A Simpler Way

January 1, 1996
Addressing readers who perceive their lives as nearly unmanageable, the authors, business consultants and cofounders of the Berkana Institute, elegantly suggest a new way to view endeavor. Are we governed by static images of the world as a great machine, they ask, or do we see the world as an ever-changing, creative, living organism? The authors present material from myriad academic disciplines to shore up their fundamental propositions that the universe is a creative experience, that life self-organizes, that organizations are living systems. Even light bulbs "have exhibited a breathtaking tendency to self-organize when wired together with other bulbs," the authors observe. Organizing, they maintain, is a "deep impulse" and not one just found in living beings. Self-organizing calls us to partner with the world's creative forces, for life, Wheatley and Kellner-Rogers aver, has the capacity to invent itself. The advice here is more inspirational than particular or hands-on. It represents a vigorous, path-breaking application of findings from the cutting edge of science to inner questions about how to live a life, however, and so should find a ready readership among those who cotton to Chopra, Capra and the like. Photos not seen by PW.