...about our perspectives...
...our beliefs in the possible, and the impossible...
...our need to make order of a thing that needs no ordering from us...
...and our need to make things conform to our understandings.
The worst thing we can do as a people is to look up into the sky and no longer wonder, dream, or try to understand. Believing we have all the answers necessary for our lives is a self imposed lobatomy, shutting off the aspect of being human that is so incredible: the desire to understand and the joy of wonder.
Some time back, in an art appreciation course that I really didn't appreciate, the instructor gave me my one and only A in that course for a paper on a local artists painting. It was abstract, colorful, and had a great deal of movement. The assignment: "what does this picture mean to you?" I took a cop out on this and wrote "I don't know. It has me captivated and looking into it for what's behind the brush stroke, and yet I no more than think I've got an answer then I find it slipping away into other questions". The thing was, I had no idea what I was supposed to write and so I wrote the first things off the top of my head.
It's now close to 25 years later and I think back on that picture and the response I gave. I never understood why I got an A, but I didn't complain. I still see that picture in my mind at times, and I still have no idea what the artist was trying to convey. What I do hope, now that I've grown to understand life just a bit better, is that I wouldn't try. Seeking to look beyond the brush strokes is wonderful, seeking to parrot someone else's understanding is a cop out.
4 comments:
"I don't know" is a very powerful statement. But most people do not have the self confidence to say that. So we make things up to try to "save Face". This is a different thing than simply getting something wrong , or interpretation, it really comes to this. How will people look at me if I admit I don't know? Maybe it will open a lot of doors,and access to new learning. I know nurses who can't admit they don't know something. If I get instruction on something in my job, there are a few nurses I work with who insists they know I am wrong and they know the (old) way to do it. Normally I just ignore then and then someone else will tell them and they are forced to admit they did it wrong. But they never come to me and say they were wrong.
The best nurses, the ones on top of the game will listen to others,and then form their opinion and action, but the will always listen to you with ego.
Hey maybe Randy, it is ego management we need as a new perspective. Hugs, Scottie
Ego Management: the ability to actually say "I don't have the answer". Wow, what a concept. It would be great if it went one step further to include "I don't have the answer to you, only you can find that". Then, maybe, we could find ourselves on a less lofty pillar.
Hugs and love, Scottie!
-randy.
hello Randy. I guess I was not looking at what I wrote very well. I just noticed what I wrote and what I meant to say were two different things.
when I said...The best nurses, the ones on top of the game will listen to others,and then form their opinion and action, but the will always listen to you with ego.
I meant..the best nurses, the ones on top of their game and skills, will listen to others with OUT ego, and then form their own judgments. But they will always listen to you without raising the wall of ego between you.
Hope that helps. Dang so many time my fingers and my mind do not quite sync up with each other.
I rather like that ego management thing. I also need to learn it. In the movie last night, the lead actor said something like " you would be surprised at how much you can accomplish when you take yourself out of the equation" I love the idea.
Hi Scottie;
I actually understood what you meant. That is an incredible thought: our greatest limit is not what others say we can do, but what we say we can do.
hugs;
randy.
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