## Resilient Koan 14 - Conjunction and Contribution ### _Koan_: How do you sustain contribution in coaction without the conflict of conjunction? ### _Discussion_: I have been looking at  the difference of an integrated view of ecology and an ecological view of integration. The difference is in the paradigm and purpose of each. A paradigm of partialness collects so as to integrate. A paradigm of wholeness coacts so as to contribute. One sees the parts a contributory but inadequate. The other sees the parts as adequate and contributory. What results from the first is a collection. What results from the second is a conjunction.  The difference is subtle, but necessary from their intention.    ### _Inquiry_: How is the cojoining into completeness (e.g. the pizza) different to combining into equisiteness (e.g. panacotta). When one inhabits each intention, the feeling is profoundly noticeable. Different intention leads to different attention. Contributing stingily from surplus is different to gifting from abundance. ### _Insight_: I think its that old joke. An optimist is someone who believes things are as good as they possibly could be. A pessimist is someone who fears the optimist is right. A realist is someone who knows the optimist and pessimist are both spot on. An apithologist is someone who sees the potential in the conjunction of the three. ### _Resolution_: The potential of partialness is in its conjunction. This is distinct from integration. The integration of the parts only makes the whole of what is (the optimist and pessimists middle ground.  The conjunction sees the potential in their contribution. ### _Practice_: To understand that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and that some of the parts do not make a whole, but wholeness is awaiting in every single moment. To see the bike as the exquisiteness of the cycles within it, means letting go of the carefully made list of assemblage ~ especially if you want to hear it purrrrr. --- This is one in a series of 25 'Resilient Koans' documenting "an apithologue into the koans of practice discovered while creating resilient sustainable communities", in 2010.