Brilliant piece, B. Engaging and straight forward to read while packing a punch. Reminds me of the title of your substack - for the things that really matter, language can never describe the whole story. I used to think asking why was a virtue - now I'm not so sure. There is something that feels better to let yourself be called into things and situations, without having to be clear as to why. What I infer from what you are saying is there is a problem with our tendency to take various situations that we think will happen (from our past), consider what's important, and come up with a list of top 5 values, that we could even then stick into chat GPT when facing a difficult situation and come up with a solution. I think this is an important point. And nearly every organisation has a list of 4-5 values. And I also see a useful place for getting clarity on what we care about (eg. in organisations, whether we call them values or something else), as in the cut and thrust of our work we can quickly forget what matters and respond on auto-pilot, or be in a mood that may not be conducive to making good decisions or being at our best. Values can provide a useful correction compass to help guide us.
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts, Mark. Your comments are insightful. I agree that stating and articulating values can be a useful activity an help serve as a compass; the problem is when we then treat them as these finished Things and forget their origin in our care. We are never finished with the delicate work of articulating and keeping in touch with what calls our care.
Very thought provoking!! Some thoughts. It seems to me that all actions result from some provocation and that upon observation and reflection we assign the notion of care or taking care of what matters to us. It seems like a chicken/egg situation. Do our actions result from taking care or does care arise as an explanation for our actions. I am grappling with the notion that care is an activity of cultivation that brings things out at their best. If care is morally neutral then “best” is an assessment. Can the Earth have a moral claim on us? The Earth is an important and major provocateur but any moral claim seems to be assigned and not a feature of the Earth. Care seems to only relate to living entities. It seems that once you die you stop caring because the notion of care involves provocation and action. Perhaps care is a mode of being in which actions are possible and the result of a provocation.
Fred, thanks, as always for reading and sharing your thoughts. Your questions cut right to the heart of the difficult and delicate thicket of issues pertaining to care. Thanks for the articulate provocations. Let me comment on just one. By mentioning the idea that the earth can make a claim on us, I mean to draw attention to the fact that what Fernando would call "the drift of history" has a way of offering up certain issues as mattering more than others in certain historical moments. To properly inhabit our way of being as the ones who care involves developing the ability to do this historical listening and attuning to the issues that matter in our times.
Thanks B for your comments. I see clearly that Earth can make a claim on us in terms of what we turn our attention to but I am struggling with the notion that it is a moral claim. Morality is associated with right and wrong, good and bad, and these are assessments which humans make.
Brilliant piece, B. Engaging and straight forward to read while packing a punch. Reminds me of the title of your substack - for the things that really matter, language can never describe the whole story. I used to think asking why was a virtue - now I'm not so sure. There is something that feels better to let yourself be called into things and situations, without having to be clear as to why. What I infer from what you are saying is there is a problem with our tendency to take various situations that we think will happen (from our past), consider what's important, and come up with a list of top 5 values, that we could even then stick into chat GPT when facing a difficult situation and come up with a solution. I think this is an important point. And nearly every organisation has a list of 4-5 values. And I also see a useful place for getting clarity on what we care about (eg. in organisations, whether we call them values or something else), as in the cut and thrust of our work we can quickly forget what matters and respond on auto-pilot, or be in a mood that may not be conducive to making good decisions or being at our best. Values can provide a useful correction compass to help guide us.
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts, Mark. Your comments are insightful. I agree that stating and articulating values can be a useful activity an help serve as a compass; the problem is when we then treat them as these finished Things and forget their origin in our care. We are never finished with the delicate work of articulating and keeping in touch with what calls our care.
Thanks B - Love this - "We are never finished with the delicate work of articulating and keeping in touch with what calls our care."
Very thought provoking!! Some thoughts. It seems to me that all actions result from some provocation and that upon observation and reflection we assign the notion of care or taking care of what matters to us. It seems like a chicken/egg situation. Do our actions result from taking care or does care arise as an explanation for our actions. I am grappling with the notion that care is an activity of cultivation that brings things out at their best. If care is morally neutral then “best” is an assessment. Can the Earth have a moral claim on us? The Earth is an important and major provocateur but any moral claim seems to be assigned and not a feature of the Earth. Care seems to only relate to living entities. It seems that once you die you stop caring because the notion of care involves provocation and action. Perhaps care is a mode of being in which actions are possible and the result of a provocation.
Fred, thanks, as always for reading and sharing your thoughts. Your questions cut right to the heart of the difficult and delicate thicket of issues pertaining to care. Thanks for the articulate provocations. Let me comment on just one. By mentioning the idea that the earth can make a claim on us, I mean to draw attention to the fact that what Fernando would call "the drift of history" has a way of offering up certain issues as mattering more than others in certain historical moments. To properly inhabit our way of being as the ones who care involves developing the ability to do this historical listening and attuning to the issues that matter in our times.
Thanks B for your comments. I see clearly that Earth can make a claim on us in terms of what we turn our attention to but I am struggling with the notion that it is a moral claim. Morality is associated with right and wrong, good and bad, and these are assessments which humans make.