I had hours to wait for the nice UPS man to deliver my bike case today, so I began The Next Phase. If I want a new paradigm, I have to describe it. I went in search of community and inspiration, googling several paths of inquiry. Results were not only not relevant, they were Zip, Nada, and Zilch until with “How does Language change Imagination” I found:

Appreciative Inquiry, Change at the Speed of Imagination
“Appreciative Inquiry frees organizations from the restrictive orthodoxy of “deficit based change” and allows them the freedom to mobilize strategic change and focus on the visible and tacit strengths of an organization.”

I also found a chart that wordpress mangles into a list even though I put it in chart form. It describes three kinds of imagination and associated descriptive keywords:

Problem Focus: Past// What’s Wrong// Control// Outside Experts//What’s Missing// Determine// Analysis// Isolate// Problems// Solve// Unknown is Dangerous// Thinking

Outcome Focus: Future// What’s Desired// Influence// Collaboration//Known Resources// Answer// Goals with Action// Combine// Results// Develop// Unknown is Controllable// Acting

Emergence Focus: Now and Future// What’s Emerging// Explore and Engage// Co-creation//Unseen Resources// Discover// Unfolding// Integrate “Yes, And…”// Opportunities and Invitations// Transform// Unknown is Creative// New Way of Being

I like this list and that it is from a woman owned business, The Center for Creative Emergence in D.C. which is connected with her Capitol Creativity Network that lists a number of books, including ** TA-DA! ** Action Based Communication: Changing Experience Through Language by Renée Barnow.

All this sounded pretty cool to me. Even though the book turned out not to be really what I hoped, and the site Think for Change LLC was not really ‘it’ what with those pictures of white people in business suits, I was in the unfolding Internet hunt, which meant I was engaging purpose and pursuit.

Then, (ominous import)

I found Case Western University has a whole program about ‘AI.’ A website called Appreciative Inquiry Commons, too. So, first, idea, then movement, then a business, and then many businesses, onto a whole industry, so cool it has its own abbreviation and coaches and networks and books with almost all the same titles. Like Deepak Chopra. Expanding Cottage Industry 101 Becomes The Solution That Will Cure Everything Especially with Yet One More Book, Yet One More Workshop Leading to World Domination.

Systems people creating more systems to help industry and individuals innovate. Creativity Gone Worldwide!!!

“Ooooo!” moved into “hmmmmmm” and “uhhhhhhhhh” which became “tch” and “pffffffff” sometimes translated as “Pfui.”

I hate this kind of thing. I started squinting. Never a good sign. Then a feeling of encroaching Whiteness. A distinctly bad feeling. Kind of like business suits in disguise as they reach forward to shake your hand. I snarked: I just really do not think these people want to bicycle to work everyday. Then, Oh No! I was c-r-a-n-k-y, even f-r-u-s-t-r-a-t-e-d, and (gasp!) Worse!!!

Thinking in STEROTYPES. (“Maybe I ought to try getting over my assumptions? I am sure these…ahhhhh!!!! The website has lists of AI practitioners, and AI speakers! Oh by golly, Outside Experts!!! … See above list. Note where “Outside Experts” falls!)

Sigh….

So, here are my questions: where to learn, to cultivate clearly different imagination? What keywords lead to the people and positions that toss the boxes in compost bins? Complaining boxes, angry boxes, boxes of resistance, limitation, negativity in any disguise. Out with sober and sobering boxes. Boxes of enlightenment. Grubby boxes. Walls.

Perhaps I should inquire more appreciatively? Please, do opine freely.

A friend and I once argued as he presented the notion all libraries should be closed. We came to a sort of peace when he decided they could stay open if they served beer. Really good beer. I do confess to enjoying a quiet library. But maybe the beer thing is an idea whose time has come.

Social action, intellectual inquiry, neighborhood meetings liberated, loosed, grinning. He thinks I keep it all complicated because even though I bicycle, I want to eat organic food. We haven’t tackled my preference for European wines yet. I feel safe, though. He doesn’t like crappy beer.

This is all rather open-ended, I realize.

Write back.

And check out the very cool http://ciclavia.wordpress.com/

I am taking care of CicLAvia’s community and bicycle activist Adonia Lugo’s cats as she visits Car-Free Sundays on the West Coast. Yup, she is strolling Car-Free Sunday Streets in my old San Francisco neighborhood (“The Mission”) as well as another such happening in Portland while I am feeling the effects of car inundant in Los Angeles, and dodging prodigious amounts of her cats’ hair.

My sense of humor is creeping back up on me.

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