Are we all just winging it

Diana shared this quote by Oliver Burkeman , and it got me thinking so I wrote out my thoughts (below).

NOBODY REALLY KNOWS WHAT THEY’RE DOING: “I sometimes think of my journey through adulthood to date as one of incrementally discovering the truth that there is no institution, no walk of life, in which everyone isn’t just winging it, all the time. Growing up, I assumed that the newspaper on the breakfast table must be assembled by people who truly knew what they were doing; then I got a job at a newspaper. Unconsciously, I transferred my assumptions of competence elsewhere, including to people who worked in government.

But then I got to know a few people who did—and who would admit, after a couple of drinks, that their jobs involved staggering from crisis to crisis, inventing plausible-sounding policies in the backs of cars en route to the press conferences at which those policies had to be announced. Even then, I found myself assuming that this might all be explained as a manifestation of the perverse pride that British people sometimes take in being shamblingly mediocre. Then I moved to America—where, it turns out, everyone is winging it, too. Political developments in the years since have only made it clearer that the people ‘in charge’ have no more command over world events than the rest of us do.

It’s alarming to face the prospect that you might never truly feel as though you know what you’re doing, in work, marriage, parenting, or anything else. But it’s liberating, too, because it removes a central reason for feeling self-conscious or inhibited about your performance in those domains in the present moment: if the feeling of total authority is never going to arrive, you might as well not wait any longer to give such activities your all—to put bold plans into practice, to stop erring on the side of caution. It is even more liberating to reflect that everyone else is in the same boat, whether they’re aware of it or not.”—Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (2021)

My thoughts:

What, it’s not just me always winging it? 😆 that’s a relief…..sort of….lol.

I think based on my experience I agree though. Any experience I’ve had with any organization, over time has shown me how difficult it is to keep those organizations going. Any sort of consistency, authority, accountability is built gradually over time, and is mostly a matter of convention and tradition: “We will hold you to this standard because we have been holding people to this standard for a long time.”

Covid-19 of course disrupted typical ways of doing things. This was in one sense a good thing because it made space for finding new ways to do things. As a teacher the early days of lockdown were amazing for my professional development. I learned and innovated more in 4 months than I had in 5 years at least. Teachers were working together more closely because we were all equally discombobulated. Many students struggled with the new ways of doing things, but not just a few thrived as well. It was exhausting, liberating, stimulating, and even fun.

But…as the disruptions continued, and inequities emerged, it became apparent how difficult it is to maintain consistency, authority and confidence in the system. I have mostly good relationships with my students, so our immediate environment is pretty good, but how do I speak with authority when someone above me can (often seemingly arbitrarily) completely up end our reality? You must come to school….no you shouldn’t….exams are on….no they aren’t! (At least that one doesn’t affect special Ed)….This assignment is super important and you should make your best effort….or not because you have to learn from home and it can’t be properly completed there…Here is this great instant messaging app that we can use to communicate efficiently.....but now people are abusing it, sending inappropriate rants, demanding we stop everything during the school day to respond to them RIGHT NOW.....well you get the idea. Without consistency and tradition, our institutions are exposed as collections of persons just winging it.  And it becomes difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt, to believe in their coherence. This is true even if in the moment, the people inside those institutions are genuinely doing their best and trying to do things better than they've always been done before. And often succeeding!

It’s a crazy ride alright. 

Mere mortals dancing

I found this recent post on Fr. Stephen Freeman’s blog quite gripping:

“Make it so!” vs “Let it be!”

The themes are ones I’ve discussed before, in my own mind and with others. What is truth; to what extent do we control reality; should we be fixated on who does  and who doesn’t have power. More importantly, what sort of power is really worth having and is that the right word for it.

“The truth” is that which is real, that which truly exists. It is the case that some things have more existence than others. Our own existence is tenuous and ephemeral. We seek that which truly exists that we might, through it, have true existence ourselves. We cannot grant existence to ourselves – it comes as a gift from the only truly Existing One.

Recognizing our existence as tenuous and ephemeral is one thing that might lead us to see the value of tradition. Tradition has, from one perspective, attracted me for a long time. The earliest I can remember being consciously aware of this was in my late teens/early 20s, when I participated on a listserv discussion about Cape Breton Celtic music. (Ah, the good old days of the frontier internet.)

Celtic music was enjoying a bit of a popular revival at the time, with appealing, youthful musicians blending traditional instruments, melodies and themes with contemporary ones. All of it was wholesome, truly: you’d have to stretch to find anything subversive or disturbing in it. Nevertheless, on this listserv I first encountered openly the tension between innovation and tradition. It was the first time I met people who unapologetically argued that traditional forms have more value in the long term than popular innovations. This was quite shocking to me, at first. Somehow, all my education, if not my own experience, had reinforced the message that tradition was something you break away from. It had not occurred to me that there was another side to the story, and that kind and intelligent people might believe in it.

The conversation on that listserv was mostly convivial however, and everyone that I recall was friendly and more than willing to talk with willing listeners. Starting with these discussions, I discovered a way to resolve the tension, at least in the realm of the arts. Tradition is a way of preserving something valuable through community. It allows creative people to encounter something meaningful, giving them a direction and a discipline. Truly innovative people should not be discouraged from experimenting (though it doesn’t hurt them to be challenged, either.). But neither is it possible for everyone, or even most, to be innovative geniuses. A healthy tradition will create a few, but they will never be the majority. However, anybody can participate in the tradition: learning it, supporting it,  passing it on to the best of their ability. This participation is just as meaningful in real life as innovation, most of the time. It’s much more meaningful than being part of nothing, that’s for sure.

Once I had articulated this insight, I found a lot of my anxiety about (not) being special, or noticed, or uniquely talented or (yikes!) famous melting away. I could actually enjoy my own creativity more because I wasn’t over-analyzing it. The realization that I could be part, even in a small way, of a tradition that embraced multiple generations, geographies, countries and cultures was amazing. I could be fully myself and more than myself at the same time.

An experience in Scotland when I was 26 catalyzed this idea for me. I was attending a week long music festival, learning step dancing. From my account of that time:

Toward the end of the week, our dance teacher, Frank, went over all the [dance] steps we had learned. Then he solemnly told us to "stop thinking." We aren't just dancing to the music. We aren't just responding to it. We must get right inside it. And to do that, he said, we can't be worrying about what we are doing. Otherwise we are focused on ourselves, and not on the music.

High on endorphins, I wished he would stop making pretty speeches and let us start dancing. But he continued:

"If you relax and let the dance into you, it will teach you. Because I believe music and dancing are much more powerful than mere mortals.

Frank was saying something very similar, if not the same, as Fr. Freeman above. Reality is not something you create. It is discovered, encountered, as a gift.

Frank’s words have stuck with me, as I have continued to dance, write, play music and eventually to teach. I am lucky to sometimes have chances to perform for an audience. Of course this always causes some nervousness. It’s also easy (sadly) to become hyper critical of yourself. After many performances, dancers often start talking obsessively about all the mistakes we made, although these are rarely obvious to those watching and nobody will remember them anyway. It is all self consciousness. But I have found that I can ease the anxiety by remembering Frank’s words. I frame the performance in my mind as an opportunity to share something beautiful I have been given. Dancing with me are unseen generations of people who have transcended time, space and mortality to give me this gift and opportunity. The nerves are there, but I am filled with joy and excitement and I do not have to force a smile for the audience. And if I have practiced and I stay in the moment, I also make fewer mistakes (but regardless, I am part of a long line of people who have made mistakes and danced on).

So that is one side of the story: the attraction to tradition. There is another one too. But this entry has become longer than I expected, so I think I will engage that topic separately. (I do not necessarily know what direction these blog entries will take and often end up writing about something quite different than I originally intended.)