Beyond the Dilemma: Being, Doing, and Becoming
Previously I wrote about the Being+Doing Dilemma. We feel as though we need to do and want to be. This is a closer look at how these two seemingly opposing forces can be reconciled. The expansive news: what allows for the alleviation of the tension can be brought to bear on most all instances involving diametrically opposing forces. This is supported by The Law of Three which has been most widely spread through Gurdjieff’s work.
As a starting point it will help to name a few contextual and foundational aspects of the Law of Three and why it is important. As the name implies it involves three dimensions, each of these dimensions can be understood as an energy or animating force. The categories of these energies are: affirming, denying, and reconciling.
On Becoming: A Metaphysics of Human Evolution
The Triadic Dance: A Path to Vocation
I am not what many would consider a "good" dancer, as my wife and daughter will readily attest. Yet there's something about dancing that has always…
Beyond the Dilemma: Being, Doing, and Becoming
Previously I wrote about the Being+Doing Dilemma. We feel as though we need to do and want to be. This is a closer look at how these two seemingly…
Making Room for Contradiction
Contradictions, the way that we can be one way and then another way that are seemingly opposite to each other – all within the span of a single day or hour. My first example,
Trajectory: A noticing and an invitation
Hello dear reader, A few words on the last two posts of poetry. A sentiment you have likely read before: we are inundated with information, ideas, and the like; evermore…
Skyfarm 2025
We stand stationary teeming with silent vitality
Stories
the doorway where all that is left is Life
From Machine to Mystery: A Journey Through the Body
For the first 20+ years of my life, I approached my body the way one might approach a machine that needed optimization. I worked on it—lifting weights to build…
Breathing Underwater
What is it to relax into the seeming paradox of our need to participate and the insufficiency of our participation.
The Being+Doing dilemma
Explore the Being+Doing dilemma and discover how to balance your inner self with external expectations. Embrace a journey of self-awareness and authenticity.
Who <> How <> What
... his team felt like they were giving carefully chosen gifts that were politely acknowledged but never unwrapped. The breakthrough came when we realized:
On Becoming
A way of understanding human life that listens for what is called from ahead rather than unfolded from behind. That finds essence emerging with existence, not before it. That takes our deepest participation to be kenotic — self-emptying, receptive, quietly creative.
A work in progress. A discourse released in pieces, accompanied by shorter essays that test the ideas in practice. An invitation into a paradigm already present in a long lineage, articulated afresh for coaches, leaders, and anyone concerned with the shape of transformation.
Adam Klein is a coach, teacher, and writer working at the edges of what it means to become.
He is Managing Director and Senior Faculty at New Ventures West, the integral coaching school founded in San Francisco in 1987, where along with his partners he stewards the school's ever-evolving methodology. He hosts the Stepping In podcast, looking at what becoming means practically for each of us. Through his own practice he coaches leaders and organizations navigating significant transitions.
This site hosts his writing — a major theme of which is On Becoming, an articulation of underlying metaphysical principles at play in our growth and evolution.
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