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Don't Choose: We Grow Together
Episode 1729th June 2022 • PowerPivot • Leela Sinha
00:00:00 00:08:28

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Shownotes

Generosity. Kindness. Fierceness. Justice. Pleasure.

Yes, we can have them all, if we understand the ways that they and we are interconnected, the ways that justice and pleasure and generosity and kindness and fierceness all rely on each other. They become more when they are together, not less. They become more, we become more; there is no priority of one over the others.

Transcripts

Leela Sinha:

Mina Raver asked me this morning, what values drive

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me? What values our lives become? And I had to answer with

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things that don't always go together: generosity and

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kindness and fierceness and justice and pleasure. And she

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wrote back and asked, do those things fit together? Do those

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things fit together? How do they fit together? Do they ever bump

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up against each other? How do you make a priority? How do you

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prioritize them? And I asked back in my head, before I

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answered, I asked, How can there be a priority? They're all

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important, they don't take precedence one over the other.

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We need to drop the fallacy that the priority is necessary, that

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one has to take precedence, that we can't have it all, that we

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can't have both. Can we have justice and generosity? Can we

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have generosity and pleasure? Yes, yes, we can have them both

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if we understand the ways that we are interconnected, the ways

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that justice and pleasure and generosity and kindness and

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justice all rely on each other. They become more themselves they

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become more each other they become more when they are

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together. More when they are together, not less. They become

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more, we become more, there is no priority. There is only how

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do these two things grow together? How do they dance

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together? How do they fit together? When you plant a tree

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next to another tree, they are impacted by the presence of one

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another. But they can both still reach the sun, they can both

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grow together, their trunks entwined even, and thrive. In

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the forest, about which I am forever talking, there are trees

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and trees and trees and trees, big tall trees and short trees

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and shrubs and bushes and vines. And underneath the soil, all

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those roots, interconnect, they are close, they are touching,

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they are talking, they are sharing resources. They are

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sharing lives. This is how we do the work. This is how things

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happen, is by not making a priority. Or rather by making a

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priority of specific things. By making a priority of things like

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humanity, humanity is a priority. The interdependent web

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of all existence is an even bigger priority. Taking care of

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the life around us that's the priority. The priority gets

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bigger and bigger, the bigger our vision gets. The bigger our

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understanding gets, the bigger our perception our

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proprioception our interoception gets, the bigger the body gets.

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And when the body is at its very biggest It is everything. And

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that is where we are located, is in everything. And so we cannot

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just say oh, well we'll have breath but we won't have blood

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circulation today. You can't do that. I mean, we do, when we're

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under absolute survival stress we do, our bodies do. They say

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you can have circulation but only in your trunk not in your

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limbs. Or they say you could have had breath but that's not

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working out right now we're going to stick with circulating

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the blood as long as we can. Bodies say you can have

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consciousness but not right now because we're under too much

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stress. So we're going to just put you in shock until we can

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figure out what to do next. So we do, we don't always do

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everything all equally exactly at the same time. But when we're

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planning, when we're living, when we've got a little room to

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make some decisions- if we are in a place to even think about

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priorities, and not just act, and not just grasp in

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desperation. Those are the moments when there are no

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priorities. Where priorities aren't a thing. When everything

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is as important as everything else. When everything is as

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important as everything else. And if these are already the

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values that I have decided are the priority, they are already

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the most important thing. And so we will have to find a way that

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generosity and kindness and justice can coexist. We will

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have to find a way that pleasure can exist with everything. We

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will have to find a way to enact love. We will have to find a way

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to enact love. And this is true even in our businesses, even in

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our work, even with our teams, especially in our businesses,

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our work our teams. This is the reason that I do this work.

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Because it is when we lose track of this, it's when we lose, lose

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our understanding of the interconnectedness of all of the

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values that we carry all together, when we lose track of

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all of that, that's when our institutions lose their

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humanity. That's when our institutions lose their

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interconnection. That's when our institutions facilitate and

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support us becoming disconnected, instead of

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facilitating and supporting us becoming connected. We need to

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become connected, we need to stay connected, we need to be

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engaged with each other, consciously engaged with each

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other. We need to have systems that support that. So yeah, all

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five of those things all together, all at once. Because

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without all five of those things altogether, all at once, we

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start to make something disposable. We fall out of

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integrity, because we make something disposable. If it's

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disposable, then it's not really meaningful anymore. And it

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causes moral injury. And when it causes moral injury, it damages

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us. And it damages our ability to move through the world and it

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damages our ability to make things better. It damages our

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ability to be interconnected. It damages our ability to lift one

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another up. And those are inherent to our existence. So

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no, I don't prioritize those things. I prioritize all of them

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together. I don't pick and choose. They grow together.

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