I walk past this sculpture most mornings, called Single Form. It’s by Barbra Hepworth and is dedicated to the former Secretary General of the UN – Dag Hammarskjöld. This chance passing made me curious about him and this eventually led to me reading Markings – his posthumously published journal.
The fascinating thing for me on these writings is that for a person who was caught up in so much of the world’s politics, none of it mentions this. His personal (and spiritual) writings are all about interior struggle (thanks to Deborah Rowland for that insight)
Navigating the nuances of self and social is one of the paradoxes that comes up frequently in conversations of on organisations and identity – we are independent people and thoroughly social persons at the same time.
It was curious that at the recent Complexity and Management Confernece the capacity to engage in self-reflexiveness on this nature seemed to be enhanced by engagement with a contemplative tradition – Dao being the example of this Confernece. H. builds on a Lutheran/Christian contemplative tradition.
“When the conflicting currents of the unconscious create engulfing whirlpools, the waters can again be guided into a single current if the dam sluice be opened into the channel of prayer-and if that channel has been dug deep enough.”
Anyway. Am struck by the way Hammarskjöld chose to centre himself in this…focusing on the interior so to be better able (perhaps) to be more present in exterior. Or maybe it was the only thing he felt he could actually have some agency over…or acceptance of this single form.
“At every moment you choose yourself. But do you choose your self? Body and soul contain a thousand possibilities out of which you can build many I’s. But in only one of them is there a congruence of the elector and the elected. Only one-which you will never find until you have excluded all those superficial and fleeting possibilities of being and doing with which you toy, out of curiosity or wonder or greed, and which hinder you from casting anchor in the experience of the mystery of life, and the consciousness of the talent entrusted to you which is your I”
That’s probably enough for my first post back for a while.
Nick Shepherd 