Planetary philosophy: space and history

I have passed today to work on the Planetary philosophy Manuscript, with a little time to further develop the illustration that I shared yesterday. The book is largely complete, but needs refinement. In places, it means building ideas, and in others, it means going up. And everywhere, it means checking duplication and flow.

In the introductory pages, I say the following:

“”I designed this book with a lot of white space. It is there to add your thoughts, capture your reflections and personalize it to what you think it could be. I encourage you to eliminate my words, and graffiti what is left: make your story and go to others».

These words will be familiar to anyone who has read “The Humble Leader”, or there is a certain time “The Trust Sketchbook”. It is a recognition that even if I found my certainty, it is not a general truth. This work is fragile, fractured, incomplete and shared in this spirit.

The work is also very wide (my use of the word “philosophy” in the title is deliberate, and a recognition that this work thinks, with a nod to the practice, not a manual). Again in the first pages, I say the following:

“”It's a story of ladder: From the atomic (you, me and the individuals who cross the system) to the planetary scope. These are individuals and communities as well as the world collective emerging. At the extremes, this book pleads for new models of citizenship, belief and belonging, necessary for our new world order, for fear that we irrevocably lose links to each other and to our remarkable environment.“”

I do some tests to share this in a coherent landscape From my wider work, but I also try (trying to be) without fear of leaving loose threads. The goal of this book is to open a space and contribute to a debate, and therefore it can afford to be fractured.

White space offers freedom, but I pay particular attention to history. The story of this work. In many ways, the journey of the first manuscript (which took the form of a test) to a complete book was one of the taxes of a more coherent story. It is undoubtedly a more concrete story at this stage (even if it carries little certainty). It will make things a little easier to read (my first criticisms were nice about the difficulty). But I don't want it to be too easy, too sure.

I am still a little conflict in this area, especially at the start of the book. I cannot afford that people get lost and feel helpless, from the first page. It will be a book that is simply difficult to read. But just as well, I cannot afford to make it a book where you do not lose yourself at all. I remember the comments that Henriette gave me to a version of `The Change Guidebook ‘a few years ago, which had to say that she read in the end because she loved me, not the book. Although I always appreciate our friendship, I have always tried to avoid these comments!

I am about a quarter of the manuscript today and I have time dedicated tomorrow and Friday. I really hope to have a complete refined project by then.

I am highly indebted to Sae Shatz, who publishes this work – although the “assembly” does not do justice to the way it helps to find both clarity and foundations. Similarly to the half-dozens of readers who pushed it and pushed it, each managed it in their own way. I appreciate writing, but I am also ready to finish it. So it's my goal this week …