Qualitative diversity on a college campus would be someone who was home schooled, believes absolutely in Biblical inerrancy, and believes sex should be saved for marriage. Such people are abhorred by the very people who use Diversity in every other sentence. What they mean is superficial diversity, not diversity of ideas and world view.
Edmund Burke talked about the powerful influence of fashion in the French Revolutionary period. Entertainment, clothes, food, gossip: all in constant motion.
This is the thing, and I am repeating myself, but I hope in a slightly different way: there are types of change which are not really change at all. It may be that the song at the top of the Pop chart varies weekly, but does the TYPE of song vary? Not really.
It may be that clothes fashions change continually, but does the nature and purpose of clothes really change?
Outward motion, in my view, can and often is used to mask inner stagnation. You might know someone who is constantly embracing the latest thing, and think that their life varies often. But if the rule is “embrace the latest thing”, then that rule itself is constant, isn’t it, and it implies a lack of personal freedom and choice, does it not?
You can look at constant motion and see constant change. You can also look at constant motion, and see circles everywhere, repeating endless loops, in tired and boring fashions of fashion. This is taking the same information and forming a different pattern.
Paradigmatic work is difficult, which is why so few do it.
And I can’t remember if I posted this or not, but within Complexity Theory they have this duality of explore/exploit. If you want the best ham sandwich, you need to try a few places. Once you find a really good one, it makes some sense to go there regularly, but if you never explore, you can’t be sure there isn’t a better one somewhere. People spend careers optimizing these sorts of processes.
What I would say though with regard to inner work is that exploration is almost entirely the whole game. You dig and dig and dig and dig. And the more you learn, the more naturally becomes integrated into your life effortlessly. “Exploiting” is simply greater skill in what you had to do anyway.
The only place there is a choice is in the Learn/Teach dichotomy. The best teacher is someone who has spent the most and best quality time not teaching, but learning. Teaching, of course, can be learning, but it is not the focal point.
There was a famous Tibetan teacher–I think it was Padmasambhava, but I don’t have time to look it up–who spent most of his time alone, came out a delivered a sermon or two, then headed out again, never to return. He saw that teaching made him useless to himself. He also saw the need to say something, even if it was damaging to his own practice.
This world is filled, potentially, with very interesting people and activities, and most of us avail ourselves of almost nothing given to us.