“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” [Sun Tzu, The Art of War, quoted by John Jantsch in Duct Tape Marketing].
I know a person whose ideas on a particular topic I would like to change. I have realized recently how we all have unconscious resistance to such change based on various experiences going back years. I estimate that it will take four years for this change to occur. I thought I would design a program, beginning with just loving and learning to love him, and learning to understand what his relevant experience has been and why he thinks as he does. Then, without criticizing his ideas, I will slowly begin sharing some value that I have experienced along a different path. I have no idea whether I will be successful, but at least I have a strategy.
Artistic living is about giving back: there is so much beauty around us, beauty in truth on all levels, beauty in goodness, beauty in nature, beauty in the arts, and beauty in our lives when we are living at our best. Artistic living adds beauty to our relationships, activities, and environment. Artistic living comes from an emotionally harmonious place, and it has a quality of spontaneity. But that spontaneity does not just come about mindlessly.
There is a design component involved in spontaneity. Mature spontaneity is not impulse; at some level, design operates. At its simplest, design is established when we make a great decision to be loyal to a value. After that decision, we enter situations with new questions in the back of our minds, a new way of interpreting things, and new motivation to act. Design contributes to spontaneity, not by falsely thrusting itself forward as a necessary prelude to every action, but by decisions that structure the field of action. Going beyond basic decisions, design chooses the means to achieve the goal. This choosing can be done in considerable detail, specifying choices for many variables, the way an architect does. Design prepares the intelligent direction of artistic action.
The simplest design is set forth in Jessica Somers Driver’s a method for public speaking, a method that can be helpful in any creative process. I’ll give quick summaries of a few chapters from her book, Speak for Yourself.
Chapter 1, “The Starting Point,” teaches that the ideas or truths that we are to express in public speaking are all around us and are not our personal possession. Second, she teaches that if we abide deeply in the truth to be communicated, we will find everything we need to express it.
Chapter 2, “The Three Essentials,” sets forth her method: “listening, valuing, expressing.” Listening for the idea, the truth, involves discernment (and it can be prayerful listening). The idea—the truth you need—comes to you. Valuing it means staying with the idea, following this truth wherever it leads . . . until the expression becomes spontaneous. That free and vivid quality of spontaneous communication emerges naturally from the first two steps. (This is a method that can be used in any creative endeavor.)
Chapter 3, “Listening,” describes the creative and discerning openness that lets ideas come to mind.
Chapter 4, “Value Your Ability to Express Ideas,” describes the activity of following through the with idea, staying with it until it becomes fully clear. Valuing one’s ability is also part of this, but self-consciousness is not, since the idea or truth you are communicating is not personal to you; it is objective, so to speak, part of reality. It is not “your idea.” She concludes, “Have you ever quietly, sincerely, told yourself that you are the light of the world? Try doing it. You will not feel proud but purposeful and poised—gracious toward all who are around you.”
Chapter 5, “Visualizing,” teaches how concretely we must sense the idea we are following. By the way, the single most important principle in Part II on reading aloud is to bring vividly to mind the meaning of each word as you say it. When you see something so vividly, you will be able to convey that life to your hearers.
Chapter 6, “Spontaneity,” encourages you in “that instant response to the inspiration of ideas . . . [that] keeps your activities fresh and varied, your voice young, your reading conversational and convincing, your speech full of life.”
Chapter 7, “Rhythm,” explains that “rhythm includes style and timing” and is—“inherent in an idea.” This notion of what is inherent in an idea is, if you will, the mystical element of her method, and it is worth reflecting in what way this is meaningful to you. I would put it thus: that any truth, deeply grasped, has beauty and contains the potentials of goodness. I believe that Jessica Driver is expressing this general truth in a delightfully concrete and applied way. Every situation has its own rhythm, and upon entering a room, for example, one does well to be receptive to it, to tune in. With anything we are trying to express, be it a concept or a tree or a technical method, we can leave self-will aside and open ourselves to its “rhythm.”
What experiences have you had with planning, organizing, or designing a course of action? Do you have experience with simple design? With complex design? What have you learned that would help us beginners in artistic living?
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Here is my take.
Having escaped from the rough seas of the survival mode, I entered the pleasant seas of comfortable living. But after sailing these seas for awhile, the unchanging scenery of smooth sailing gave way to boredom, a feeling and longing for something more.
I wanted to transcend myself. This was the goal, but what strategy could I devise? What tactics could I implore? The first step in this process was reflection. Here began that process of understanding what transcending the self meant. This reflection brought me into contact with insights and powers of the spirit that dwells within. Here under the light of the divine spirit, I meditated and understood what transcendence meant in my life. I arrived at a strategy and discovered tactics that were designed to bring all of this about.
I wanted to be more than just a routine physician. Many of my patients were saddled with chronic illnesses that had imposed restraints upon their routine daily living. I wanted to impart hope, to impart that life could still be meaningful and have value despite the disruptions of their usual lives. I wanted to impart compassion, hope, genuine concern that bordered upon agape love. I wanted to suggest that there was another dimension of life that was not embarrassed by material difficulties.
How would I bring this about? How would I gain the moral and spiritual power to actualize this desire? I realize that in meditation, there was a distinct impression that the spirit within would supply the power if I really wanted to do that, if doing that in fact was my supreme desire. Then I would have to exercise faith and trust in this spirit who was to be my partner in this endeavor.
Now even though I wanted to do this, there were many barriers to doing so, mostly within myself. I realized that I could not travel any faster that the mule that was pulling the cart. I had to begin that daunting process of self conquest. And the tactic that I used would be prayer and worship to overcome them whenever any of these internal barriers reared their heads. As time passed, utilizing these tactics, less and less did the internal barriers present themselves. And I soon discovered that I was actualizing my supreme desire. I found that the vast majority of my patients appreciated these efforts to impart quality to their lives in addition to my duties as a physician.
Finally I realized that I had escaped from the routine pleasantries of living to a new plane of living. Here were stimulating challenges as I sought to find just the right amount of love and mercy to be applied to a given encounter with my patients. These challenges always filled me with a new kind of joy, a deep sense of satisfaction, a new kind of purpose one that ever beckoned me into areas of exploration of the meanings and values that were being generated from these spiritual activities.
And this transcendence of the routine existence of life is available to all who desire it. Reflection is the beginning. There in the inner life one will find those instructions that are tailored to the individual’s need. Just take a leap of faith and try it! I promise you will not be disappointed.
Dr. Perry
Beloved brother Dr Perry, I cannot imagine a more satisfying post. Your pioneer spirit, your full mobilization, your realization of factors that necessarily slow down your evolutionary progress, your diligence in dealing with those factors prayerfully and worshipfully, your fulfillment in the process, and your concluding altar call, proclaiming, inviting, encouraging us all into the great journey of journeys–all make a feast for mind and soul.
I also observe that this post could be offered in any category of truth, beauty, or goodness, since they are all so interwoven. Yesterday, realizing my own challenge of the day–to sustain the calm and happy spiritual attitude that I admire–I thought: what activities can I do (such as a little conscious breathing when the system begins to overheat), what thoughts can I invoke (such as the rhythms of the grand evolutionary process, what concepts of goodness of the activities that I was pursuing in a driven way could refresh my beautiful journey? And of course, the more I remembered and did such things, the more I tasted that life. I discovered that the design phase of living embraces every dimension of the self and the whole of the life cycle and more. Thank you again for the teamwork in this inquiry.
Here is my take.
Having escaped from the rough seas of the survival mode, I entered the pleasant seas of comfortable living. But after sailing these seas for awhile, the unchanging scenery of smooth sailing gave way to boredom, a feeling and longing for something more.
I wanted to transcend myself. This was the goal, but what strategy could I devise? What tactics could I implore? The first step in this process was reflection. Here began that process of understanding what transcending the self meant. This reflection brought me into contact with insights and powers of the spirit that dwells within. Here under the light of the divine spirit, I meditated and understood what transcendence meant in my life. I arrived at a strategy and discovered tactics that were designed to bring all of this about.
I wanted to be more than just a routine physician. Many of my patients were saddled with chronic illnesses that had imposed restraints upon their routine daily living. I wanted to impart hope, to impart that life could still be meaningful and have value despite the disruptions of their usual lives. I wanted to impart compassion, hope, genuine concern that bordered upon agape love. I wanted to suggest that there was another dimension of life that was not embarrassed by material difficulties.
How would I bring this about? How would I gain the moral and spiritual power to actualize this desire? I realize that in meditation, there was a distinct impression that the spirit within would supply the power if I really wanted to do that, if doing that in fact was my supreme desire. Then I would have to exercise faith and trust in this spirit who was to be my partner in this endeavor.
Now even though I wanted to do this, there were many barriers to doing so, mostly within myself. I realized that I could not travel any faster that the mule that was pulling the cart. I had to begin that daunting process of self conquest. And the tactic that I used would be prayer and worship to overcome them whenever any of these internal barriers reared their heads. As time passed, utilizing these tactics, less and less did the internal barriers present themselves. And I soon discovered that I was actualizing my supreme desire. I found that the vast majority of my patients appreciated these efforts to impart quality to their lives in addition to my duties as a physician.
Finally I realized that I had escaped from the routine pleasantries of living to a new plane of living. Here were stimulating challenges as I sought to find just the right amount of love and mercy to be applied to a given encounter with my patients. These challenges always filled me with a new kind of joy, a deep sense of satisfaction, a new kind of purpose one that ever beckoned me into areas of exploration of the meanings and values that were being generated from these spiritual activities.
And this transcendence of the routine existence of life is available to all who desire it. Reflection is the beginning. There in the inner life one will find those instructions that are tailored to the individual’s need. Just take a leap of faith and try it! I promise you will not be disappointed.
Dr. Perry
Beloved brother Dr Perry, I cannot imagine a more satisfying post. Your pioneer spirit, your full mobilization, your realization of factors that necessarily slow down your evolutionary progress, your diligence in dealing with those factors prayerfully and worshipfully, your fulfillment in the process, and your concluding altar call, proclaiming, inviting, encouraging us all into the great journey of journeys–all make a feast for mind and soul.
I also observe that this post could be offered in any category of truth, beauty, or goodness, since they are all so interwoven. Yesterday, realizing my own challenge of the day–to sustain the calm and happy spiritual attitude that I admire–I thought: what activities can I do (such as a little conscious breathing when the system begins to overheat), what thoughts can I invoke (such as the rhythms of the grand evolutionary process, what concepts of goodness of the activities that I was pursuing in a driven way could refresh my beautiful journey? And of course, the more I remembered and did such things, the more I tasted that life. I discovered that the design phase of living embraces every dimension of the self and the whole of the life cycle and more. Thank you again for the teamwork in this inquiry.