I’ve been on a Simon Sinek kick lately, the proselytizer of “Start with Why”. The core of his message is the importance of organizations having a why.

Organizations with a why are more resilient, their people are more engaged, and more people want to work with or purchase services from them. The same goes for people who have a why.

If someone asks you what you do for a living and you tell them, more often than not, the conversation stops there or shifts course. But if instead of telling them what you do, you tell them what you believe and why you do what you do, then a sort of fascination or curiosity arises, and the conversation continues.

So what is it about the why that is so captivating? Perhaps it is that why (?), is the existential question, which, if asked enough times leads us into a bottomless pit of mystery. E.g…. Why does this happen? Well becapse of this? Well why that? Because of that? Until you go so far with the why’s until you hit the “I don’t know”.

Perhaps the biggest question of all, and the one we are all pondering deeply, whether we know it or not, is the question of “why are we even here”? It’s the thing that we are all trying to figure out on some level and in one degree or another, and all have our own answer to, and whether we say it or not, we live it.

But perhaps that is the reason why organizations and people with a why are so captivating… because they have a conscious articulation of the thing we are essentially all searching for.

But this leads me back to the last article I wrote about the value of a vision. To what extent is a vision valuable? When is a vision merely a projection of a wound… an illusion… fools gold in a sense? Or when is a vision a clear observation of that which truly is?

You could do down the rabbit hole of then saying that that which you think truly is, might just be yet another projection of a deeper wound. Yes yes, but what if the deepest wound of all is not actually a wound but a womb! That sacred gash from which we all must come, and must return… the beginning and the end… the infinite wormhole which bookends all time and space… I degress.

And nevertheless, the value of vision for one’s self is that it casts us on a journey towards a greater state of awareness… a journey away from self so that one may become more conscious of oneself. Like that feeling when one goes away from home for a couple of months or a year in search of paradise, only to then remember just how much they love their home… etc. etc.

The value of articulating your vision to those around you then becomes that it often reminds other people of their own ability to see, to have a vision or a dream of their own and to set out on a journey to achieve it.

Or sometimes it even evokes a sense of emptiness in the observer, a feeling of wanting to be that persion with the vision or dream, simply because it reminds them of that which they can have, or already have.

People seek the vision in the other as a means to fortify their identity, or they seek it as a means to fill the hole that actually holds their soul… ahh but if only they turned their gaze inward. Oh the paradox of the vision! They inspire but they also distract. They set one in motion, yet they also lead one astray. All the while, it’s in the distraction where the sacred wound is often found.. and it’s in the wandering away where the home is discovered.

I’m having a hard time following myself… but I do think Simon Sinek’s own personal vision statement in this sense is brilliant: to inspire people to do the things that inspire them. It is the posting of a vision that reflects back to the individual their own ability to have a vision and to pursue it. It is a recursive, almost autological type statement (thanks chatgpt for giving me a term for this) which embodies what it intends to help others to do.

In many ways I feel like this is what I’m striving to discover and articulate for myself through the writing of this very article, and blog. Is it that I want to help others discover that which I’m trying to share here? Seeing that at the bottom of everything is a gaping whole that we must face and embrace, and from which place we can create? And that not only must we go on this journey, but that the journey is inherently baked into the nature of our very existence… the fabric of our very being?

Yes, I think just maybe.