NOT NORMAL AT ALL

They say a week in politics is a long time, but it’s even longer in the current pandemic. Predictions, concerns, hopes and conflicting advice pour from our governments and newscasts, only to be upended only a few days later. Are we through the worst? What’s the economic fall-out? Who are the winners and losers? Will we be OK?

Most predictions on these FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions - including my own, are near worthless: experts are notoriously bad at guessing what comes next, as their expertise is grounded in history. ‘History’ now means what happened last month!

The upside is that we have learned to live more in the moment, in the now. And in many ways to become our own experts, clear that we need to rely on our common sense, more than the press or officialdom, to navigate a way through times that are certainly ‘trying mens’ souls.’  

Do not read the headlines! They are only designed to trigger the amygdala, the fear centre of the brain, and a fight or flight response is not what’s needed right now. You can’t sprint away from a virus. In contrast the parasympathetic side of the nervous system has been dubbed ‘stay and play,’ which seems a more appropriate reflex to rely on.

One of the hazards of being at home more, at least for my nerdy side, is there’s time to fixate on the language - and inevitable cliches - used to describe the crisis. Expressions like ‘the new normal,’ were already bleached of meaning before it became de rigeur for every website, article or conference to repeat endlessly. Ditto the word ‘resilience,’ and phrases like ‘it is what it is.’ Worryingly I find myself counting the number of times the word ‘narrative’ is used in a lecture or interview: nine times (9!) in four minutes being the current record. And when I hear the meaningless, but ubiquitous, ‘narratives around,’ I switch off immediately and find myself muttering like a disgruntled old colonel in his cups, bemoaning what things used to be like, ‘back in the day.’ Although ‘back in the day’ is also a recent invention…

New Times, New Words

Neologisms are necessary -there are so many new discoveries and social innovations that require them. Alexa, Android, Zoom, doomscrolling, tablets, non-binary, LGBT*** and so on are useful for labelling something that didn’t exist, at least in the mainstream, until relatively recently. My objection is to phrases continually parroted without thought, especially when so many of them have dystopic overtones. Meltdown, collapse, fall-out, disruption, demolition and destruction only exacerbate dire predictions about the future of our (suddenly much smaller) planet. More than ‘we are what we eat’, we are what we say and think, and it’s all too easy to pollute the mind with the language of helplessness.

I’ve written more about the impact of the language we use in my new book, TIME APART-Reflections on Creativity in a Time of Crisis (Kindle). There I proposed a reframing of the terms we’ve ingested without too much objection: ‘social distancing’ more constructively cast as ‘virtual networking,’ ‘lockdown’ as ‘breakthrough’ and so on. I believe it does make a difference to our state of mind to invent a better language for our times: not in any superficial, glass half- full, half-empty kind of way, but because the words we say and think have a resonance, an impact, as well as an association or meaning. They affect us, liberate or paralyse us. And when they are delivered without forethought or reflection, by commentators or politicians, they have the deadening effect of a series of duff notes in a piece of music; we are disturbed and unclear about what’s really happening.

So what do I suggest? Firstly, that we don’t accept at face value the language we are fed – we can question and dive beneath the surface, obvious level of attention grabbing labels. We can do it especially with statistics, probing with questions like, “What’s the difference between causation and correlation in these Covid statistics?” or “How rigorously is the data sourced?” and “How quickly do economies recover from major setbacks?” In other words, think in sentences rather than headlines.

Next, we can become more aware of when we use hackneyed and cliched expressions ourselves. Moi? Using cliches? Surely that’s something other people do, not me! No- doing a springclean of our own repetitive language patterns is hard, but worthwhile. Our partner or close friend will give us instant examples! If our language is second hand and stuck, it’s a good indicator of the way we’re thinking.  

Finally, we can benefit from curiosity about non-conventional ways of reframing a situation, ideas that are on the periphery of the mainstream. This does not mean being a conspiracy theorist, although there is something of a conspiracy against conspiracy theories. Let me explain: you’d have to be really weird to believe the 1969 moonshot was filmed in the Arizona desert, that Elvis is still alive or the CIA blew up the Twin Towers. These are clearly ‘out there’ views, though adhered to by a surprisingly large number of people. But what is just as worrying is the tendency to dismiss theories that don’t fit the conventional view as mere ‘conspiracy.’

Innovation Seeking

I’m bound to find a nerve touched here – studying innovation makes you realise how often a new idea, invention or social shift runs counter to prevailing wisdom. Around 30 years is the average timescale for a major breakthrough- say aspirin, electric power in factories or the mobile phone- to be widely accepted and used. There’s an unconscious bias against the new, and so views on the periphery of what’s commonly accepted are easily rejected, until times and opinions move on, when they are upheld as normal. That’s the mechanism of a real paradigm shift – it’s triggered by views that are seen initially as rebel, or ‘pie in the sky’ thinking. In science and technology it’s discoveries that don’t fit the mould.

I suggest you explore novel ideas in fringe, unusual or innovative publications. Look for inventions, viewpoints and sources on the edge of what’s currently accepted. In business, social engineering, economics or the arts. You might want to delve into knowledge based websites, online conferences or simply change your usual newspaper. These are all ways of stepping out of your personal echo chamber: it’s comforting for us to read what we agree the hell out of- but learn nothing new. One of the hardest acts of intellectual honesty we can perform is to test and challenge our own assumptions. The result can be a breakthrough in self-awareness…

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At my local Arts cinema I can’t help notice the language that describes the edgy movies they show: ‘bleak, alienation, cinema noir, dysfunction and dystopia’ are the words that warn me off. (Although as I write it’s closed, sadly.) This is the problem- it’s so much easier to think and write about things going wrong, and you’re na?ve and not serious if you don’t embrace the darker language of what’s thoughtlessly called ‘the human condition.’ We find the same pattern in the serious news reporting, which can easily make us feel trapped under the weight of fear-inducing words – decline, disaster, horror, destruction and decay are typical ways of describing or adding to downward trends. They are paralysing.

Let me be clear: I am not proposing a Mary Poppins type of positive thinking, where everything can be magically transformed from a problem into an opportunity. The pandemic, and some of the tectonic shifts in society and economies happening now, are problematic. What I am saying is the way we think, and the language we use to describe these times, does make a difference to how we get through the difficulties. We can choose- to feel helpless, or able to choose possibility over impossibility.

‘Perception is everything’ has become an overworn phrase in the field I work in, creative leadership education. Nonetheless, it does contain this essential truth: the way we see things determines to a large measure how we act. When times are UP it’s very hard to perceive what it’s like to be DOWN – and vice versa. Hope, vision and a sense of perspective is what’s given to negotiate turbulent times. Now most commentators would say we are ‘down,’ but it’s important to focus on what’s changeless, as well as what’s changing. A more expanded perception of what’s going on is that life is cyclical on the surface, but there are some things that don’t change: the incredible resourcefulness of humans in solving problems and surviving troubled times is one such changeless reality.

I could wax lyrical and say that just as the sun never fails to appear after a storm, inevitably good times follow bad. It’s true – but very hard to see when you’re in the storm. That’s where widening and deepening our perception becomes critical, not just for our own mental health, but for that of our communities and world.

Beautiful Questions

I’m not going to leave you with a neat answer, in part because I don’t have one, but also I don’t want to be too preachy. In my enthusiasm for innovation, I’m a convert to the creative power of the beautiful question to unlock fresh and original solutions. (Again, covered in Time Apart.) And as a believer in the power of creative collaboration, I’d rather finish with a few questions for you, the reader, in the hope of hearing from you and stimulating a creative exchange.

First, do these thoughts resonate with you – or maybe not?

Next, do you think that negative language has an effect on our psyche, or that it’s simply human nature to accentuate the dramatic, and makes little difference to outcomes?

Then (assuming you at least partially agree with me): what are your ideas for replacing the language of fear and misery with terms that are more accurate, and don’t induce helplessness?

Finally, there’s Socrates sixth and most powerful question – questioning the question! So here goes: am I asking the right questions in this piece, or have I missed the plot? And if I haven’t posed the right ones, what questions should we be asking which will lead to making our world better, fairer, and more peaceful?

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?October 2020