The change we see is hostage to the story we can tell.
After all, we claim the world in the fictional syntax we created to attribute to it. We live in the story more than the reality. What we fail to recognize, we fail to see.
- What happens when we don’t know the language?
- Can we communicate without the burden of understanding?
- Do we care to admit that the Why is just a story?
— From the hip. #recognize
The table was bountiful. The color of the food was vibrant with freshness cultivated from the garden a few meters away. In a 100-year-old family home, this small feast was taking place.There I found myself grasping at words flying across the table attempting to catch the meaning and failing to understand.
From the few languages I command and the many other domain-specific syntaxes I can entertain, this language that day I have yet to master to be able to engage.
And thus I sat mostly silent smiling here and there and nodding left and right. Everyone’s stomach was full and the loudness out of the tipsiness grew.
And then I was asked to teach a language I’m not a master but heck if I couldn’t communicate it.
Music on. A few steps in and everything was clear. To the rhythm of some Dabke (Lebanese folklore music) and missed steps jumping in the air carried by laughter and hips drifting, we communicated.
How often do we forget that amidst all the miscommunication happening in our world today, we all speak in dancing, laughter, and the joy of trusting each other in the folly of having fun?
The hip spoke. The laughter enriched. And a connection was forged — a story was born from the trust established unnoticed by the spoken words that could never explain it.
— Pressure. #understand
But what if we can’t explain it? What if we cannot see? Is that so bad…?All I know is that this week started with a hospital visit for a loved one. Navigating an ambulance and the panic that all of that experience entailed to everyone participating is beyond measure.
Yet all this debacle escalated as frequent measurements of pressure were taken as a precaution and in the observance of their elevation anxiety rose and with it a hypertensive crisis went into effect.
Would had it been any different if the measurement had not been revealed and the trust in the settling down for the medication to kick in yielded a different outcome? I don’t know.
But still, I can’t shake the feeling that knowing in this case made it much worse. Trying to understand why it was rising made it a crisis. And what numbers and fear communicated at that moment sent the wrong message to everyone involved.
— No precedence. #accept
And somehow all this came to be exactly what I needed it to be. As I engaged with C-suite at work and healthcare providers at the hospital across continents, the realization of how irrelevant sometimes what the story is became clear.When the words fail and the measurements conclude in stirring a false sense of “what is” we succumb to relying on fiction. For the change we see is hostage to the story we can communicate.
We danced through the night. We survived the hospital scare. We had tough conversations with real talk that went beyond the fear, the story, and the failure in seeing. One heck of a week!
Until next time,
Carlo
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