Comments on: happy spring, new beginnings and dismissed truth

By: Mohan

Mohan — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:50:37 +0000

Col,
After reading your blog I’d like to offer this para from Otto Scharmer. Personally I think we are in the ‘ordianry’ person’s age, as ordinary people have never been so empowered in any other era in human history, to be able to change their own history.

Quote: “We live in an era of intense conflict and massive institutional failures, a time of painful endings and of hopeful beginnings. It is a time that feels as if something profound is shifting and dying while something else, as the playwright and Czech president, Václav Havel, put it, wants to be born: “I think there are good reasons for suggesting that the modern age has ended. Today, many things indicate that we are going through a transitional period, when it seems that something is on the way out and something else is painfully being born. It is as if something were crumbling, decaying, and exhausting itself—while something else, still indistinct, were rising from the rubble.”

By: Col

Col — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:06:02 +0000

Does identifying as ordinary mean that you aren’t? Hmmm. I don’t think so. The point for me is that somehow I have bought into the myth that greatness is ‘better’ than ordinariness.

By synchronicity my eyes latched onto a book I’d never seen before as I pondered all this in Readings, Carlton yesterday, called An Encyclopaedia of an Ordinary Life. It was the reflections of someone who hadn’t done anything newsworthy, but clearly had lived a full life.

By whose definition do we define greatness anyway? Why are some of us inclined to think our lives are more valuable if we play on a global stage, engage in ‘important’ stuff, or relate to ‘significant people’.

The language becomes problematic, but in the end this is about the question of what really matters? Greatness surely must follow our answer to this question, and for mine, what matters is not just about ends, but means. It is about character. It is about who I am, not what I do. (That’s my head talking)

I am a blues supporter. Fevola is one of the best kicks for goal I’ve ever seen, but he’s a tool. Good kick + wanka is not equal to great. How do we compare the orange lady at the local junior club with your Brendons? What framework do we use?

And are we OK with being a great orange lady? Really. No, really OK. (the overuse of ‘really’ is a sure sign of literary ordinariness!)

How does deep contentment with what is, live alongside a healthy drive and ambition to be as excellent as we could be?

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:08:29 +0000

Col, I’ve really loved your train of thought these last few weeks. It seems like quite an introspective time for yourself, and one I’ve enjoyed following through this blog.

I really get what you’re saying, and love the “I am an ordinary urban professional with delusions of greatness.” I feel a similar way myself at the moment.

My question to you is, are you really ordinary if you can define yourself as ordinary? And what does this mean in terms of how you go about being Col accross all facets of your life – professional, family and ‘other’?