On the Unity of the Protopia Journey’s Segments
This article was originally published as the Editorial of the Protopia Expedition News (PEN) #7 of Campus Co-Evolve.
Editorial George Pór
Now that the current segment of the Protopia Learning Expedition is winding down and the Organizational Shift has not yet started, I was wondering what could be a valuable gift that I can leave the graduates of the Personal and Interpersonal Shift segments with.
The pointer to the answer came from Professor Robert Kegan. Not that I talked with him. It just that his book on Deliberately Developmental Organizations reminded me of the preciousness of being deliberately developmental. If organizations can be deliberately developmental, then couldn’t be individuals, small communities, even societal systems, and a planetary culture, too? Isn’t that possibility the key that the being/becoming dynamics hold to the blooming of the Protopia flower?
A baby doesn’t have to be deliberately developmental to grow into becoming a toddler, a teenager, young adult, and so on. After becoming an adult, we can keep develop but for some, it is just a spontaneous process that happens anyway, just by being alive. Others enhance and add momentum to that organic process by being intentional about it.
Pathfinders (previously known as “students”) on the Protopia journey tend to belong to the second group of people. They have a powerful motivation because once we start resonating with a pull from the future and embark on the never-ending trip of evolving consciously, we’ll be attracted to friends, who will be our travel companions.
When we enjoy the gifts of developmental friendships, we want to learn how to grow the same qualities in the community/organization that we work with. That’s what the Organizational Shift segment of Protopia helps discovering.
When we work with a deliberately developmental community/organization, then we want to see it operating in mutually supportive relationships with similarly developmental social systems. Those of our lucky ascendants, who will live in a deliberately developmental society will not rest until the spirit of “self-actualization for all” as a human right will be honoured planet-wide.
The last two shifts will be in the heart of the Protopia Learning Expedition’s last two segments this Fall, the Societal Shift and the Planetary Shift.
Good journey to us!
