Building the Lifeboat is the Lifeboat
As the reality of the polycrisis is dawning on more and more people, we keep hearing the same questions: What can I do? Where do I start? How can I get ready for something when I don’t even know what’s gonna happen?
Next week, we’ll be hosting our next DIY Lifeboat webinar to answer these questions. The webinar provides a simple 5-step process that anyone, anywhere can use to grow their own local resilience network in the face of whatever might be coming down the pike, starting right where you are now. It introduces you to a toolkit of techniques and processes that can help jumpstart your local resilience building effort and offers a number of supports to keep you on track.
But there is a core concept underlying all the pieces and parts that is beguilingly simple, but absolutely essential. Without understanding the core concept, the tools are ineffective. Understand the core concept and the tools become mostly incidental.
Building a lifeboat is not about an end product nor is it merely an attitude. Building a lifeboat is a practice. Building the lifeboat is the lifeboat.
But simple is not the same as easy. Simple requires discipline and determination. Like Octavia Butler says, it requires persistence in practice.
But how do you explain that to people who are still trapped in late-stage capitalism consumer culture? Who are looking for the quick-fix / silver bullet / recipe? How do you get Cartesians to understand systems? How do you get “noun-focused” folks to think in verbs?
I’ve always been fascinated by Mobius strips — the three-dimensional one-sided object. Maybe this physical trickster can serve as a helpful metaphor.
The Mobius strip is a one-sided object made by taking a linear strip, giving it a twist and connecting one end to the other. Technically, it’s called a “non-orientable surface.” It has only one side and one edge in 3D space. But how? It seems impossible! You can test the one-sidedness by putting your pen at any point on the strip and moving it continuously forward until eventually it meets itself having covered “both sides” of the original strip without ever having flipped sides. Our process is similar: a continuous feedback loop with a twist — and the twist changes everything.
The Mobius strip has no beginning, middle or end. People are tempted to say that the strip “starts” or “ends” where you taped them together, but that’s only an illusion. All points are equidistant from all other points. Our process is also like that. You are always simultaneously ending something and beginning at the same time. And because there is no beginning or end, it also means that you’re never behind.
Another quality of “non-orientable surfaces” is that you can’t tell clockwise from counter-clockwise. From one perspective, it looks like you’re moving around the strip clockwise, but from another perspective and at the very same time you’re moving counter-clockwise. Time once again becomes “timey-whimey.” Our process is also like that. Ancestors are just as close as neighbours.
The simple five step process is:
- Assess your current assets
- Build a model of what you want to create
- Based on #1 and #2 brainstorm and prioritize high ROE* actions
- Take the next step = the highest priority action(s)
- Reflect on progress, repeat > update #1 & #2 based on results and continue
* (Return on Effort)
Because we close the feedback loop, what looks like a 5-step process is actually a three-step one (sorta). We short-hand this as:
“aim-act-reflect.”
It’s a continuous, self-perpetuating process where each step naturally leads to the next. Reflection naturally leads to thoughts of how it could be better. Having a vision of what might work better naturally leads to a motivation to try it out. And taking even a few steps prompts curiosity about where we are now; are we on the right path or not? Reflection leads to aiming; aiming leads to action; action leads to reflection.
As such, the noun of each step starts to behave more verb-like. We start to think of reflection not as a discrete activity with a beginning and end, but as a process of becoming: “reflection moving towards aiming.”
Reflection is the twist that creates the “one-sided” quality of the Mobius process. Reflection involves looking back to look forward. We use experience to shape our vision, and our vision to shape our action (which in turn shapes our experience). Each step in the process draws from the one before it and shapes the one following it.
Three questions no matter what:
- (Given what we’ve done) Where are we right now?
- (Given where we are) Which way do we want to be going?
- (Given where we want to go) What’s the best next step?
The twist creates a shape-shifting quality that works across multiple dimensions at once. It shifts us from action to planning and back again, while also seamlessly shifting us from “inner” to “outer” work, from “individual” to “group,” from “practical” to “visionary,” from “micro” to “macro,” from “short-term” to “long-term,” all at the same time.
And that same shape-shifting quality makes the process infinitely scalable. You can apply it to life goals, your 5-year project plan or your daily schedule. Because of it’s dimension shifting quality, it automatically scales to the focal length you need for where you are right now.
If the next step seems too big, use Russian Doll planning to break down the big scary steps into bite-size chunks of work till you know what to do today and this week.
The process uses a few simple, interconnected feedback loops to generate graceful responses to complex challenges. No matter where you are or where you want to go, the next step is always right in front of you. Even if you took the wrong step or feel lost. Even if that didn’t go according to plan. It directs our attention where it needs to be to move through an uncertain 3D landscape.
In reality, the process is only helping us make the most of our limited attention / awareness as humans. Our brains simply can’t grok it all at once. It’s like we’re all in a dark room with a flash light. You might shine the light on the couch in front of you for a while before panning over to the desk to figure out the best course, before coming back to double check what is right in front of you before taking the next step.
The process works in a similar way, guiding your focus where it needs to, using our limited attention intelligently to maximize the useable information available. As such, it also taps into the collective ability and capacity of the group. Using the process together allows us to use our flashlights collaboratively to make our individual work more efficient and effective.
So, the process is simple — three linked questions; three simple steps: aim, act, reflect. Repeat as necessary. But simple isn’t the same as easy. Our Wetiko Habitus and out working habits throw up resistance to each of the steps.
For example, our Wetiko Habitus creates an almost irresistible urge to race past the discomfort of reflection. The ingrained binary of modernity prompts us to either damn reality or damn our dreams. Either reality is “wrong” because it doesn’t match my ideas of how it could be or there is something “wrong” with me for wanting things to be better.
Honest reflection requires pausing in the discomfort and dynamic tension of having to accept both / and, that both are valid. Expectation and Experience form a sort of cosmic Venn diagram, with wisdom (and resilience) lying in the overlapping area, unrealistic expectation at one extreme and delusion / denial of reality at the other.
So, reflection moving towards aiming involves what we are calling the Serenity Practice —
- acknowledging what we cannot change and must learn to accept,
- identifying the areas where courage and action are needed to make important changes, and
- taking the time to honestly differentiate one from the other.
Simple, but not easy. The desire for certainty and “getting it right” kills the equanimity, curiosity and creativity necessary for reflection. Either/or thinking gets us stuck, blocking honest reflection; both/and thinking sets us free.
Similarly, aiming moving towards action is often blocked by desires for perfection. We are so impatient for the promised land, we think we have to get there in one step. People get stuck dreaming of the perfect plan or waiting around until they have the perfect circumstances or supports. Perfectionism gets us stuck in never good enough; “good enough for now” sets us free.
And lastly, action moving towards reflection is often blocked by a lack of follow-through. That’s where courage is required. We fundamentally misunderstand courage. Our modern conception assumes it’s an individual quality. Somehow, you are supposed to find some hidden stash of it in our guts somewhere and it magically makes the fear go away.
But the root of the word is “coeur” — French for “heart.” Originally, it was understood that you could only be brave and take action in the face of fear on behalf of the beloved, never for yourself. Love is stronger than fear, if you let it be. But love is also intimately connected with grief. We cannot love without experiencing loss and grief. You can’t have one without the other. So, you must be willing to experience the vulnerability of love to find the courage for action. Burying the tender heart behind defensive barricades blocks access to connection. Our defensiveness gets us stuck; connection and vulnerability are the keys to the courage that sets us free.
So, the process is simple, powerful, scalable, and effective. You can apply it anywhere at any time with any group and any goal. Aim-Act-Reflect. Where are we now? Where do we want to be? What’s the best way to get there from here? What’s the best next step? The only thing standing in the way are the old, conditioned responses of the Wetiko Habitus and the wei-wuwei sangha is the fastest way to develop your ability to practice. So, building the lifeboat is really about finding your wei-wuwei sangha, and the sangha is already here.
Building your lifeboat is the lifeboat.
Hypertext Writing Experiment:
I am starting another writing experiment with this piece. We wanted to provide some context for the DIY Lifeboat webinar, but there are many points in here that could easily be unpacked more. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be continue to document some of our “deeper dives” in the Lifeboat Academy to add more meat to the bones that we sketch out here. I’ll create and attach a new post with a link to the appropriate text above.
And I invite you to participate, too. You could highlight any phrase you would like to hear more about or leave a comment about what you are curious about or would like to explore more deeply. Or join us at a Lifeboat event to make your contributions directly.
If you really wanted to take the plunge, you could choose any phrase here and write your own response in any format that would allow me to connect to it with a link.
Let’s see where this goes.
