Unplanning
Everything appears incapable of life again. In the depths of an especially cold winter as we have had, spring seems impossible. Returning to my father's house in rural Wisconsin, now mine, I'm struck by how quickly the grass has emerged from dormancy and grown to subsume the remnants of a mulch pile at the end of the driveway. Why does the force of Nature continue to surprise me? Whether the ability of a tree root to bust through concrete, or of flooding to clearcut a town, its powerful enough to assert its order regardless of the extent to which we may try to contain it. And it’s never static. Many of Foresight's nonprofit clients pay thousands to consultants like me to craft multiyear strategic plans that ignore unpredictable influences and project a false sense of certainty. Rather than investing in developing more nimble and responsive internal infrastructures, they attempt to counteract naturally occurring change and ambiguity. Nature cannot be solved, and yet a profound human impulse to do so thrives. Suddenly becoming a first-time homeowner is highlighting how much I live in a constant state of discontent. While the house functions fine, a plethora of potential projects, both aesthetic and functional, haunt me. It's a platform for self-improvement whose completion seems both possible and out-of-reach. Fundamentally, I don't want it done. Meaning and fulfillment come in the evolution and striving. The temp job I once had where there were days with nothing to do was like a kind of death. I'm grateful for the way each new season can upend and impose itself on the previous one, whether subtly or with impressive force. Whether its downed branches across the driveway, mitigating naturally occurring radon, or repairing some vinyl siding, I'm learning to live with it. Oh, and Foresight won’t do traditional strategic planning anymore.
