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    Season of the ChameleonISSUE 07 / 13

    It's already broken...

    Profile picture of Author Carlo Mahfouz
    Carlo Mahfouz | Aug 17th 2024
    Change stagnates in the vacuum of dissension.

    I wanted to say you are wrong but instead, I said nothing. When the discussion sits at extremes silence reigns. We stop afraid it will break while broken is already what it is.

    • Is agreeing what matters the most?
    • What happens in the absence of thinking?
    • How do we break the cycle?

    — Thoughts. #recognize

    In two separate sessions this past two weeks, I was asked, “What is thought?” The first thing I wrote in response was:

    It runs wild
    as if it owns the place
    It calls the place its own
    and in that it takes pride

    It misbehaves all the time
    And it never takes the blame.
    It is intrusive whether we want it or not.
    We need it but it’s not necessary

    It likes to plan
    It likes to make its own
    We hate its torment
    Even when we don’t believe it.

    Thoughts are an escape
    They are a release
    When the mind fails
    It resolves in thinking.

    I wrote all that but did not share it. At least not all of it. And not at first. It felt probably too poetic. Didn’t exude intellectual potency possibly. Either way, eventually the last verse made its way into the discussion.

    This question came to be as part of a community book writing (LABs) facilitated by Katrijn van Oudheusden as we created a new book called: “The Unbelievable Joy of Not Needing to Be (a) Someone”.

    And for a question that you can say is philosophical, you can imagine the array of intellectual drama that tried to answer it. But what was most fascinating was the intense need felt as an undertone for everyone to answer it definitively.

    The convergence was fierce.

    It is extremely rare these days to find conversations that do not want at the outset to converge, align, and resolve in a synthesized agreement. We are conditioned to the latter.

    But are we missing something in our incessant need to agree? The session ended and we didn’t agree on a definition. And that was the most impressive thing we accomplished.

    — Thoughtless. #understand

    The next session we doubled down and started as if anew. Surprisingly or not, the discussion was no less interesting. This time though I had a unique experience to share quite disconnected from the question yet as relevant.

    Taking a leap of faith into an empty abyss below me I took a dive and hit my head with a mild concussion as a reward. Whelp! I wish that’s how it happened but in reality, it was nothing this fancy.

    Sitting in forest by Carlo Mahfouz.

    All it took was being 6’ 2” (188 cm) and missing a low beam at an old house for me to meet the fragility of my brain. The hit sounded loud as I was told but in that moment didn’t feel that bad.

    The tipsy drowsed mind might have had something to do with that.

    The second day came and with it some interesting observations that marvel at the daredevil shenanigans which I hoped would have gotten me into this dilemma in the first place.

    My head stopped working. I mean I had a lot to say — a lot was going on but nothing could come out. No thoughts. Nothing. I was there fully conscious and aware of everything but couldn’t talk or think.

    The processor took a break and I was witnessing the show live with no commentator —quite scary and interesting to reflect on that. What happens in the absence of the thinking mind? When language stops and we sit idle?

    I didn’t disappear. The same intellectual load that I wanted to divulge was there but simultaneously inaccessible. And that was baffling.

    Broken I was for a few hours even though seemingly I was fully functional.

    — Broken. #accept

    While neither of those two things seem relevant to my day-to-day work, that proved to be wrong as well. We get stuck and almost lobotomized when the conversation decides to stop.

    Feeling the need to conclude while none is there is no less broken than reaching a breaking point and starting anew. Change stagnates in the vacuum of dissension because without tension we stop creating.

    And even if the desired outcome is to agree eventually. That isn’t the first step. Not the second nor the third. It might be the 11th and only then we can break out of the already broken cycle of needing to converge.

    Until next time,
    Carlo

    Previous
    Enlightened...
    Next
    The precious moment is...
    Season of the Chameleon
    01
    It throws a fit...
    02
    I dreaded...
    03
    I lamented...
    04
    I fell for it.
    05
    It wants to learn...
    06
    Enlightened...
    07
    It's already broken...
    08
    The precious moment is...
    09
    From the hip...
    10
    Look up...
    11
    I don't resonate with you...
    12
    F*ck it...
    13
    Let's talk war...

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