026. I'm a 'Leader SERVANT - holding, spreading, maintaining and channeling Creative Tension


http://youtu.be/X2wV5XAK4P4


Same as “GWD.F”

We're taught to run from tension, in this society, aren't we?  Tension is bad! There is such a thing as destructive tension, anxiety, too much stress.   But, Dr. King,  the first reference I've seen with the notion of creative tension, said nothing positive happens without creative tension.  A young doctor is on a country road and she comes over the top of a hill and sees splayed out in front of her a horrific airliner crash, bodies lying all over the field.    She's instantly infused with creative tension - a horrible situation on the one hand and the awareness that she has the skills to ameliorate some of that suffering  on the other.  And were she a coward, she would flee the scene, but she became a doctor to help humanity.  So instead, she embraces that creative tension and that's the energy that drives her to sheroic, ceaseless, courageous, effective, brilliant, inspired effort, and results.

Rather than turning away from, looking at the horrific treatment  by society of people who looked like him, Dr. King and those working with him turned to squarely face the horror of what was being done and in doing so thy caused the creative tension  - of the horror, on the one hand, and the remedy - techniques they begin to learn and re-learn from  Gandhi, from Jesus, from other sources of wisdom, on the other.  They began, they refused to not have an answer, they refused to not be an answer, and by, on the one hand, turning and facing the horror, turning and running toward the emergency, their nervous system mobilized and they began to see how they could stop it, and they became volcanoes of creative tension. And by holding that, and maintaining that tension within themselves, those in their circle with any humanity at all began to be infected by the same creative tension and a level of humanity and creativity and contribution and output and courage and perseverance that the world has rarely seen, was the consequence, was unleashed. 

And so was the cycle of the young people into Tahrir Square, in Egypt, that unlike their parents who for 30 or 60 years had turned away from the horror,  they turned and faced it, and began to develop the other pole of creative tension which is - here's how we can fight it, here's how we could win it, and maintain that creative tension. And the whole world became infected with it to a degree, and came into solidarity. 

The function of a leader is to cause that creative tension to build and be maintained within themselves, and to channel it, and thereby to help build, maintain it in others and to channel it in others.  So says Dr. King.  So says MIT’s Peter Senge, “The Fifth Discipline,” So says any honest experience you have had of such creative tension, and where it came from.  The individual and the group holding within themselves, squarely facing the horror on the one hand of the current circumstance, and the divine joy of,  the relief for totally ameliorating horror, they could bring about, in the other. 

Holding, maintaining, channeling Creative Tension is the stuff of miracles; the stuff of True Leadership, INSHE Warriors.  This is the stuff of the divine, this is the stuff of our highest humanity, this is what would save the future of all humanity in a relative walk, effort wise, versus World War II, and a relative 'walk' technological development wise versus the moonshot. 

Leadership is the creation, first in oneself and then spreading to others and the maintaining and channeling of creative tension.  Leadership is not subordination of others, domination of others, exploitation of others.  It's what Jesus said -  'The greatest among you is the greatest servant all.' 

Being the first or among the first to turn and face the horror, the emergency of others, and to begin to figure out the solution is the greatest service that one human being can provide to another.  Sometimes it's lonely, no, it's almost always lonely, sometimes you get crucified for it.  Sometimes you get abandoned for a long time.  But if you align yourself with the truth of the human need, facing the horror, your nervous system will begin to figure out what to do.   The creative tension in you will build.  And if the one in a million in this society that still has substantial human health comes by you, they will begin to be infected.  There has never been another way to bring massive change to humanity.  It’s how the human nervous system, individual and collective works, when it works miracles.

That's the path.  Get on with it ,for the joy of it.  For the life of it.  For the life, for the future of 200 billion of our brothers and sisters, including your own children.

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