efficiency continued

I have spoken about the how the word efficiency is a human construct. In today’s developed world,  two major and opposing views on efficiency: the political and business culture is all about efficiency as the shortest distance between two points ie as a straight line under all circumstances.  The other view from the sub set post modern culture frowns on efficiency generally speaking as it is seen as a constraint on their desire to do what ever they want to do, how they want to. The Green parties are prone to seeing efficiency in ideological terms and associate it with business screwing the weak.  NGO’s often live in a culture in which they hold the highest possible moral ground and see any discipline or responsibility for how they spend their funds/run their organisation as below them and therefore above such business responsibilities of getting the maximum output as measured by their organsiations objectives from their funds. They tend to get egoically and purposely tied up in organisational  process.  This is often the culture of many public service and government  organisations.

I read in the National Geographic’s recent special  edition on “Water – our thirsty world” that rivers are efficient as they don’t flow in a straight line- they meander and never flow in a straight line. On page 15-16 see from the great aerial photograph of how the King River snakes its way through the coastal mud flats of the Kimberly’s in Northern Western Australia. In their meandering rivers and their water always find the least resistance way forward- the impulse is always to go forward even if it may not initially appear to be so. It goes around the hard surfaces like granites and that is the reason it never runs in a straight line. In this way the land is provided with a greater volume or  source of water and the fertility of the land is increased. The productivity of the land is  optimised by the creative force within nature itself, which is the same creative force within us human beings.   The straight line value is very much a culturally constructed value. In public places there are paths and there are the “short cuts” across lawns  where we humans act out our value of efficiency- why cant I just get to where I am going in  the fastest way possible.  

In the Guardian this week the former Mayor of Bogota  Antanas Mockus who is a leading candidate for President of Colombia  was referred to as” he showed( as mayor) honesty, efficiency and imagination – qualities that progressive politics has been crying out for in Colombia.” Many countries, companies, families , wives, husbands, daughters, sons, lovers, cry out for a similar person.

What does efficiency look like when we are manifesting spirit in action, the evolutionary impulse, that  like water onlywants to go forward , to create the new, to develop- It is when we have become at a gut level, the universe waking up to itself through us as human beings. That is yet to emerge in a sustained manner and so is very exciting as we can then co create that future as expressions of spirit in action.