What is a Good Life? What is a Good Life? #96 - The Call Of Creativity with John Oliver
On the 96th episode of What is a Good Life? podcast, I am delighted to introduce our guest, John Oliver. John is an artist and sense-making facilitator, exploring multidisciplinary practices based on complexity principles and narrative frameworks. Since 2020, he has developed an artistic practice that integrates the arts with complexity principles, working in portraiture film, and experimental installations. Certified in developmental psychology coaching and co-founder of Human-Equity Ltd, he specialised in qualitative metrics for organisational development and human insights in investment portfolio management. Previously, John managed technology transfer projects in Nepal and Ghana for the NGO Intermediate Technology Development Group, spent 15 years in strategy consulting, and was an early team member at the French start-up OneAccess. He holds a BEng from Brunel University and an MBA from EDHEC in France.
In this expansive conversation, John shares his journey towards greater creativity and his explorations of self and no-self. We discuss sense-making through dialectics, revelations through creativity, and the concept of positive disintegration. We also delve into the dissonance experienced during transitions, with John sharing his insights on the arts as a spiritual practice.
If you are currently navigating, or contemplating, major or minor life transitions, this conversation offers many valuable insights and themes that are worthy of your contemplation.
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For further content and information check out the following:
John's experimental art: www.tyler.world
John's portraiture film: www.interiortruth.com
John's positive disintegration piece: https://www.tyler.world/positive-disintegration
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Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own lines of self-inquiry through 1-on-1 coaching, take part in my weekly free silent conversations, discuss experiences I create to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your leadership teams, or you simply want to get in touch.
00:00 Introduction
02:50 The path of no self
07:50 Sense making through dialectics
12:10 Revelations through creativity
19:05 Positive disintegration
24:55 New paths and intergenerational influence
29:10 Sense of self and connection to collective
33:40 Navigating the dissonance between transitions
39:20 Realisation through suffering or awareness?
48:20 Integrating the whole
53:20 Silence and being enough
58:20 The arts as a spiritual practice
1:04:05 The Soul and the Spirit
1:10:35 Sexuality as a spiritual practice
1:14:00 What is a good life for John?