Escaping Oscillation

Copyright: Giphy.com

A simple rubber band inspired me to reflect on the phenomenon of Structural Conflict, a phenomenon that the composer Robert Fritz defined in the 1980s. And the idea of a Structural Conflict can be made very clear with a rubber band. If you take a rubber band between two fingers, it stretches and pulls. If you stretch it more to one side, it pulls back to the other.

I had the feeling that we had all been in such a structural conflict in the covid months. When we pulled in one direction, it pulled us back in the other. We were at home in a lockdown and at the same time we wanted to move towards to professional goals. And the more we moved towards our goal - for example: finally showing your art work somewhere or performing on a stage or finally a cool job as an art educator - the more we moved backward.

Robert Fritz says: "If you limit your choice only to what seems possible or reasonable, you part with what you really want, and all that remains is a compromise".

That is the state of pulling back and forth. A state of oscillation.

The solution instead is to not concentrate on the attractive end of the rubber band, not on a certain role, a job title, or an identity to which you are drawn to. But instead concentrate on what you truly want - on what you want to create here in this world, on what is important to you: On the spaces that you want to create / On your ideas of education and sharing / Your sustainable initiatives and mediation concepts.

That is true creation. Flip the rubber band.