Cooperation and Wise Intent: Some Quotations

For the final blog of 2016 I thought I’d give myself a little break.  So, instead of writing about my thoughts, ideas, experience or research, I thought I’d write down some of my favourite quotes on cooperation and wise intention.  As we head into 2017 we have many challenges ahead of us.  The best way to deal with these is by cooperation and with an intent that is informed with wisdom.

Cooperation

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.  But if your liberation is tied up with mine, then let us work together.” – attributed to a native American woman.

“The wisdom of the community always exceeds the knowledge of the experts.” – Harold Fleming

“I can’t save the world on my own – it’ll take at least three of us.” – African proverb

“If you want to go fast, go alone.  If you want to go further, go together.” – African proverb

“Go to the people.  Live with them.  Love them.  Start with what they know.  Build with what they have.  But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say ‘we have done this ourselves.’” – Lao Tzu

“We did not put our ideas together.  We put our purposes together.  And we agreed.  Then we decided.”  - Popul Vuh (K'iche kingdom manuscript - Guatemala)

“Truth is not born, nor is it found inside the head of an individual person; it is born between people collectively searching for truth, in the process of their dialogic interaction.” – Mikhail Bakhtin

Wise Intent

“Don’t wait for the perfect moment, take the moment and make it perfect.” – unknown

“Knowledge is learning something every day.  Wisdom is letting go of something every day.” – Zen proverb

“The meaning of life is to find your gift.  The purpose of life is to give it away.” – Pablo Picasso

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind a faithful servant.  We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.” – Albert Einstein

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Wayne Dyer

“Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.  But certainty is an absurd one.” – Voltaire

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive.  And then go do that.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Harold Whitman

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.  To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller

I hope that these few quotations help to inspire you or provide you with something to think about as we come to the close of this year and move towards 2017.

Rain and Tears

In Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel Dune, there is reference to the Bakka – the weeper who mourns for all of humanity.  To weep, to cry, to mourn; these are all very human reactions to grief, pain, suffering, or distress.  We should not be afraid to cry, we should not be embarrassed to shed tears.  We should certainly not be trying to hold them back.  Tears are as natural as is the rising of the sun every morning.

Humans shed three types of tears.  The first two; basal (for lubricating the eyes) and reflex (for dealing with irritants such as dust or smoke), have fairly obvious biological explanations.  The third type is the tears we cry for emotional reasons.  Tears of the first two types are composed primarily of water, but  emotional tears contain a number of chemicals that do not exist in the lubricating or irritant-removal tears.  Some of these chemicals help to relieve stress, others help our body return to a state of balance.  Tears are thought to be part of the parasympathetic nervous system that helps to bring the heart rate, hormones and neurotransmitters back into a state of homeostasis (balance) after a period of arousal or a difficult time.  In other words, tears help to calm us.

But, what of the tears shed by the Bakka or others who mourn for humanity?  Being a weeper that mourns for all of humanity may be a sign that compassion, empathy, and human kindness exist in our hearts.  There is much to be mournful for when looked at through tearful eyes.  Who can turn aside and not be tearful when faced with the image of a child sitting in the rubble of Syria with their parents dead?  Who can repress the tears when faced with the image of a dead child on a Greek shore after another refugee boating crisis?

Some researchers think that tears may be a form of communication.  We weep when we cannot express with words the depth of emotion that we are feeling.  So, when we witness someone in pain, or the earth suffering, our tears may be a heartfelt way of communicating a very deep sense of empathy, not only to others, but to ourselves as well.  Thus, by attempting to block such tears we may be cutting ourselves off from deep connection and understanding.

Tears may also be a way to signal vulnerability and a desire to be cooperative.  In evolutionary terms tears may have indicated an unwillingness to be aggressive.  After all, as someone noted, it is difficult to fight when you can’t see through the tears.

Tears then may be so much more than simply a visual sign of sadness, or overwhelming elation.  They are also poignant communication devices and a recognition of the human need for cooperation and a willingness to help one another.

Tears for Mother Earth

In Māori (the indigenous people of Aotearoa – New Zealand) cosmology when it rains it is a sign that Ranginui (Sky Father) is weeping for his beloved Papatuanuku (Earth Mother) from whom he has been separated.  The tears of Ranginui are a sign of love. 

Western-styled societies have also been separated from Mother Earth.  It is little wonder that those within these societies who recognise the separation feel a sense of suffering arising from this alienation.  When someone talks honestly and openly of this alienation their tears flow like rain and often elicit in their listeners a similar weeping.  It is good to allow this weeping to flow – to feel the suffering of the world.

One person who has thought much about feeling the suffering of the world is Joanna Macy who terms it “honouring our pain.”  She places it within a process she calls The Work that Reconnects¹ and recognises the pain, and feeling the suffering, as important parts of the continuing process of healing.  We must not try to side-step it she claims.

“We are capable of suffering with our world, and that is the true meaning of compassion. It enables us to recognize our profound interconnectedness with all beings. Don't ever apologize for crying for the trees burning in the Amazon or over the waters polluted from mines in the Rockies. Don't apologize for the sorrow, grief, and rage you feel. It is a measure of your humanity and your maturity. It is a measure of your open heart, and as your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal.”²

But is all we did was feeling the suffering of the world, and the attendant compassion, we would go nowhere, we would be paralysed.  In Tibetan history there is a prophecy known as the Shambhala Prophecy that is helpful in this regard.  The prophecy tells of the Shambhala Warriors who arrive at a time when the Earth is in great danger.  They bring with them two weapons.  One is the weapon of compassion – the emotion that provides the motive behind acting.  The other weapon is the weapon of wisdom – the understanding of the immensely interwoven connections of life, and alluded to in the above quotation.

If we wish to act like Shambhala Warriors then we need both weapons.  So, let us not shun our tears.  An Indian proverb says that before we can see clearly we must shed tears to clear the way.  So, go ahead.  Clear the way.  Have a good cry.  (And that apples to all male readers as well – perhaps more so)

Notes:
1. Joanna Macy & Molly Brown, Coming Back to Life, New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, Canada, 2014.

2. Joanna Macy, The Greening of the Self, filmsforaction.org/articles/the-greening-of-the-self/ accessed 2 November 2016.

Appropriate Transport

The author steering a 7-seater, 7-chain ring cycle
in Tallinn, Estonia.

In the 1960s Dr E.F. Schumacher (a British economist) coined the term appropriate technology.  The term was popularised in his 1973 book Small is Beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered¹ and generally refers to technology that is small-scale, decentralised, labour-intensive, energy-efficient and environmentally sound.

Forty years later we are still coming up with new, efficient, technological innovations in many areas, including transport.  But few of them are appropriate.  Take the self-contained personal mobility unit (aka the car) as an example.  Since Henry Ford rolled out the Model T in the early part of the 20th century cars have become more and more efficient.  All these efficiency gains have led to vast numbers of cars, more cars per household, greater number of trips in cars, huge expanses of land set aside for roads, highways and parking lots, urban sprawl, and a rapid rise in carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

The next step in the efficiency drive is the hybrid or EV vehicle.  Much more efficient that the present gas-guzzling car.  Isn’t that wonderful?  Well, not really.  Greater efficiency, as has been demonstrated over and over, leads to greater consumption.  It just is not appropriate.

Are we overlooking something?  We already have an appropriate transport device, and we’ve had it since the mid 1800s, although its forerunner – the Dandy Horse – first appeared in 1817.  Its called a bicycle.  Lets consider some of the many benefits this appropriate transport technology has:

1. Low carbon emissions.  The bicycle is not carbon-free.  Estimates are that production and maintenance of a bicycle accounts for some 5 grams of CO2e per kilometre.  If the “fuel” costs of the cyclist are taken into account then a cyclist burns approximately an extra 16 grams CO2e per kilometre.  Hence, for every kilometre ridden the cycle emits roughly 21g/km.  Similar mathematics indicate that an average car (taking into account occupancy levels) emits 271g/km – thirteen times that of a cycle.  A bus, by comparison emits 101g/km.²
2. Monetary savings.  A report by the Australasian Railway Association in 2015 indicated that by not owning a car in Australia or New Zealand the average commuter could save between $9,000 – $10,000 per year.³  When arriving at this conclusion the authors did not take account of other costs such as toll road fees, non-compulsory insurance, or environmental and congestion costs.
3. Safety.  Research in Europe shows that when cycling increases, the safety of cyclists also increases.  Between 2000 and 2008 London saw a 91% increase in cycling and a 33% decrease in cycling casualties.  Cycling in the Netherlands increased 45% between 1980 and 2005.  In that same period the number of cycling fatalities decreased by 58%.  There are many reasons for this correlation.  Two major factors are that the more cyclists there are the more visible cyclists become and the more the pressure for authorities to make cycling safer (e.g. by building dedicated  cycle ways).
4. Effective Speed.  Is the car really getting us from A to B quicker than the bicycle?  The answer is yes and no.  On the surface it would appear that we get from A to B quicker.  But, when we dig deeper we find that the gains are not there.  In 2004 Paul Tranter (from the School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, UNSW, Canberra) prepared a report for the Australian Department of Environment and Heritage entitled Effective Speeds.  The sub-title provocatively claimed that Car Costs are Slowing Us Down.⁴  Tranter took into account a more complete analysis of speed.  If we remember our school mathematics we recall that speed is calculated by dividing the distance travelled by the time it took to travel that distance (s = d/t).  What Tranter noted was that the time element was not simply the amount of time sitting behind the wheel of a car going from A to B.  The true time factor also includes the amount of time it takes to earn the money required in order to get into the car in the first place.  Tranter factored in the time required to pay for the production and maintenance of the car.  Using statistics from the city of Canberra, Tranter calculated that the final effective speed of a car was between 14 km/h and 23 km/h, depending upon the size of car.  Undertaking the same calculations with buses and cycles found that the effective speed of buses is 21 km/h and 18 km/h for cycling.  Indeed, the cycle outperformed 3 of the 4 cars considered – the 4th being an Hyundai Getz.  It should be noted too that Tranter did not take into account the costs (and therefore time) associated with having to pay speeding fines, parking tickets, tolls, carpark fees, and perhaps hospital emergency ward costs. 
5. Health Benefits.  The health benefits of any exercise (cycling included) are well known and I shall not elucidate them here, except to note that they need to be considered when thinking about appropriate transport technology.

When we consider that half or more of the private trips taken by motorists in cars in the rich nations of the world are of 5km or less then the use of the bicycle as an appropriate transport source has a lot going for it.  Using a bicycle for trips of 5km or less will be less environmentally damaging, provide the cyclist with health benefits, contribute to less congestion, require little room for parking, and very likely, much quicker.

There is no need to devise transport technology with greater efficiency – we already have it.  Lets use it.

Notes:
1. E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered, Blond and Briggs, 1973.  Published by Harper Collins since 2010.
2. Benoit Blondel, Chloé Mispelon, Julian Ferguson, Cycle More Often 2 Cool Down The Planet, European Cyclists’ Federation, 2011.
3. Australasian Railway Association, The Costs of Commuting: An analysis of potential commuter savings, January 2015.

4. Paul J Tranter, Effective Speeds: Car Costs are Slowing Us Down, a report for (Australian) Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2004.

EARTHEART

Have you noticed that the words EARTH and HEART are anagrams of one another?  Perhaps it is just coincidence, but it is a coincidence that seems to be particularly pertinent in this age of species extinction, environmental degradation, climate change, and air, water and land pollution.

In the wake of all these issues there are calls to “save the whales,” “save the orang-utan,” or more broadly “save the planet.”  Campaigns are mounted against oil pipelines, fracking, coal seam gas drilling, or coal mining.  In the climate change arena we hear all the numbers:  2 degrees of warming, 350 parts per million, 1 – 2 metres sea-level rise.

Climate Change Summits are held, reports are written, debates take place in the United Nations.  Groups organise to obtain signatures on petitions, hold information/education meetings or lobby politicians.

All these people and organisations are wanting change.  They are wanting governments to legislate; coal miners to cease activities; car manufacturers to innovate for more environmentally-friendly vehicles; greater take-up of renewable energy sources.

All these objectives are worthy.  They may not be sufficient however.  They may even be diverting our attention from what is really needed – using our HEART. 

The trouble lies in how we go about solving the issues.  It can be argued that a lot of our problem-solving focuses on technological fixes of problems that are “out there,” problems that are external to us.  For some of us the problems are (for example) air pollution and so we try to fix the problem of air pollution.  For some of us the problems are caused by other people – industrialists, politicians, bureaucrats.  In this thinking style the problems are not about us, the problems are not about who we are.

So, we go about trying to solve the problems with our heads.  We try to think our way through the problem.  We try to solve them with technological innovation.  Peter Senge calls this “shifting the burden to science and technology,”¹ a process whereby we apply a symptomatic solution to a problem without addressing the underlying, fundamental causes.  By shifting the burden in this way we find that the symptoms only get worse or bigger, and so we have to apply even more of our technological solutions.  The problems get bigger and bigger, worse and worse.  If that was all we did by shifting the burden it may not be so bad.  Unfortunately, by shifting the burden in this way we become more and more reliant on technology as our default problem-solving technique.  In doing so we distance ourselves farther and farther from what we really need – the development of our human wisdom and our heart-centred thinking.

Viewing the world through our hearts we take an entirely different journey than when we view it with our heads.  An heart-centred approach to thinking is,

“independent, creative, moral and compassionate…it reflectively questions assumptions, discerns hidden values, and considers the larger social and ecological context. Heart-centred thinking is distinguished by an animated curiosity that leads to a constantly adjusting, in-depth knowledge of the environment, the human culture, and its individual members.”²

So it is with our approach to the EARTH – we have to resist the urge to solve things with our heads and shift towards our HEART.  We have to open up our hearts.  That may take some courage which is unsurprising.  The word courage derives from the Old French word corage – meaning heart.  When we have the courage to open up our hearts to the Earth and to each other not only will we find more creative solutions we will also find that something shifts inside us – we will discover who we are.

Notes:
1. Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski, Flowers. Presence: exploring profound change in people, organizations and society, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London, 2005.

2. Bill Plotkin, Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche, New World Library, Novato, California, 2013

The Brexit and Trump Eddies

The Brexit and Trump votes have thrown progressive thinkers into a tizz.  What does it all mean?  How did this happen?  The social and humane progress of humanity has been shoved backward, according to many.

Yes, what does it all mean?  Sometimes when we consider nature we can find some insights.  One that comes to mind is the flow of a river.  If we sit and watch a river carefully for long enough we will notice a number of things.  We will notice that the river is not consistent – it changes from moment to moment.  We will notice that at one time it can be flowing quite smoothly, yet at other times turbulently.  It may be cold, or warm.  Sometimes there will be nothing upon the surface, and other times there will be a steady stream of tree branches or leaves.

Then there are the eddies and whirlpools.  Looking closely at these we notice that within them there are some sections that are moving contrary to the prevailing current, some sideways to it and others in a parallel movement.  Yet, it is all part of the same river.

A kayaker paddling down the river needs to be aware of these eddies and whirlpools.  The kayaker may try to avoid them but, if they get caught in one, they know that the worst thing to do is to fight against the eddy. 

The Brexit and Trump votes are the eddies and whirlpools in the political flow.  And, similar to the kayaker and the river eddies, fighting against them is unhelpful, and possibly even dangerous.  It is far better to discover the nature of the eddy.  How did this eddy occur?  Is there an energy within it that may help us get out?

Lets ask ourselves how the Brexit and Trump eddies came into being.  A quick glance at the voting demographics of each is telling.  In each case the vote to leave the EU and the vote for Trump showed one overwhelming similarity.  The sectors of society that mostly supported Brexit/Trump were those with lower educational and income levels.¹  Following these two demographics the next similarity was that older white men tended to vote for Brexit and Trump.

These groups are highly representative of those parts of society that have been left behind by neo-liberal globalisation over the past three decades.  Neo-liberalism rests on two major tenets: privatisation and deregulation.  Both have been disasters for those who were already in the lower socio-economic sectors of society.  The benefits have gone more and more to those who already benefit immensely from the social and economic structures that exist.  The wealth of the richest 62 people on earth is now greater than that of half of the world’s population.  Of the total global income growth between 1988 and 2011 the top 10% garnered almost half of it (46%).²

So what is it that the eddies of Brexit and Trump are telling us?

Both Brexit and Trump played to the worries of those most affected by neo-liberalism.  Both talked of the loss of jobs.  Both referred to a lowering of economic well-being.  In doing so, both tapped into the fears of those who have been badly affected by the globalisation project.  Brexit and Trump asked some questions that these sectors of society wanted to hear.  Brexit and Trump also supplied some answers; and therein is the real issue – they are false answers.

But to claim that people were duped would be a mistake.  People are rightly asking some questions and, largely, the only ones answering them are those like Trump.  Labour and progressive governments around the world have embraced neo-liberalism almost as much as have conservative governments.  In doing so they have abandoned those who in previous eras have depended on these governments to assist them.  The backlash was always going to come.  Now that it has, it is a pointless exercise attempting to blame the voter.

One thing that we can learn from the Brexit/Trump eddies is that we have to ask some fundamental questions.  Foremost amongst those is: is the neo-liberal project of universal benefit?  We can also ask: who benefits from neo-liberalism?  These questions have to be asked in the workplaces of the world, in the communities and neighbourhoods of those suffering the downside of globalisation.
Interestingly, of those who voted to leave in the Brexit vote, 69% said that they thought globalisation was a “force for ill,”  whereas only 31% of those voting to remain did so.  It seems that there is a tacit understanding of what is happening.

Finally, it is worth noting the irony in all this.  The neo-liberal globalisation project was ushered in by Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Regan in the US.  It is these two nations who have now supplied the backlash. 

Are we going to fight against the eddies, or are we going to use the current in them to arrive at some useful insights?

Notes:
1. Two-thirds of white people without a college degree voted for Trump.  More than 60% of those with a university degree or higher voted to remain in the EU – the opposite to those who ended education at secondary school ore earlier.

2. Oxfam Briefing Paper, 18 January 2016.

What to do when Technology is Inefficient?

In the 1970s an explosion took place.  The modern environmental movement was kick started with some seminal works: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring brought an awareness to the damaging effects of insecticides, herbicides and other such technologies.  E.F. Schumacher wrote Small Is Beautiful that helped us understand the costs of continuing on the same technological path and offered an alternative that had less impact.  Limits to Growth placed before us an array of scenarios for the future, one of which (the business-as-usual scenario) we continue to stubbornly follow today.  Limits to Growth has been shown more than 40 years later to have been uncannily accurate in its scene-setting.  All of these works are still highly relevant, mainly because we have learnt so little from them, and even less from the experience of forty years of history in the interim, particularly in the western-styled culture.

One further offering from the 1970s was a simple equation that has been largely forgotten in the debates on climate change, environmental degradation, soil and forest depletion and species extinction.  Simple it may be, yet it is extremely powerful in providing a fuller understanding of what is going on the world, particularly when we try to understand the impact we humans are having upon the world.  Here it is, in its simplest form:

I = PAT

What does it mean?  The equation expresses the human impact (I) upon the planet as a function of population (P), affluence (A), and technology (T).   Thus, our impact will increase if the population increases, or if our affluence and consumption increase.  If we can make technology (T) more efficient then that will have a lessening effect upon our impact according to this equation.

During the 1970s there was a lot of talk about the P component of this equation with zero population growth being discussed.  Today, most of the discussion centres on T – the technological component.  Increasingly efficient technological solutions are being produced and promoted everywhere.  Solar and wind power, hybrid cars, energy efficient light-bulbs and whiteware with 5-star energy ratings are all being  heralded as the technological breakthroughs that will reduce our collective impact.

In the 1970s there was little talk of the A component of the equation.  Today there is even less discussion of the A component.  Yet, it is becoming clear that the A (affluence) component is of great importance, possibly of fundamental significance.  It is becoming more and more so partly because the efficiency of technology does not translate into a lessening of impact as we would like to think it does.  That is because of the Jevon’s Effect  (also known as the Rebound Effect) – the phenomenon whereby when something is made more efficient it is consumed in greater amounts so that the possible advantage of greater efficiency is wiped out.  Much of modern technology shows this detrimental side to increasing efficiency.  Take these three examples for instance:

Undeniably the efficiency of modern cars is much greater than those built twenty or thirty years ago.  Yet this increased efficiency has had no impact upon energy consumption in total nor in per capita terms.  Indeed, energy consumption has increased dramatically, partly because the number of passenger-kilometres increased by 30% between 1990 and 2005 in affluent nations, with cars accounting for 87% of this.²  In Australia the number of passenger vehicles increased from 153 per 1,000 people in 1995 to 568 per 1,000 in 2013 – an almost four-fold increase in less than twenty years.  Statistics from the UK show a similar trend.  In the sixty years after the 1950s the number of households with at least one car jumped from just 14% to 75%.  These are all cases of the Jevons Effect.

Perhaps the biggest expansion in technological efficiency this century has come in the telecommunications field.  The spread of technologies such as iPhones, Smart Phones, tablets has been like wildfire upon the human landscape.  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and other social media technologies are ubiquitous.  The efficiency of communication has grown enormously.  Meanwhile, though, something else has grown in our social milieu – the rates of depression, anxiety and feelings of isolation in many western nations have increased.  We may be able to more efficiently “communicate” on one level, but on the level where it most matters, we are hopelessly losing it.

Renewable sources of electricity are becoming cheaper, more efficient, and easier to come by.  This should be good news shouldn’t it?  Yes, and no.  Yes – if we kept our consumption at the same level, or reduced it.  No – if it means that we consume more and more electricity.  Unfortunately, it appears that it is the latter scenario that is playing out.  The amount of electricity used in the world tripled between 1980 and 2015.  Per capita electricity consumption is expected to increase world-wide by 2030 with much of this being in the emerging nations of India and China, although no area of the world is exempt from this increase.³  This increased consumption comes at the same time as we are gaining efficiency via renewable energy sources.  Stanley Jevons would be saying “I told you so.”

This all points to an uncomfortable truth.  We have to do something about our affluence, and we have to do it soon.  We cannot continue having more and more.  We cannot continue to put our faith in technological solutions.  We cannot continue thinking that science or technology will save us.

That means taking a good, long, hard, look at the A component in the equation: I = PAT.  That’s uncomfortable isn’t it?  Because by taking that hard look we find that it means having to reach into our psyches and discover who we are.  We have to ask ourselves: who am I? who are we? what are we doing here? what is my purpose here?  Uncomfortable – maybe.  Difficult – definitely.  Fulfilling – yes (if we are willing to be honest with ourselves and each other).

Notes:

1. In 1865 Stanley Jevons wrote The Coal Question showed that when the amount of coal needed to produce a ton of iron was reduced by over two-thirds the total consumption increased ten-fold between the years 1830 and 1863 in Scotland.  The effect has been known as the Jevons Effect ever since.

2. Worldwide Trends in Energy Use and Efficiency, International Energy Agency, 2008.

3. Source: International Energy Agency.

What is...?

Remember the child-hood game of saying the first thing that comes into mind in response to a word
provided by someone else?  Well, here is a technique that utilises that idea and takes it a bit further.  It can be used as an ice-breaker or an introduction game.  It can be used to tease out meanings and nuances of concepts and notions, or it can be used to explore some of our deeper beliefs and views.  I’ll outline the technique and then provide some examples for different settings.

Technique

Group members pair off with one of the pair designated A the other B.  Person A is the questioner, person B the responder.  Person A asks person B a question.  Person B responds with the first thing that comes to mind, in just a word or a few.  Person B is not answering with a whole story.  The response is simply the first brief thought or feeling that comes, without any restriction.  Person A then says “thank you” and proceeds to ask exactly the same question again.  Person B responds again with the first thing that comes to mind, again not elaborating or judging.  This proceeds for 2 or 3 minutes with Person A saying thank you and repeating the question.  If at any stage Person B does not respond immediately then both members of the pair should just sit in silence until a response from Person B does arise.  Person A offers no comment or appraisal at any stage in this interaction, although often some sort of empathetic response (a smile, a laugh, a nod) may naturally arise.

After the end of the 2 or 3 minutes, each member thanks the other and then the procedure is repeated, with Person B this time being the questioner and Person A the responder.

There may be a series of questions that are used in this technique, in which case allow a minute or twos reflection before moving to the next in the series.

Icebreaker or Introduction Examples

Some examples of questions for icebreaker or introductory games may be:

• What is here?
• What is funny?
• What is a cat (dog, bird or some other animal)?

Concepts and Notions Examples

Some examples of questions to ask to tease out some of the concepts or notions amongst the group may include:

• What is community?
• What is fair?
• What is equity?
• What is justice?
• What is power?
• What is development?

Beliefs and Views Examples

When it comes to exploring some of our beliefs and views we start to go a bit deeper, so it is important that a level of trust has been built up in the group before asking these questions.

• What is fear?
• What is love?  (Often it can be useful to follow the question on fear with this one on love)
• What is spirit?  What is soul? may elicit different responses.  Find out.
• Who are you?  This last question can go deep within one’s sense of who they are, especially after the first few “surface” responses (e.g. “I am a man,” “I am a woman,” have been said.)

Following the series of questions return to the larger group and ask for reflections, insights, comments.  Did anyone discover something about themselves that they had not been aware of previously?  Did anyone gain an insight useful for the group as a whole to know about?

As you work with this technique you will discover questions that are useful in the group you are working with.  When using the technique to explore beliefs and views it can be useful to ask the participants to spend a minute or two in silence before the questions start.  This allows both members of the pair to become present to whatever may arise for them.  Following the responses from Person B to Person A’s questions it is worth spending another minute or two in silence, to allow for the responses to settle before the pair switch roles.

Remember to advise the questioner in each case to thank the other person before they repeat the question. 


Simple but very effective.