Is it a Thing or a System?
It’s systems all the way down
Only three dots to connect today:
First, this William Bateson quote: “We commonly think of animals and plants as matter, but they are really systems through which matter is continually passing.”
Secondly, Aristotle. “To perceive is to suffer.”
And thirdly, this poem I’ve been working on, tentatively titled:
This poem is called “A Poem is Not a Thing”
Do you ponder the things we think are things that aren’t? A fire. A conversation. A crush. This poem. Not objects or embodied. A fire is not a thing, it is a process. You can’t hold a process any more than you can hold a flame and in that way, maybe all objects are that way on a long enough axis? Atoms aren’t mostly empty space; atoms are standing waves oscillating in time, fulcrums fixed like ancestors. When my children were born in water and blood I felt the earth stand still but the sun —which is not a thing; it’s an enduring fire and a fire is a process— was moving at 448,000 miles per hour, and the earth with it, corkscrew orbits and star trails in thrall, whether we like it or not. Nothing has ever stood in the same space at the same time except maybe two lovers wrapped up on a Sunday afternoon light warming peaks and valleys and folds between sheets and bodies. I wonder where the sun is taking us? Eventually we’ll collide with the next nearest galaxy — no fences between neighbors — becoming a Milky Andromeda wayward princess of the night. Context is less a constellation of things, as it is processes. Maybe nouns are just very slow verbs.
It’s systems all the way down
“I love being out in nature!” We often see people talk about “nature” as an other realm, this place out there that we explore, act upon, enjoy, or even desecrate. We tend to think there is a category — nature — and then a separate category — humans. And occasionally we interact, mostly at our behest. (Unless you are being chased by bears.)
Yet we are inescapably part of the natural world, as sure as chickens and maple trees and gravity and photosynthesis. We don’t go outside; we are a part of outside. We can only act upon it because we are it. (Along with more individual eukaryotic species than there are people on earth, which is mind-blowing.)
But nature isn’t a thing; it’s a trillion systems in a trench coat. Matter, neither created nor destroyed, passing through systems and plants and animals and people and all the myriad ways we cross paths.
Which brings me to the other thing I’ve been pondering this week: brand design studio operations, specifically new business communications and cashflow.
Obviously.
It’s tough to fix what you don’t understand
So far, Warm is doing fine. We’re not even a year old, and having a blast, doing some of the best work of our careers, and enjoying the process. But everything can be improved. What kind of designers would we be if we didn’t observe and try to make each aspect of our business better, not just the artifacts we create for clients? (Hint: bad designers!) We can, and should, seek to improve. This means we’re providing better services to our clients, but I also believe learning and growing are their own internal rewards, apart from how they impact external relationships.
So how does this connect with a poem about how poems aren’t a thing, Aristotle, and the guy who coined the term “genetics”? I wonder if I’m trying to tackle some of my business improvements in the wrong way? Maybe I’m subconsciously looking at cashflow or client communication as things. Objects. Static bits to be fixed, changed, outsourced, acted upon. But they’re systems, right?
Systems require a different approach.
Name it and tame it
I once described the role of project management as “efficiently moving work through the organization” which was cute and pithy, and at best a half-truth. But I think I was onto something. A project is a system, and matter is continually passing through it. All the stuff — emails, DMs, computer files, ideas, opinions, symbols, people, invoices, money, past experiences — is constantly moving through projects and organizations.
If cashflow management is a system, not a thing, I need to break it down into its component parts to understand what’s happening. I need to map it. Treat it like I’d treat a user experience flow because it is a user experience flow. I’m the user, and I don’t like it when it’s not flowing the way I want it to. But I’m also the designer, which means I can ostensibly identify and then redesign the parts that are not functioning optimally.
In Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy he says, “A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.” Sometimes I think I’m being clever, but I’m just stupidly translating what I’m observing into something I can understand. “Big mean cashflow is hurting my feelings. Should I punch it?” Treating complex systems like they’re simple objects is a perfect example of this.
As Frost put it, “How many things have to happen to you before something occurs to you?” I wonder what other areas of my life I’m translating poorly?