Merlina’s Inner Sanctum

My Dear Friends and Family, Karlskrona, December 2008

I hope this holiday season finds you well, happy with life and surrounded by the ones you love. As I was thinking of presents for all of you this year, I realized I wanted to do something different. I wanted to give you something that is meaningful to both you and me, that was not necessarily material (not sustainable! ☺) and yet something that really involves giving on my part. So I decided to give you the gift of time (something we all probably feel we don’t have enough of) and a part of my life (which I realize many of you probably don’t really know much about). So for the next few hours or so, I will sit down and write to you about what I do in my life, maybe a little bit of who I am and just share a little bit of my every-day life with you. Some parts you might know well, others perhaps not so much. I hope there is something new you will discover. And I hope that sometime in the course of next year, we will be able to sit down together in person, I will invite you to a cup of coffee or tea and we can continue sharing…your life, my life…

I will start with my job. First, because I spend most of my time working, but also because I love it and my job is who I am. Many of you will probably know that I stayed in Sweden after my amazing year in the Masters programme in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability. And I am still here, living in Karlskrona, Sweden, working at BTH (Blekinge Institute of Technology) with the Masters programme. While last year I was one of the three programme assistants, I have since moved up in the world (just kidding) and have become a research associate and course lead within the programme. In reality, this is not very different than before, mainly because even as an assistant we were given so much responsibility, that it never really felt like an “assistant” position. However, rather than being spread over many different tasks, I now have only two – teaching and research. I will start with the latter.

Again, some of you might know a little bit about the framework we use here in the masters programme. For those of you, who don’t I´ll try and provide a quick overview here. The framework is called the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development. It was derived by looking at the key natural cycles that occur on our planet and how humans interact with them. From that, the scientist derived, basically how we could mess with these cycles. The three ways they found, how we could significantly alter the system is by, for one, systematically increasing the substances, that earth usually stores in its crust, in the ecosphere (nature). We usually do this by digging up resources out of the ground, such as gold, oil, etc. Doing so in itself is not necessarily bad. In fact, nature does this by itself. However, if we significantly increase the rate that nature does this by itself, we might have a problem. The second way we can mess with the natural system, is by systematically producing substances in society that are foreign to nature and then introducing them to nature. This usually applies to all kinds of chemicals that we produce, which leak into nature (sometimes just through evaporating) and for which nature has no coping mechanism. Finally, we can interfere with nature´s mechanisms by destroying it physically. This includes overharvesting, clear-cutting, etc. If we do so systematically without letting nature re-generate, we again are creating unsustainable conditions. The reason that these actions are problematic, of course, is that we depend on nature and its services for our life and we therefore depend on its natural cycles functioning properly. The framework is built on the idea that if we know what we cannot do (mess with the system in the three ways described above), we can do anything else. This approach allows existing actions and initiatives to be assessed as well as new ones to be planned with these constraints in mind. So the ecological side of the framework as described above is well elaborated and scientifically robust. My research involves the social side of sustainability. The three ways to destroy the ecological system are phrased as principles when a “not” is inserted in front of them. They make up principles 1-3 of the framework. There is currently a 4th, social principle. It is based on the idea that in a sustainable society all humans should be able to meet their needs. The 4th principle therefore states that in a sustainable society the capacity of individuals to meet their needs in not systematically undermined. However, this principle is neither based on understanding the societal system (as the ecological side is based on understanding the natural system) nor have the scientists really looked at ways to mess with the basic mechanisms that make a social system function. This will be partly my job! So my research revolves around understanding the social system and ways that we undermine our own working together. You can see this whole explanation on video, if you go to http://msls.tek.bth.se and click on Religion and Science. The lecture you see there was my first public appearance on this topic. As you may have gathered by now, this seems to be leading to a PhD research project, which means I will be here for anther little while. I am excited about this prospect and am working with some amazing people, mostly the founders of the framework, to achieve this task. It’s challenging, which of course I like and the potential to make this framework as robust as it can be, excites me.

The rest of my worktime is spent “teaching”. I put this in quotation marks, because I don’t think what we do is really teaching. We provide the students with a safe environment and a stimulus for learning and try to guide them through their learning process. While I help out in our introduction course (mostly with social sustainability stuff), I mainly do this in our Advanced Societal Leadership course and the Leadership thread that runs throughout our programme. The course is solely run by myself and our assistant and focuses on the paradigm shift that is needed to reach sustainability and how to engage and motivate other people in this shift. The idea of a paradigm shift revolves around the notion that we need to fundamentally
change how we do and think about things in order to reach sustainability. In physics, the discovery of quantum physics is often cited as an example of a paradigm shift because it fundamentally altered how we see the world. Similarly, the discovery that the earth is indeed not the center of the universe, was another paradigm shift. So we have gone through paradigm shifts before and the ideas is that we need to do so again in order to reach sustainability. In the course, we look at what this paradigm might look like and how to facilitate its arrival. A lot of the discussion revolves around the way we see ourselves in the relation to the rest of the world, how we perceive the world around us and how we perceive and work with others. Much of it talks about how many disciplines (starting with physics and quantum physics) are moving away from a mechanistic worldview, where we think we can categorize everything and see the world as a machine to a more holistic worldview, where everything is related, functions as a system and where the system cannot be analyzed by being broken down into parts. This then leads to the idea that there is not necessarily one reality and truth out there, but that depending on which part of the system we look at or even who is looking, reality changes. This of course leads to the idea that there is never one right answer, but that we need to find solutions that work for the people affected and involved. The students discover different ways of interacting with the people around them and take an in-depth look of what they are bringing to the picture and how they see the world. Topics we look at in the individual leadership thread as well the Advanced Societal leadership course include the art of listening, non-violent communication, system dynamics, effective teams, co-creation of solutions by a team, the concept of learning organizations, appreciative inquiry, theory U and many others.

Needless to say, my work has changed my life. More so than ever, I have become interested in my own self, how I understand things, what I bring to the picture, what my strengths and weaknesses are and what I need to work on to bring this paradigm about. I have started a meditation course, I have become rather careful how I express myself as well as very observant to how others express themselves (of course, the latter is always easier ☺ ). And I enjoy every minute of it. I don’t think I have ever been happier.

Andre, my boyfriend for over a year now, for those of you who have not heard, has been an incredible help, inspiration and practicing ground in this arena. He is interested in pretty much the exact same things as I am, but is very different. Let´s just say he is Brazilian and I am German ☺, which allows for lots of practicing of seeing things in different ways with not one true answer. You get what you preach! Andre is currently living with me (and my 3 roommates, more below) as he is looking for opportunities to establish himself in Sweden/Europe in the social sustainability field.

So what else happens in my life? Not much really. Between work and Andre, there really is not much time left. Two of the three people living with us, happen to work in the same programme, so work definitely gets taken home ALL THE TIME. But we do have a little family going at our cozy house, with eveningly dinners cooked by one of us and weekend adventures. We even bought a Christmas tree this year and decorated it. Besides that, I try to go to the gym two to three times a week, mostly for dancing and meet up with some friends who I do not work or live with every now and then. Of course, the class also hosts events every now and then, which we try to attend, but I am getting to the point, where often on Friday nights I just want to go home and go to bed (especially these days, when it gets dark at 3:30 pm). However, we do have our own LCD projector at home and a big blank white wall, which often turns into a movie theater setup. In addition our roommate Tony is the king of making Irish coffee and so many evening and especially weekends involve coziness on the coach and a couple of hours, where we try not to think about sustainability.

I now feel like I have shared most of what there is to my life. Overall, I could not be happier. Of course, there are always downs as well. I wish I could manage to keep more in touch with all of you, write emails, chat, visit. I do miss you incredibly and you are often in my thoughts. I do hope that at some point during the next year, I will be able to see you all in some way. The invitation for a cup of coffee or tea still stands…of course this can also be at my house in Karlskona.

For now, I hope you are all safe and well and enjoying the holiday season. I hope you also enjoyed this little more in-depth glimpse into my life. I got some great pleasure from spending this and thinking of you while writing about my life. I wish you all the best for 2009 and that you always remember all the love and care that is already in your life and of course, that you discover more every day of the year.

With much love and a big hug from me. Yours always