Becoming vision.
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“We need to reframe our depression, our malaise, our anxiety, not as an illness, not as a pathology, but as a cry for initiation for a rite of passage, as a psychic growing pain. A truly necessary step on the journey of becoming who you are as admittedly kind of cheesy as that sounds. Because with this disposition comes the acknowledgement that whatever you’re going through is not pointless. It’s necessary, it’s fuel for your own psychospiritual maturation.”
— Terrence McKenna
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
— Proverbs 29:18
In my old life as a management consultant, an industry that exists in a liminal world of unreality, I worked on a disconcerting number of projects that delivered nothing of value.
In fact, many of these projects actually extracted value from a client and were therefore deemed, overall, a success for the firm in their contribution to the bottom line and bonuses. Apologies to my many friends who are management consultants, but it really is a shitty, vampiric industry.
These valueless or directionless projects usually came about not just from the rapaciousness of consulting partners but also from a failure of governance in the client. There was often too little of several crucial things: clear goals, accountability, oversight and measurement of success.
So I often found myself in a netherworld of scurrying and grinding to do manifestly meaningless work. Strange days would pass on these projects that we all knew were doomed to fail, days where I would enter a malaise, a temporary fugue state where nothing seemed real or had a point to it.
It was like being on a theatre stage with no real understanding of what we were there to do, yet we still had to perform. These were confusing and discombobulating times, David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs on an industrial scale.
The best representation I have seen of this is the TV show ‘Severance’, in which the work selves (‘innies’) at Lumon Industries sit at computer terminals sorting clusters of numbers endlessly without knowing why. They assume their daily activity has some grander purpose that they’re not privy to, but have no idea what it is.
This sense of being unanchored from something greater is the drifting, liminal state that emerges without a clear sense of vision, a larger reason for our endeavours - some greater sense of meaning. Spend some time in this state, like the characters in Severance, and you soon go a little nutty, as I often felt I was on those vapid consulting projects.
Vision is much talked about in organisational work, and at first glance, it looks like classic corporate speak. Organisations churn out visions all the time, and most of them are pointless PR exercises. But, if done properly and earnestly, vision serves an essential purpose for an organisation.
Vision is not a set of goals, or a strategy, or a target; they are only derivatives of a vision. A vision is the promised land that you are trying to get to, the future you are trying to build. It is an appeal to emotions, something that galvanises and might even stir the loins.
A good vision is grand enough that it places our individual story inside a much greater story, one that is sufficiently clear and compelling that we get out of bed energised enough to do the right things. Done really well, we can come to understand that filling in our timesheets correctly is just one tiny contribution to achieving the vision.
But, whilst vision is most often used in organisations, it is perhaps most absent in our individual lives. What is your own personal vision that drives the whole show? I’ll come back to that later.
First, it is worth looking somewhere else where vision is so desperately needed right now: countries.
Nation-states are built on myths. They tell a story of the greatness of the country on which the future will be built, interwoven with noble themes like liberty and freedom. They are mostly fantasy and cherry-picked history, but they serve a purpose in binding the country together into a collective identity and a sense of a shared project.
The UK, where I am from, is still largely built on the myth of winning World War 2 and the former Empire. The latter is spoken of less openly, given the extreme oppression and violence it involved, but the former remains the essence of British identity: heroic, resourceful, ingenious, standing up for the oppressed, unwilling to give in.
It is not entirely false, but mostly it is, not least because the UK didn’t win the war on its own, far from it. That myth held firm for a long time but has now started to collapse under the weight of the post-war, post-modern society in which the social contract lies in tatters.
Reality eventually diverges so far from national myths that they become unsustainable, no matter how hard one tries. The UK is still in the painful process of realising it is no longer a superpower and has not been for some time, has far less global influence than it used to and is much poorer and weaker than it used to be (especially post-Brexit).
Predictably, one of the things this realisation has led to is growing hostility and violence inflicted on the outsiders who are blamed for the nation’s decline. We’ve seen this story before, haven’t we?
What’s more, in this spiral of decline, one that is largely unacknowledged amongst the political class, it has become almost impossible for anyone to articulate a hopeful future vision for the country, let alone one that inspires the citizens.
This is important: for real vision to emerge, the current reality must first be accepted. Otherwise, we remain in a state of denial, delusion and anxiety, emotional states that paralyse rather than mobilise a vision for the future. It is like trying to write beautiful poetry whilst being repeatedly slapped in the face.
The same is true of individuals. And I wonder if this national and global malaise, induced by many, many factors, has not in some way seeped into individual consciousness too. What I hear in many of the conversations I have is a kind of frozen state in which people are either preparing for a future that no longer exists or struggling to imagine a positive vision for their own lives.
Our vision for ourselves is not really about practical, tangible things; it is mostly about the opposite: it’s what we want our lives to feel like, the particular essence and quality of our existence.
“For the last ten years, I have been holding my breath. Clinging to a vision for my life. A vision that would permit me to do what I love. Responsibly provide for my family. And give back in service to others. To realize this vision, I risked everything. Because when the heart is true, the Universe will conspire to support you.”
— Rich Roll
Perhaps we might articulate the sorts of people, places and activities this includes, but without getting too rigid about it. When I think of my own vision for myself, it is words like freedom, choice and play that feature heavily.
Now, some people transcend this whole game altogether. They are not engaged in the game of intentionally getting anywhere or being anyone other than who they are. These are rare people, truly uncommon: the enlightened or close to enlightened. For them, to create a vision for oneself is quite pointless if one is free from the notion of Self.
For the rest of us, even if we wish to transcend or to step outside the whole idea of building a future life (an approach I endorse), we are still be required to have a vision for ourselves now, some direction and meaning for our life energy, libido, spirit, whatever you want to call it.
Just as nation-states are blaming outsiders for their circumstances, as individuals, we are often lured into giving up our agency without knowing it. As Jung once said, until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct our lives, and we will call it fate.
Who are you if you are not endlessly preparing for retirement or some other future? What do you need to become but don’t know yet? What are you still clinging to that you need to let go of?
How will you get out of your own way so that you may live more authentically, vibrantly and audaciously?
I’m taking on two new coaching clients this year. I work with people looking to make sense of themselves, their lives and their work, and make extraordinary changes. If that’s you, get in touch, I’d love to chat.
“Is there a life you imagine for yourself in the future? Start living it now. Project yourself materially into that future self, that expectant world. You’ll be surprised how the real world will catch up.”
— David Leddick
About me.
I’m a leadership coach, consultant and facilitator living in Berlin.
Contact me to:
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At the heart of my work is helping individuals and organisations to figure out what is really going on.
You can also find out more about my work with men & masculinity here.
[main image from Jewish Museum in Berlin]