by Flemming Funch
One of the ways I evaluate whether I'm doing the *right* thing, or whether I think others are, is to check whether it is the kind of thing that one will never give up on. That's maybe a little hard to explain, but if one is following a path of purpose through one's life, it isn't a matter of trying this and that, starting things and failing, trying to guess what one should do, etc. Oh, one's activities might include all of those things, and it is quite noble to dare to take risks, to explore untried avenues, and to fail and keep going. But underneath it all there's something that won't fail. If you're doing what you're here to do, there is no failure. There is no way you can fail.
What can fail is specific short-term outcomes and frozen expectations. If I want to paint my fence tomorrow and I then don't, that's a failure of sorts. If I want somebody to treat me a certain way and they don't, that's a sort of failure. But you're not here to meet specific abstract outcomes. Your reason for being here is more like a verb than its a noun. It doesn't have a where and a when - it is more like a quality, an energy, an attitude.
If I'm here to help, to create wisdom, to have better communication, to make better systems, to have fun, to explore, to love, to design, to dream - there's no way I can fail, and there's no way I'll give up, no matter what happens. The real stuff doesn't depend on the specifics of what happens along the way.
I feel that way about a New Civilization. It doesn't really matter what we call it, and it doesn't matter what happens along the way, it is still something I'll be doing. Communicating, imagining, exploring, searching for better ways of releasing a culture of freedom and harmony and beauty and truth. That can't fail.
I know I'm being tempted to stray from my principle once in a while when somebody comes along and offers an all or nothing bet for NCN, or for some other part of my life. Essentially to destill everything down to one particular project or one particular rule or term or system, which requires 100% support or participation or funding. I.e. setting up a plan that will only work if it is funded, or a new protocol for how we do everything which will only work if we all agree. And if it doesn't work, well, that's the end of it, and we'll just have to think of something else to do.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for funding and clever systems for how we might collaborate. I think we need lots of that. But whenever you ask me to turn my life's mission into a business plan, which might or might not be funded, and which is to be abandoned when it doesn't, expect me to have some problems with that.
My attitude is that if you really, really wanted to do something, you'd be doing it now. If it is the right thing to do, it will take a life of its own. If anything isn't happening before it is funded, or before everybody is forced to agree to it, then it questionable whether it is worth doing at all. Yes, if we need to build a bridge, we need to agree on a plan, and we need funding. But we can be working on all that right now. Nothing has to wait. No valid purpose has to be given up for lack of ... anything.
Let's try many things, let's pursue many avenues, let's be bold and daring. Let's make many mistakes, and learn from many things that don't work. Let's be continously changing and unfolding. Let's give all we have, but not be attached to the outcomes.
Be prepared to move through many failures. But YOU don't ever fail.
Change direction whenever it seems to be the right thing to do. Change your mind when it is stuck. Choose new approaches, new tools, new metaphors, new playmates, new scenery, whenever you're so inspired.
But don't ever give up.
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