June 2, 2010
What clusterflock means to me
Donned a suit and a freshly starched shirt this morning at the hotel. Took the fancy rental car to the fancy office where I work. Drank fancy coffee from the fancy machine, and then went to a massive conference room with fancy chairs for a meeting.
As the meeting was alternately boring and tense, I took the opportunity to glance around the room and count the attendees. There were 14 other than me.
I won’t bore you with the details of the meeting. It’s not worth obsessing over minutiae. What I noticed, though, was body language, ways of talking to (or at) each other, subtle digs and attacks—the stuff of far too many meetings in the corporate context. There are kindnesses and human gestures, but there are also politics and attacks.
What happens in these environments is that people develop shields and weapons. They put up walls. They learn how to go on the offensive. They learn how and when to avoid engagement. They support some and undermine others. If this sounds unnatural, it is.
Oddly, I was groomed for this environment. It isn’t natural or fulfilling for me, but I have always known how to do it. I grew up with the expectation of excellence if not perfection. Anything less than an “A” in school was a failure. Anything less than winning was losing. Never let them see you sweat, and keep your damn emotions to yourself.
I never shed a tear between the ages of 8 and 30 (there’s a Johnny Cash song about this). The release came during a retreat with the graduate cohort Danny and I attended. When it happened, I felt the love and support of the cohort then and almost until the end of the program.
During the fall of 2001, the cohort that would stay together for the rest of our lives began to unravel. People began checking out and moving on to other things. I was distraught. It was the first experience I had had of a loving, nurturing group, and I felt as though it was ripped away from me.
I was pondering this as 15 people sat in a room today and exhibited the precise opposite of what I experienced at clusterflockstock. Two groups of 15 could not be more different.
The clusterflock community is something I am only beginning to understand and embrace. To me, clusterflock is love, acceptance, understanding, forgiveness, support, nurture, humor, conflict, resolution, creativity, full expression, honesty, community, family…. It is all of those things and so many more.
This isn’t just the clusterflockstock crowd alone, by the way; Sheila and Cece have shown me subtle kindnesses in the last couple of days as well. The flock is a really big deal to me.
Sitting in a meadow atop a mountain in a circle of friends, I felt the safety to be vulnerable. That doesn’t come along too often in my life. I have that with my wife and a small handful of friends, but not where I spend so much of my time. I miss it.
Wearing the armor is easy—one can keep the shell on the outside and fragility deep inside. Learning to trust and be vulnerable is harder for me—it’s about being okay with being fragile on the outside sometimes while knowing that there is a vast reservoir of strength on the inside. However hard, it is a path I absolutely must take.
Growth often brings fear, discomfort, and anxiety, but it also creates strength, confidence, and happiness. Growing in a community is a little awkward for me, but so worth the effort.
That’s what clusterflock means to me. Growth, community, family. Whether on a mountaintop, in a post about cars and iPads, or in a phone call at just the right time, I believe—truly believe—that the community is there for me and I am there for the community.
I love you guys.
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thank you, Joseph.
This is lovely, Joseph.
Also, did you leave a singing voice mail for me at 3 am? If so, thanky kindly.
Wasn’t me, Cindy. Have you checked with Susan Boyle?
Unnatural? Or just unpleasant? I suspect that an animal behaviorist would tell you it’s plenty natural. Somewhere around here I’ve got a browser tab open to something about just that . . .
But before I get distracted again, let me remind you that if that hotel is in NYC, you don’t have to be sitting around in it watching TV or whatever after you’re done with work. I’d love to talk with you some more over dinner, for instance, and there’s a nice little subflocklet right here whose members you should meet sometime.
Good point. Definitely unpleasant. I guess I’d like to think that our evolution has made that state less necessary, but I suspect I am naive on this point. I’d hate to think that love and support are unnatural, though.
You are a dear. I will plan on seeing you soon.
Yes, love and support are quite natural, says the girl with the cat lying on her arm, licking it.
India, that reminds me of the apocryphal story about Mohammad and his cat. I can’t link to a reference to it from my phone’s browser, but if y’all don’t know it, it is easy enough to find.
I feel the same, J.
We’re born into families that may or may not meet our needs – emotional, financial, intellectual, spiritual.
We can also choose to be with a new sort of “family.”
Cohorts in school are much like our birth families – we are thrown together because we decided through happenstance to enter into a program of learning at the same time. We may go through a 2-year timeframe rife with powerful interactions with one another that help us to grow, but at the end of the program, at the end of our joint learning experience, we move forward into a new way of being. There is no longer an “required’ infrastructure or system to keep us connected.
Clusterflock is a choice we make on a daily basis. We choose to stay in community together. We may disagree, we may bicker and grouse. We can also be insightful and honest, thoughtful and caring, supportive and encouraging. I choose to be a part of Clusterflock because it matters to me.
Damn, I’m lucky to know y’all.
I also “choose to be a part of clusterflock because it matters to me.” You matter to me. Like I said last weekend, I need fewer locals in my life because I know you. All. Y’all!