Man’s (Our) Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl (Summary neutralized for gender.) Summary Frankl survived the Holocaust and recounts his experiences, describing how it shaped his understanding and meaning for life, beginning with his own. Meaning can be found in work, in love for others, and in the courage required to endure suffering. Frankl didn’t [...]
Ethos, Logos, and Pathos and work in Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle -- an interdependency of three – in a powerful way to support political savvy and gain support for your ideas/initiatives. Each of the three dimensions represent important aspects of the Self And Other relationship in leveraging the “GP” (Greater Purpose) for the 3-poles: Political Savvy/Persuasive Messaging. Here [...]
Kierkegaard succeed in “turning a somersault” over his “melancholy” (what they called “depression” in his day). The “cure” was purpose, in his case -- writing -- that made the day-to-day grind of life more tolerable and livable for others. Paradoxically, that made his own life more tolerable and livable. The bottom line: Help for others [...]
Through Kierkegaard’s eyes, the “Spirt” and “Self” are one in the same. Therefore, despairing is a sickness in that “It” because it reveals the gap between the Self that is and the Self that reduces that Self’s full potentiation. “The self is a relation which relates to itself… A human being is a synthesis of [...]
From: American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress,” by Wesley Lowery Lowery, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist implicitly discusses polarities (“conundrums” or “tensions”) underlying our common conceptions of racism by probing recent surges in white-supremacist violence. The central premise of “Whitelash” is “a pull back on the rope”: “Each step toward a more [...]
Created as a nonprofit social change think tank in 2017, the Institute for the Polarities of Democracy joins the tools and processes of decades of polarity approach development with the basic principles of democracy drawn from centuries of literature about freedom and governance under one unifying Polarities of Democracy theory, which the Institute uses to [...]
NOTE: From Carl Rogers: On Becoming a Person (1961), Chapter 14. The “Rogerian triad” was created for the therapeutic relationship. However, it can be useful for Coaches, the Self And Other relationship, and one’s relationship w/“Self.” A “Multarity” is an interdependency of more than two. (See Figure, below): Figure There are three points in the “relationship triangle” [...]
Walter Cannon suggested emotions originate in the brain and work their way into the body. William James theorized emotions originate in the body, get perceived in the brain, and we form stories to explain them. Welcome to the Cannon-James debate, ya’ll! Summaries of the two points of view appear at the end of this note, [...]
(Cliff Kayser is providing this summary w/additions from an August article in FORBES by Roger Trap.) So complex is the modern business environment that leaders are confronting paradoxes on a regular basis. They want to protect their core business at the same time as innovating for the future; they are looking at new territories while [...]
(Cliff Kayser of Polarity Partnerships, LLC provides this summary w/additions from an August 2022 article that appeared in NEWSWEEK by colleagues Marianne Lewis and Wendy Smith.) Today's world is becoming increasingly fractured. Confirmation bias abounds where people stay within safe circles of friends and colleagues who agree with them, and the opinions they hear mirror [...]