Comfort foods for the soul (18): Freedom from tyranny of techniques
Years ago I often got asked: Would you have PowerPoint? We can load them on computer first.
My stock reply was:
I have neither power nor point.
Fact was I did use PowerPoint several years ago.
They were not bad.
But gradually I found them whilst useful for logical sequencing, did impose a tyranny upon spontaneity.
Then I left the chains and shackles behind, for good.
I felt it fit my personality better.
I’ve always been uneasy with techniques of conversation that claim to promote or guarantee a result, such as closing a deal, getting a yes, or even strengthen a relationship.
Granted techniques do have data of research in psychology or general social science, they come across to me as too artificial and humanistic.
They just squeeze out the dimension of spontaneity, and with it the freedom to be open to things unplanned, which some would classify as inspiration or spiritual direction.
I’d simply secularise it heart murmur, medical pun not intended.
I’ve no secret to codifying it but perhaps the life story of David Nasser on Hospitality would give you a glimpse of the kind of freedom I get when I see a kind of working that’s beyond technique and orchestration.
Nasser recounted when he was a young Iranian refugee immigrant with his family after the Shah was overthrown, he ended up in a Texas town where his family was a rare Iranian family.
In his senior year he and his American buddy were the only two without a college plan.
That was Nasser’s life direction then.
One night his buddy invited him to come to church next week.
Nasser knew his dad, a strict Iranian Muslim and a former military officer, would sternly disabuse the notion with a quick and loud NO.
Not to give the plot away, but young Nasser ended up going to church that changed his life.
And of his sister, mom, and finally dad.
David Nasser became a gifted writer, preacher and speaker.
That story about how and why he got his dad’s permission to go to church illustrates a great point: No PowerPoint techniques could have aligned all stars to get a YES from his dad!
Only when in retrospect we see how the things worked themselves out, then the tyranny of techniques begins to lose its grip on us.
Just be open to sense the heart murmur.
And relax in the comfort that follows.
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To hear David Nasser tells his own story at 17:00 minutes:
