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Bill Leslie's avatar

This is an excellent read really enjoyed it. The old line comes to mind "Give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach him how to fish feed him for life"

John Stoszkowski's avatar

Thanks Bill, good to hear it resonated.

Chris Kilmurray's avatar

Thanks as always John, and always nice to have someone lend a helping hand so I can leap into more Heidegger! ;-)

As a sport coach the ever present need to help athletes understand I'm here to help them leap forward and not just here to tell them what to do always resonates.

And along my current "anti-atomistic" and "anti Naive-Netwonianism" reading, I think you might like this short read about one of Heidegger's Ph.D. students Hans Jonas. (Who as a Jew went on to despise Heidegger post WW2).

A true radical anti-reductionist "hero" that I had never heard of before - https://bigthink.com/13-8/nature-of-life-hans-jonas/

Thanks again

John Stoszkowski's avatar

Cheers pal. There’s always an additional pressure to leap in when people are paying you to help them. Got to justify your worth!

Jonas is very Peaty/Whiteheadian. You might like this book by Audronė Žukauskaitė on “Organism-Oriented Ontology.” Similar vibe.

https://amzn.eu/d/0g4wRE5f

Vital Frontiers's avatar

Brilliant as always John. Leaping ahead in a culture that promotes and incentivizes leaping in. Helping others keep their “growing edge” and “test their mettle” rather than dulling their own capabilities and capacity for transformation. You’d love the work of Milton Erickson and Ernest Rossi. Two men who inspire my passion for assisting others in a very “leaping ahead” kind of way. 🙏🏻👍🏻

John Stoszkowski's avatar

Thank you. “Test their mettle” is an underused phrase. Need to bring that back into circulation. Will check out Erickson and Rossi 👍

Vital Frontiers's avatar

Absolutely 👍🏻

Rob Sutton's avatar

Agree with Rob… another thought provoking and enjoyable read. I was only yesterday hearing a conversation about the difference between “leaping in” (doing to, fixing for) and “leaping forward” (working with, growing alongside) when trying to ‘help’ communities improve their health. It was framed as co-creating systems with the people affected to build dignity rather than dependency, which feels spot on when I feel most people are ultimately seeking dignity and agency, despite the current rhetoric around welfare and benefits. The challenge, I guess, is both recognising what our current system is actually doing and then finding the energy(or not) and courage to shift it—after all, “every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.”

John Stoszkowski's avatar

There are so many “helping” professions now, aren't there. And as we know in schools and universities, failure isn’t really an option these days. “Just get them through” was the mantra before I left. Leap in and fix it quick, or the system we’re propping up that isn’t working will get found out! Grim when the kids/students just want it fixed for them too so they can jump through the qualification hoop and move on.

Rob Griffiths's avatar

Thanks for another timely reminder of why the world needs philosophers 🤩

As you may remember I tortured myself reading’Being and time’ which was helped by Blattner’s readers guide. Not sure if that was ‘leaping in’ or ‘leaping ahead’ but it helped it make sense.

I love the way he made his own words up that seems to neatly articulate his meaning.

I think what you have described is what I believe is the approach of the great coaches, help form the environment and architecture for the individual or team to be successful.

Another great read John, thanks for sharing 🙌

John Stoszkowski's avatar

I think we might have to do another session on H. He’s very aligned with our recent themes on process and smashing body-mind dualism. Once you get through the brutally dense language, what he’s saying is actually very pragmatic and straightforward. Simplicity on the other side of complexity! This is a good doco. Makes H very accessible. Lots of sporting examples too. https://youtu.be/fcCRmf_tHW8