When people take our coaching classes and are deep in their learning about all things Integral, they hear about this way of living day to day and find it kind of weird. Students ask, "Don't you ever take a vacation?" Yes, and there are people there too and books and movies and even more interesting community interactions at the floating bar in the pool. You can't escape Integral once you're deeply in it. It lives you. Not the other way around. You have been warned.

What is most interesting is that I start having a view that everyone must be living this way (like a fish in water who doesn't know she is in water). Everyone must be noticing these things all of the time. Seeing links everywhere like pieces in a 15,000 jigsaw puzzle. And if they aren't living this way, well, then they must be aspiring to live this way. Who wouldn't want to?

Then the other day, this colleague of mine asked, "Say you're driving a pick-up truck and you have nothing loaded in the truck bed and you want to reduce friction on a long drive to save on gas because gas is so friggin' expensive, how would you make sure your truck is streamlined?" I said, "I don't know. Lower the tailgate so that the wind can flow out more freely?" Nope. Wrong answer. You actually need to keep the tailgate up because it is designed to create an air pocket in the truck bed and the truck is completely aerodynamic because of this pocket of air. Did you know that? I didn't know that. But someone who knows a lot about trucks knows that. They notice trucks everywhere and which accessories are used and whether the truck is being attended to or not. They pick up details on trim and interiors and models and years built and special editions. That is what they notice. Truck wisdom.

Now, this might seem like a minor thing to you. It isn't. It is great to be reminded that I know nothing about most everything. I know nothing about air pockets and aerodynamics of trucks. I have never owned a truck and probably never will. And I know zero about them except I think they might be bouncy and have lousy shock absorption when empty but who the hell knows.

If he had asked me about working with any client on any topic at any level, I could hang out there easily. But truck beds? There is no air pocket wisdom filed away in my brain in a category called Trucks. Not knowing about most things is a good thing to be reminded of all of the time. I live in such complexity working with Integral theory, human development, and what it takes to grow, change, and evolve into free, fully functioning human beings. I hang out in these realms somatically, emotionally, spiritually, cognitively, relationally, morally. This means one thing: there are at least a billion things that I know nothing about.

You can be a smart guy and not know how to make a pot of coffee. You can know how to ride a bike and not know how to balance a chequebook. You can know nothing about nuclear energy or how to start a lawn mower. Be brilliant but not wise. We live in our own little universes and we are unaware of the other galaxies of knowledge that live right next door.

I love being reminded that wisdom is not wisdom. Air pockets exist.
Be kind to yourself. You know next to nothing.

^© Joanne Hunt