I have a confession to make.
I have avoided this practice like crazy. As much as I love stepping into the unknown it is absolutely a practice.
I don't like it. I don't like doing it.
Actually, I love doing it. I just don't like starting it.
I don't like going from my comfort zone into the practice. It is uncomfortable and I don't like it in the same kind of way I don't like walking uphill. It's really more that I don't like the prospect of walking uphill. Given the choice between walking uphill and not walking uphill, I'll pretty much pick not walking uphill every time.
Just like I'll pick staying on the couch instead of getting up and going out into the garage and starting the lawn mower. It's just an easy choice. With those two on the scales, there is an obvious winner in my book.
Then again choosing to stay in mom's womb would have probably been my choice too. Pretty nice hang there. You don't have to do anything for your food. Nice and warm, the thermostat’s always set just right. Surround sound. It’s peak.
But if we had stayed there too long, things wouldn’t have gone so well. If we hadn’t gotten out of there and started something new, we would have missed out on a lot of good stuff. Yeah, a lot of crap too, but I'm glad I wasn't given that choice.
Certainly one big difference here is that we do get to participate, to some degree at least, in choice making. Huge topic here, free will, and one I’ll talk more about later. (In the meantime, you can check out some great conversations along these lines with Federico Faggin and the Essentia Foundation here.)
Faggin posits that consciousness and free will are postulates (foundational assumptions). If this is true, then the game for us would be to align ourselves with it. To align ourselves with “what wants to happen.”
This morning on my walk, I was thinking about knowing and not knowing. I decided to change the phrase in the middle of the 5-line sound byte for Tune U from
“Practice improvising with sound” to
“Practice not knowing with sound.”
That's the practice.
I've always thought that the word “improvising” is a lousy word for talking about this work.
I mean, all those syllables!
Not to mention the instant assumption that improvising is for geniuses like Robin Williams, Colin Mochrie, and Ryan Stiles. Throw music in the mix and people like Pat Metheny, Keith Jarrett, and Herbie Hancock come to mind, and 99% of people are like, “I’m out!”
But “practice not knowing?” “with sound?”
That’s something completely different.
Not only is practicing ‘not knowing’ less intimidating, it's worlds closer to the essence of what this practice is really all about.
We have a really hard time in this culture not knowing stuff. We want to conquer that shit. Turn all of the unknowns into knowns.
I think having a different quality of relationship with the unknown could help all of us in some pretty helpful ways.
Huh..., I’ve never noticed the relationship between help and health till this moment. And I don't remember when it was, but I do remember that it was a kind of revelation when I recognized the linguistic relationship between health and wholeness, not to mention between wholeness and the holy.
So maybe an underlying implication of something being helpful is that it brings us just a little bit closer to the holy. To wholeness. To integration. Into the flow of life itself.
So if having a different kind of relationship with the unknown is helpful, I propose that we put more of our intentionality into developing and nurturing that relationship.
The main problem with meditation Is that it only addresses the first two legs of what I call the Holy Trinity of improv.
It helps with 1) listening carefully and 2) feeling deeply, but explicitly excludes 3) playing it out.
Without practicing playing when we don't know, we don't develop the tools that can help us navigate unexpected circumstances that show up all the time. It’s a muscle that is as central to being a human being as our heart is.
We are launched into a physical reality that, as far as our finest minds have been able to determine, is grounded in as many questions as answers. There's always more to know, there's always more to learn.
There's nothing wrong with learning. But most of the problems we are facing, individually and collectively, do not emerge from our lack of knowledge. But from our trepidation about moving forward in the direction we most want to go.
We know enough to address the climate crisis, and we have many tools at our disposal.
We know enough about the experience of living with people who see things differently to know that relationship is not about agreeing on everything but seeking the things we do agree on and going from there.
There are always questions and there is always unknown. We don't have to be afraid of that. We can learn to love it.
Knowing by itself is knowledge.
Not knowing by itself is ignorance.
Both together is wisdom.
So, my overall recommendation:
When something's off
and you can't tap the flow
Practice not knowing with sound.
Tune yourself in time.
Play your way home.
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