A Perspective on Change & Uncertainty: Fish's Eye View

Blending art and science through poetry and nerdery on creativity

Had a burst of inspiration this past week and decided to write a poem. So to balance out my recent nerdy posts, allow me to begin this one with a poem.

Fish’s Eye View

Against the current
I swim upstream
White water pushing
Fins fiercely fighting

                            Behind river rocks
                            I find pause and rest
                            White water rushing
                            Heart beat slowing

I feel I need to go on
                            I know I need to rest

I'm tired of swimming
Resisting
                            I let go
                            And I float

And I start thinking
The upstream swim
Was it for naught?
Wait!

I don't want to waste 
The energy I've spent
                            But also
                                         I don't want to waste
                                         Any more

And what is a waste?
What am I resisting?


                            I stop fighting
                                         Start flowing


                                         Going with the current
                            I ease downstream


I taste salt
                            And newness
And fear

What am I doing here?

I moved from the river
Towards the vast open sea
And uncertainty

The sound of 
White water rushing
                            Is replaced
                                         By waves lapping

I could get eaten
By predators here
                            But also
                                         I could discover
                                         So much more

I taste more salt
                            And possibility

And it becomes clear

                            I wasn't tired of swimming
                            I was tired of resisting

                                         Padaloy

On Change & Uncertainty

Reinventing ourselves again and again in an ever-changing world (outside world as well as inner world) requires a lot effort. As they say: the only thing constant is change, and the only certain thing is uncertainty.

It’s one thing to swim upstream in defiance of change. It’s another thing to navigate change as best as one can with what one knows and has at any given moment, and to be on the lookout for “predators” while constantly trying to learn new and important things about how to move better within one’s changing environment.

The World Economic Forum tracks the evolution of market demand for specific skills over a period of decades, and estimates that we’ll need to evolve ourselves every ten years. McKinsey Global Institute’s tracking predicts that by 2030, all workers will need new skills, with the rise of new technology. We’re already seeing that disruption with ChatGPT and other AI innovations.

When I was a kid, I didn’t know what one thing I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be able to try everything. A part of me thought that was a character flaw — not having the one big thing. Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate my being a generalist of sorts — not particularly exemplary at any one thing, but more than decent at a number of things.

According to Kellerman & Seligman¹, more than specializiation in any technical skill, today’s world of work calls for enduring psychological capabilities a.k.a. “soft skills” — which are being rebranded as “power skills” or “meta-skills” by those who want to highlight their importance and reintroduce them into workplaces that have historically given far more weight on technical training.

More than just technical skills, people need more of the adaptive skills of resilience, agility and creativity — to be able to navigate not just the technical, but also the psychological, social and political white water we find ourselves in today.

On Creativity

Some say that the only work that will be left once everything else has been automated will be creative.

In my previous post, I wrote about the power of prospection², powered by our brains Default Mode Network (DMN). Images from our DMN move through our salience network, which is responsible for detecting internal and external signals that require conscious attention. That which are salient or relevant, and not complete nonsense then go to our executive control network for higher processing.³

Creativity can be conceptualized as a type of prospection that allows us to envision what is possible. It involves moving ideas from the DMN to our executive controlIt is associated with our curiosity and openness to experience. It is theorized that open, creative people pursue novelty because they experience so much pleasure (i.e. dopamine firing) in new ideas.

And I guess that why I love ideation and creation so much…it’s so dope (get it??). However, I’ve not given it enough attention when my inner creative repeatedly asked me to come out and play. Lately, I’ve been embracing that more and more again. It’s been a slow journey. But we’re moving along. It’s not a race or a competition. It’s more of a negotiation with my own fear and vulnerability. And I just need to tame my Phase Two Prospection every now and then, and remind myself to be inspired by Phase One.⁴

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As I end this post, let me leave you with a few questions for your own self-reflection:

• At what points in your life did you feel like you had to reinvent or evolve yourself?

  • What was the pace of change for you?

  • What were you feeling as you were experiencing those changes in and outside of you?

  • What remained constant for you?

  • What was the role that creativity played for you in those moments?

Til the next post. :)

Power and love,
Jen

1. From their 2023 book Tomorrowmind

2. The Power of Prospection: Imagining and Planning Better Futures

3. And one might argue that what is nonsense has relative salience. Just think of the mindfuck masterpiece that is Everything Everywhere All At Once. <3

4. Read more about this in my previous post on prospection.