There is a common belief that life is a largely linear proposition. Start here, move up the ladder. Just wait your turn, and eventually everything will come to you.
Not so.
Life, it turns out, is not like a machine or a factory. It is all about energy. And energy exists in positive and negative polarities.
I define these polarities many ways, but today we will focus on the positive polarity of trust vs. the negative polarity of obedience.
I grew up in a largely negative polarity. As a young bass player, playing in student orchestras, I was immersed in this negative model of always needing powerful authority to keep things from falling apart. It was assumed that we had to be constantly motivated (and policed for mistakes) by the all-powerful conductor.
So when I “got the call” and found myself walking in the stage door of Boston’s Symphony Hall, I was severely braced. I thought I was going to have the most severe commanders ever seen on podiums, watching my every move, correcting every error.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Instead, I had stepped out of the negative polarity of obedience and into the positive polarity of trust. It was a true quantum leap, in the sense that there was no transiting. I was in one space, then poof, I was in another.
In a major orchestra, the conductors aren’t at all concerned with policing anyone or checking for errors. It was assumed there wouldn’t be any errors, and if there were, it was understood that you would notice them and fix them yourself. Total trust. Mostly we were just making sure there weren’t any mistakes in the parts, and adjusting to individual soloists. No one needed to be “motivated,” they walked in the door already motivated.
So life can be seen as linear, but only within two separate polarities. Someone who was fabulous as a youth orchestra conductor was worse than useless as a conductor in the major orchestra culture. And a major orchestra conductor was not a good fit for a student orchestra, as so few rehearsals were necessary for that approach, and youth orchestras love to rehearse a lot.
It does concern me these days, that far too many people are being brought up in an obedience model without thought for the ultimate consequences. The leap to a trust polarity is not inevitable. In fact, it gets harder and harder. The two are mutually exclusive. You have to pick one or the other. And the folks in obedience mode think they are always right, for they either have trust violation issues, or they have just never experienced it.
I am doing my best to spread the gospel . . .
© Justin Locke
