Transitional Treadmills — how are we (still) feeding patterns of domination?

Flight #3— artist Glenda Leznoff

Listen to our audio narration with music accompaniment: Transitional Treadmills — how are we (still) feeding patterns of domination? 🎧 🎶

Facing this uncomfortable threshold is hard…

…very hard.

Sidestepping the real discomfort is still…

…the customary default.

We (still) stuff the messy uncomfortable stuff into some kind of time-allocated box…

…not necessarily a tick-box…

…yet still confined to a limited threshold deemed necessary…

…accepting the circumscribed realities of our world…

…abiding by presumed givens that we don’t challenge…

…succumbing to the pressures that command and demand precedence…

…for all kinds of reasons.

We often don’t even recognize how we (still) cushion ourselves…

…how we soften the harder edges that confront us…

…how we shield ourselves from the overwhelm…

…how deeply our immune responses function…

…how quickly they kick in.

We barely skip a beat before resuming regular programming…

…offering up our best…

…theories, frameworks and answers…

…to the troubling dangling questions…

…quickly skipping past or dodging the hardest questions…

…that might hit us hardest where we live…

…reciting chapter and verse, what we, many of us…

…have already heard, absorbed and refined…

…still leaning heavily on what we believe and know.

Like a mantra, assuring ourselves…

…that we know how to deal…

…that we know how to engage…

…that we’ve done it before…

We roll out variations, reiterating the need to improve and apply more of our creative systems thinking capacities…

…to access and inspire positive can do mindsets…

…to muster more strength and drive…

…to (re)model and upgrade…

…ourselves…

…our systems

…our organizing methods…

…to align with nature’s wisdom and design…

…to keep learning, absorbing…

…consuming knowledge and skills.

We catalogue and classify the tensions and gnarly, entangled unresolved predicaments…

…naming ways of seeing and understanding the complex contexts and nuances…

…that easily become the latest product…

…offering insights, deeper analysis and integrative sense making…

…input for more research, campaigns, programs, cohorts, events, podcasts, models, prototypes, books, papers…

…ad infinitum.

That is what we DO…so well. That is what we are expected to do, share, broadcast and keep building…

The answers…

…the integrative solution sets will / might / must emerge…

…if we keep rowing harder.

We are always just a few more iterations away from a better design…

…a better way to activate and shine…

…a better way to chime above the noise.

With funding flowing where we believe it should flow…

…we can work out the just transition to better systems…

🗝️ reimagining democracy

🗝️ reframing governance and stewardship FOR people and planet

🗝️ advancing and ***scaling* local community prototypes

🗝️ reforming infrastructure and organizations

🗝️ designing ***regenerative *community ecosystems (bioregioning)

All that doing and learning continues…as it has in various manifestations since the beginning of human civilization…

…and as we wade through…

…gotta keep asking and challenging…who’s ‘we?’

Who are discerning, deciding and choosing the WHOs, WHYs, WHATs, HOWs, WHEREs and WHENs of various efforts to redesign, produce, activate and orchestrate?

Maybe readiness for the messiness at this precarious juncture…facing a hard to face threshold…

…is a yielding to the tensions and polarities

…allowing the space for eternal discovering…

…that isn’t truncated…

…to face the unknowing, uncomfortableness…

…not driving…

…not holding…

…not reacting…

…not modelling…

…not upgrading…

…not harvesting…

…not extracting for use or utility…

…that still privileges the relative few.

Dominant systems are not designed and geared for this kind of yielding. They are geared to keep dominating…shapeshifting…dressed up in new costume and terminology.

We are well-conditioned…

…allocating our time, energy, care and love…

…to keep on serving the only system we’ve known…

…as if it is the only alternative for now…

…as we transition to some better future that might make it easier.

We are well conditioned to compress reality…

…look for and deliver shortcuts…

…better mechanisms…

…oscillating between pendulums and binaries…

…seeking a convenient both/and to ***have our cake and eat it too.***

Yielding to the messiness, dancing with the tensions is easily judged…

…as a cop out…

…as paralysis…

…,as impractical.

The pressure to be productive…

…to move with urgency…

…to project confident knowingness…

…to drive change and to follow those who are leading the charge…

…is unrelenting.

As we continue to comply with and uphold what is deemed practical…we continue to pay an irredeemable price that can not be redeemed through economics.

In light of what’s not working in service to life…

…what has been life-diminishing and soul-depleting for a very long time…

…what has never really embraced the spirit of life…

…it is time to challenge our notions of what is practical.

This will likely stir up more irritation, frustration, anger, dismissal…

This will feel very uncomfortable and counterintuitive given the way we…

…and our neurobiology…

…have been conditioned for so long.

The usual well-defended immune responses cling to assumptions and rationalizations of all kinds…

…to push harder…

…to push through…

…to prove…

…to overcome…

…to rise above…

…to overcompensate…

…to squelch, squash, swallow, downplay, pay lip service, dismiss what doesn’t fit the predominant structure, systems and patterns…

…that still dominate…

…blatantly, insidiously and invisibly.

As we continue driving, pushing and rowing hard, how might we be:

…serving the predominant system?

…preventing the pull of the not yet?

What might become unblocked when human ‘being’ can flow…

…when ways of being, knowing and unknowing…

…allowing our full existential humanness…

…honouring gifts differing…

…embracing diversity of cultures, genders, life stage, experience, place, Indigeneity etc?

…when we stop much of the human doing…

…that maintains transitional treadmill engines on overdrive?

…when we stop generating and consuming an endless stream…

…of work product for the ***dominant economic system *that (still) grinds on?

How are we insidiously still feeding patterns of domination…transitional treadmills that perpetuate…

…(wealth) supremacy…

…rank, hierarchy and meritocracy…

…that justify privilege…

…othering and the myriad harms of separateness…

…condoned throughout and justified by history?

What might become unblocked when REALLY allowing human being…

…facing this threshold…

…and facing one another?

We REALLY don’t know…

Living in the world as it is…

…as it has been through the ages…

…as it has been ramping up…

…we don’t really know…

Much of humanity was and still is geared and measured against human ‘doing’…

…not ***human being***

Allowing…honouring…cherishing…the flow of being…

…that dances WITH the spirit of life…

…is what we don’t DO.

We can’t define beingness. It doesn’t fit in a box. It’s fuzzy…

…emotional…

…spiritual…

…messy…

…soulful…

…embodied…

…unmappable…

…uncontainable.

The full juicy beingness of life is not legible to the ledgers…

…the conventional and the new ledgers and metrics

…that analyze, specify, track and measure…

…impact, value and worth.

And so, gotta keep asking, in light of what really hasn’t shifted substantively throughout our human civilization history, despite and propelled by good intentions…

…in light of domination architecture…

…structures, systems, practices…

…the flawed laws and economics that uphold them…

…and the deep-rooted drivers…

…that shape and undergird…

…in light of what we do know about the significance of ***contexts*** and conditions…

…in light of the pressures and patterns that continue to ensnare…

How does our obsession with ‘theories of change’ and our religious attachment to frameworks keep us boxed-in…

…to reductionist ways of (expert) knowing…

…that fit an artificial ledger…

…still cutting out huge swathes of living reality…

…as if they don’t exist…

…quantifying, qualifying and discerning…

…who matters and what counts?

*Our work product continues to feed the system*, within its pre-determined structural parameters and constraints…**

…without really changing the underlying structural framing and conditions…

…maintaining much of this work as necessary…

…without challenging what might make much of this work unnecessary.

The vast majority of hard work that gains recognition and funding, or struggles to continue…

…keeps us on a transitional treadmill…

…that doesn’t and can’t address the deeper structure while upholding it.

When we avoid really, really facing the anguish of not knowing at this threshold…

…for all kinds of reasons…

…we might still be playing our part feeding ***deep-rooted recursive patterns*** of dominator systems and structures…

What keeps happening when we (continue to) allow brands of knowing to indoctrinate and direct? When we find ourselves zealously fighting and advocating as a force-for-good…

…that’s a good time to pause (again) and (re-)reflect…

…to stop putting the hard uncomfortable questions in another nicely decorated box with a lid…

…expecting outcomes when we periodically remove the lid…

…gazing at frozen shrivelled up questions that cannot live.

Can we stay with the spirit of inquiry as a way of being…

…every day…

…breathing life into those difficult, uncomfortable questions…

…in the contexts of our everyday lives?

Yeah…we know that life and work are nonlinear, complex, messy and filled with uncertainty. We’ve been learning, talking, writing and conceptualizing about it for a long time.

Maybe when we face this **uncomfortable threshold**…

…peeling back more truths together…

…without blame, shame and ***scapegoating…***

…we might uncover portals and possibilities.

Maybe…

༄ What is ours to STOP DOING?

༄ What is ours to DO VERY DIFFERENTLY?

༄ What is NOT OURS to drive, (en)force and grip?

Perhaps we can let go (somewhat) of the roles that have defined us…whatever they are?

As long as we hold onto those roles…

…whatever the practical reasons…

…we play our part upholding the dominant structure, systems and paradigm…

…we (cl)aim to change.

Living in the world as it still is…is hard. It’s gonna get harder.

How about less talk about transformative navigation to a future…

…that is not a place…

…pointing at an illusionary horizon that continually recedes?

How about facing realities…

…more raw and real…

…living into life-affirming relational ways of being…now…

…yielding to the unknowing?

Maybe becoming more comfortable being uncomfortable…

…together…

…letting that flow through us…

…is enough?

Maybe, rather than rowing harder…DOING what we DO so well as human doings…while facing the anguish…we’ll also discover more joy, as human beings…sailing with the spirit of life.

As usual, these meanderings are unfinished. They don’t reflect the whole picture. They are an attempt to speak as a partial witness…to emphasize some truths…with tough love…at this anguished uncomfortable threshold…while accepting that OBSERVING and DOING cannot substitute the undefinable BEING.

Listen to our audio narration with music accompaniment: Transitional Treadmills — how are we (still) feeding patterns of domination? 🎧 🎶

Music accompaniment: from album Endless by Luca D’Alberto 🎶

***Artist — Glenda Leznoff***

Note. This is the 4th in a quintet, more layers…inviting a deeper spirit of inquiry:

༄ ***the spirit of inquiry* **🎧 🎶

༄ ***staying with the spirit of inquiry* **🎧 🎶

༄ ***Human Exceptionalism Clings — paradoxically, leading or facilitating the ‘letting go’ is another form of ‘holding on’ ***🎧 🎶

Many of our articles and ongoing updates include notations about language and terms that are being co-opted. We continue to reflect on and challenge the meaning we intend when using certain terms that are popularized. Sometimes we attempt qualifying notes, clarifying our intent. We are also selectively stripping and replacing certain words that have lost meaning or no longer reflect the deepening reckoning that is widening our eyes and shaking the ground beneath our feet. The propagation of special language signals continuous shapeshifting, with professional intermediary functions insidiously upholding a dominant configuration of occupation and capture that blocks direct ‘sovereignty’ of people who don’t and never needed these terms to express the spirit of life.

We don’t doubt the sincerity of people’s intentions. Well-meaning intentions, including ours, allow the predominant structure and systems that precipitated the need for these terms in the first place — to continue.

That is what humanity has been doing throughout civilization history.

Arise — artist Glenda Leznoff

Unstitution was birthed as a collective commons and nested ecosystem. We support a wide range of collaborative living lab initiatives. Wading through deep shi(f)t and beneath the artificially constructed divides — sectors, disciplines, cultures, generations, genders and walks-of-life — we’re working on critical systemic challenges. With readiness for the messiness, unblocking life-affirming portals…and beyond dysfunctional polarization — is how we roll.

The links embedded throughout all our articles are a warm invitation to go a bit deeper, at any time.

Our regularly updated ***suite of articles, works-in-progress, are fractal-like glimpses into the unstitutional ethos. They serve as co-catalytic springboards, inspiring deeper inquiry, integrative understanding and meta-relational attunement. *They reflect a small sample of the ways we are contributing as* [partial witnesses](https://www.regenerativelaw.com/partial-witness). Inspired and nourished by denizens anywhere in the world, we’re living into (re)-patterning principles and spirit — now. These provisionally guide our ongoing collaborative work, honouring and supporting ground and field conditions that might allow transformative phase shift birth.*

Qualifying notes

Regarding the extensive use of italics…we recognize that so many words and terms are filtered and interpreted through different lenses. Deep shared understanding is potentially enriched through dialogue — active listening and inquiry.

We experience and witness life and work as intertwined, inter-relational, messy and spiritual, unfolding and dynamic, moving in ebbs and flows. We don’t advocate destination-oriented outcomes or focus, defining a trajectory of travel towards some future state or place. We sometimes still use familiar words like co-navigate, journey and wayfinding. However, these terms and associated practices entrap us in recursive generator/producing functions that maintain human exceptionalism and subject-object observer positionality. Assuming we can objectively and comprehensively scan, map, ***navigate and achieve a transformative trajectory prevents transformative phase shift. What is described with the term [emergent ](https://www.regenerativelaw.com/emergence)***is also captured, as if the process is describable and explainable from the ‘observer’ position. Transformative phase shifts are not explainable through causal logics. “Attraction is the pull of the not yet. Attraction does not point. Attraction draws.” Deep subjects! For a deeper dive, see ***Twistification.***

We love writing…sculpting with words…as an expression of our eternal discovering. In case you’re wondering, none of the articles have been crafted or updated with the aid of AI — yet.

AI, driven by a generating function, primarily serves a dominator configuration. With wide-eyed discernment, and humbly recognizing that we need all kinds of real help, we appreciate engagement with AI consciously trained and challenged as companions-in-inquiry. We elaborate in our article, ***A Wary Eye on AI and Why: wading through ‘mindfully and playfully.***

You can engage with our unstitutional unfolding on ***LinkedIn, where we are quietly present…witnessing patterns playing out on repeat-rewind. Some posts, comments and inquiry might pop up under hashtags #messyhumanness and #wisdomwithteeth.***