The Hammock Papers: Continuous.

15 September 2023

Continuous.

Ari Weinzweig on the peace of the truth ...

The news right now, as I’m sure you know, is filled with examples of outright lying. My focus, though, is on far less obvious examples of untruth. Holding to the truth can be tricky. Truth can be undercut in small ways that aren’t ill-intended but ultimately lead us in unhealthy directions. I know, because I’ve done it. Maybe you can relate. Stories that shift off-center slowly, but surely. The not-all-that-obvious line between healthy framing and conveying small falsities. Statements are made that nearly everyone knows aren’t right, but people with good intentions don’t want to make trouble. Over time, truth erodes, and with it integrity and trust—since, even when people repeat falsehoods, the actual reality remains. As writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley wrote, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” As I’ve shared before, Irish author and story activist Gareth Higgins advises that we ask ourselves of anything we are saying, “Is the story I’m telling true? Or at least is it the truest version, and the most helpful way of telling it?” Gareth’s clear message has helped me greatly in my efforts to lean into truth. I simply challenge myself to run everything I say through that filter.

It takes work to sort through things, together, to get at it. Rebecca Solnit offers:
Precision, accuracy, and clarity matter, as gestures of respect toward those to whom you speak; toward the subject, whether it’s an individual or the earth itself; and toward the historical record. It’s also a kind of self-respect … The search for meaning is in how you live your life but also in how you describe it and what else is around you.
All of which led me to the idea that we can adopt continuous improvement to move ever closer to deeper understanding, and the courage and craft of sharing that truth in positive and productive ways. Lying, it turns out, is not Lean. It causes enormous amounts of emotional angst, and wastes time and energy. On the other hand, if we work hard, in the spirit of the Lean approach to small 1% improvements, we will get closer to building a culture of truth every day. Even if we fall short, I can see that the effort is enormously important. In our organizations, being authentic, as per the work of the revolution of dignity, means being as real and upfront as we possibly can. Susan Griffin writes, “To grasp the truth is a delicate gesture, like taking a hand in greeting, a lightness of touch is needed if one is to feel the presence of another being.”

When we do this work, we aren’t just enhancing our integrity. We’re also moving ourselves quietly towards inner peace. And at the same time, we’re teaching those we work with an essential life skill. Truth sounds easy, but I’ve begun to understand it’s anything but. And, living as we are in a time when truth is taking a hit, it becomes all the more important to model it, teach it, recognize it, and honor it. In this sense, truth is more a skill, a sense of the world, a value system. And creating a culture where truth is a top priority becomes a big part of our work.

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL