Episode 31: The Problem with Problems - The Problematic Worldview
In this episode, Marti and Todd begin a new three-part series exploring "The Problem With Problems," focusing first on the worldview that centers around problems and solutions. They open with a revealing story about forest management, where the seemingly simple solution to prevent all forest fires actually created the conditions for far more devastating blazes – a perfect illustration of how our problem-solution mindset often backfires in complex living systems.
The conversation delves into how deeply we've embedded this problem-solving reflex in modern life. From business to healthcare to personal development, we've trained ourselves to see challenges primarily as problems needing fixes. But what if this very worldview is limiting our ability to thrive in a complex world?
Drawing from original human wisdom, Marti and Todd invite us to consider a different way of being – one where we participate in living systems rather than trying to control them. They explore how our sense of belonging shifts when we stop looking for problems everywhere and instead experience our membership in the world around us.
This thought-provoking conversation challenges us to reconsider the problem-solution paradigm that has shaped our modern world and encourages us to explore more expansive, creative ways of engaging with life's challenges and possibilities.
Series: The Problem with Problems
We live in a world dominated by problem-solving. From personal development to global policy, we're trained to identify issues, analyze them, and implement solutions. But what if this very mindset—our problem-solution paradigm—is itself limiting our capacity to navigate the complexity of our time?
In "The Problem with Problems," Marti and Todd explore how our fixation on problems shapes our reality, influences our sense of belonging, and may blind us to the deeper patterns at play. This three-part series invites listeners to question a fundamental assumption of modern life: that progress comes primarily through fixing what's broken.
What might we discover if, instead of asking "how do we solve this problem?" we asked "how do we participate more wisely in this living system?" Join us as we venture beyond the problem-solution mindset into more expansive ways of seeing, being, and creating.
Photo by Cup of Couple
Timeline
01:03 Episode Introduction
01:22 Seeing Everything as a Simple Problem
03:52 The Appeal of Problem Solving
05:38 The Problem-Solution Trap
08:00 Series Overview
09:25 Original Human Wisdom & Problems
11:12 Worldview and Belonging
14:55 Reconnecting with Nature
16:44 Problem Fixations in Modern Systems
19:43 Seeing Whole Systems
22:43 Learning Through Participation
25:47 Relational Intelligence
29:24 Natural Cycles
34:22 Limitations of the Solutions Mindset
37:38 Knowing Without Thinking
40:43 Retrieving What We've Lost
42:02 Potentialities - The Source of Potentiality (Marti)
55:12 Takeaways
58:53 Closing
Quotes
“Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.”— H.L. Mencken
“Look around at how we frame almost everything in our world today. Climate change is a problem to be solved. Social inequality is a problem to be solved. Political polarization, healthcare access, education—all problems to be solved.
Our news headlines, our business strategies, our political campaigns, even our personal development journeys—all framed through the lens of problems and solutions.
But what if this worldview itself—this habit of seeing everything as a problem to be fixed—is limiting our ability to navigate the complexity of our time?” — Todd Hoskins
“Like wearing blinders, our problem-seeking mindset limits what we can see.” — Todd Hoskins
“We can't control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them!” — Donella Meadows
“What if, rather than seeing problems everywhere—in our organizations, our communities, our planet, even in ourselves—we saw opportunities for deeper understanding and more skillful participation?” — Todd Hoskins
“Against the usual instincts…, I am asking all…to forego their normal hope for a plan, a grand scheme to fix what’s wrong… That is a big part of why it is the way it is…, this problem-solving reflex.” — Stephen Jenkinson
“if we start looking at everything as a problem—if that becomes our cosmology—we start trying to do things and change things that don't have anything to do with us.” — Marti Spiegelman
“When we look at the problem with problems, there is a global distortion in in the way humans understand their belonging In this world. We as a general rule feel that we belong at a certain level of ownership and control, and we don't understand this business of participation.” — Marti Spiegelman
“If I think I'm in control, then I immediately think my control has to keep everything going in the right way, or the way I want it. So we start fixing things that don't need fixing.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Creativity does not source from need. It sources from wholeness.” — Don Manuel Quispe
“When we're not aware of our membership, we lose the capacity to know the language of the world around us.” — Marti Spiegelman
“We think we're fixing. We think we're making new things. But it's all outside of the system of life . . . what we're talking about is how humans have ended up relative to the world itself. We've ended up outside of the systems of life. We created what we're calling a worldview that supports our position, but leaves us outside the dance hall.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Humans have always understood how to steward their forests and their prairies and their communities, aware moment to moment in conversation with the world, informed by the world as the trees. The forests and the animals and the winds around us will tell us what is occurring and will tell us what we can do to support the whole system.” — Marti Spiegelman
“In our problem-oriented view, we're actually pulling things apart instead of looking at the whole body.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Most of our consciousness is sensory-based. It's relational. It meaning it puts one data bit in relationship with a bunch of other data bits. It's not linear. It doesn't need logic to create an idea or an image or know something.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Humans have cycles of life, and there are natural endings. And at the ending, something new begins. We call this change. And when we problem solve too much, we refuse change. And so we're refusing consciousness. We're refusing the powers of creation and evolution and all the things that we're looking for.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Some things don't need to be fixed. They need to be allowed to complete.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Life creates conditions conducive to life.” — Janine Benyus
“Solutions often retain the logic of the problems they are trying to exile. The idea of proliferating solutions doesn’t feel like the energy of these times; it doesn’t feel like what the wilderness is calling for.” — Bayo Akomolafe
“When we experience our membership and become so present and aware, you'll have these moments of just like a flash of, ‘I actually belong in the universe.’ That's where we need to live from. And in that state, the universe informs us and we stop problem solving and fixing and worrying about solutions. We're informed moment to moment because we're experiencing our belonging. We're participating as part of the system.” — Marti Spiegelman
“In terms of consciousness, everything inside us came from outside of us. When I say ‘the universe informs us’ what I mean is that somehow the knowing of our role is given into us moment to moment. When we relax into being, we know we don't have to think; we just flow through the day.” — Marti Spiegelman
“When you are operating from a place of your own collective power, you'll be making fewer decisions.” — Todd Hoskins
“Our Western lens operates mostly in a two dimensional, linear fashion. It's driven by causality. It's aimed at reaching goals and endpoints. The indigenous lens is multidimensional, it's relational. It's about creating life moment to moment from a central point outward.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Potentiality isn't visible or accessible through comparison.” — Marti Spiegelman
Links
Impact of US forest fire suppression policy
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
The Psychology and Physiology of Breathing by Robert Fried
Humans gather one billion bits of sensory data per second
Credits
Theme music courtesy of Cloud Cult