Transcript:
It happened after a long day. It was like...11pm, I was tired, laying down on my sofa, ready to go to bed. Checking in messages and stuff on my smartphone. And for whatever reason, I mechanically opened Linkedin and started browsing publications, which I very rarely do… even in the daytime.
Scrolling down a couple of times
And here it was, the perfect trap, in my feed. Of course, I fell into it…
My name is Camille, you’re listening to Cosmic Dynamics, 5min of exploration on art, change & the music of the universe.
There was this post from Nestle Nespresso, with the CEO promoting a new carbon neutral program they are launching, featuring all the usual greenwashing and shaky commitments we sadly got used to.
And the post had received a lot of likes and support comments already, almost exclusively people praising Nespresso’s efforts and sustainability initiatives. It was really sad to read how far these people are from realising what’s actually going on in the coffee world, but anyway, I methodically applied all the things we preach at Cosmic, made a couple of mental notes, shut down the phone and went to bed.
NOT TRUE, not true, this is not at all what happened. Not at all.
I totally fell in the trap, I lowered the guard, and I am really sorry about it. I am sorry. I fell in the trap. I was tired ok…?
Yea. backtracking a little bit: I read the post, and 20 or 30 comments, there was this voice in my head saying “don’t go there”, I ignored it.. I kept reading, and started feeling something visceral, something instinctive (the voice got louder). Too late. I clicked on the post and yes, I responded. I am sorry. I failed to resist the temptation.
I spent 20 minutes of my life commenting on Nespresso’s announcement. I did write this paragraph with love and respect, and it felt good at that moment because my response is pretty solid, it’s quite hard to argue against what I said so I felt like yeeaa! Ha! Good luck answering this. And a few seconds after I posted my comment, the voice was more like “oh no Camille” what the hell did you do...
Bad, really bad.
20 minutes of my precious evening time, then 10 more minutes thinking about it, and pathetically re-reading my post and other people’s comments, and then at least 30 minutes banging my head against the wall for having fallen in the trap. I got to bed swimming in regrets, with the bitter taste of contradiction in my mouth. Arrgh...
Why contradiction?
Because what I did is exactly the contrary of what I am advocating for, of what we are talking about here at Cosmic, of what we learn from our research on change communications, how the mind works, and paradigm shift. It’s like for a minute I forgot all the things we preach.
And I will map the different parameters of this contradiction in the next episode, so we use this case study to its full potential, and make something productive out of my sin....
But back to my first point: the question is: how to explain that, although I consider I continuously integrate the knowledge that we consolidate from our research - and which I am supposed to incarnate everyday - I fell in the trap like a beginner? Why is that?
Why is that?
Because knowledge is useless. Knowledge is useless unless you apply it.
Yes, ok sounds obvious. But it’s not.
The kind of knowledge we’re talking about at Cosmic is knowledge of how the mind works, how we relate to change and how we storytell the future. And the fact that this happened to me late at night, when I was weak and tired, is not a coincidence. I don’t think I would have fell in that trap on a Monday morning for instance.
I lowered the guard and all this knowledge was useless because I was not PRESENT.
I was not present. End of the story.
Presence matters. Every single minute of the day.
Presence is what makes knowledge valuable.
It’s like there is this monster in us, waiting for us to be tired or emotionally weak, distracted so it can {explosion sound}.
Presence matters. Every single minute of the day.
In the next episode I will detail why this reactive post is such a big deal for us.
In the meantime, since we are talking about coffee and monsters, I am featuring the work of artist Stefan Kuhnigk. He draws monsters from coffee stains, I love his work, and it’s the perfect way to reflect on the systemic stains made by the conventional coffee world, and clarify how we should go about it. Stay tuned.
