The writer James Clear asks his readers in his Thursday 3-2-1 newsletter:
Life is always progressing to the next stage. As you enter a new season, habits that previously served you well may need to be refreshed or adjusted. Which one of your current habits have you outgrown and is in need of a change?
A certain aspect of my life has entered a new season. The relationships within the nodes of this area has changed, and so has the ecosystem of the larger network. In a brief moment of introspection (and a bit of a political eye), the habit of engaging with the usual nodes of my clique will need to be diversified to allied nodes of the larger network. The larger, diffuse network is under threat by the current resident of the White House, and collaboration –an overused word that has diluted its meaning- has never been more urgent.
The Ukrainians offer a very good example of the type of network cooperation I am trying to describe. Last summer I marched with them at a protest in New York and was surprised at how they used social media so differently than the Americans. They were not Instagram influencers. They promoted each other’s stories and shared information in real-time. The nodes were acting from an ego-less point of view. It is as if each node has rescinded their individuality to access the higher-level of networks.
Perhaps it is time to read Nicholas Christakis’ Connected.