WEBVTT

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Alison Whitmire: 
I first heard about David Whyte

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six years ago when I started working
with a CEO organization called Vistage.

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David Whyte's poetry is quite literally
part of the training curriculum

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for Vistage Group chairs.

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His work, his poetry, is so evocative

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that it is what we use

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to help connect leaders
with a hidden part of themselves,

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with an unclaimed part of themselves.

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And so David is here today
quite literally to open us up.

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So without further ado, David Whyte

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and his talk, "Life at the frontier
and the conversational nature of reality."

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(Applause)

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Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone.

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Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone.

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As if life were a progressive
and cunning crime

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with no witness to the tiny
hidden transgressions,

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as if life were a progressive
and cunning crime

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with no witness to the tiny
hidden transgressions.

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To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings.

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Surely, even you, at times,
have felt the grand array;

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the swelling presence, and the chorus,

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crowding our your solo voice.

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You must note the way
the soap dish enables you,

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or the window latch grants you courage.

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Alertness is the hidden
discipline of familiarity.

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Alertness is the hidden
discipline of familiarity.

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The stairs are your mentor
of things to come,

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the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,

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and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

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Put down the weight of your aloneness

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and ease into the conversation.

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Put down the weight of your aloneness

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and ease into the conversation.

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The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink,

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the cooking pots have left
their arrogant aloofness

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and seen the good in you at last.

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All the birds and creatures of the world
are unutterably themselves.

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Everything, everything,
everything is waiting for you.

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Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone.

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As if life were a progressive
and cunning crime

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with no witness, no witness
to the tiny hidden transgressions.

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To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings.

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Surely, surely, even you, at times,
have felt the grand array;

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the swelling presence, and the chorus,

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crowding out your solo voice.

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You must note the way
the soap dish enables you,

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or the window latch grants you courage.

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Alertness, alertness is the hidden
discipline of familiarity,

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alertness is the hidden
discipline of familiarity.

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The stairs are your mentor
of things to come,

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the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,

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and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

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Put down the weight of your aloneness,
the weight of your aloneness

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and ease into the conversation.

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The kettle is singing,

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the kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink,

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even as it pours you a drink,

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the cooking pots have left
their arrogant aloofness

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and seen the good in you at last.

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All the birds and creatures of the world
are unutterably, unutterably themselves.

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Everything, everything is waiting for you.

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This is a piece I wrote called

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"Inevitably everything
is waiting for you"

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(Laughter)

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to remind myself of
the conversational nature of reality.

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And to begin with,
the title sounds vaguely positive -

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everything is waiting for you -

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until you realize
that everything is waiting for you

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including your own demise
and disappearance.

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And this demise and disappearance

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is one of the difficult parts
of the conversational nature of reality.

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And what do I mean by 
"the conversational nature of reality"?

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When you think about it,

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there's no single element in the world

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that's not bonded to, flying away from,

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or catalytic with
another element in the world.

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And every creature,

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even the smallest single-celled creature

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is in a thousand different conversations

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with a thousand other elements
and dynamics and forms

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in order to keep itself alive

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and its environment alive.

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And every ecosystem in the world
is this astonishing meeting,

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this conversation,

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between various dynamics

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that contribute to this central
conversation of life.

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I lived in the Galápagos Islands
for a couple of years as a naturalist,

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and the richest place in Galápagos
is the western part of Isabela Island

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where you're looking off
into the middle of the Pacific

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for a good few thousand miles
to the Marquesas.

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But in that place,

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there's this upwelling current from below

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that brings all of this astonishing
richness and nutrients and oxygen

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from the depths

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up to the warmth of the surface,

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and when that oxygen and those nutrients
meet the warm water,

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you get this astonishing
efflorescence of life.

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But not only do you get

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oxygen-rich, nutrient-rich
cold water meeting warm water,

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you also have all of those elements
meeting the air, meeting the land,

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meeting different gradations
of salinity and temperature.

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Where all of those edges meet,

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you get this astonishing conversation

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and you get this astonishing
depth and plethora of life.

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And so it's an interesting
question to ask yourself,

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to ask the organization
that you're a part of

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but also to ask yourself
as an individual identity,

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How many edges in conversations
are actually meeting inside me?

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Or am I a monocultural idea,
which I attempt to project upon reality?

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(Laughter)

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Because one of the essential dynamics of
the conversational nature of reality is,

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whatever you as an individual
would like to happen in the world

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will not happen exactly
as you would like it,

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but equally, whatever the world,
your society, your organization,

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the people you serve in life

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want you to do

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will also not occur.

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You will not comply exactly
as they would like you to comply.

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And what occurs is this third frontier,

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this conversational reality, actually.

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And the ability to actually
create an identity

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where you can live at that frontier

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is one of the great triumphs
of a human life

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and has been celebrated

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in all our cultures and traditions
since the beginning of time.

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But it takes a different form of identity
than the strategic part of your mind,

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which sees yourself
as a piece of ammunition

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which you're going to fire
at the target of existence, you know.

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And so the whole - to my mind -
the whole of existence,

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the whole of creation,

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is actually trying to find
an internal anchorage inside us

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which reflects its astonishing
symmetry outside of us,

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and that in order
for an individual human being

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or an individual organization

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to live out its life,

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it has to find that edge between
its own particular signature and genius,

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and what its being called into
by its surrounding world.

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And the ability to live at that live edge
and to create an individual identity,

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a leadership identity, if you're actually
helping to run an organization,

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or a civic identity,

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where you're representing
the future of your country, actually,

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in a living imaginative way

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is one of our necessary
disciplines of this time.

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And you could say at the moment, you know,

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with those squares
filled with people in Cairo,

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you've got people there
who are on an edge,

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who are on a frontier,

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and they are in conversation
not only with what they know they want

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but with this astonishing unknown,

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which is about to come into incarnation

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through the way that they're simply
paying attention to the future.

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And there was a great line
by an early-20th-century Spanish poet,

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Antonio Machado,

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he said,

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"Caminante, no hay camino,

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se hace camino al andar.

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Al andar se hace el camino ..."

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"Caminante - pathmaker -

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there is no path.

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Pathmaker, there is no path.

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You make the path by walking.

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By walking, you make the path."

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And he's looking at what the physicists
and students of complexity

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would say is the iterative
nature of reality,

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that you actually change the world
by actually meeting it

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simply by being present

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and simply by beginning a conversation.

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That conversation can be verbal,

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but the world can also be changed
through your attentive presence.

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And we all know this

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and the way we can actually change
the conversation with another person

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through being attentive
and present in listening,

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but we also know

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in the abstruse theory of particle physics

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that the observer actually moves the world

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by the way they are actually
looking at that world.

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So everything, no matter
where you are, how you stand,

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is being affected by the way you stand.

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And so it seems to me that reality
is constantly coming to our door

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and saying, "Why not
get with the program?"

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"Why not come out from behind yourself,

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get out from behind this wall
you've set up for yourself

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that you call you,

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and meet something other than yourself?"

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And there was a great old -
what I thought was a Taoist poem.

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I recited and read this poem
to myself for years,

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and I thought it was a Taoist sage
and it was written about 2,000 years ago.

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It turns out it was written
by an Irish fellow, a Dubliner,

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in the 1920s.

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(Laughter)

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But this fellow is a brilliant writer,

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and he wrote in such a Taoist style
that he gave himself a Chinese name,

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which was [Wei Wu Wei].

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But he was an Irish fellow,

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and there I was saying, "Chinese sage,
[Wei Wu Wei], dadadada,"

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and it turns out, you know, that -

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but this is a brilliant little piece
written in the Taoist style, and he says,

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"Why are you unhappy?
Why are you unhappy?"

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Just relax. He's Irish and he's a poet -
he'll answer it for you.

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"Why are you unhappy?

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Because 98.98%

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of everything you do
and all that you say is for yourself,

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and there isn't one."

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"Why are you unhappy?

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Because 98.98% of everything you do
and all that you say is for yourself,

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and there isn't one."

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What does he mean by that?

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There's no self that will survive
a real conversation.

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There's no self that will survive a real
meeting with something other than itself.

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There's no organization
that will keep its original identity

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if it's in the conversation.

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And after a while,

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you realize you don't want
to actually keep that old static identity;

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you want to move
the pivot of your presence

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from this thing you think is you

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into this meeting with the future,

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with the people you serve,

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with your family,

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with your loved ones.

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And it's in this self-forgetfulness,

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where you meet something
other than yourself,

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that all kinds of
astonishing things happen.

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And I worked for a good few years

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with all of the top managers
at the Boeing company

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and working with the conversational nature
of the business reality.

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But at the end of it, they asked me to -

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they commissioned me to write a poem
for the triple seven aeroplane,

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which was about to be launched

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and which had just won
a big aerospace trophy,

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and there was to be a huge dinner
in celebration of this trophy,

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and they wanted a poem
at everyone's placing.

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And so I had the phone call
from the executive,

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saying, "Would you write
a poem for the triple seven?"

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And I said, "Poets don't do very well
under these circumstances."

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I said, "They usually write
very, very bad poetry."

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But I said, "I'll have a go at it,

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and if I have anything decent,
I'll send it to you,

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but otherwise, you should
just have a blank space there."

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Pasternak said at the convocation
for the five-year plan,

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"The poet's seat should be empty" -

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during the Soviet days -

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at the convocation for the five-year plan,
the poet's seat should be empty.

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But anyway, I had a go
at the old five-year plan,

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and I sat down and I said to myself,

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"You know, you spent a good deal
of your life on aeroplanes,

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so just put yourself back in that seat."

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And I did.

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And I had this sudden remembrance
of what it's like to be on a plane,

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where quite often

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you have this astonishing creation
outside the windows.

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You can be flying into San Francisco,

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the sun's going down
over the Oakland hills,

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the moon's coming up
over the ocean, you know,

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and it's absolutely astonishing.

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You look inside the plane -
everyone's reading People magazine.

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You're flying over the Alps,

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you're looking down
at Mont Blanc, you know,

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everyone's working on their BlackBerry.

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So one of the dynamics
of being up in the plane

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is that no one really wants to face up
to the reality of what they're doing, yes.

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You look out of the window -
there's no visible means of support.

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(Laughter)

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I'm not having the conversation;
it's not occurring.

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I'm in my own little world,
and I don't have to participate.

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But sometimes, as you're dropping down

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through these astonishing levels
of humidity and temperature,

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you will sometimes
be privileged with a view

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of that white line
passing over the curve of the wing,

00:15:31.545 --> 00:15:36.164
and you realize that the forces
that are holding the plane up

00:15:36.164 --> 00:15:37.974
are as solid as concrete,

00:15:38.224 --> 00:15:40.745
but they're made up of a conversation

00:15:40.745 --> 00:15:45.034
between the velocity of the plane
and the shape of the wing,

00:15:45.364 --> 00:15:47.066
and you need both -

00:15:47.066 --> 00:15:49.565
if you lose either end
of the conversation,

00:15:49.565 --> 00:15:53.665
you're going to arrive
a lot earlier than you'd like.

00:15:53.665 --> 00:15:55.036
(Laughter)

00:15:55.036 --> 00:15:59.173
So you don't get to choose
between yourself and this other,

00:15:59.173 --> 00:16:02.755
between the shape of yourself
and what's passing around you.

00:16:02.755 --> 00:16:07.055
So this is the piece
I wrote for the plane,

00:16:07.055 --> 00:16:08.748
but also to look at the way

00:16:08.748 --> 00:16:12.465
that human beings
can travel enormous distances -

00:16:12.465 --> 00:16:14.475
they don't have to do the work;

00:16:14.475 --> 00:16:16.486
they simply have to have the conversation,

00:16:16.486 --> 00:16:19.746
and the conversation
does all the work for you.

00:16:20.506 --> 00:16:22.706
The organization doesn't
have to do the work;

00:16:22.706 --> 00:16:26.348
it just has to have the conversation
with the people itself.

00:16:26.348 --> 00:16:30.315
The conversation creates a dynamic

00:16:30.315 --> 00:16:33.486
whereby you look around
and the work's being done.

00:16:34.426 --> 00:16:38.168
So I don't have to take the world on
as a burden and a weight;

00:16:38.168 --> 00:16:39.484
I don't have to kill myself

00:16:39.484 --> 00:16:43.297
even if I'm in a real position
of responsibility.

00:16:43.297 --> 00:16:49.413
I just have to turn to face
towards what is actually calling me

00:16:49.413 --> 00:16:51.467
and what I'm surrounded by.

00:16:52.397 --> 00:16:58.556
So this is the piece,

00:16:58.956 --> 00:17:02.334
and it's called "Working Together."

00:17:03.844 --> 00:17:05.676
We shape our selves to fit this world,

00:17:05.756 --> 00:17:07.857
we shape our selves to fit this world

00:17:07.857 --> 00:17:09.967
and by the world are shaped again.

00:17:09.967 --> 00:17:11.756
We shape our selves to fit this world

00:17:11.756 --> 00:17:13.796
and by the world are shaped again.

00:17:13.796 --> 00:17:18.816
The visible and the invisible
working together in common cause,

00:17:18.816 --> 00:17:21.170
to produce the miraculous.

00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:23.615
We shape our selves to fit this world

00:17:23.615 --> 00:17:26.127
and by the world are shaped again.

00:17:26.127 --> 00:17:30.686
The visible and the invisible
working together in common cause,

00:17:30.686 --> 00:17:32.517
to produce the miraculous,

00:17:32.647 --> 00:17:34.037
to produce the miraculous.

00:17:34.037 --> 00:17:35.286
I am thinking of the way,

00:17:35.426 --> 00:17:37.346
I am thinking of the way

00:17:37.346 --> 00:17:41.746
the intangible air traveled at speed
round a shaped wing

00:17:41.746 --> 00:17:43.065
easily holds our weight.

00:17:43.065 --> 00:17:44.236
I'm thinking of the way

00:17:44.236 --> 00:17:48.746
the intangible air traveled at speed
round a shaped wing

00:17:48.746 --> 00:17:50.367
easily holds our weight.

00:17:50.647 --> 00:17:51.777
So may we,

00:17:51.777 --> 00:17:55.206
so may we, in this life trust

00:17:55.496 --> 00:17:59.816
to those elements
we have yet to see or imagine.

00:18:00.286 --> 00:18:02.227
So may we, in this life trust

00:18:02.227 --> 00:18:05.347
to those elements
we have yet to see or imagine,

00:18:05.347 --> 00:18:09.944
and find the true shape,
find the true shape of our own selves,

00:18:09.944 --> 00:18:15.436
by forming it well
to the great intangibles about us.

00:18:17.417 --> 00:18:18.666
We shape our selves,

00:18:18.666 --> 00:18:21.187
we shape our selves to fit this world

00:18:21.187 --> 00:18:23.519
and by the world are shaped again.

00:18:23.519 --> 00:18:27.317
The visible and the invisible
working together in common cause,

00:18:27.317 --> 00:18:29.654
to produce the miraculous,

00:18:29.654 --> 00:18:30.657
the miraculous.

00:18:30.657 --> 00:18:33.687
I'm thinking of the way the intangible air

00:18:33.687 --> 00:18:36.547
traveled at speed round a shaped wing

00:18:36.907 --> 00:18:38.597
easily holds our weight.

00:18:38.957 --> 00:18:43.516
So may we, in this life,
in this life trust

00:18:43.516 --> 00:18:46.684
to those elements
we have yet to see or imagine,

00:18:46.804 --> 00:18:50.847
trust to those elements
we have yet to see or imagine,

00:18:50.847 --> 00:18:52.426
and find the true shape,

00:18:52.426 --> 00:18:56.506
the true shape of our own selves
by forming it well,

00:18:56.506 --> 00:19:01.890
by forming it well
to the great intangibles about us.

00:19:08.926 --> 00:19:10.357
Thank you very much.

00:19:10.357 --> 00:19:12.518
(Applause)