Validate Your Life

Richard Feynman was one of the greatest physicists ever.   think the most provocative and admirable quality of Richard Phillips Feynman (okay more than one) is:

1. The fearlessness, humor, and outspokenness of his voice (when he speaks he just speaks his mind and he’s usually thought about what he says a great deal, so he just projects, barks it out and delivers truthful and illuminating utterances.  When he detailed how the O-Ring on the Challenger Shuttle lost resilience below 0° celcius at the Presidential Rogers Commission of 1986, he just dunked the ring in ice water and spoke this discovery.  It was the crucial key-pin discovery that explained the Challenger catastrophe, and he just opened his mouth and said it.  He didn’t conceal his words nor use trickery nor politics of any kind and it showed in his voice.  I aspire to do the same and sometimes recognize (albeit short) pronounced moments where I feel I have the same simultaneous clarity, boldness,and just naturalness of communicating as Feynman.  But his “communicational style” is not the interest with this point.  Don’t get confused. It’s the clarity, intelligence, self-integrity, and humility that he held that make his voice fearless and outspoken.  I think one could say he didn’t care about perceptions, but he was viciously committed to explaining how things worked to people. What I mean by this is if he wanted to explain the details of the weak nuclear force he would just say it like it is, no strings attached, no air of pomposity, no boasting, no bragging.  Indeed! That is the very most admirable quality of Feynman’s voice that he DIDN”T try to communicate.  See a lot of people, I guess you can bring Reagan, the Great Communicator, into this although he’s a bit of an acception being a pretty solid guy it seems.  But a lot of people try to communicate.  They focus on pronounciation and delivery and how to stand or when to say what or something and their message is hollow.  I guess it’s kind of like trying to build a house and all you do is focus on the where to put the house and the millions of details of placement and foundation etc but you never actually construct anything when you speak.  Feynman on the other hand, just seemed to think about things and then just “build the house” to follow this increasingly odd analogy.  In other words, he didn’t have an agenda under than making someone understand.  Now THAT is extremely, extremely rare.  Even people whom I met whom have that agenda, usually their’s some splinter of “I want to look smart so I’ll explain this” or ” I want to have some reputation of a good explainer” or something of the sort.
2. 2)His ability to Discover.  Feynman said  “The thing that doesn’t  fit is the most interesting!– (Feynman)” Because it means that that’s some new law of nature (or of the great grand chess game or something which he referenced as an example of figuring things out) and it menas you’re just spotted a hidden (and tip of the iceberg emerging) element of a whole other law of Physics or detail of Nature.   He talked about how he loved interpreting Russian and Mayan hierglyphics just because they were this awesome puzzle to work out.  I love puzzles because solving them is an accomplishment in itself.  ”The reward of a thing well done is to have it done”, wrote Emerson.  And Feynman’s discoveries and excitement to intellectually discover earned him man got-it-well-done rewards.
3. 3)His intelligence. The guy was wicked smart. Done.
4. 4)His adventuresome almost partying personality.  If anyone ever thought of the idea of a “Rock Physicist”, Feynman would probably fit the depiction.  He frequented a strip club now and then, played the bongoes like no other and played some excellent pranks, but still — first and foremost — held the dignified and well-qualified demeanor and hosted the cognitive abilities of a Nobel Prize winning theoretical Physicist.
5. 5)His total and utter lack of snobbiness.  He easily could have held the “I know how this works and you don’t” POV, but it he didn’t.  He told stories.  He was extremely kind (but not in the cheesy “look at my generosity” way), but in a sharp kind of way, mitigating the chances of his intelligence being exploited — of that I seriously admire as well.  He made attempts to explain these freakishly complex quantum topics to laymen.  He Shared a good laugh and was an awesome gentleman dude.

Man, this guy was just so indescribably awesome!  But I will attempt to describe.  He was a master of logic.  Things he says and describes are always clear and rock-solid in their structure and stability.  Meaning, when Feynman described something you also were getting a dose of logic, natural sciences, math, learning process-theory, and probably a dash of humor.

He was clear, pure, genuine.  The kind of person from which you could learn heaps of truly worthwhile stuff and trust that you’re in Good company.  I distinguish worthwhile learning (actually truthful knowledge of natural sciences and math) from unworthwhile learning (religion, subjective beliefs, New Age bs, most all of psychology — indeed Feynman condemned psychology as a crock, which it is — for starters) because what Feynman knew and taught – Natural Sciences, specifically theoretical quantum physics — was the undeniable truth and quintessentially, inexplicably “worthwhile”.  That’s how things worked.  That’s how and why the sun rises and sets (okay that’s more of the classical mechanics branch of physics).  But the composition of matter is the very stuff in which he explored and made breakthroughs.  If anyone thinks that kind of knowledge isn’t worthy to learn, they should get their head checked.  I guess he kind of new the underpinnings of matter and energy and as a result of that incredibly electrifying (couldn’t help the pun) knowledge, he always had that never-pompous, always humble, but joyful look in his eye of “I know how this works.  I figured it out, and if there’s still more to discover, I’ll enjoy figuring that out too.”. Indeed,  if there was any person who directly personified Emerson’s quote of getting a job well done, it was Feynman.  I don’t think Feynman saw things as work or play.  Of course not.  He couldn’t.  That capacity of not distinguishing between work and play is something I do (but of course on a much less advanced caliber than Feynman) and it definitely puts you at a different rhythm or cadence with the wolrd (most whom of which lives for the weekly paycheck and operates as a brain drone living paycheck to paycheck never bothering to discover why they don’t atomically sink through the floor when the particles of the floor and their own feet are mostly empty space).

(more…)

First off I noticed that the ICA Coaching Process Diagram resembles Joseph Campbell’s Hero of a Thousand Faces 12-phases of the heroic Journey. Joseph campbell is an author of mythology and kind of mythological dissection. He went back and scrutinized myriad myths and plugging in some Jungian archetypes extracting some archetypes, he extracted these 12 stages that occur in almost every myth be it 1970s star wars or a 500 bc folktale. And the phases involve a departure, encountering obstacles, tests, helpers, return, seizing the elixir and others. so the coaching process resembles the heroic journey that a client will go through and experience!

The most fascinating connection I saw was that in 1998 I made an abstract self-portrait that strongly resembles the ICA coaching process! Except that mine utilizes more color, which I like. I have a confusion, dark cloud on the left side which is where the client starts — from confusion, muddled doubt, fear, and its a rough, grey-black textured part of the abstract canvas. Then there’s an up and down energy line which reflect the heroic journey and the end result is this warm smooth, red and yellow chunk that represents the achievement, the kindness and love. ST. Ambrose said, “Faith is in the beginning and love is in the end.” On my coaching journey process, Love is truly the the end result of the coaching and the energy-heroic line has greens, reds, blues, and many colors of change. What’s interesting is that instead of pillars I have 3 slivers of red and yellow surrounding the main sphere (the client’s core and their compassionate reservoir which always stays the same and contains their infinite potential). Those slivers represent passion, love, and joy that are ALWAYS with hte client throughout the entire journey!! Unlike the pillar where they’d go through the truth-telling and listening phases and then a questioning phase, my model of coaching (that I painted 11 years ago) has these empowering qualities ALWAYS with the client throughout the entire journey that they can and should and do draw upon!!

So the Beginning of my client process starts at “muddled confusion and doubt and fear”

(more…)

This details the list of all productivity heros of which I can conjure

Recently read this great article and it sparked some interesting ideas. Superheros are only identifiably heroic when they can connect to other humans! Otherwise, they’re just alien. The most secure way of making that connection, honestly, is flaws. Batman’s troubles over his dead parents, Ironman’s drinking problems, Maxwell Smart’s stupidity and bumbling, all those flaws make their great deeds identifiably humanly heroic. Cool stuff. Otherwise they’re just mythological!

Yeah, that’s awesome. Superheroes who are perfect without flawed are just myth. The stories of Neptune and Jupiter from Ancient Rome helped Romans understand their mysterious world and answer some of the questions that could only be answered with scientific breakthroughs millenias to come. Same goes for the Zeus, Posieden, Athena stories from greece. Those mythologies embodied flawless, “inhuman heros”. A star contrast from the very human and flawed, but exceptionally heroic characters in many of todays films.

Maybe we have re-invented mythology into a global flawed mythological superhuman superhero. The kind that is a little bit closer to us than Zeus on Mount Olympia, or Neptune beneath the sea. Modern culture has crafted “gods” (superheros) that blends the myth into our reality because we recognize elements of each of us in the our 21st century heroes.