Entry #93
Twenty four entries ago I wrote about getting âlocked and blockedâ in our thinking. That entry featured this hand-drawn post-it note.
On the left the arrows meet at a point, narrowing in towards each other. On the right the arrows depart from a single point in ever-expanding directions.
I thought about this tiny drawing again this week (I think about it fairly regularly) when Beren (eldest son) asked me for my advice one morning before school. The topic was benign, he wanted my input on what he should do next in his current video game. He couldnât decide.
I just asked him a bunch of questions. The questions got us talking about the options and he said âhuh, thanks mum. Thatâs actually really helpful.â
I said âgood to hear that, you know, this is what I do for work a lot of the time - I just ask people questions.â
He looked interested in that.
I also had the genius foresight to lather on some pre-teen soul-building and confidence boosting wordsâŠ
âhey, actually you did something super cool then. You asked for another personâs thoughts on something that had you stumped. Big ups to you for asking for my advice. Glad the questions helped.â
A really nice little moment.
November is my birthday month and I am a Sagittarius, represented by a badass centaur archer. I donât hold too much sway with astrology, but I did smile at the arrows connection. Maybe I have been working with arrows and creating space for them to fly well for a long, long time. Or maybe I just am a hybrid creature who loves a good fight.
And that is all for today. As always, I look forward to hearing what you heard, saw and felt when reading this. May your arrows diverge and shoot for spaciousness this week.
With love,
Michelle xx
ps. entry #69 is below in case you want to re-read it.
pps. I started a new thing called Thinking Partner sessions. They are one hour long, itâs not necessarily a good fit to mention them here in Friday Flow, but hey it might be the right day/time for you. For more of my business-y writing you can also subscribe to Howie Doing here. It comes out on Monday, the same week as FF.
Entry #69
As you all probably know by now, I am wont to travel down rabbit holes of a deep, philosophical nature, getting lost in thought and reflection whilst the dinner burns and the laundry remains unwashed.
Stumbling across the incredibly generous lecture series âAwakening from the Meaning Crisisâ by John Vervaeke has been good for the mind and soul, but not good for other things. Thankfully I have limited my âlecture timeâ to car drives only - as far as I know, I cannot do much else but listen and drive whilst in the car.
In episode one of the series, John uses the phrase âlocked and blockedâ when explaining why so many people get stuck on the 9-dot problem (head here to 51:00 minutes to watch this explained).
Locked and blocked has bubbled back up so many times ever since. It explains so much, or so it seems to me.
We live within our familiar frames. We encounter things that fit that frame and we experience comfort, contentment, or neutrality (whether we realise it or not) - this seems to be a bit like confirmation bias to me. When something âfitsâ it is pleasing, is it not?
We inevitably bump into things that do not fit our frame, things we cannot predict or control. We feel disoriented because we are âlocked and blockedâ by our frame, unable to unframe and understand the thing with which we are presented.
Onto unfamiliar inputs we may project meaning, attempt to mould it into a frame we can accept as close to our own, we may totally reject it, we may avoid itâŠand on, endlessly. These are all behaviours that now seem more explainable to me - thanks to the âlocked and blockedâ description of the frames we live within.
Remember, in the 9-dot problem he says that the most common frame people lock onto is that the dots form a square and that the problem must therefore be solved within the square by joining the dots. Locked and blocked on a square frame, the solution is almost impossible to fathom. The instructions do not mention a square, we do that part ourselves.
Some world news examples that seem to exemplify locked and blocked thinking:
The Saudi Arabian âNeomâ project - dubbed âthe lineâ, this 150 storey architectural monster will host the 2029 Asian Winter Games (yes, in a desert) and house nine million people whilst construction has already forcibly displaced the Huwaitat tribespeople of this region. One Saudi Prince and many architects locked and blocked on a vision.
Luiz InĂĄcio Lula da Silva has won the Brazil election, ousting the far-right President who has been in office for the last four years. A close race, at times âbruisingâ and bitter between two men with very different ideologies for their country. Both locked and blocked on the ârightâ Brazil, but only one winner.
We frame and we use frames - almost constantly.
But do we know how to unframe and observe the frame we dismantle? This seems far less common.
How about you? Do you have a sense of your ability to unlock, unblock and unframe the realities you live within?
If this looks appealing, how you could cultivate this more often?
I highly recommend more of the John Vervaeke series if anything in this entry has been your cup of tea. It sure is mine, but now I must do laundry.
And that is all for today. As always, I look forward to hearing what you heard, saw and felt when reading this.
With love,
Michelle xx