I’ve been reflecting on the tension between technological ambition and a grounded sense of purpose. My interest in tools like Enzyme to augment cognitive capacities leads me to wrestle with finding the right balance.
Creativity and innovation thrive on intentionality. Rick Rubin notes,
This resonates with Henri Nouwen’s view that “Drinking our cup involves carefully choosing those actions which lead us closer to complete emptying of it.”Discipline is not a lack of freedom, it is a harmonious relationship with time.
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Both stress the need to be present rather than rush toward predetermined outcomes. Nouwen warns against “living life as entertainment,” which can disconnect us from our true selves.Drinking our cup involves carefully choosing those actions which lead us closer to complete emptying of it, so that at the end of our lives we can say with Jesus: “It is fulfilled” (John 19:30). That indeed, is the paradox: We fulfill life by emptying it. In Jesus’ own words: “Anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).
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The author of “Huia Come Home” adds that we risk “misguided expectations and nauseating conformity” when we are “fed by other contexts.”But when we start living life as entertainment, we lose touch with our souls and become little more than spectators in a lifelong show. Even very useful and relevant work can become a way of forgetting who we really are. It is no surprise that for many people retirement is a fearful prospect. Who are we when there is nothing to keep us busy?
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Thus, creativity should be rooted in self-knowledge and lived experience, allowing our work to emerge organically. Even well-meaning efforts can neglect the need for restoration, as highlighted in “Huia Come Home.”We gobble up the latest and greatest fashion and film stories from America and Europe, while in our churches we feed an insatiable appetite for off-shore revivals and methodologies. In many ways, New Zealanders are fed by other contexts, as if the grass is always greener elsewhere. We are enamoured with the large chicken; portrayals of life and faith from contexts that are foreign to our own. This produces misguided expectations, along with nauseating conformity. Such expectations rely on the cultivation of intentional short-term memory.
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Tools should serve our deepest human needs and values, not become ends in themselves.Are you pursuing a type of justice that is restorative and mends relationship, or more of a vengeance type of justice?” He thought for a second and then responded, “That’s a good question, I haven’t really thought about it like that.” This was a response from one of the country’s best minds, working in international law. He hadn’t thought about the type of justice he was pursuing as a lawyer for Māori in Treaty claims. I found that to be quite telling. The Treaty partnership came about through trust and the negotiating abilities of the church and early missionaries, but the concern for a justice that is focused on genuine relationship and true partnership seems missing; no doubt it was misplaced through the process of deep and difficult pain. It is a justice that is not only missing at tribunal meetings, but has been lost in the conversations of everyday New Zealanders as we discuss what we think the Treaty is all about. Therefore, we need to help our country understand that true justice will always and only look like relational wholeness.
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Perhaps the key is to approach our work with patience and openness, allowing space for the unexpected to emerge as we pursue ambitious goals.
In doing so, we may find that the most meaningful innovations strengthen our connections rather than diminish them.He wasn’t a fool; he knew what Marx had been doing when he’d insisted they move their business here. Marx had let him think that they were moving for Both Sides, for Sadie, for himself, and for Zoe even. But the truth was, they had done it for Sam, because Sam had been afraid of facing the winter, because Sam had constantly been in pain, because Sam had been afraid of the surgery and it was obvious to everyone that the surgery could not be put off. They had been worried about him, and they had wanted to make his life easier. And so they invented reasons—some of them even compelling and real. And they had not done this for the game or the company, but because they loved him, and they were his friends. And he felt grateful.
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