Starvation as a means to abundance

Bob Hruzek picked up on my three necessary but not sufficient conditions for innovation with an interesting personal story to make the point that all the old certainties have to be taken away before you can see the world afresh. It was good reinforcement. Today, I want to pick up on the most controversial of the three: starvation. It has been suggested that my advocacy of this condition indicates masochism and/or sadism, but such accusation misses the point. The tradition of fasting is near universal in religions around the world. Interestingly though the greek word askesis which references exercise and athletic training is the origin of asceticism. In practice starvation is the most positive of the three conditions. It is about preparing yourself to discover abundance.

The culture and innovation programme starts with a journey. Boarding the Indian Pacific in Sydney at midday on the 31st of March 2007 participants will meet leaders of the http://www.dreamtime.net.au/=”URL”>indigenous people of Australia who will spend the afternoon introducing us to a unique and rich culture. After a night on the train (in sleeping carriages) the morning we will disembark for what promises to be a fascinating twenty four hour period. We will build our own shelter, discover the rich abundance of bush tucker and hear the stories of the land. This catalytic event, the start of the programme is designed as a form of fasting, a giving up of the familiar to discover a new richness. Thus prepared we will move onto the trans-disciplinary period in Broken Hill where we will bring a diverse range of academic understandings of culture to bear on the real world issues and problems that participants have brought to the programme: more on that tomorrow.