The Parable of Three Islands
© 2001 Michael Thorne Kelly

Introduction

In human affairs there is a natural friction that often expresses itself competitively. Many of us have celebrated competition as a source of strong character or innovation, as though conflict were the cause of these positive results.

A tragic mistake; the value of competition is the implicit dialogue, not the contest. When the emotional excitement of conflict overwhelms the core conversation, the value that might be gained can be lost in self-sustaining circuits of reprisal.

During World War II, the Allies concentrated the full power of their strategic bombing capability on destroying the Axis’ capacity to make ball bearings. Why ball bearings? Allied commanders understood that the ball bearing’s ability to dramatically reduce friction made modern industrial applications possible. Without reducing friction, the manufacture of modern machines, and weapons, was impossible.

In human affairs, too, friction constrains accomplishment. Labor disputes, legal actions, turf battles, hostile takeovers, interpersonal conflicts, marital strife, political vendettas, crime and simple misunderstandings annually leach trillions of dollars from economies worldwide. Friction undermines the fabric of social relations, reduces the quality of life and, too often, results in the destruction of careers, families and lives. Societies worldwide are on fire from this friction. Usually, it is a sullen smolder, but, too often, it ignites the conflagration of war.

In human relations, we need the equivalent of ball bearings. But before we can develop and deploy friction-reducing techniques, we have to realize that alternatives to competition exist. Because differences, like gravity, are inevitable many of us feel that the same holds true for conflict. Even if the appearance of conflict were inevitable, competition, contest and combat are not. There are better ways to transform differences into creative opportunities.

A Parable

In a small sea, under a benign sun, three almost identical islands broke the surface of the water, each out of sight of the other two. On each island lived two immortals, six in total, all with different temperaments and interests. As the islands were relatively small, it didn't take the inhabitants long to discover that they were not alone.

The two immortals on the first island were fiercely competitive. Each felt that the existence of the other was an intrusion that needed to be repulsed as quickly as possible. At first, they set about this with fists and rocks, but when these failed to settle the matter (broken bones and bloodied heads being very painful but not fatal to immortals), they invented technology and escalated into ever more sophisticated weapons and strategies. Eventually each established a territory comprising roughly half of the island and built a castle to defend it.

Early on, when their weapons were primitive, their territories abutted each other. But as the weapons became more powerful and the attacks more catastrophic, a barren no-man's-land of churned and punished earth expanded between their domains. Eventually, the weapons and rage were so great that the whole island outside the walls of their huge, bunkered castles became a torched wasteland.

Inside the castles the immortals felt cheated and hungry for what they supposed was theirs alone. Both consoled themselves with the thought that the other was contained, that total victory was simply a matter of strength and will.

Two equally passionate, but rather more sociable immortals inhabited the second island. These two were full of creativity and initiated project after project to express it; frankly, more projects than could ever be accomplished even in the lifetime of an immortal.

At first they worked entirely independently, occasionally meeting in the course of their tasks, often passing appreciative comments back and forth. As their projects became more elaborate, they began seeking each other's assistance. At first this was minor, on the scale of "would you please hold this board while I nail it?" But, as the ambitiousness of their projects inflated so did their needs. Soon, they were exchanging "favors," one helping the other in exchange for future assistance.

Eventually their projects became so monumental that they had to cooperate for years at a time. This meant that one's projects went on hold if the other's projects were to be built. That was a problem. They recognized that they needed each other's support, but how could they balance the accounts so that there was a fair exchange?

As the complexity of the immortals' efforts increased so did the complexity of the accounting systems. Eventually the systems themselves were monumental projects; all to keep track of who owed what to whom so that their exchanges reflected an acceptable level of equivalence. The triumph of self-expression and the misery of self-denial teeter-tottered in roughly equal measure for each of them; always rushing toward either culmination or release.

In this way, the second island became a huge arcology crowded with baroque construction; a vast parkland of styles and hurried impressions. Edifice and garden, piled upon edifice all laced with sculpture and impressed with bas-relief and none more monumental than the hall of records built to secure the documentation of who owed what to whom.

The immortals on the third island were contemplative in nature. For the longest period, they didn't even meet, each being caught up in the observation of the wonderful rhythms of the life surrounding them. In fact, it was only their deepening awareness of the subtlest of those rhythms that alerted them to each other's presence.

Eventually they sought each other out and began to reflect together on the many things they observed. Through this interchange they began to discover the source of the life in themselves. From this understanding emerged a common vision of something entirely new to each of them and from that vision emerged, among other things, a very fruitful union. From the union sprang a whole new generation of immortals. Out of the union of the two generations evolved the rituals of emergence. With each succeeding generation, they catalyzed the formation of a future that included them all.

In time, it became apparent to the generations of immortals on the third island that the magnitude of their numbers would soon begin to disrupt the patterns of life around them. They pooled their wisdom and experience to evolve a solution. As a consequence, technology emerged on the island and technology gave them the means to preserve the environment and expand beyond its loving boundaries.


When the expanding third islanders found the second island, they joyfully moved into the many wonderful buildings. They perfused the quiet stone with birds, and flowers and trees.

The original builders were delighted because now, with so much help, even vaster undertakings were possible. They were breathless with the vistas of potential suddenly opened to them. The sea itself beckoned to them.

As they learned the rituals of inclusion and emergence from the third islanders, and, in turn, shared the joys of creativity, all began to experience the merging of inspiration and joy of shared creation. Never again was time wasted in the hall of accounts, because they worked from shared visions for mutual rewards. And with so many minds to imagine and hands to participate those rewards were astounding.

Eventually, even the expanded second island became too small to support the growing population of immortals and they reopened their exploration of the more distant parts of the sea. When they discovered the wasteland of the first island, they were initially stunned with shock. As comprehension emerged, this gave way to compassion for the tortured earth and its isolated inhabitants.

In their turn, when the barricaded immortals saw the approach of the many ships of the second and third islanders, each was overcome with despair. For what they imagined that they saw was strength and will far surpassing their own. Having single-handedly battled each other to a standstill, they recognized the futility of attempting to resist such a huge force -- clearly all was lost.

For their part, the second and third islanders immediately set about freeing the self-imprisoned first islanders and restoring the devastated landscape. In time, they taught the two competitors how to include each other in a transcendent vision and the first island regained its original, paradisiacal nature.

In turn, the first islanders taught the others the chemistry of explosives and the physics of ballistics. These were keys to a universe of islands.

From their small sea, the islanders spread across their planet. They appreciated, included, loved and transcended. As their world became too small to support them all, they expanded throughout their solar system until even that could no longer contain them….

Living on the First and Second Islands

In the course of any day each of us may “live” on any one or all three islands. We can shift from seeing the people around us as competitors, as potential labor or as creative partners in the space of an afternoon. We can go from volunteering at the local soup kitchen to road rage in a few minutes without recognizing that there is anything odd about our behavior.

We live in a world wherein the customer is often perceived to be an "other," essentially an enemy to be either consumed or enslaved. As customers ourselves, we have been taught to behave accordingly – caveat emptor (buyer beware).

Ours is a world in which even very smart people continue to believe that they can make anything happen with guile and force. We regularly behave as though we believe that really smart people can solve any problem, if everyone else will simply do as they are told.

We are surrounded by crazy people -people so convinced that they know what they are doing that they continue doing the same things over and over again while complaining about the results. Embarrassingly often, as Pogo wryly observed, “… they is us.” In general, our expectations are so low that even the value, much less the possibility, of living predominantly on the third island remains relatively unexplored.

When, as a society, we constrained the influence of democratic principles to the political sphere, we foredoomed the American experiment. Rather than learn how to mobilize the fundamental power underlying democracy and apply it in commerce, labor and family relationships, we reserved a place for sovereign authority throughout day-to-day life and assured that political democracy would eventually unravel under the pressure of special interests.

Rather than promoting the evolution of democracy into a fully emergent process spanning society, we simply legitimized tyranny in the form of majorities and then figured out how to manipulate the system to tailor a majority. We educate our people from birth to use the tools of social manipulation rather than teach them how to create outcomes in which all the stakeholders win. We completely miss the irony in having freedom of speech without commonly having the skills to organize a productive, creative dialogue!

The cannibalistic ethos of eating people to sustain institutions is deeply embedded in our corporate system. It's a defining characteristic of what we call the free market; as though people were not integrally part of the system other than as a nutrient substrate. And we wonder why we have seemingly intractable social problems. A cultural ethos derived from “eat or be eaten,” however disguised or moderated, guarantees friction.

Living on the Third Island

Living on the third island requires changes in both culture and practice. The reasons for going through the psychological and social changes necessary to do so are very simple. Imagine three boxers. The first has hands and feet that are at odds with each other over how much of the bodies total energy they will command. The second has hands and feet that will work with each other but only so long as the distribution of labor is fair. The third has hands and feet who regard themselves as the means to express a common intent. Which boxer would you put your money on? Most of us have watched struggles between boxers of the first two types -- the Soviet Union and the United States for instance. The disparity in performance is dramatic. The disparity in performance between the third and the first two is equally dramatic.

The only reasonable question is one of practicality. Is the emergent approach to life suggested in the model of the third island achievable? A great deal of existing research and practice strongly suggests that it is, but we will never know until we try. So are you ready to discover how to live an emergent life; a life without competition or conflict as we currently know them; wherein the only acceptable outcome of behavior is a better quality and experience of life for all the participants?