It’s Time to Facit Saltus
(Be gone Linnaeus and Darwin...)
Maybe it’s a cliche to start a new writing practice in January, but I’ve decided to accept that without cyclical markers like the turnover of a new year, we might never be presented with temporal signposts that tell us: now, this, is the moment to begin.
And so, I launch Facit Saltus as a space to exercise and collect my thinking as I begin to explore all the ways we can find inspiration from the more-than-human world to reimagine and reshape how we think about and practice leadership. I can’t promise myself (or anyone reading) a single through-thread, and I figure ranging widely is half the fun of the project, but the driving questions that shape my reading and research these days will figure heavily in these (hopefully) weekly posts.
Such questions include:
Why is it that “leadership” only ever conjures neoliberal ideals of individual achievements within corporate hierarchies? Why is it only ever associated with advancement in the world of work? What is the history behind these ideas and what work have they done to structure our reality?
If we can assume, given the levels of destruction we are inflicting on the planet, that humanity took a wrong turn with the advent of industrial capitalism and the exploitation of both the natural world and so many of the humans that are a part of it, what do we need to do differently at every scale? What does it mean to rethink “leadership” in order to heal all of that damage, and how might that shape how we interact with one another and with the more-than-human world?
If humans learn through social referencing, or looking to mentors to help us make sense of the world, what might occur if instead of other humans, our mentors were non-human organisms and ecosystems that might teach us what it means to better engage in mutualistic and regenerative practices? Inspired by the field of biomimicry, how might we “quiet our cleverness,” in the words of Janine Benyus, and tap into the wisdom of the natural world to shape our relationships, organizations, and efforts to build sustainable future(s)?
“Facit Saltus” derives from the oft-quoted phrase, “Natura non facit saltus,” which translates to “Nature does not take leaps.” The concept has been a guiding tenet of natural philosophy since Aristotle, and suggests that change in nature only ever happens gradually. It was popularized by Swedish biologist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus in his Philosophia Botanica (1751) and served as a guiding principle in Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species (1859). As naturalists from the early modern period began to try to find order in what seemed like a disordered world, they posited a linear, rational, and ultimately molasses-slow model of evolutionary transformation.
By choosing Facit Saltus as the name of this writing project, I’m asking us to defy the adage and take some leaps. It’s clear that evolution can happen much more quickly than previously thought, as evidence of rapid adaptation among wild animals to the effects of climate change is becoming increasingly abundant. Humans, too, are continuing to evolve at a surprising pace. I’m curious if our evolution could go beyond genetic mutations and include a radical shift in our behaviors, away from exploitative dominance and towards collaborative co-existence. We need to take leaps–and quickly–because we don’t have time to wait.
I’ve been reading around in search of answers to the questions above for months now, squirreling away research notes, having weekly if not daily moments of mental connectivity that felt sparky, like when the power has been out for hours and it sputters back on for a moment with a tinky buzz of the lightbulb filament. But then the power goes back out, and I hope I’ll have captured enough of the momentary illumination to be able to connect those lights in some beautiful future chandelier in the form of a BOOK or another LARGE PROJECT.
I begin Facit Saltus because I’ve decided there is no use in waiting for the lights to come on. Instead, I want to follow the advice of the great Annie Dillard, who assures us in The Writing Life:
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water.
My hope is that by pausing to write each week about those little zaps of insight, it will hold their charge and light them up just a little bit longer. And if they never connect into an elaborate, coherent light fixture, then maybe this will have been the real project all along.