What is a Good Life? #173
The Place Of Multiple Belongings with Dave Snowden
Hello and welcome to What is a Good Life? A project exploring the big questions around how we live and what actually matters.
This week, I’m reflecting on my conversation with Dave Snowden - Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of The Cynefin Co., creator of the Cynefin Framework, and one of the most original thinkers working at the intersection of complexity science, organisational design, and human decision-making. It is a beautiful mixture of thought provoking ideas and powerful lived experiences.
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Take care, Mark
1. My Weekly Reflection
He knew the various paths among the Sacred Valley in Peru better than I did, and he always found a way to get us back home. So, it made sense that I simply followed him.
However, this time, my four-legged companion got us into a spot of bother.
We entered the next rural town, and a pack of dogs closely observed our arrival. Alianqu was the alpha dog of where we resided, so this was the first time I had seen him display a sense of anything other than bravado. Which worried me.
Four dogs predictably charged us.
I had only recently overcome a huge fear of dogs, but I knew better than to run. As he fought two off, the other two were snapping at my feet until, thankfully, a local farmer began to shout in their direction and threw some pebbles to startle them.
All four dogs proceeded to chase after Alianqu, so I ran after them until I found him on one side of a river with the chasing pack on the other side, barking their territorial threats.
I crossed the river and joined Alianqu on the other side, realising I had no idea where we were, and going back to the road we had just come from wasn’t an option.
Over the next couple of hours, I followed him through thorny bushes and broken shale paths that disintegrated beneath my feet, sending me sliding down parts of the mountain.
We entered fields where Alianqu teased cows and bulls, as I tried to make it out without them charging at me too. Eventually, we reached a part of a path that I had walked maybe a few hundred times before.
A relieved sigh. A deep relaxation in my body.
It was a part of the path back to my place from the local rural town. It often made me groan a little due to how often I had walked it, coupled with the sharp incline and the altitude of 3,000 metres.
The weather there was always changeable; bright blue skies could quickly turn into thunderstorms.
Of course, it was sunny now, and the path looked golden to me.
I sat, deeply satisfied outside my bungalow, sweating and picking out whatever thorns I had accumulated and inspecting the scratches on my body.
This experience came to mind when Dave shared that instead of having a big party for his 65th birthday, he disappeared into Tasmania to go into the Cradle Mountains.
He hadn’t realised how difficult it was, with its massive boulders, and there was only one way back. He knew he could get up, but wasn’t looking forward to getting back. Really wondering “what I am going to do?”
On the way back, he encountered a woman and two children who were in need of help and he noticed his mountain rescue training from when he was young kicked into autopilot.
“You need to put yourself in the positions which aren’t too dangerous, but are enough just to get you that little bit on the edge.”
I do get the sense that in maximising comfort in our lives, we are missing out on aliveness.
As Dave points out in the interview, not everyone will feel called to an edge, in whatever form that takes. Maybe even to have that conversation you are fearing or hesitant about.
But some capacity withers in us if we keep resisting the call.
2. This Week’s Questions
Is there an edge you feel called to that you are resisting?
Is there an edge you need to step back from that you have stayed at for too long?
Thanks for reading What is a Good Life?
3. Weekly Clip From The Podcast
4. Full Episode - The Place Of Multiple Belongings with Dave Snowden - What is a Good Life? #173
Listen to or watch the full conversation with Dave Snowden below.
For Apple click here.
About Me
I am a writer, facilitator, and podcast host, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 300 people. I’m not looking to prescribe universal answers, more that the guests’ lines of inquiry, musings, experiences, and curiosities spark your own inquiry into what the question means to you. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience and more meaningful conversations.