## Metadata - Author: [[adrienne maree brown]] - Full Title: Emergent Strategy - Category: #books ## Highlights - Octavia Butler, one of the cornerstones of my awareness of emergent strategy, spoke of the fatal human flaw as a combination of hierarchy and intelligence. ([Location 88](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06XFP9MMC&location=88)) - Emergent strategies are ways for humans to practice complexity and grow the future through relatively simple interactions. ([Location 299](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06XFP9MMC&location=299)) - Birthwork teaches us to engage tension, but not to indulge drama. ([Location 516](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06XFP9MMC&location=516)) - Science fiction, particularly visionary fiction, is where I go when I need the medicine of possibility applied to the trauma of human behavior. ([Location 535](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06XFP9MMC&location=535)) - Humans are unique because we compete when it isn’t necessary. We could reason our way to more sustainable processes, but we use our intelligence to outsmart each other. We compete for fun, for ego. ([Location 1327](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06XFP9MMC&location=1327)) - want peoples’ lives to have been better (even in very tiny ways) from having participated with me in this work. This means to me that I bring beautiful words, actions, ideas, and behaviors into spaces. At the end of it all even if we don’t see the fruits of our labor, shouldn’t we be able to say we loved and enjoyed each other? ([Location 1351](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06XFP9MMC&location=1351)) - Are you actively practicing generosity and vulnerability in order to make the connections between you and others clear, open, available, durable? Generosity here means giving of what you have without strings or expectations attached. Vulnerability means showing your needs. ([Location 1365](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06XFP9MMC&location=1365)) - Being seen is actually non-negotiable, though I can hide, or I can determine my level of grace and relationship in it. On so many levels, interdependence requires being seen, as much as possible, as your true self. Meaning that your capacity and need are transparent. Meaning even when I don’t want to look in the mirror, I am (and I choose to be) open to the attention of others. ([Location 1397](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06XFP9MMC&location=1397)) - I have talked with other leaders who got bumped into rock star status as young organizers and almost all of us share a few core experiences: People stopped seeing us. We became a place to project longings and critiques. We lost touch with the fact that it’s ok to make mistakes. Then we made the biggest mistakes of our lives. And we learned the hard way that rock star status is a cyclical thing. It becomes its own work, maintaining and promoting the rock star in the organization. ([Location 1488](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06XFP9MMC&location=1488)) - The work of promoting and protecting one personality is as different from the work of organizing as holding one’s breath in is from an exhale. ([Location 1492](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06XFP9MMC&location=1492)) - If you are in the funding world and your primary relationship with those you fund is with the executive director, if you have not had a meaningful conversation with other staff members or community members, you may be stricken with charismitis—relational laziness induced by charismatic brilliance. ([Location 1515](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06XFP9MMC&location=1515))