Furrow
“It’s a gift to define the tracks we first made in the mud when originally there weren’t any and we didn’t even know what direction we were heading, but we knew we wanted to make progress.”
Someone I don’t know on the estate where I live wrote a book called The Mind of a Bee. I’ve always found that intriguing. Not the book nor the bees specifically, cos I’ve not read it and I know nothing about our winged friends, but that someone would write that book. Another person on the estate that I don’t know just posted a FB comment to get in touch with that author, because they’re doing a PhD on the properties of axons in invertebrates and wants to discuss the ethics of working with invertebrates.
Even though I looked all that up just out of curiosity, because my limited education did not cover these things, I might never really grasp what any of that actually means. And that’s ok.
After weeks on the road/in flight with multiple adventures, I just finished my final commitment of this month by supporting a 2-day business simulation at London Business School to help 150 MBA students kickstart their pivotal 2-year journey. For 2 days solid I proudly guided students to their answers despite not even really fully understanding their questions. And that’s ok. The Confidence Coach in me was in full flow and blooming in turquoise and glitter the whole time (whilst actually wearing appropriate browns and houndstooth). I was high with nervousness and excitement, knowing that I was completely out of my depth, context-wise. The Fraudster ego kept trying to kick the door down and expose me but I left it outside for 2 days.
This morning, I was telling my friend Trudy about how I blagged my way through a Textiles GCSE exam (for which I’d done a total of about 90 mins study in the 2 years prior as “preparation”, because when, as a sassy teenager, I discovered that studying GCSE Textiles does not guarantee me a career as a fashion designer I decided not to bother with any of the classes). The morning of the exam I awoke and looked around my room, picked up a nearby pillow case, undid it at the seams, then in the exam sewed it back up again using the pre-determined creases in the fabric as my guide, and then covered it in scraps of material in an applique design that I made up as I sewed.
This morning, the first proper morning that I’m fully home and present after continuous commotion, I’m taking slow sips of my coffee and pondering on it all. I can’t tell you anything about axons or EBITDA, but I can tell you that the teenager who had fun creating a unique pillow case (and has since gone on to embellish some beautiful pieces in the 30 years since) was on to something very important. It’s something that we lose somewhere along the way. And we lose it so easily that we tend to forget to get it back because it slips away without us even realising it’s gone. It’s an energy that has been pounded out of our spirit through years of unpaid overtime, through silent tears in office toilet cubicles after cutting remarks from peers, and through the decline of civility when queuing for a bus or for bread that now comes with the threat of being unconsidered by those around us who don’t care to recognise that we even exist, let alone that we have feelings.
“What we find so easy to lose is the right and the desire to curiously learn. Just because we want to. And to intuitively self-trust that curiosity. And to LOVE that about ourselves.”
To learn, with spirit, with joy, with excitement and fear all mixed into one. I didn’t make that ridiculous pillow case because I had to, I made it because I wanted to. Because I wanted to see what would happen as a result of my efforts. The traditional educational structure I was placed in simply, if nothing else at all, created a platform for me to learn that about myself. I may not have learnt the data and processes I was supposed to learn, but I did learn that it was fun to be creative, ok to fail, and that I like myself, just as I am, no matter the outcome.
The students I observed over the last 2 days will probably go on to do amazing things in the world. They are my future. They may go on to shape what rights and freedoms I have later on in life. And so with that in mind I hope that what they learn from their MBA – as well as the data - is how to be kind, how to be human, and how to consider others who are different from them. In business, in life AND in learning.
“I wasn’t destined to do well in school. And I took that to mean that I wasn’t destined to do well in learning. But I know now that one has absolutely nothing to do with the other. ”
And when that un-truth was pounded into me I always felt shame about just WANTING to learn. Shame about my excited curiosities. Shame about not knowing something that others already seem to know. Because I’ve always been told it was too late, or unavailable, or too expensive, or not for people “like me”. These have been the answers I was given to the humble request for LEARNING.
The etymology of the word ‘learn’ offers an inspiring and alternative way forward, away from such ignorant misjudgements. The root of the word ranges from the obtaining and cultivation of knowledge, to the teaching and indoctrination of it. It’s a cycle you see. It’s a gift to hand down to those who come after us and go on to define the tracks we first made in the mud when originally there weren’t any and we didn’t even know what direction we were heading, but we knew we wanted to make progress.
And you can’t make progress without excited curiosity and the self-trust to follow your intuition when it screams “Learn! For God’s sake woman: feel free enough to choose to LEARN if that’s what you want!”.
One of my favourite derivations of the word ‘learn’ is “track, furrow”. I think of this as being the effort and commitment to continue to carve out a track, and create the furrow in which information is seeded. A furrow can be described as “a long, narrow trench made in the ground by a plough, especially for planting seeds or irrigation”. I’m a literal thinker, which means words are always fun. With this meaning we’re talking about literal creation, growth and hydration to enable further growth. The seeds of our future, with this meaning, are rooted in not only our own learning, but that our own cycle of learning is continued through the roots we nurture so that those after us can fuel themselves. Also, we get the celebration of RE-learning, through their new take on what we taught our seedlings.
“If what we learn is what we teach, then what we teach is what we leave behind. So: what are you leaving behind? And, just as importantly, what have you experienced that you want to create a furrow AWAY from that has not been serving you, and won’t go on to serve those who follow your tracks? ”
I don’t have an MBA nor a book or PhD relating to bees, but I know that I cannot carve out defined tracks as a Confidence Coach without assuring others that I am willing to curiously learn, and to fiercely ignore every force that blocks my desire to be better, smarter and more ready for my tomorrow.
I made that ridiculous pillow case not because that’s the first thing I saw when I awoke that morning and felt pressured by the impending exam; I made it because of the many beautiful years that I got to witness my precious mother passionately sewing away at the clothes I wore through my childhood. I spent many hours just sitting on her lap as she sewed, always wondering why she was so frequently doing that, and settling for the relief that I got cuddles as she sewed so that’s all I needed to know about the process. I’d curiously watch as she sometimes made Fijian garlands at night time, after her office working hours, for ceremonies that she attended that I don’t remember. From this I learnt to be resourceful, creative, humble, connected to community and to oneself. But more importantly I learnt to curiously learn, through watching, listening, and paying attention because this is how I learn. And I know this now. I know this because I’ve learnt/taught/cycled through the furrows of learning from those who taught me without realising they were doing so. My 3 parents, my teachers, my mentors, my friends, my family, and my heroes: your furrows have established me in safe curiosity.
My mother probably sewed because she couldn’t afford to buy, but probably also through the curiosity and intuition to want to see what she could learn and create. I boldly made that pillow case because my amazing legend of a father always demonstrated pride in being himself, no matter how contrary his actions may have seemed to others. He never actually told me to be proud, he just showed me how to do it. So that’s what I did. I made that pillow case because of the love of a wonderful woman named Jacqueline who accepted me as her own after my own mother passed, and because every little thing I created in Jacqueline’s presence, including that stupid pillow case, she told me was beautiful. So I grew up to believe that everything I made was gold, just because I’d made it.
These were my guides. They carved the paths I now walk. They furrowed, strived, irrigated, fell, got up, and continued to carry me as they themselves learned. These guides led my way before I could even walk. I was very fortunate. Others are not. Others are alone, in the dark, being told they are worthless and cannot amount to anything more than the nothing they currently are. Others are without education, or the opportunity to learn/be taught/furrow. Others are being told they don’t have the RIGHT to be curious or to learn. Many are learning through the traditional paths and coming away feeling more incapable than ever before.
For those who have loved you, taught you, guided you, for those that you have lost after their lifetime of toiling and seeding on your behalf, know that they planted that inspiration and freedom to learn and curiosity to persevere so that you can now do this one thing: PASS IT ON in the blessed time that you are here. Pass it on in everything you do – in smiling at that stranger who sits alone, pass it on by saying thank you to those that hold the door open for you, pass it on by holding the door open for others, in showing the elders in your community that you see them even when they think are forgotten.
“Pass it on. Make tracks. Make noise.”
Carve your way. FURROW. So that every time those seedlings of yours, and everyone that you have inspired without realising, every time they are told they are too young, too old, not wealthy enough, not from the right stock, the wrong colour, the wrong class, the wrong sex, too short, too ugly, not wearing the right clothes, not experienced enough – every time their curiosity is met with a wall of “no”, they can already see your tracks on the other side of that wall and that the path has already been established by you, and that all they need is the curiosity to keep learning and to love that about themselves.