Existential Humility
Honoring the grace of the moment…
Chatting with my friend the other day, the subject arose, in the context of discussing the remarkable nature of his work, of “existential humility.” I was touched to find him exclaim, asking if I had come up with that construct, and insisting that I should undoubtedly write about it in my next posting. As these postings are most often a bit off the cuff, and generally formulated from thoughts and reflections of the living week, I thought, “why not,” and here we are…
Before dropping too far into a reflection on the subject, let me first point out the origins of how it came to be in my awareness.
HISTORY
In 2014, a gentleman by the name of Frederic Laloux completed and published a piece of work looking at apparently consistent structures of evolutionary complexity found in the world of business and enterprise.
The book, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness, describes five successive stages of organizational complexity for human cooperative enterprise. Each of these stages is characterized by three fundamental novelties in their principles of construction; successively drawing upon those “earlier” stages and adding their own insights.
By building hierarchically (not authoritarian hierarchy, but rather like atoms to molecules to compounds etc.), the insights of the book suggest, that these evolutionary structures embody increasing breadth of fit and synergy in ever widening circles of environmental context.
These fundamental novelties, encouraged and enforced throughout the organization, were presented as (using rainbow like colors as designations):
Red: Division of Labor; Command Authority
Amber: Long-Term Perspective; Prescribed Process; Formal Roles
Orange: Innovation; Accountability; Meritocracy
Green: Stakeholder Balance; Culture over Strategy; Individual Empowerment
and, the pinnacle of the book’s narrative, Teal: Wholeness; Self-Management; and Evolutionary Purpose
At the time I was deeply enthralled in questions of potentials of organizational integrity and what might constitute the cutting edge of possibility in service to a world held in a more integral well-being.
Along this inquiry, I and some friends began to explore, based on patterns in the existing body of Developmental Theory, what might be the next wave of fundamental novelties to which organizations might imagine and aspire in today’s world.
Among the conversations that ensued, Existential Humility remains the construct that has persisted with me the longest.
THE CONSTRUCT
At the risk of sounding pedantic (and forgive me if I do,) I’ll offer here a brief introduction to what we were peering towards.
The “Teal” designation was drawn from developmental models describing a particular stage of adult development. This stage can be referred to in a variety of ways, in general it is considered the maturation of an individual’s ability to take a 4th person perspective on objects and their awareness.
The next “stage” in sequence represents the emergence of a fifth person perspective, where the substance of objects in awareness is recognized through the lens of the viewers fundamental and vulnerable humility of subjective experience. This has been called Construct Aware, as objects viewed through this perspective are recognized as ephemeral creations of the viewer’s own mind which can therefore never quite grasp any meaningful claims as to the ontological essential nature of the objects as they may or may not exist outside of that perceptive moment.
That is indeed a mouthful but let me try to put it more simply.
What we see in front of us using our minds eye is always infinitely more in itself than the limited set of personal experience we bring to bear on the subject of our perception. (If you’ve ever felt misunderstood by others, you know exactly what I’m referring to.)
In summary, Existential Humility represents the principal of recognition that all things are temporary, they both represent a culmination of some intelligence, insight, wisdom, or manifestation, while simultaneously representing something that is about to pass away in giving rise to the next moment of iteration.
IN PRACTICAL TERMS (if this is not too hubristic…)
If I’m approaching a conscientious design of product, intervention, enterprise, social process, or even a simple artistic expression, I might do well to consider existential humility as a natural principal of evolutionary process, and so at essence in any well aligned and harmonic constructive contribution.
All things are constituted of others while being constituents of something more. All things consume something and are themselves consumed again.
An evolutionary construct, like an egg, like a zygote, like an infant, an adolescent… Even an aged person gives way in death to become an ancestor, all of these arise, add value, mature, and pass away in service to evolutionary transformations.
Similarly, social constructs themselves are most often “fit to purpose,” and serve the developmental coherence of some passing context, giving way to new possibilities that wouldn’t otherwise become possible.
From a certain perspective, each moment is good for something. Some for resting, some for laughing, others for crying, for sharing, for turning inward, for leaping, dancing, twirling, or standing still. Sometimes it is wise that we should talk, and other times it is wise that we should listen. (Of course I do not mean to diminish the possibility that all of these are occurring at once, but still… ;-)
The Consillience Project is one such initiative I have since found naturally occurring in the landscape. I have some formal experience and even training in the domains of the aforementioned developmental constructs, and I have no doubt that the insights present at the founding of this enterprise were capable of drawing on fifth person perspectives (and perhaps later.) The idea of existential humility is built explicitly into the moments of their formation.
It has been so tempting, and often the source of hubris, to claim a sense of righteousness to our identity and the trappings of its action. The idea of building Empire or enterprise or edifice to last for generations or even millennia, is nothing strange to the human endeavor. Indeed, there is nothing inherently wrong with longevity or endurance.
Mountains and oceans, galaxies and supernova all have their existential integrity in the relative sense of time viewed through the human eye, though they too pass away. Ancient and living cultures on earth have much enduring value to share, and do in reciprocitive synergy with their environments, and those of us in the so-called modern world that might take the moment to listen.
I’m not talking about that, but rather the fool’s errand of imagined immortality of some separate and narcissistic ego. That ego might be Narcissus themselves, perhaps a power-hungry despot, or even one just so wounded in their moment that they can imagine nothing more than enduring beyond whatever it is that gave them violence.
Existential humility, it might be said, is a necessary precursor for wisdom. We must contextualize ourselves, individually and collectively, our perspectives, our values, our aspirations, and our impact in the realization that there is always something transcendent to what we have captured in the boundaries and constraints of our conceptual imagination.
A conscientious existential humility applied throughout our expression leaves room for the creative process inherent in the experience of life. We use the tools of our mind, our constructive capacities, the artifacts we create, or find and embrace, and they bring evolutionary utility to the moment, but if we cling to them we suffer for we are blind to the path on which they bring us, and to the vistas that they in their moments have revealed.
Existential humility is not an obvious accelerant, but rather slows things down. Standing in this perspective, we take time to realize the cracks in our perception, the frailties in our plan, we take time to discover those influences that might have been obstacles, but understood can now be support to that which we are seeking.
In the words of some wise soul… (I think I heard it attributed to the US Navy Seals)…
“Go slow to go fast.” To which I might add, go well, give yourself, and pass away…
Beautiful illustrations and links. Thanks so much for this series of "Ah Ha!" moments.
let it go