| Seeing change | 2003-10-06 14:29 14 comments |
 by Flemming Funch Another pattern. In contexts where a person or group is behaving in a certain fashion, which they potentially should be able to control: Deliberate change can only happen when you can distinguish what you previously have been doing. Said a different way, you need to be able to see something a bit at a distance before you really can notice it, and articulate it, and then change your mind about it, and choose a different path. You can't change something you are BEING You can only change it after you, at least for a moment, step back and perceive it from a meta-perspective. You dissociate from the state of being. Whether you can talk about the subject matter or not is part of the equation. If you don't have language to talk about a certain kind of situation, you're not very likely to be able to decide to change it. If you have words for it, or if you have a mental model for it, a mental abstraction for it, then you can make a decision about it. And, to change into a different mental model, a different paradigm, one needs to be able to perceive that paradigm. One needs to be able to examine it, and say something about it. So, there are a lot of possibilities that aren't really available, just because they are so far removed from one's normal frame of reference that one just can't see it. You can only change into a new state if you can perceive it as a possibility Of course I'm only talking about conscious, deliberate change here. One can change other ways too. External circumstances might suddenly hit you in ways you didn't expect. Evolution might happen without your conscious involvement. (Gee, I could use a drawing pad. Drawing with a mouse sucks) |