Integrity - Land Ahoy!

If you feel a little lost at sea (and who doesn’t these days?) - this one is for all the landlubbers, seeking some ground to stand on.?

This article forms part of a series of explorations on Personal Integrity, with the two-fold purpose of organising some of my thinking and an invitation to you:??

Dare ye join me on a dialogical adventure???--(click)--> Wayfinding Conversations.

Weigh anchor!?

We set sail for new shores of understanding. The treasure we seek, go by the name?Integrity. It is much valued in the trade business. Some even claim it is ‘foundational’, the very ground and reputation we stand on.??

Much of our human struggle has been around gaining some ground, territory, or land to call our own. Perhaps it is a desire to possess something solid and substantial, to calm the storm of anxiety surrounding our own impermanence. This is extended in our struggle to be somebody, to claim an identity, title, or brand to call our own.??

I am to go out to secure a name, title, possession, or even land. Gain a reputation, be it fierce or loving to increase my prospects. And I’m told to build my home - as a physical or even spiritual space of dwelling - on foundations of rock, concrete, or solid ground.???

Wait… what is in these ideas of 'land' or 'ground'??

Imagine we were pirates, looking for treasure? Where would we find it? Why, buried in the ground, of course. As free seafaring pirates, who go digging for buried gold, is it not to compensate for the human roots (social relatedness) that have been severed?

I am one such wandering rootless pirate looking for a home… I struggle to come home to the fact that I am already a part of the?whole shebang. And so I feel the need to make a stand, find my place, join a tribe and form some brand or identity. In turn, I am required to defend this land, this brand, this fleshy meatball identity I’ve got going for myself.

Thinking in this way, Integrity can be seen as making a stand, being ‘upright’. It is a stance that is alert and attentive, straight not crooked, trusted to keep watch especially when no one else is looking. The stance of a soldier or guardian, safeguarding the goods. Integrity is standing for something good, some moral principle like kindness or justice so that you don’t fall for any old temptation.??

Maybe Integrity is not just safeguarding any old something, but the very roots and ground of my being. This move could be expressed in Integrity as ‘Keeping my Word’. Keeping goes beyond just truth-telling as in keeping my ‘word’ safe. And ‘word’ derived from greek ‘logos’, could mean in this context keeping my very [reason for being] safe.?

Oh dear, what is my reason or reasons for being? This is a vulnerable open-ended question and a source of embarrassment. How do I cover up this chink in my armour before someone notices that I have no idea what I’m doing here? Do I go on hearsay, fake it till I make it? Make it where? The only clear destination is [death], kept safe in Davy Jones' Locker.?

?It is very tempting to reduce Integrity to reputation management. Though it may be true that I trade on the value of my reputation, yet my integrity lies in discovering the gold, the radical roots to who I really am. Failure of this self-realisation, means I am safeguarding a BlackBox of [shadows], with pretentious moral masks.???

Staring into the abyss of my newly dug treasure hole - the open ground of my being - produces fear, anxiety, and much doubt that I am not substantial enough to matter.

I start doubting if there is really any of me to find. What does my integrity stand on?

Well, courage comes to mind or rather to heart.

Courage seems to be the ground when ground is lacking.

When fear, anxiety, and doubt are absent, so is the need for courage.

Do I find courage or does it find me when I dare show up just as I am?

Too often I see us fortify ourselves with clever arguments, degrees, titles, possessions to substantiate and solidify an identity that can be reckoned with. Trading in fear for being feared.

I dress in aspirations and promises who I will be tomorrow and thus hide who I am today. I never get to meet myself and do I really get to meet you as you are???

We could call this type of courage that fortifies/solidifies our position - fortitude. It is the kind of integrity I see on company walls trying to uphold a stronghold fortlike winning image and reputation. We end up defending the gold we seek yet do not have - fooling ourselves, others, and our employees, rather than celebrating the treasure gathered in each person's presence.

?To fortify is to erect a boundary rather than expand one’s horizon. A fortified boundary implies one's reason for being is a defence against invasion. Do not let anyone in.

??I believe it takes a different kind of courage to open up our strongholds, especially amidst the fear that there is nothing there.

?Maybe Jack Sparrow was onto something - the Black Pearl is not its parts. A ship needs parts but what it is, 'is freedom' to meet the ever-receding horizon. Maybe I can be a pirate in this way - in conversation with the beckoning horizon that goes endlessly beyond my limited vision of the world. Expanding my worldview rather than closing it off in defence.

What would life look like when what we kept safe, as our reasons for being, is kept with an open mind, an open heart, and the open horizon of our being.?And what happens when what we find is empty space? I explore this possibility next, in Integrity as 'being space for the world'...

May courage find you, where you are, as you are…

We set sail this August on a wayfinding dialogic adventure to expand our horizons rather than fortifying our positions. Join our wayfinding crew -?Wayfinding Conversations