Fuzzy Signals

Starting, Stopping

I often start new things in the autumn. As the temperatures cool and air freshens, new energy is released. My body wants to move faster, and my brain quickens. Certain cycles and behavourial patterns get kicked into motion. Never mind the fact that it's been almost a decade since I finished school, the imprint of the western education system is still there; those ingrained Pavlovian instincts arrive every September, wanted or not... "Common' Nicole", they whisper, "it's time to 'apply' yourself... the holiday is over, it's time to get serious now." Apart from the rythmns of season and socialization, there is yet another personal pattern in action. You see, my creative-destructive impulse is at it again; she's shaking things up and blowing apart the certainties in my life just enough so that new growth can start afresh. In short, like the change of the season, like Shiva at his best, I'm starting some new things and stopping some old things. Dead leaves, dead pieces of me. But new bulbs are in the ground, and the creative possibilities are looking more spring-like all the time.

The thing I'm starting. Most obviously, I'm starting this blog after much encouragement from my other half, Toby, and way too much procrastination and needless anxiety about putting myself "out there" for all to see and read — a somewhat premature concern since my readership is likely to be modest at best. In any event, as an aspiring writer, I'm going to have to get over this fear, which, if you know me, may seem surprising because on the surface I'm one of those capital "E" extroverts. But like any crude Psych-101ism, the introvert-extrovert dichotomy fails to describe my lived experience and complexities; namely, when it comes to sharing the fruits of my creative endeavors, I am clearly a very shy girl and plain chicken. So consider this blog experiment as therapy.

Another hang-up was the commitment issue. Writing daily (more or less) takes time and energy. If my mostly failed attempts at journal writing in the past were anything to go by, I feared my lack of discipline would condemn this exercise as well. But there is something different about the blog format that makes me more hopeful and inspired. Call this an unintended consequence of the medium, but somehow, the fact that this is being published online and thus "out there" gives me enough of a psychological feedback loop to be more disciplined and committed about writing. Someone, at least in theory, is reading. Self-policing under this kind of virtual logic may work with positive results. Of course, time will tell if this hypothesis holds.

The thing I'm stopping. The starting of my blog is not unrelated to what I'm stopping. What ended was a significant chapter of my career. It was long in coming, and a very healthy and positive move, but a big deal just the same when the moment arrived. For the past 5 1/2 years I have been a scenario practitioner for GBN Global Business Network, which is an incredibly interesting company (now owned by the Monitor Group) dedicated to helping people in organisations adapt to and anticipate future change. Working at GBN was an amazing, intense, and rich apprenticeship in life and learning; now it's time to start applying this learning and skill set in different ways. I'll describe my GBN experience and what I want to do next in another place. The salient point here is that GBN's intellectual DNA, and many of the ideas and people I rubbed up against, will be an important wellspring for this blog and my future activities. Most obviously, the theme of my blog (see the Blog's Conceit) is unmistakably GBN-inspired: it's about extracting the signal from our current noise in the world. It's about making sense of things for myself and others in my community; and critically, it's about the dialogue and tension between these two spheres — the emergent insights of which are really the whole point of creative writing and expression. Of course many of my intellectual dials are still fuzzy at present. The task of sense making is just begun. So tune in and let's see if we can get some clearer signals.

Posted by nicole at October 5, 2003 10:26 PM