understanding and agreement upon how we think others think about how things should be and how we should behave? Perhaps. Or is it an indicator, a hidden marker hiding in plain sight of something different, something so much more significant that if it were consciously known could change our lives and even the world profoundly?  What if it’s the result of complicated layers of abstraction in our manufactured world that the unconscious silently suffers through but endures breathing a sigh of relief when it’s able to escape it and immerse itself in nature. Never making the connection of this contradiction in realizing we must laboriously pretend every day we spend in that world to survive. For a lifetime.

Connected

Are we missing out on something important if we do unconsciously feel this way but never act? It would be a sad epitaph if true. My suspicions say it might be. My son Anthony and I have set the goal of hiking the Appalachian Trail, all 2200 miles of it in the eastern part of the United States one section at a time. This time it was in the state of Maine (180 miles) and some of the most rugged and beautiful terrain we have encountered to date. This is another installment in the story of that journey.  I entitled this series of articles “Business Lessons” from the AT, but these articles have very little, or a great deal, to do with business depending on your perspective. A big picture analytical thinker at heart, a humanist, a researcher, a scientist, and a pragmatist (an American invention), I don’t like to waste time or resources, and I consider everything connected. These articles are about the very important and equally wonderful business of life where nothing is off the table, relational, and fits somehow. Speaking of that, did you know the Appalachian Mountains, one of the oldest mountain ranges in existence, still exists in parts of Greenland, Africa, Scandinavia, the British Isles, Ireland, and the Scottish Highlands?  Broken apart by the separating of the super continent Pangea, this mountain range was once as tall as the Himalayas.  that’s a “meta” big picture connection that makes the world smaller. Enjoy this walk on the trail.    

Me and you

This is lake Hebron in the town of Monson Maine. We swam in this lake in late September and if anyone had told me I would be doing such a thing, swimming in a northern lake in the fall of the year I wouldn’t have believed them. That’s not me, or at least I thought it wasn’t. what’s going on to precipitate such a change in behavior, in my nature? Maybe it’s a part of my nature I’d forgotten I had.

Meta reality

Indian American author and new age guru Deepak Chopra in his book Metahuman said, “Our day-to-day reality is inauthentic and compromised by the limiting mental and social frameworks that we have imposed upon it.”  There is a Meta reality (a reality beyond the layered identity we create) he says, that exists outside of the interpretations that humans add to it, and it’s difficult to get to and subsequently experience. Our mind-made reality isn’t just made up of the data which gets filtered through our senses, it’s also made up of all the ideas and impressions we filter through a complex matrix of beliefs and behaviors from us and others.

Transient

“Same old Eric” “same old Anthony.”  These familiar declarations help to cement and stabilize us and comfort those around us, but do we need them, and does it help or hurt us in the long term?  The uncomfortable (and wonderful) truth regarding this is that we are really constantly changing transient beings, but in order to counter this, we assign fixed characteristics to ourselves and each other vs. considering (and dealing with) new possibilities, being confronted by unpredictability or change, learning, and growth.  Again, not just for and in ourselves but in others too. While locking down our identity may help us cope, it also limits us and severely stunts and limits our potential.  We get caught in a tangled web of beliefs, social frameworks, mental conditioning, experiences and opinions and perhaps spend a lifetime lost in a preoccupation of what Dr Iain McGilchrist describes as “more about what we know about what we know about what we know”, never challenging, doing, learning, or being anything new.   In an earlier article I discussed a meta reality beyond this everyday world. A reality above the one we live in normally, one that came before who we are now, an original reality from which we’ve come. 

Layers

Getting to the meta reality of us requires ascending through layers, kind of like hiking up a steep ridge. What begins to happen when we insert ourselves into the alien world of the wilderness with other intrepid fellow explorers? Layers collected over decades, of experiences, opinions, circumstances, and actions that have defined, bound, and bordered who we have become, a created structure of guard rails, fall away. The true meta reality of “us” like a crystal-clear spring from which we originated vs the muddy, overgrown delta we have ultimately become after years of living begins to appear on the trail, and in us. When we strip away the vegetation, wash away the dirt, filter the sediment and remove the distractions, behaviors, and creatures which lurk there, we see more clearly what we are at our source of that original stream. 

Inside out

Why do we become like this? We hinted at that. But the simple answer is that living in this physical material world causes it as we humans have a tendency to collect stuff on the way along with experiences. Regarding this, motivational coach Bob Proctor said, “we have it all wrong, we let the outside world control the inside when it should be the other way around.” Bob is right but there’s a caveat, a nuance, a catch to this.  We should let the outside world control us when in nature, at the source of who we are and from which we came. We have reversed the order most certainly and no longer know from which to draw our source (man or nature) and when and how to act in context. If we were to always seek control from nature first, both inside, and out of ourselves, perhaps we would never feel disconnected, dissonant, confused, or lost.  If this were the other way around in our everyday world of work as Bob suggests it should, in our family, community and social interaction, we’d have access to that original spring of us at all times, taking it with us everywhere we go for our, and others benefit. How can we gain access back to this “meta” reality? Go out into the woods for a few days, that’s the way to start.

Dr Zabiegalski is available to talk to your organization or venue about ambidexterity research or speak informatively and eloquently about organizational culture, leadership, strategy, learning, complexity, business neuroscience, creativity, mindfulness, talent management, personal success, emotional intelligence, Action Learning, and storytelling. Contact Eric on LinkedIn about a talk, keynote presentation, or workshop today!