Instructions, rebellion and the tension between
Nature needs polarity for existence. Humans want everything to conform – making it easier to control people.
Our governance and industrial workplace are set up for conformity. Our education system is designed to produce well-behaved people who do what they are told. I like people with manners, who consider others. I also like people who think for themselves and do not conform all of the time.
I was thinking about this while I was in the surf yesterday. My amazing, patient, kind and ‘always thinking of me and my safety’ surf coach and life partner, was giving me instructions.
I was rebelling against his instruction.
Truth be told, I would have done much better to follow his instructions 100% to the letter. My biology, my lizard brain and fear – plus possibly a small part of me that didn’t agree, went rouge. I was wrong.
Democracy requires healthy dissent. Polarity keeps democracy not only alive, but emergent.
A vibrant Syntropic Enterprise requires healthy polarity. Disagreement. Resistance. Diversity. The ability to make mistakes and not be shamed. A place where saying – I was wrong – is normal.
There is a gorgeous structure in Universe. Bucky Fuller called it a tensegrity structure. A combination of tension and integrity. Tension and compression.
Healthy human relationships are tensegrity structures. That beautiful combination of tension and compression. The desire to fall in and blow apart – to be with and to escape – held simultaneously. It is on the threshold of this fall in and blow apart that life emerges.
Conformity is not bad, or wrong. It is great in context. As is rebellion.
Consider this in your human relational design. Too nice = collapse. Too divided = explosion.
Photo February 27th 2025, Article written February 27th 2025
