Embracing The Unknown
Leyla Haidarian | 22.Jul.10
When good, films have a way resonating with universal truths within us. There seems to be a basic rhythm that is reflected in stories, which is deeply intrinsic and which you will find in nature or in music for example. In its simplest form, this rhythm usually begins with an initial condition or “direction”, a subsequent “crisis”, a “climax” of some sort and finally an ending or new beginning and direction.
A seed will be lying dormant until a crisis cracks open its shell in a powerful and tumultuous way that eventually brings about a flower, the blooming of which is the culmination of that seed’s life. But it doesn’t end there. That flower, sunning nonchalantly in the summer warmth will suddenly undergo a change in the form of autumn, which dries its leaves and robs it of its petals, only to reappear in brand new splendor the following spring. Consider how brutish trimmed roses look in the winter. You’d think someone’s surely butchered them. But it isn’t until the gardener has trimmed them that they are able to bloom more fully when the seasons change again.
You’ve seen women in labor – if not in real life, surely on television. They scream and push and pant. If one were to walk by a maternity ward it would be easy to think there is death behind the doors: screams, blood and pain. But we all know what lies beyond that crisis, namely a wonderful new direction. Good music, too, will take you on a journey and every fulfilling journey starts with a direction, meets with some sort of crisis and eventually takes you to a place you didn’t quite expect.
Even the most die-hard Hollywood critics will agree that a story without any sort of “crisis” in its broadest sense is not a story. Of course you can critique the formulaic regurgitation of this rhythm into cookie-cutter forms, because to some extent “rigidity” betrays the essence of the rhythm itself. The rhythm is after all about embracing the “unknown” in order to evolve. But the need for its presence is indisputable, universal and it transcends cultures and cultural sensitivities.
In South Africa, exploring cultural sensitivities is part of my daily routine. I am fortunate enough to be living in a country where I can afford a full-time helper in my home. She’s from Zimbabwe and was watching Ratatouille and Toy Story 2 with my son on television the other day. Having hardly ever watched movies or television, she doesn’t perhaps have the same frame of reference some of us share. I say “us”, because if you’re reading this on the web, you and I have some fundamental media sensitivities in common.
For example, my helper doesn’t understand the exact relationship between the rat, Remy, and the young garbage-boy, Linguini. She also doesn’t quite understand why there is a fat little cook hovering around next to the rat from time to time. Or, when Woody is stolen from the yard-sale and his toy friends gather around the play-room to devise a rescue plan, my helper doesn’t pick up the humorous references to crime-scene investigations, which are recreated so creatively on the Etch-A-Sketch toy. There is talk of “exhibit A” and “exhibit B” – phantom sketches of the suspect and all sort of other conventions, which are completely meaningless to a woman who has barely watched television and grew up in rural Africa.
But – she’s told stories to her kids at night. So she holds her breath when the protagonists are brutally ripped from their familiar environments, accusingly points at the screen when antagonists plot evil and she exhales, when things fall into their right place. And somehow at the end of it all she knows the broad strokes of what just happened: Someone ventured into “the unknown” and came out of it richer for the experience. This basic pattern or rhythm to life seems to transcend all languages and cultures. We all recognize it and it’s been part of our collective “un”-consciousness forever.
So why do we resist the “unknown” in our own lives? Instead of embracing it like our heroes and heroines, we try to manage it. How? By making plans. And as you know about plans, well God laughs at them, right? A couple of years ago one of South Africa’s top economists, Iraj Abedian, decided to scrap all plans and write a book about it. He was outlining chapters for what he wanted to call “Thriving on Uncertainty.” His aim was show that in business or economics the only constant is “uncertainty” and that it is counter productive to try and control circumstances by making plans. It would be akin to asking Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz to prepare for the tornado and stay at home. His proposal was that it would be necessary to develop a stance or strategy instead of a plan. “Riding the waves”, not resisting them, would take you where you’d need to be. After all Dorothy would not know the value of home if it hadn’t been for her journey.
Abedian was ready to take his book to a publisher and enlighten the business world of what screenwriters have always known, when lo and behold, he saw it on a shelf in an airport bookstore: “Embracing Uncertainty”. After doing a double take he bought the book and devoured it that night. It was the exact same concept but applied in terms of clinical psychology. The author, Susan Jeffers, had outlined breakthrough methods for achieving peace of mind when facing the unknown. The unknown, she said, was a large part of our inner rhythm.
And that makes sense. When we hear about a great movie, the last thing we want is for someone to give us a scene-by-scene breakdown before we go to see it. “No! no! Don’t tell me the ending, I want to go watch it!” Jeffers proposes that we actually have a need for a level of uncertainty. Life is not worth living without it. We don’t always want to know what’s around the next corner. Because if it’s bad, we’ll give up altogether and if it’s good, we’ll deprive ourselves of the blessings that lie between now and then. The key, she says, is to develop a strategy vis-à-vis what happens, not a plan.
And this very concept is now spreading into mainstream business. Whereas before and of course in many ways still, the thought was to create plans and implement them, the idea now is to create a “strategy” instead, because plans are seen as obsolete when nothing is constant or foreseeable. It almost sounds a little esoteric. But then again human beings thrive on more than meets the eye:
Yes, things are not cut and dry with human beings. There is an urge inside us to “transcend” – even when it doesn’t make financial or material sense. And that urge pushes us to leave our loved ones and venture into the world; to leave our comfort zones and to tread the path of the unknown. Every protagonist has to abandon what she knows for what she doesn’t. This is our journey. Even if we “fail”, we grow along the way. We become flexible and see possibilities where at first we see obstacles. And believe it or not, that’s what you’ll hear in many MBA classes these days. In fact, many academics propose that developing a strategy is not just a “lesser evil”, but an actual “bonus”. It allows you to get to places you never dreamed of. Sound familiar?
How many memorable movie characters can you think of that sit and plan something and then just execute the plan without being met with any resistance or crisis from the realm of the unknown? What kind of character gets anywhere by taking the path of least resistance? I’ve used this concept in my own motivational work: follow the “light” of your calling, not the “lampshade” that confines it. Our greatest destiny often lies beyond the limiting plans and ideas we carve out for ourselves. And it’s not until we allow ourselves to be open towards crises and complications that we meet our greatest potential.
And isn’t that what religious people always say? Follow God’s will and let yours go? Isn’t this, in essence, the same concept? We use different words or vocabulary to describe the concept of “embracing the unknown” or living by strategy rather than plan. But while this concept manifests itself in different ways, depending on what approach we’re taking, at the heart of it all is a truth we all recognize, and which films have been whispering to us for generations.
A seed will be lying dormant until a crisis cracks open its shell in a powerful and tumultuous way that eventually brings about a flower, the blooming of which is the culmination of that seed’s life. But it doesn’t end there. That flower, sunning nonchalantly in the summer warmth will suddenly undergo a change in the form of autumn, which dries its leaves and robs it of its petals, only to reappear in brand new splendor the following spring. Consider how brutish trimmed roses look in the winter. You’d think someone’s surely butchered them. But it isn’t until the gardener has trimmed them that they are able to bloom more fully when the seasons change again.
You’ve seen women in labor – if not in real life, surely on television. They scream and push and pant. If one were to walk by a maternity ward it would be easy to think there is death behind the doors: screams, blood and pain. But we all know what lies beyond that crisis, namely a wonderful new direction. Good music, too, will take you on a journey and every fulfilling journey starts with a direction, meets with some sort of crisis and eventually takes you to a place you didn’t quite expect.
Even the most die-hard Hollywood critics will agree that a story without any sort of “crisis” in its broadest sense is not a story. Of course you can critique the formulaic regurgitation of this rhythm into cookie-cutter forms, because to some extent “rigidity” betrays the essence of the rhythm itself. The rhythm is after all about embracing the “unknown” in order to evolve. But the need for its presence is indisputable, universal and it transcends cultures and cultural sensitivities.
In South Africa, exploring cultural sensitivities is part of my daily routine. I am fortunate enough to be living in a country where I can afford a full-time helper in my home. She’s from Zimbabwe and was watching Ratatouille and Toy Story 2 with my son on television the other day. Having hardly ever watched movies or television, she doesn’t perhaps have the same frame of reference some of us share. I say “us”, because if you’re reading this on the web, you and I have some fundamental media sensitivities in common.
For example, my helper doesn’t understand the exact relationship between the rat, Remy, and the young garbage-boy, Linguini. She also doesn’t quite understand why there is a fat little cook hovering around next to the rat from time to time. Or, when Woody is stolen from the yard-sale and his toy friends gather around the play-room to devise a rescue plan, my helper doesn’t pick up the humorous references to crime-scene investigations, which are recreated so creatively on the Etch-A-Sketch toy. There is talk of “exhibit A” and “exhibit B” – phantom sketches of the suspect and all sort of other conventions, which are completely meaningless to a woman who has barely watched television and grew up in rural Africa.
But – she’s told stories to her kids at night. So she holds her breath when the protagonists are brutally ripped from their familiar environments, accusingly points at the screen when antagonists plot evil and she exhales, when things fall into their right place. And somehow at the end of it all she knows the broad strokes of what just happened: Someone ventured into “the unknown” and came out of it richer for the experience. This basic pattern or rhythm to life seems to transcend all languages and cultures. We all recognize it and it’s been part of our collective “un”-consciousness forever.
So why do we resist the “unknown” in our own lives? Instead of embracing it like our heroes and heroines, we try to manage it. How? By making plans. And as you know about plans, well God laughs at them, right? A couple of years ago one of South Africa’s top economists, Iraj Abedian, decided to scrap all plans and write a book about it. He was outlining chapters for what he wanted to call “Thriving on Uncertainty.” His aim was show that in business or economics the only constant is “uncertainty” and that it is counter productive to try and control circumstances by making plans. It would be akin to asking Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz to prepare for the tornado and stay at home. His proposal was that it would be necessary to develop a stance or strategy instead of a plan. “Riding the waves”, not resisting them, would take you where you’d need to be. After all Dorothy would not know the value of home if it hadn’t been for her journey.
Abedian was ready to take his book to a publisher and enlighten the business world of what screenwriters have always known, when lo and behold, he saw it on a shelf in an airport bookstore: “Embracing Uncertainty”. After doing a double take he bought the book and devoured it that night. It was the exact same concept but applied in terms of clinical psychology. The author, Susan Jeffers, had outlined breakthrough methods for achieving peace of mind when facing the unknown. The unknown, she said, was a large part of our inner rhythm.
And that makes sense. When we hear about a great movie, the last thing we want is for someone to give us a scene-by-scene breakdown before we go to see it. “No! no! Don’t tell me the ending, I want to go watch it!” Jeffers proposes that we actually have a need for a level of uncertainty. Life is not worth living without it. We don’t always want to know what’s around the next corner. Because if it’s bad, we’ll give up altogether and if it’s good, we’ll deprive ourselves of the blessings that lie between now and then. The key, she says, is to develop a strategy vis-à-vis what happens, not a plan.
And this very concept is now spreading into mainstream business. Whereas before and of course in many ways still, the thought was to create plans and implement them, the idea now is to create a “strategy” instead, because plans are seen as obsolete when nothing is constant or foreseeable. It almost sounds a little esoteric. But then again human beings thrive on more than meets the eye:
Yes, things are not cut and dry with human beings. There is an urge inside us to “transcend” – even when it doesn’t make financial or material sense. And that urge pushes us to leave our loved ones and venture into the world; to leave our comfort zones and to tread the path of the unknown. Every protagonist has to abandon what she knows for what she doesn’t. This is our journey. Even if we “fail”, we grow along the way. We become flexible and see possibilities where at first we see obstacles. And believe it or not, that’s what you’ll hear in many MBA classes these days. In fact, many academics propose that developing a strategy is not just a “lesser evil”, but an actual “bonus”. It allows you to get to places you never dreamed of. Sound familiar?
How many memorable movie characters can you think of that sit and plan something and then just execute the plan without being met with any resistance or crisis from the realm of the unknown? What kind of character gets anywhere by taking the path of least resistance? I’ve used this concept in my own motivational work: follow the “light” of your calling, not the “lampshade” that confines it. Our greatest destiny often lies beyond the limiting plans and ideas we carve out for ourselves. And it’s not until we allow ourselves to be open towards crises and complications that we meet our greatest potential.
And isn’t that what religious people always say? Follow God’s will and let yours go? Isn’t this, in essence, the same concept? We use different words or vocabulary to describe the concept of “embracing the unknown” or living by strategy rather than plan. But while this concept manifests itself in different ways, depending on what approach we’re taking, at the heart of it all is a truth we all recognize, and which films have been whispering to us for generations.
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1. Posted on 26.Aug.10 From: daleepsud
Take a brush ,splash color on a canvass then wait and see ,from the unknown emerges a picture ,which consoles your mind,justifies rationality,pokes into the style madness ,yet at the end of it brings joy,satisfaction with a sense of achieving.The thoughts are based on continuous flow of rhythm in our lives,any full stop and we cease to exists....same happens in creativity.