Founder? CEO? Try All-Purpose Doula.
Misgivings around formal authority, the Tao of Leadership, and Creekmason democracy
I received the same incitements toward arrogant narcissism as any millennial. Criticisms of my messiah complex could rival those levied at only the most insane. I have been programmed since birth to seek fame, status, leadership, self-importance, and self-righteousness.
In short, society tried to make me a fascist.
I came of age convinced the world would be better off if others only believed what I believed. Behaved how I behaved. Thought my thoughts.
I often wonder how much of that indoctrination I’d have gotten if my class, facial symmetry, skin tone, sexual orientation and genital configuration were something other than what could euphemistically be called “the cultural default.”
Do the adults from my life sound familiar to you?
“You’re going to be in the Gifted and Talented program! Aren’t you excited?”
“With a little more practice, you could be a great team captain!”
“Don’t shut the door on Stanford. You’re aiming too low!”
Why was I never encouraged to have more humble, realistic ambitions?
Again, it might have something to do with which parenting strategies were popular when I was growing up. The infamous participation trophies. The praise that was so ubiquitous it qualifies as gaslighting.
Or maybe it was the encouragement I received from the culture because of my identity. All the white male savior protagonists in Hollywood who hacked the Matrix, beat up the Bad Guy, and liberated the oppressed. There was no shortage of messages from the media that the ideas and contributions of people who look like me were essential to civilization averting disaster and dystopia.
That desire to serve really doesn’t sound that evil, but its often unacknowledged shadow of self-aggrandizement poisons it. The implication that I have the answers—or that any one person could—keeps us locked in the same systemic loops and myths that have led to our present precarious moment.
That’s why The Creekmasons Content Collective is decentralized: structured such that no member is granted institutional authority over any other.
Now that I’ve recognized my tendency toward inflated self-importance, I don’t want to damn it entirely. However, a part of healthy integration appears to be an allergy I’ve developed to occupying formal positions of power.
The alcoholics who maintain sobriety effectively don’t tend to have a special reserve of will power unavailable to us normal addicts, they do it by using their precious little will power on not putting themselves into tempting situations. Calling myself the Founder of the Creekmasons is like having a fridge full of White Claw—which is another problem I’m dealing with right now, in case you were wondering.
In a recent livestream with the author of Your Leadership Moment, Eric Martin, Charles Eisenstein did what he does best and put elegant words to an idea I had already been kicking around the same week with awe-inspiring synchronicity.
The same week that the Creekmasons have been discussing a proposed anarchic, anti-authoritarian model of curating this blog and Content Collective that eschews traditional Editors in Chief, Eisenstein and Martin explored how modern leadership might most effectively be compared to hosting a party or sitting hospice for someone through their dying process.
Their shared contention was that a leader’s role is to create space. Not necessarily by sitting in mindful repose—although that can be helpful—but by applying their thoughtfulness toward curating an experience in which the very best outcomes arise naturally.
Picture my suburban landscape, nestled into a valley surrounded by mountains, run through with little creeks here and there that lead toward larger waterways, which themselves lead to reservoirs. When it rains, gravity ensures the water rolls down the mountains and finds these well worn tributaries toward its eventual collection and preservation. Just like humans are wont to do, it finds the path of least resistance. It flows through my neighborhood exactly how the terrain provides space for it to flow.
The incentive structures of systems—like those that comprise society—work the same way.
The hospice metaphor that Martin used in that livestream evokes some volunteers and an organization taking care of everything on behalf of a person in their final days so that they can die with grace.
The party-planning metaphor is similar. Through decorating intentionally, the planner inspires a mood. Through carefully considering where to put the dip, the beverages, and the seats the planner can curate an experience for their guests: they can influence where people congregate. If there are chairs in a circle, the party is more likely to have good chatsies; if a large open space is cleared near a sound system, people are more likely to dance.
The hospice worker has very little control over the dying person’s experience and the party planner has only a little more authority over the vibe of their event, but they’re both leaders in the sense that they have set up an environment in which others have the very best chance of success.
When it comes to the Creekmasons, perhaps hospice is the wrong metaphor for helping a nascent organization find its identity and achieve its potential. In the sense of “being a steward to an entity through a rite of passage,” perhaps the title of “doula” is more appropriate.
The master does nothing and yet nothing remains undone.
Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu
As the Creekmasons’ All-Purpose Doula—I have written elsewhere about how my art itself is an attempt to support people through difficult transitions—I am striving to cultivate a space in which the natural impulse of members aligns perfectly with the highest calling of their True Self. I strive to lead gently, while invoking as little “power-over” as possible. I strive to embody wuwei, and act only by holding receptive space for the very best qualities of every Creekmason to emerge.
This contradicts the supremacist, dominator, colonizer impulses I was programmed with in a way that feels meaningful, authentic, and delicious.
I’m going to resist the impulse to slip into used car salesmen mode and self-promote obsequiously, but to close out, I’ll report that democracy is finally taking its first official steps on the Creekmason Discord.
The nuts and bolts lean toward the complicated, but in essence, the Creekmason server utilizes the MEE6 bot and a—currently optional—Patreon integration to assign the Patron Practicus role to anyone who wants to participate in the democracy.
Right now, Patron Practici are voting on topics as light-hearted as the name we’ll give to the channel where we discuss Magic/Woo/Magick/Occult topics, but we’re also beginning our discussion on how this blog will be curated.
Geoff Gallinger writes poems, essays and fiction and has said a time or two that a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing from SF State qualifies them perfectly for being a pizza driver. That sounds like self-deprecation, but hours a day completely alone in a beater car with an audiobook and a notepad for company are actually a good approximation of a “room of one’s own.”
Being home isn’t too bad either; their daughter and wife will always be their primary audience.