Neutral Chi

qi |CHē|(also chi or ki )

noun

the circulating life force whose existence and properties are the basis of much Chinese philosophy and medicine

I was introduced to this concept in college.  The difficult piece to teach, and understand, from a scientific, Western perspective, was that once you gave any kind of definition to the word you immediately misunderstood its meaning.  It is specific, and it is not specific.  It is everything, and it is nothing.

We're all familiar with positive and negative energy in the universe: positive and negative chi, electrons and protons, optimism and pessimism, hope and doubt, trust and fear.  Same ideas, different explanations for reality.  My favorite part about the concept was the flowing metaphor of something that was a connecting force, that did not isolate my body from the world, or from disparate parts of itself: for example, mind & body & spirit; respiratory & circulatory systems.

But as I get older and experience continually reminds me what values tried to teach me long ago, that life isn't as simple as negative and positive.  The bright spots in my life aren't islands, lonely in a sea of dispair, or vice versa.  Positivity can just as likely give rise to negativity or to more positivity, because there are just too many variables in the perspective equation to consider.  Let me give an example: ever hear of the book "That's Good! That's Bad!" by Margery Cuyler? If you haven't its a great book.  It begins: "One day a little boy went to the zoo with his mother and father. They bought him a shiny red balloon."  That balloon then takes the little boy through a series of adventures throughout the zoo, into the hands of a baboon, narrowing escaping the jaws of a giant snake, etc.  At each turn, the narrator(s) seem to be confused in his decision of the outcome, exclaiming: "That's good!  No!  That's bad!"or the other way around.  The narrator can't decide if the outcome will ultimately turn out well or not for the little boy.  Ultimately, what assurance do any of us have?

But I digress.  Neutral chi is the action of inaction, not just a description of a balancing point between two opposing forces, but a force within itself.  In leadership development, this concept was introduced to me as 'stepping back, and letting someone fail' so that they might also learn from the best teacher: experience.  There is a leap of faith involved.  None of us know if/that we will land safely on the other side.  But stepping back and letting the situation run its course is sometimes the best action we can take.  That which we fight to change, sometimes is not ready until inertia has taken it as far as it can go.

Take Apple as an example.  They market their products just like everyone else.  Sure you could say that they were ahead of their time because they were simple in a world of complexity, but think about what complexity they made simple for a second: in order to pull it off they had to spend years and lots of money on R&D (a practice I'm voting they aren't going to follow as strictly, as evidenced by the faultiness of both Lion and iCloud, post-Jobs), to make a product that is integrated and, for the general user "just works."  But then they had to rely on all their own parts, all their own design, all their own rules.  Politically, Apple is the monopolized dictatorship of technology.  I love the functionality as much as the next person, but are those my values?  At that point they don't need to have programs like "Refer a friend and get $100" because they've successfully created a clique. A clique that everyone can join for the right price.  They don't have to appeal to anyone positively, or negatively, their ads just show you the product, and we can't wait to get our hot little hands on that shiny red balloon.