Facing the music

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve long been a fan of Donella (Dana) Meadows. She is the author of, among many things, one of my favorite essays, Dancing with Systems. Despite the truth of that sentence, it has recently occurred to me that I’ve not been following the guidance contained in that piece. So, today I’m going to refresh my familiarity with the steps in the dance and commit to taking dancing lessons at least once a week from now through the end of the year in hopes it will help me keep my foot out  of my mouth and llimit the number of times I trip over my own two feet.

The Dance

1. Get the beat.
2. Listen to the wisdom of the system.
3. Expose your mental models to the open air.
4. Stay humble. Stay a learner.
5. Honor and protect information.
6. Locate responsibility in the system.
7. Make feedback policies for feedback systems.
8. Pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable.
9. Go for the good of the whole.
10. Expand time horizons.
11. Expand thought horizons.
12. Expand the boundary of caring.
13. Celebrate complexity.
14. Hold fast to the goal of goodness.

Today’s theme has been prompted by my increasing frustration with our political “system” and its growing number of failures. I’ve reached a point where I’m inclined to discard the idea that there’s any wisdom worth listening to in that system. But then I remember that we’ve come aways from a foundation in which women and persons of color weren’t allowed to vote. Democracy, I believe, has to be based on a balancing of rights and responsibilities. Too many of US appear to have lost track of the second part of that balancing act. One of the most fundamental responsibilities of congress is to fund the government. We’ll know in a few days how well that responsibility has been fulfilled. (When and if congress again meets its obligations to the American people, I’ll return to capitalizing the institution. Right now, I’m in contempt of congress.)

even bees and butterflies dance

Photo by J. Harrington

It looks to me as though many of our national problems can be attributed to our failure to get the beat and follow steps 9, the good of the whole; 12, expanded boundary of caring; 13, celebrate complexity; and, 14, the goal of goodness. I wouldn’t be shocked to find that my personal failure to perform those steps on a regular basis helps explain some of my own frustrations and dissatisfactions.

Although I never personally knew Donella Meadows, everything I’ve read by and about her makes me believe I would have enjoyed having her as a friend who was often ready with good advice. As long as it’s still warm enough to expose our mental models to the open air without freezing them, let’s try it and see if we can get our systems working better than they have for awhile.

Dancers Exercising

By Amy Clampitt

Frame within frame, the evolving conversation   

is dancelike, as though two could play   

at improvising snowflakes’

six-feather-vaned evanescence,

no two ever alike. All process

and no arrival: the happier we are,

the less there is for memory to take hold of,   

or—memory being so largely a predilection   

for the exceptional—come to a halt   

in front of. But finding, one evening   

on a street not quite familiar,

inside a gated

November-sodden garden, a building   

of uncertain provenance,

peering into whose vestibule we were   

arrested—a frame within a frame,   

a lozenge of impeccable clarity—

by the reflection, no, not

of our two selves, but of

dancers exercising in a mirror,

at the center

of that clarity, what we saw

was not stillness

but movement: the perfection

of memory consisting, it would seem,   

in the never-to-be-completed.

We saw them mirroring themselves,   

never guessing the vestibule

that defined them, frame within frame,   

contained two other mirrors.

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