A friend, James Scroggs, shared this this morning.
хочеш жити — вмій крутитися
It's Ukrainian and means ‘adapt or die’ and translates more literally as
'To live, you have to know how to spin'.
It was shared by a student on his pioneering programme, New Working Class - more important work than mine. His the creative mind and spirit of young people. My interest is you, old and fraying as you are. Check out his project here. New Working Class.
'To live, you have to know how to spin.'
What a powerful idea. It's the spirit of LeanMind too - that we're living and working through times of profound change ; tech coming for your work, obsolescence coming for your company, boredom for you, uncertainty abounds. Not to mention economic stagnation, political fragmentation and ecological disintegration. Adapt or die. Know how to spin.
A sub group of LeanMind members have been committing to a mediation practice this week. What purpose breathing when the world's going to shit, I hear you think.
Well, everything, in a roundabout way. Bear with.
We're sold a story here in the West of meditation as magic salve, breathe away your stresses, continue as you are. It'll make you better. As if there was something wrong with you or indeed that it's all about you. And that continuing as you are is a good idea.
In the early teachings of the Buddha, meditation wasn't an end point done to feel better. Feeling better was in how you lived - with a generosity of spirit, an appreciation for life around you, the ever changing nature of things. The beauty of life we might say. Live within this atmosphere of mind, spirit and behaviour and meditate on that, you mo fo. Mediation not primary, but secondary.
How you live matters.
Last week I was talking to another new LeanMind-er. He at a fork in the road common to the maturing male (whether buffalo or human), the old path disappearing and the new yet to reveal. This a place and time fraught with uncertainty - or, more accurately, when uncertainty is more easily seen, partic to us old Buffalo, here in the west.
How to dance this particular time of change?
Adapt or die.
'To live, you have to know how to spin.'
How are you creative?
Like meditation, creativity is another idea we've misunderstood into culture, and schooled out of us. It's more than writing music or painting pictures (which it is, and much more besides). It's your ability to act amid the changing circumstances of your life with wisdom, agency and clarity. It’s your ability to respond, always alert, always alive.
My ability to respond is a function of my inner mood, the atmosphere of my mind.
Which brings us back to those very old teachings : how you live is all important.
Are you living with a generosity of spirit, an appreciation for life around you, the ever changing nature of things. The beauty of life, we might say?
Shane Parish in his weekly email, Brain Food, sums it up well :
“A lot of success in life”, he said, “is just putting yourself in a position for good things to happen to you.
+ Be reliable
+ Avoid drama
+ Help other people win
+ Take care of your body
+ Take care of your mind
+ Live below your means
+ Treat your job as if it matters
+ Take care of your relationships
Simple, but not easy”.
This the spirit of living well.
Do this everyday and meditate on that.
And create the foundational conditions to help you always adapt or die, and know how to spin.
How you start and end the day matters. Build in an interlude. And meditation can also be this. All in service of helping you to your most creative self, alive to the myriad opportunities available to you, right here, right now - to ensure you turn up well, in service to others, like James, above.