Episode 3.08: Inexorable
THE PODCAST: January 19, 2021
ON UNSTOPPABLE MOMENTUM
Tim & Tuesday talk through what is inexorable in ourselves and the world right now and what is open to our influence. To meet the unstoppable momentum of these times, they explore what mythical weapons they will be taking into 2021. Intrigued, right?!! Listen in.
Together, Tim Merry and Tuesday Ryan-Hart are THE OUTSIDE—systems change and equity facilitators who bring the fresh air necessary to organize movements, organizations, and collaborators forward for progress, surfacing new mindsets for greater participation and shared impact.
3.08 — SHOW NOTES
Tim + Tues: We talk through what is inexorable, what is unstoppable in ourselves and the world right now. We define some of the mythical weapons we feel we have been gifted that enable us to navigate and walk through the current circumstances inside ourselves and the world around us and bring it back to our work. This idea of momentum that cannot be stopped.
Tim: When we work together with clients, we do a strong, up-front piece around the boundaries around the work. In a lot of the mythology I’ve been reading, there’s this idea of fate. There are things in our lives that we can change and influence and there are things we cannot. Fate is this idea that there are things in the future that we are not going to be able to change. There’s a word for fate in Anglo-Saxon culture is “wyrd” - it roughly translates to “the inexorable force of fate.” There’s an unstoppable momentum. There’s almost this sense that our destiny is something we can influence. There are things we can do which influence how we traverse our course through life and there are also things that are inexorable. I’ve been thinking about this in terms of the bigger work of change. What does it mean?
Tues: When you say yes to this force or a certain bit of work; it’s really hard to put the brakes on it. I’ve been quite drawn to this idea of inexorable momentum - moving with or by the momentum - moving with what is. What do you actually just accept as the guardrails that cannot be shifted/changed? It feels like the Serenity Prayer (God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference) has the wisdom to know the discernment of what is it that I know I cannot change. But, there are things I can change and how can we discern the difference in our work and in my own life?
Tim: I’ve been thinking about this feeling, and holding this hope for the pandemic and some of the political contexts that surround it, that at least for this phase we may be turning the corner into return. The question becomes “what am I carrying out of the ‘underworld’ with me”… and appreciating that you never get to leave the ‘underworld’ easily. The mythical weapons that I will be carrying into 2021, or the return, are: the inexorable spear, the shield of patience, the helm of listening and spectacles of admiration.
Tues: My mythical weapons for 2021 would be: the impervious boots of movement and a perpetual light/orb.
Tim + Tues: Listeners, what are the mythical weapons or gifts that you are carrying into this year? Post on our Facebook page for this podcast post!!
Tim: What are The Outside’s mythical weapons? What are we faced with, at the moment, that feels unrelenting? What are we accepting that we can’t change? How does this shape into The Outside and how we’re moving forward? What do we think is both inexorable in how we are choosing to go forward and inexorable in the momentum of reality right now because it’s up to the fates? Where can we go use these mythical weapons for greatest impact right now?
Tues: Right now, we are in a worldwide [political] movement toward a reduction in rights, a lack of plurality, actively against any kind of diversity of thought, feeling, action, and opportunity… and I feel like we are in those death throes. Our 18-month to three-year projects will not change that, at large, but I have no doubt that we’re going to try with the systems that we’re in, to do what we can, with people of good will. We’re here to do our part of this long arc of history; we are going to try to find a different way.
Tim: Many people who are changemakers use Buckminster Fuller’s quote: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete” as a mantra, and Tues, you feel it is incomplete.
Tues: I love the quote… and I feel it is insufficient. A lot of my time wants to be creating the new. That’s what feeds me. And, when you rebuild from something that is ahistorical, you are likely to recreate that. What we’ve learned at The Outside over the last couple years is “ignore what is” at your peril. You can’t just do something new. We have to have our feet in both worlds. What is right now and how are we going to work with what is as well as what we want to be. How do we hold both worlds?
Tim: We often work with the Berkana Two Loops - what is dying and what is emerging. This has to happen at the same time. We have to build the new and hospice the old.
Poem: “The Invincible Summer” by Albert Camus
Song: “Bloodless” by Andrew Bird
We’d LOVE your feedback, listeners: What are your mythical weapons for navigating 2021? What does this podcast give you? How does it serve you? How is it helpful? What would you like more of? Send us a note at podcast@findtheoutside.com.
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Duration: 40:18
Produced by: Mark Coffin
Theme music: Gary Blakemore
Episode cover image: source