The ROUTE-RIG-REEL & ROLL Sessions

Some years ago I was hiking along a beach in Haida Gwaii, large islands located far off the north west coast of British Columbia. A remote and wild place, far enough off the coast of the mainland to have evolved its own, now renowned, distinct ecosystem. I had jumped out of overseeing my two sons to dash out to the beach for a cruise. There was no one there, and I walked and walked.

Shortly before heading out to Haida Gwaii I had been invited by my then new colleague and mentor in the world of ‘change facilitation’, Rich Batchelor, to join him in a project about ‘curiosity’. I was thrilled by the prospect. The quote I had included in my leaving class profile in high school was from Lewis Carrol’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’: “Curiouser and curiouser” said Alice, remarking on how she grew and grew from eating a magical piece of cake. But I was learning that ‘curiosity’ wasn’t as easy as cake.

I learned, rapidly, in beginning to research curiosity that it was something we had a great deal of when we were children and infants, but that we lost it precipitously from the age of about five (when we go to school). Children are innately curious. Adults not so much. Furthermore curiosity, while generously extolled (particularly in entrepreneurial and leadership journals) as a necessary characteristic and aptitude in the realms of innovation, had a somewhat sinister side. After all ‘curiosity killed the cat’, and it was Pandora’s insatiable curiosity which overcame even the forbidding trickery of Zeus to open a box which contained all the panoply of sins and griefs which would visit upon humankind. The Old Testament story of Paradise, in which Eve (and then Adam) eats the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, had very much the same outcome. In both cases the curiosity of the (female) protagonist opened the box, breached the walls, against the decree of an ultimate (male) authority: Zeus, Yahweh.

This was curious.
Nabakov once wrote, “Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form”.
Curiosity* is disruptive.
But disruptive to what?
I happened to know the etymology of ‘Paradise: ‘para’ means ‘around’, and ‘daeza’ means ‘wall’. So, Adam and Eve lived in a walled garden, and curiosity resulted in them being expelled from the walled garden.
Curiosity breaks rules, opens boxes, and breaches walls.
In Pandora and in Paradise the curious protagonists don’t seem to fare so well. Interestingly, in the Haida creation myth ‘Raven and the First People’ (which took place, according to legend, on Rose Spit; a very long walk up the very same beach I was roaming on) it is Raven, the creator/trickster, who is the curious one, peeling open a noisy clam shell out of which the first people spill.
But, what is ‘the wall’, or ‘the box’, or ‘the clam shell’ that curiosity seems to hunger to break out of, or into?

And so… I think that these were some of the thoughts roaming my mind when I went out for a walk on the beach in Haida Gwaii. And, while walking and walking, in solitude, with the waves gently, arhythmically, broaching the shore as they have for billenia, witnessing the sand and stones which make that beach, so evidently shaped by the waves gently broaching the shore for billenia, and the rhythmic sound of the shuffle of my boots on the beach, and the shore birds calling and rising up, and the gentle gusts of wind (it was late summer in Haida Gwaii, and the weather can be kind then), I think the wrestling match of my own mind, it’s plans and borders and cycles, crumbled for a moment… and in that moment three words flew into my head:
Route, Rig, Reel.

Route, Rig, Reel.
‘Route, Rig & Reel’ are three very simple words representing three approaches to identity.
They are three ways of responding to the question, ‘Who are you?’.
‘Route’ (which also has a relationship to ‘root’, and ‘rote’ and ‘rite’) is a path: the path we’re on now, in the present; and also the path which brought us to where we are now, the past; and also the path which we’re foreseeing and projecting, the future.
‘Rig’ (drawn from ‘rigging’ a sailboat, and what truckers call their trucks, and what electronic musicians call their gear, and what addicts call the apparatus by which they can get a ‘fix’) is an assembly and network of people, processes and things.
‘Reel’ (drawn from the steel cable reels that I used to work with in my first job, and fishing reels, and the ‘reels’ of folk dance music, with a further relationship to  ‘Real’) is the cycles of behaviour, and the looping stories we tell ourselves; our practices, habits and addictions.
We are made of our path, our assembly and network, and our cycles: our ‘Route’, our ‘Rig’ and our ‘Reels’.

We are all like a box, and we are all like a walled garden, and we are all like a clam shell; we all have borders and perimeters.
Inside is ‘me’, my ‘family’, my ‘tribe’, my ‘organisation’, my ‘nation’, my ‘belief system’ (my ideology’, or my ‘religion’), my ‘paradigm’.
Outside is ‘other’, ‘uncertain’, ‘unknown’…

A good while has passed since I had that little epiphany on the beach.
‘Route, Rig & Reel’ stuck… as a concept…

More recently it occurred to me that the concept could be explored and facilitated through a series of workshops. Wouldn’t it be useful if curious folks could get a glimpse of ‘who they are’ through the lenses of the path they’re on, the network/assembly they’re engaged in, and the habits which rule their lives? And, of course, ‘Route, Rig & Reel’ overlap and connect in a great many ways. Our habits (Reels), positive or negative, influence what we remember (Route). Past experiences (Route) inform, and even freeze, the stories that we repeat to ourselves (Reels). The resources and network that we have at hand (Rig) can be decisive in limiting our belief in our future potential and capacity for innovation (Route). The relationships are complex, and endless; an extremely fertile terrain for generating powerful insights.

Given that we are, and must be, migratory creatures (identity can have a habit of resisting migration), wouldn’t it be useful to reconsider our paths, networks and habits through a further lense – what I now call ‘Roll’ – of our deep values and aspirations. What path, and network/assembly, and habits can we work towards to enable our deep values and aspirations to emerge and be realised?

I’ve given many workshops on a variety of themes: curiosity, disruption, complexity, poise, creativity… So, I’ve created a ‘Route, Rig, Reel & Roll’ workshop series. An introduction, and then one workshop for each of the four themes. My intention is to create a ‘temenos’, a safe and even sacred space, to explore these themes in the spirit of curiosity and discovery.

So, I warmly invite you to an exploration of who you are, and where you’re going… an exploration which I anticipate will raise some good quest-ions!

You can learn more about them, and sign up for them, right here.


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*Curiosity is made of questions.
[Here are a few essays on the theme of curiosity.]

There are many kinds of questions which are not so good; rhetorical questions (we already know the answer and it’s a set up), questions which are sarcastic (now is that just a really, really brilliant idea, or what?), and questions which are designed to corral someone into a pen (Socrates was exceptional at this).

A really good question invites a journey. It is, more precisely, a quest-ion. That is, curiosity’s thirst ‘to know’ is achieved by asking and, even more importantly, following questions… and the first five letters of ‘question’ is ‘quest’.

But… a quest towards what?
As I have said to my dear sons – whom I left for a little while while I tracked along the beach – quoting Blake, “We are here for a little while to bear the beams of love.”
‘Love’ is truly the greatest and most enduring and real and most compelling challenge to identity, and we can only experience love from the deepest heart/mind/body of our identity.
The very best quest-ions of all invite an embarkation towards love.

‘ROUTE’ approaches the question of ‘who are you?’ through the lens of time.

‘ROUTE’ approaches the question of ‘who are you?’ through the lens of time: what is your perception of your past, and what can you expect in your future, given your immediate present… right now. ‘Route’ (which also has a relationship to ‘root’, and ‘rote’ and ‘rite’) is a path: the path we’re on now, in the present; and also the path which brought us to where we are now, the past; and also the path which we’re foreseeing and projecting, the future.

‘ROUTE’ explores the question of ‘who are you?’ as a narrative, a passage, the timeline/plotline of your life, and where it is heading. As such it ventures into the themes of memory and vision, cause and effect, desire and intention, momentum and calling.

The model we use in ‘ROUTE’ is that of a growing plant with roots, stems, branches, and leaves. There are many kinds of plants: trees with huge deep root systems and great branches as tall as a house; vines which spread across with multiple root systems that can travel; mycelium which may have a vast underground network before appearing above ground in the form of a mushroom. And trees, or vines, or mycelia can experience catastrophic events… but still they grow on.

What kind of plant resonates with you?

‘RIG’ approaches the question of ‘who are you?’ through the lens of a network or web of commitments and significance.

The ‘RIG’ Workshop is the second workshop in the ‘ROUTE-RIG-REEL & ROLL’ Sessions. While it’s useful to have attended the preceding workshops it’s really not essential.

‘RIG’ approaches the question of ‘who are you?’ through the lens of a network or web of commitments and significance: what is the economy and ecosystem that enables you to be who and where you are… right now? ‘Rig’ (drawn from ‘rigging’ a sailboat, and what truckers call their trucks, and what electronic musicians call their gear, and what addicts call the apparatus by which they can get a ‘fix’) is an assembly and network of significant people, processes and things.

‘RIG’ explores the question of ‘who are you?’ as a customized (and customizable) system, a specific arrangement and organisation of elements, a functional aggregation and/or apparatus, a ‘bricolage’… what you ‘pull together’ to make you happen. The elements of a rig can include ‘things’ (tools, equipment, artifacts, substances, clothes, etc.), people (family members, work relationships, people of influence, etc.), media (information, data, sources of information and knowledge), as well as ‘things of the imagination’ or internal constructs (symbols, stories, mythologies, belief systems & ideologies).

The model we use in ‘RIG’ is that of a web or network.

What are the most significant elements of your web?
What are you, really, most committed to, right now?
Is your web or network well-balanced or askew, is it compact or diffuse, are the connectors robust or tenuous?
Do you have the ‘RIG’ you need to proceed towards your most significant goals and aspirations?

These are the questions we approach in this session.

‘REEL’ approaches the question of ‘Who Are You?’ through the lens of cycles of thoughts, emotions and behaviours.

‘REEL’ approaches the question of ‘Who Are You?’ through the lens of the cycles of thoughts, emotions and behaviours which sustain and confirm your identity.

‘Reel’ (drawn from the steel cable reels that I used to work with in my first job, and fishing reels, and the ‘reels’ of folk dance music, with a further relationship to ‘Real’) is the cycles of behaviour, and the looping stories we tell ourselves; our practices, habits and addictions.

‘REEL’ explores the question of ‘who are you?’ as patterns of behaviours which accrete into identity. ‘Practices’ are repeated behaviours which are essentially beneficial; we practise a musical instrument, or a choreography, or a mindfulness meditation technique, to improve our skill and resilience. ‘Habits’ are repeated patterns of behaviour which essentially ‘keep us in place’; they’re a neurophysiological energy-saver, requiring little or no conscious effort. ‘Addictions’ are repeated patterns of behaviour which are essentially harmful; substance abuse, shopping sprees, serial co-dependency, reactive emotions, negative storylines, etc.

The model we use in ‘REEL’ is that of a circle. Given positive ‘practices’ the circle becomes increasingly expansive – a gyre. Given ‘habits’ the circle stays precisely as it is, a self-perpetuating circle. Given ‘addictions’ the circle becomes increasingly restrictive – a vortex.

What are your practices (virtuous cycles), habits (rote cycles) and addictions (harmful cycles)… right now?

‘ROLL’ approaches the question of ‘Who Are You?’ through the lens of values, aspirations and purpose.

‘ROLL’ approaches the question of ‘Who Are You?’ through the lens of values, aspirations and purpose. What are your true values, aspirations and what is your purpose? And, given the discoveries of the sessions on ‘Route’ and ‘Rig’ and ‘Reel’ – who and where you are now – how do you ‘Roll’ forwards towards a reality in which your true values, aspirations and purpose can emerge and be realised.

‘ROLL’ explores the question of ‘who are you?’ as a project in the making. The nature and characteristic of our engagement with reality truly shapes the reality which we will experience. ‘Reality’ is not something ‘out there’ which we need to adapt to, it’s something which we are actively making. All our actions, and even our thoughts, have an influence on how ‘reality’ shows up, and emerges. There are environments in which our capacity for shaping reality is receptive… we see our aspirations connect and make a clear difference. And there are environments in which our capacity for shaping reality is cut off, even ruthlessly, but even then there may be wedges and levers which are worthy of pursuit.

So, what are you pursuing?

What are the deep values and aspirations and purposes which are truly meaningful to you?

And what does that ‘Route’ look like?

And what ‘Rig’ do you need?

And what ‘Reels’ need to be cycling, like an engine, to make it so?

And how do you combine them such that you can ‘Roll’ towards your deep values and aspirations and purposes?

The model we use in ‘ROLL’ is that of a bridge.

A bridge between where you are now, and where your aspirations and values and purpose wish to be. That bridge may look like a sturdy and brief crossing, or it may seem like an uncertain traverse, a suspension bridge shrouded in fog where you can’t see the other side yet, and there’s a torrent far below.

What inspires you to dare the crossing?