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Back In Perspective
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Monday, August 14, 2006Welcome To The Week,
Someone asked me off-line (i.e.: privately in a "real" conversation - they do still happen) who I thought my "audience" was and what my "message" was as well. In other words who do I write to and what do I write about in simpler language. Their intention was to push me more towards making the message obvious to the intended audience.
While I do appreciate the interest and input I also found myself asking another question, "Why do I write here (in BlogNostra) each day?" For me this has more significant ramifications to both what I'm writing and who I'm writing it to/for.
Let me step back a moment ... I come in part from a deep background in NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming). In fact it would be fair to say that my deepest and most intensive training was in NLP. I also probably spent/spend more time in and among NLPers than any other single professional group. So my work has a definite NLP flavor and reeks of the scent of that method of working.
Within the NLP model, the question "Why" according to protocol should not be invoked. The preference leans ever so strongly towards asking, "How?" instead. The question "WHY?" has been framed as going to motivation and invoking judgment/blame - a highly prejudicial position to take from my point of view. Where, the question "HOW?" gets credit for eliciting and establishing process, seen in NLP circles as a much better outcome.
Yet this strikes me as the fundamental choice point in defining that model (NLP) when taken literally - i.e.: going to "HOW?" instead of "WHY?" It would be obvious to anyone considering it that asking "WHY?" will in fact elicit and establish motivation as well as any question could. So, then the question remains, "Why not ask WHY?"
Ultimately you'll find there are two main reasons, the first I'll dismiss for the purposes of this posting - fear of judgment/blame, which really just announces a lack of skill and awareness ... beyond the semantic argument (I'd deny that we are a "semantic" species, preferring greatly to consider us a "somatic" species instead). The second reason goes much deeper into the heart of the NLP model, including it's semantic roots and the linguistic ground they are buried in - NLP was designed and developed as an epistemological model.
An epistemological model seeks to address how we know what we know - or the structure of knowledge. Epistemology presumes that, our knowledge of things makes them so or to put it another way how we think about things makes them what they are. I could not more vehemently disagree with this ideology!
While I totally accept and respect the value of the NLP model for what it does, I disagree completely about how to go about using the tools NLP provides, and to what ends - of course this loops me as well around to where it begins.
The model I grew up in vis-a-vis my NLP training has a very particular form that it resides in - an ontological form. The distinction between an epistemological model and an ontological model has everything to do with where they begin - an epistemological model either discounts or disregards any form of "extant reality" ... while an ontological model begins from and revolves around "extant reality."
What an ontological model seeks to address has to do with how we interact with extant reality AND how we shape our relationship to/with it as well. The particular approach I was apprenticed in began from a clear and simple distinction - am I operating from a positive/excitatory bias - or - am I operating from a negative/inhibitory bias. I apprenticed with an "applied ontologist," Roye Fraser of NLP America/Blue Dell Systems, for seven years - while he never overtly in my memory used such a term as "Applied Ontologist" to describe himself, or even "Applied Ontology" to describe his work - Roye's practice defined him in my mind as just that, an "applied ontologist."
Quite literally what I observed and learned about in my seven intense years of learning with Roye was the art and practice of shaping reality, specifically both personal/subjective and interpersonal/inter-subjective realities. Instead of beginning from the "process" or "understanding" of knowledge, Roye taught me to begin from the experience people found themselves residing in that shaped their reality. In essence this meant developing the skills to unpack the structure of an individual's or group's reality - how they formed and held intact the reality that contained them.
The subsequent skills that came with and over time had to do with the ability to re-shape those realities and create the ground upon which an individual or a group stood and from which they moved out into the world around them.
So this is "WHY" I write here everyday - in a continuing effort to explore the realities we create and share.
WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT TO ME? ... you might ask? Because my I have come to accept that only when we've built the realities we want to be living, working, playing and loving in will be have reached our destiny as a species.
I think us largely misnamed: homo-sapiens or "wise human-being (or "man" generally) sounds like a misnomer to my ear about us a species. Instead it seems to me that we would be better called, homo-artifex or creating human-being, or possibly, homo-genitalis, or creative human-being. The idea of "man" as the species that creates appeals to me
If we thought of ourselves as "the species that brings into being", i.e.: the "creative/creator" species, I think that we would take a higher level of responsibility for our actions. Instead of simply thinking, "Hey the world 'out there' exists ... how can I take advantage of that ... satisfy my desires ... use it and consume it ... and those that reside within it.", maybe we'll take a different tact. Maybe we'll begin to ask instead, "Hey how am I contributing to the world out there ... how am I shaping the experience I am having, as well as the experience of others ... how can create the kind of a world I want to be living, working, playing and loving in?"
This then forms the core of "Why I write here everyday." - to provoke a desire and interest in shaping the world you want to be experiencing, for yourself and for others. I want to provoke you to take an ontological stance and become "homo-artifex" - a "creating human-being" ... "man/woman the creator".
I know that for many that will be more than they want ... more than they want me to ask of and for them. Yet I cannot act any less intentionally than this myself ... I always realized my message ain't for everyone, and I've always been okay with that being so. I guess I am saying most of all that it has always been clear to me what I'm writing about and whom I'm writing it to ... I'm okay playing with those of you who want to change the world and are willing to "play all out" to fulfill your own destinies, leave a legacy and in the process gently nudging the system forward as well.
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
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