Learning to read emerging situations

Getting down among the trees seems to me to involve a process of “reading” the situation or circumstance. By that I mean something different from an instrumental or informational reading. I suggest that a more tentative, slower, sensual reading is required.

One of the dictionary meanings for the word “read” is to “understand or interpret the nature or significance of”. The word goes back to Old English and before that has both Proto-Germanic and Norrse origins. In these contexts it had a range of meanings including: “to advise, counsel, persuade; discuss, deliberate; rule, guide; arrange, equip; forebode; read, explain; learn by reading; and put in order”. Interestingly the transference to “understand the meaning of written symbols” seems to be unique to Old English. Most languages use a word rooted in the idea of “gather up” as their word for “read” (such as French lire, from Latin legere). 

In this context I use the word hoping that it will retain some of this sense of gathering up. Down among the trees, much of this gathering up will be, at least initially, of fragments, impressions and contrasting views. 

Noticing and attentiveness

Much like researchers who have adopted “grounded theory” as their method, as we gather up these fragments and impressions we cannot help but begin to notice and attend to a sense of the patterns we might be able to detect. It is, perhaps, part of our patterning instinct

In the course of busy organisational lives, though, we often allow these noticing to rush past, glimpsed and then forgotten. 

This kind of noticing and attentiveness can be cultivated with a certain slowing down. We can develop a practice of attentiveness that benefits from continuous re-reading and perhaps some collecting of moments, like the way we sometimes collect shells and coloured stones during a walk along the beach.

Slow reading

To flesh this out a bit further I want to explore three possible forms of reading.

Reading as a clear articulation of what is already known. This is most akin to reading diagnostically using a framework or theory that is believed to already contain the answer to most questions and/or the capacity to solve problems as a guide.

Reading to uncover what is hidden, to reveal what is there anyway but which cannot be seen. The focus here is on finding the truth (structure or system) hidden behind appearances. It is often accompanied by the methodological assumption that a thorough collection and analysis of the evidence will reveal all. Similar to reading as articulation it assumes that what we need to know is there already, waiting to be discovered.

Reading as actively working with the situation to shape its ongoing development. In this form creativity and imagination come into play and the situation is shaped by the reading just as the situation shapes the reading. This form could be described as a dialogic reading but is also usefully thought about as reading from within (withness reading).

This last form of reading might be seen more as an exploration of possibilities, not actualities; in this sense it is an exploration of the ways in which it is still possible for us, in our current circumstances, to ‘go on’.”

Withness-thinking

You missed that. Right now, you are missing the vast majority of what is happening around you. You are missing the events unfolding in your body, in the distance, and right in front of you.

Alexandra Horowitz, On Looking

These are the opening words of a wonderful book by Alexandra Horowitz called On Looking. In it she describes twelve walks around the block near her home in New York. On each of them she was accompanied by a different person with a particular professional expertise and interest. Each of them noticed different things in the environment. I particularly like the opening words of her first chapter, Amateur Eyes:

John Shotter coined the term withness-thinking. He described it as thinking while “on the run” or while “in motion”. In this kind of thinking, he suggested, our ongoing noticing and observation is guided by a “scenic sense of a living juncture”. It’s hard to grasp what he meant by this and I don’t think he intended the phrase to have a precise meaning.  Rather I think he was trying to illustrate a form of thinking that is quite different from the usual.

In this form of thinking something outside us provides us with a reminder, image or scene to think with. This helps us start with a more ‘subsidiary’ form of awareness, rather than our more usual outcome driven ‘focal’ awareness. This helps to broaden and soften our gaze and opens us up to seeing from a different perspective. It works because it subtly change what we expect to see.

Practice

Next time you find yourself in a situation or confronted by a difficulty that is developing as you come to grips with it, try approaching it with several different images, scenes or reminders as guides for your noticing and awareness. Apart from anything else, this helps to slow down the reading. What image or scene might work best will, of course, be a product of your background and the nature of the difficulty. Perhaps one or more of these might be helpful.

Wittgenstein’s idea of language games. This is inspired by his remark: “The origin and primitive form of the language game is a reaction; only from this can more complicated forms develop. Language – I want to say – is a refinement.”

What are your reactions? What language game is being played here? How does it work?

Poet David Whyte’s intuition that the only moments that are real are those that occur at the conversational frontier. This is elegantly expressed in the first few minutes of this video

What are the pivotal (frontier) conversations in this situation?

Finding a way of to undertake a slow reading, seeking wisdom rather than instrumental knowledge . This idea is inspired by Michelle Boulos Walker’s book Slow Philosophy)

How is it possible to hold open deciding about this? What might count as wise action? 

Karen Barad’s notion of ‘agential cuts’ which assumes that everything is related and what is of greatest interest is how and why we draw boundaries and construct difference(s) that matter. Inspired by Barad’s book Meeting the Universe Halfway)

What are the boundaries we typically perceive in this situation? How did they come to be? What difference do they make?

If you would be interested in exploring this further please contact me. I would be delighted to join you on the conversational frontier.