Feel free to play this hand-selected track while you read this post:
Bluetech & Katrina Blackstone – Change by interchill

A technical challenge is solved through currently available knowledge and tools.

It is usually an external problem that requires a discrete solution which allows you to continue business as usual. They are challenges we know how to solve. Its what we do most of the time.

An adaptive challenge is something that cannot be solved through what we have at hand.

It requires you to observe, explore, listen, be vulnerable, experiment and collaborate. It requires to you transform yourself.
Most of our days are filled addressing technical fixes, such that we might not know how to respond when we are faced with a scenario that requires us to grow. Our first response might be to apply existing tools; we may fool ourselves with this for a while. But sooner or later we’ll notice that the problem remains.
This is the case with the sustainability-povery-economy-spirituality mega-crisis. The common sentiment is that global warming is a technical challenge that can be solved by wind turbines and biodiesel. Yet the problem persists. This is because climate change is actually a symptom of human cultural and behavioral imbalance. This cultural malaise is the adaptive problem we face as a species.

 

To confront an adaptive challenge, start with inquiry and self-examination. Then muster the inspiration to overcome your immunity to change.

In what ways might I transform as an individual to meet this challenge, and be better off for it?
How can our public discourse and social norms shift and grow with fresh insight to transcend limiting beliefs, resulting in a renewed public sphere?
How then might new ways of seeing the world and interacting in it enable biophysical systems to become healthier to the benefit of all?

 

Can art be a tool for adaptive inquiry?

In the spirit of self-examination, here’s a little self-portrait I did today to express the notion of “pondering self-transformation.”