This note is the sixth letter in the 104-days-of-summer-vacation series. You can also follow the full twitter thread here, and leave any thoughts and comments that might come up!

Dearest Reader,

I find that Monday is always a good time to reorient after a period of relaxation. I’m sitting in The Book Cafe today, in what feels like either a creative flow state, or the buzz from the third coffee of the day.

Drifting through my thoughts today, is some wisdom from microsolidarity and full-circle-leadership, and the question of why I’m drawn to networks so much. In Pieces of the Action, Vannevar Bush talks about tyros - the Roman word for a new recruit. He doesn’t talk about them in kind, Bush’s tyros are annoying wrenches thrown in the cogs of well-oiled organizations, they subvert authority, seek to claim attention for themselves and generally ruin the efficiency of operations.

I have to admit, at least at the start, his criticism of tyros felt like an attack on my character. I have my fair share of rebellion against institutional systems, especially hierarchical systems, although on further reading it seems like Bush was primarily concerned about narcissists not non-compliance. At least, I’d like to believe that my opposition to strict hierarchies stems from a genuine belief that there are betters ways to organize: joyfully-subvert.

Another piece of writing in my mind, is Partnership 101 by Riane Eisler, who frames our struggles as a sociological battle between a dominance and a partnership frame.

The real struggle is within societies in every one of these categories, between people who want to move to a more caring and equitable world and those you still believe insensitivity, cruelty, and destructiveness – and all the misery they lead to – are “just human nature” – the inevitable result of original sin or selfish genes.

In this regard, Bush was placed firmly in the domination camp, specifically when concerned with military operations. In his view, the rational centralized model of coordination demanded that every decision have a clearly defined decision maker at an appropriate level of the hierarchy. Riane instead emphasizes the important of trust, and the approach which distributes agency to more people to make decisions.

It’s arguable that the appropriate method depends on the task at hand. It may very well be true that an army cannot operate on partnership principles, although in The Square and the Tower Niall Ferguson outlines the technique of guerrilla warfare which exemplifies the decentralized network-like partnership principles that Riane Eisler speaks of.

But I digress. I think I’ve always appreciated creative freedom, and hated being in situations where I couldn’t explore my ideas. The command, control and evaluate structure is essentially the anti-thesis of the environment in which I enjoy being. In full-circle-leadership lingo, I might be called an Envision leader.

With a broad brush, you paint castles in the sky.

Which is maybe why I lean so heavily towards networks. Networks by their nature tend to allow for space to explore, unlike hierarchies. Another thought is that, the reason both startups and research equally appeals to me is that it opens the freedom for me to work on interesting problems.

And this freedom to create seems to be the key thing I look for in life. Another question that comes up as I think about this is:

Do I tend to get stuck in one step or loop? For example, the entrepreneur with a “great idea” who spends years oscillating between sense, inquire, and envision, never building anything. Or the established institution stuck at maintain, maintain, maintain. What might help me push through to the next stage?

In any case, one thing is clear. This idea of freedom and my passion for networks is deeply and meaningfully intertwined. Maybe the full-circle-leadership has something equally meaningful to offer you, my dear reader? Let me know if you find anything.

~ Shan