The Continuum of Mutability
July 11th, 2008 | by Mitchell Allen |
Systems
The world and the systems which define it are dynamic.
Change itself is a system. It’s called chaos.
Once we recognize that chaos is, in fact, orderly, we can begin to make sense of it and, more importantly, we can become “one” with the turbulences in our lives.
The process of recognizing, understanding and living with chaos is helped or hindered by our level of mutability.
Mutability
Mutability, or the tendency of something to change in form or quality or nature, is not a discrete property.
Rather, it is a spectrum that ranges from evolutionary to revolutionary; from red shift to paradigm shift.
Additionally, the perspective of mutability may be one-sided, two-sided or multilateral. In other words, change can affect one or more people, places, things and even ideas.
Recognition
We don’t have to look hard to find systems around us:
- spiderwebs, anthills and beehives
- our bodies, homes and clothing
- our cars, the streets and highways
- traffic signals, construction sites and parking garages
- jobs, businesses and theme parks
- the economy, the government and society
- the ecosphere, atmosphere and galaxy!
Each system is made up of subsystems. If we try to fathom this concept through too many levels, we wind up with uninteresting mechanisms such as blood cells, bricks and fan belts.
Yet, it is this very habit of over-analysis that hinders our understanding of systems.
There is a reason we take certain things for granted: doing so frees our minds for other endeavors.
Understanding
Recognizing systems without knowledge of their underlying components is a bit like driving a car without understanding combustion.
Recognizing a vital subsystem and studying it is like getting a tune-up to increase gas mileage.
Our desire to master and exploit systems is in direct opposition to our own mutability.
We inevitably confer greater importance upon those individuals who excel, rather than honoring those who are good enough.
Such a flexible change in our attitudes is probably too foreign to contemplate, but clearly, our predilection for perfection can not be sustained indefinitely.
The fact is that most of us fall short of excellence and unfairly punish ourselves for failing.
It is more productive to determine which underlying components are important enough to study further.
Elevating our mutability to such a higher level does require effort, but not maximal effort. [1]
Becoming
A simple example may clarify the shifts that occur as we move from a state of over-analysis, through understanding, until we reach a mental clarity that is refreshing in its simplicity.
In Part Two, Interweaving Change and Power, we’ll review this allegory from the outside and the inside.
[1] Tim Ferriss, in his book, The 4-Hour Workweek (pp. 271-272) writes that people can become conversationally fluent in any language in six months or less. By understanding the system of conversation, Mr. Ferris has avoided the over-analysis of the system of language, which is a superset of conversation.
[2] As far as I can tell, Laura Bankston penned this story in 2004.
The images are a time-lapse series generated by SpyroPhysics, a program written bySheldon Allen.
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