vesterberg.se

A while ago I finished reading Weinberg on Writing – The Fieldstone Method by Gerald Weinberg. I have always been interested in storytelling. When my children were small, we dreamed up stories and fantasy creatures, each one crazier than the other. I used to have secret plans of making children’s books. Writing has for a long time been on my list of personal development areas.

Since I have read other books of this author and like them, I bought The Fieldstone Method. In it, Weinberg manages to clearly describe the creative process of writing, step by step. The writing style is very practical, with a lot of exercises in each chapter. He has regular training seminars on this subject.

Fieldstone process

Weinberg uses the metaphor of building with fieldstones to illustrate the process. When you build with fieldstones you first walk around in the fields and gather a lot of stones. After that you line them up for inspection. Every stone is rough, uneven and unique as nature made them. When building, you take them one by one and try to find a fitting place. Sometimes you have to do some trimming or even cutting to get a smooth wall. Perhaps after a while, you must go out collecting stones again to fill some obstinate holes. The result is a unique wall that’s not as boring and predictable as a brick wall.

Writing process

Gathering fieldstones is catching the ideas that pop up in your mind. You catch them by writing down phrases or key words that carries the idea. Ideas can come haphazardly or in any order, but you just hang on to what is coming. Don’t try to organize or trim them at the same time. After a while you have a pile of interesting thoughts and reflections that might end up in several articles. As next activity, go through your ideas and organize; see how they can fit together and arrange them in some order. Lastly trimming is necessary; looking at the flow of language.

The metaphor he uses is spot-on. Weinberg states that creativity is a non-linear process. Reading is a linear process; most of the time you read a book from beginning to end, but creating a book is different. There is an inherent randomness in creating, because of how our brain works. Weinberg talks about different activities in the writing process; briefly he calls them gathering, organizing and trimming. You stay with one activity for as long as you have ideas. When the flow stops, you change to some of the other activities. Don’t force yourself to continue. Different activities need different states of mind. Gathering is unlike organizing and organizing is unlike trimming; the focus is different.

Software development process

I can’t help comparing Weinberg’s method to the prevalent way of creating programs. In software development we talk about working incrementally and with many iterations. That means that we build little by little and go back and forth between different phases, instead of first doing all the analyzing, after that all the design and lastly all the implementation. Software industry has found out that this way of working is consistent with man’s creative abilities and is the best way to handle complexity and the ever changing requirements.

Precious stones

Here is another word of wisdom from the book; Look for stones with emotional energy. Weinberg discusses how you can use your inner being to find the real gems. Watch your own emotional response to your stones. Don’t look so much at the exterior, you will trim and polish them later. Go for stones that awaken something in you.

Understanding through writing

To me writing is very much part of the process of understanding a subject. I don’t wait to write about something until I have fully understood. I write, and during the writing process, during the gathering, organization and trimming the deeper understanding comes. Rearranging and rephrasing becomes a powerful tool of reflection.

Weinberg’s book made explicit the way of working that I partly already used. It has deepened my understanding and enhanced my creativity. Now, I can “go with the flow” in a better way. If I would summarize with a sentence I would say “practical wisdom”. I really recommend it.

We went to Spain for a week in April last year and I had to tailor the flying route and other things. Today you can manage much by yourself by using internet. Self-service is nice, but you are faced with many choices and much details. It can be overwhelming. At work and in our private life, we have to handle an ever increasing amount of information. We make more decisions in a week than people did in a life-time hundred years ago and as a result many these days are suffering from informational stress.

Complexity

The human being can handle only a limited amount of complexity. We as individuals have different limits, and if we exceed this limit for some time it will affect us very negatively.

Quality

I can’t help comparing it with software engineering. Try to follow me; In order to cope with the complexity of today’s programs; we encapsulate or hide the details when we build a program. We move functionality into small components and build bigger components out of the small ones. We try to deal with things at a higher level. The nitty-gritty details can kill the quality of an application.

In the same way, to ensure quality in our own lives, we have to watch out for the details. The details and dependencies can become a nightmare. It might be so already in your life. Information stress undermines relationships and makes us blind to what is withering away. We have an internal limit of what we can handle and we have to be kind to ourselves and respect that limit. To build a life with quality, we need to delegate and let go of details. Let’s do that before stress kills us and we get burned out.

Prioritizing

Some choices are more important than others. Some details just have to be left to someone else to be taken care of. These days we have many gadgets and they have to be maintained. Let’s throw away some things! We have many activities and the schedule is crowded. Let’s throw away some things! Imagine how your life would be with a simpler lifestyle.

The Juggler

We can be like the juggler that adds one ball and then one more. He begins to drop balls, but do not notice and keeps on adding balls. We have to learn to know our capacity, so that when we begin to drop balls, we notice it and do something about it. Every now and then we ought to take pause and reflect and listen to our family or workmates. When we become easily irritated, it’s a sign that balls are rolling on the floor.

Help from the outside

New kind of services emerges; information brokers. We can get much information from the web, but sometimes we need to go to a travel agency and meet a friendly person, describe our desires and put the details in his or her hands. There will always be a place for service by humans. Man can never be replaced by machines or programs.

So, some people have begun to understand the message about sustainable living. They are stirred on the inside and want to take their responsibility. They change their lifestyle and choose products in a conscious way. But is it enough? Can their individual contributions make a change and turn the ship? Isn’t it today’s powerful global institutions, multinational companies and governments that decide the rules? How can we make our voices heard?

I have been thinking a lot lately on how to make best use of the new social tools we have these days like blogs, newsgroups, email, mobile phones, etc. As never before we can connect and coordinate. Information can be spread in a moment’s notice to millions. Media coverage is no longer governed by professionals. Coordination is no longer only possible by well-managed organizations. These tools can be a real boost to democracy.

While looking for resources on this subject I stumbled over “Here comes everybody” by Clay Shirky. I finished reading his book today. In this very interesting book these things are discussed, with many examples of how the new social tools make a difference. The success of Flickr, Twitter, MySpace, Meetup, Wikipedia and Linux are examined. The author also compares similar stories that occurred some 10 years ago and again recently. He shows how amateur journalism totally changes the landscape of information distribution. Stories that for different reasons media or organizations decide to suffocate can spread in spite of that. The open software movement shows that complex cooperation is possible.

A big question in the past has been whether a task was best dealt with by the state, directing the effort in a planned way, or by businesses competing in a market. Now there is a third way; we can have action by loosely structured groups, operating without managerial direction and not motivated by profit. Clay Shirky puts it this way: “We used to have a world where little things happen for love and big things happen for money…Now though, we can do big things for love.”

I would like to explore and discuss these social patterns and tools. I work with software development and we talk about agile development. Agile means that we are quick to create a solution and, if needed, quick to modify it. I believe that with an agile attitude we can make use of social tools with the purpose of creating public opinion in environmental issues. Yes, we write in our blogs and forums, but I believe we can stretch further. If we are aware of the potential, we can tailor the use of tools according to our purpose and audience. Social software makes possible what 10 years ago was impossible. We can make our voices heard, multiply and create landslides.

Some weeks ago I saw a report from Ecuador made by a Swedish film team. People in the rainforest are today suffering from ruined health because of oil exploitation done in the past. Between 1970 and 1990, Texaco (now Chevron) pumped 200,000 barrels of oil a day from over 400 drilling sites in the rainforest. When they left they made a half-hearted cleanup and managed to get the government to sign a document that clearance was ok. Today there is oil in rivers and canals. There are open basins with oil that contaminates the area and because of all this; people are suffering from sicknesses. A mother was interviewed in the program; both she and her daughter had cancer.

A lawsuit has been going on for many years against Texaco. The lawyer from Chevron was interviewed and showed no understanding or concern at all. He said “We have signed a legal document. This is not our business. The tribes just want to make some money on this”. Texaco earned millions of dollars, but left the place in a mess. Now they spend money on attorneys instead of taking responsibility for their exploitation.

So Chevron has a signed, legal document that says: “we are not guilty”. In business a legal document is very real. But there is something greater than the business world, something that encompasses market economy and that is life itself. Is it enough to have a signed paper? Is a legal paper the final authority? In a fragmented world view, yes, but I would say that Texaco is still guilty in a larger perspective. To have a narrow view of the world is really dangerous. The capital has its rules, but they cannot be allowed to violate the rules of life. Seeing the whole picture is the only right perspective. We have a saying in Sweden that you shouldn’t cut off the branch you’re sitting on. How true isn’t that!

I would have loved to find some email-addresses to the fighters over there; don’t give up. Your fight for your rights has echoed all the way to Sweden. What can we do?

I recently visited a meeting at the Swedish Red Cross in my home-town. The meeting was led by a group of volunteers that work with refugees. They told us about their work and how they assist the refugees in finding lost relatives, medical issues, and contact with authorities and all kinds of things. These Red Cross people are genuinely interested in the welfare of immigrants and refugees. All for free. I was touched by their concern. They include these foreigners in their own world.

Group identification

People tend to identify themselves with different kinds of groups. Belongingness is said to be one of the basic human needs. But this identification often creates a distance to people not belonging to the chosen group. I’ m male and not female. I’m a house owner and not an apartment owner. I live on the east side of town and not on the west side. I’m a Swede and not from middle Europe. I’m a technician and not a sales person. I’m a jazz guy and not one of those metal lovers. It easily becomes a us and them situation. As a result we give attention and help to those on the inside and blame those on the outside. Their problems are certainly not our problems. We are not concerned about the welfare for them. Why should we care? This is natural for us and ingrained in our thinking. Belonging to a group gives us safety and shelter.

In reality our identification with limited groups becomes a cage and a prison with walls that separate us from the others. We are deprived of fellowship and cooperation and fear and suspiciousness thrives. It is the main source of conflicts and ultimately wars. It is negative for us and for others. It is very negative for the whole and is against the very nature of life.

Human being

What would happen if we widened our identification? Our group is a system, but it is enclosed in a bigger system. What would happen if we considered ourselves as foremost human beings? Then there would be no “others” and cooperation and sharing would be possible in a different way. Their problems would become our problems and we would strive to understand each other. We have a lot of imagined boundaries and borders, but the truth is that we are in the same boat. We are humans on this earth. This doesn’t mean that we have to say goodbye to diversity of cultures and opinions. Diversification on the contrary will make us strong.

Some weeks ago I visited a large shopping centre in town. As I strolled there with my cart, I was thinking on these things and suddenly I realized how much prejudiced opinions of people that were in my mind. I saw how I kept people at a distance. It was like walls coming down in my mind. I had to stop for a while and I looked at people around me with new eyes. That experience really affected me.

Living being

We can take this widening of identification a step further. Think about our environment. Here we have a us and them situation also. We have lived disconnected from nature for centuries, believing that nature is there for us to use, spoil and degrade. Nature was seen like a machine and we were the operator, running it according to our plans. These days we try to improve on our behaviour concerning environment. We try to do a little here and a little there, but we have to go deeper than that.

The problem is that we don’t see ourselves as a part of the living world. The truth is that we are but one member of the web of life, deeply dependent on the other species. Some walls have to come down here also. The lips cannot say to the lungs, I don’t need you. This is literally true in these days and thinking something else would be very stupid.

Heart

Somehow this has to come into our hearts. It’s not enough to just speculate about it or have knowledge about it. It’s a heart-thing. We try the best we can, but not until it touches our hearts, there will be a real change and things will speed up. A mind shift is needed.

What difference would it make in your life if some walls of separation came down? How could you accelerate this process in your life? There is both a negative side and a positive side concerning sustainable living. We have to do it, or we will perish. On the positive side, what would the positive effects be in your life?