Ugly and uglier

Building on the last post: One aspect of China life that keeps me going back is how it pits my highest and basest selves against each other. For anyone, an honest engagement in that struggle cannot help but yield rewards: for your organization and for yourself.

True as that is, we still often miss out on how much is to be gained by laying bare our "naked truths" in all their ugliness. Robert Louis Stevenson once said that everyone has "thoughts that would shame hell." Some are more tuned in to these thoughts than are others, but they are there nonetheless. What I find most unnerving about this is what it means for what human beings do, since our thoughts, conscious and unconscious, guide our actions. I believe a great deal about the current state of the world is attributable to our automatic, sometimes hell-inspired thought mechanisms ruling the roost and running amok, steering us along destructive paths of action, all unbeknownst to us.

It also follows logically that one of the ways intercultural consultants can best serve our clients is by creating ways for them to safely access, express, and reflect on their underlying thinking in all its beauty and ugliness. For yourself, right now: What are some of your stereotypes of China and of Chinese people? Take a few minutes to write them down. Give yourself freedom to get as ugly as you need to get to be true to your thinking.

Try to avoid the temptation of thinking that you're a horrible person: your ugly thoughts are nothing more than an expression of your deepest humanity. In that ugliness we are truly united across all cultures.

Now, what to do with all that thinking? I'll take that up in future posts.