numbers and people

This is a bit of a mixed post. Some things have happened in reality with people, and some ideas have popped into my head with regards to number.

The situation regarding people is of a sort that by talking about it, one just gets caught up in the minutiae, which tests the patience of any reader; and if the experience was not enough to challenge the realities of those involved in person, how on earth with a retelling of it to others achieve anything but reinforce the partisan nature of the reading?

One situation was brought about through our engagement with a person undergoing a mental breakdown. He has been sectioned, and because none of us know him well since he is visiting the country, there are no deep ties to him. He is a lone individual. He is lost, not only in society, but in his own mind. Our community invited him in, offered him warmth and fellowship, but his aggressive behaviour resulted in fracas in three different groups and so he has been cast out of each. If we were a stronger community, we would find some place for him, for sure, but it is not large or expansive enough for that to happen. What the guy needs is engagement with nature, that would cool him down, get him out of his head. Our extended network of contacts didn't result in that.

Another situation involves a person I have got to know over this year. I acknowledged his genius, and this was the basis of our engagement. His observations on humanity are keen, his attention to detail with wording accurate, and he responds often with an attempt to humour people. He's been writing film scripts, with none made yet. I met him drunk, and he's been drunk for around 6 months, since the day I met him. We met mostly to play GO, but in the process, we talked and slowly I impinged upon his reality to the point where he actually stopped drinking. For a month. But this ended yesterday. The pressures of christmas, the family turmoils that still eat him from within, an inability to engage other people in a social situation, contributed to him tipping over the edge into the barrel of alcohol comforts, affording him a numbness to his acute sensitivity to the human condition. He feels the suffering.

I had my part to play in both cases. In the first, I offered my services, but they were not taken up. I am glad, since my service is to confront, and to confront this chap in his poor condition would be very demanding for him for me and for anyone around. The opportunity was scuppered. In the midst of the cold, both community-wise and nature-wise, I invited him into the house for a cup of tea, not to offer anything in the way of psychological therapy but merely to offer a cup of tea and some minutes of calm. This went against some people's express wishes, and it caused them much distress. I apologise for this, since this was not the intention, clearly. When talking about it after the effect, some people expressed their anger violently, physically and emotionally and because the individual in question was not present, the person associated with them became the best target: I have been asked to leave where I live. In fact, the lack of presence is precisely the problem. Such individuals are not present because they are trapped within themselves. Witnessing one's powerlessness in engaging such a trapped individual, is difficult to bear for any of us. Hence, this is the learning experience for any of us, and a real test of community, for any community.

In the second case, I played again a similarly small part. To avoid his falling into the swill again, I asked him to make use of me by calling me when he was experiencing difficulty. This has been successful a few times, but the other day, it didn't work. He turned up, we played GO but then he sat in our living room thus demanding attention from my flatmates, already overburdened with people of strong internal realities. Although accepted at the time, I have been told that he is not to be invited back to the flat, and not the living room. This is reasonable, in its own way, because the living room is also a work space. It is also reasonable, because I have been living here mostly as a guest. Although I contribute to the rent and have my own space, have my name on the lease, I have been living with the intention of going homeless. Later that evening, this individual spent many hours taking out his frustration on me, being overly critical and prejudiced. I don't mind offering help, but not as a punch bag (it's not good for him:) and I made it clear to him I'm happy to play GO and engage him, but not in any work-like capacity.

I am not good at the political thing, not big P not small p. I know there are lots of complex things people create amoungst themselves which makes things harder for everyone concerned. Families are good examples of this, generally. My father disowning my brother is an example, my brother's response being that he didn't care if he saw his father again ever. I stood in the way of both my father's and my brother's reality. To simply state the counter possibilities, keeping things open, can cause a lot of anger in those who have decided through act of will to be harsh to others. Simply holding the space of possibility, I have found, is a tough place, both in family, as well as socially with 2020worldpeace.

It's been a year now, and the results are not impressive. I have one more year, and I do have to risk trying different things. Like Barny inviting me to a comedy night. So, perhaps it is wise that I leave where I live; but having suggested it earlier in the year, no situation has yet arisen. I know the path of homelessness is difficult, and in my present state, I do not know if I will be able to suffer it.

How valuable is it to talk about this? To whom does it benefit? I for one am not happy with what happened or my description of it. I wish I was partisan at least on my side! But I know I am at fault. The conditions, once arisen, taint us all.

Christmas is a difficult time for a lot of people. It brings things up. This is the first time I have had christmas without my family or a partner. I am saddened that I find myself in a situation where my ideals have not found a community willing to rise to the challenges that this presents in everyday day-to-day living. The people I have had the honour of living with for a year have certainly committed to bringing about change in the world. And in no small way. I hope their efforts meet with success in the coming year! I doubt if I shall meet such genius and passion and skills in such a confined space again!

As for numbers... I'll leave that for another post.

pandora

I produced a video a while back, when I was living in Malta entitled virtual or real. A new film is coming out, Avatar, and it fortells a time when we are capable of downloading a consciousness into a grown body, albeit an alien on an alien world called pandora. Actually, the more accurate future projection is that we will download our consciousness into virtually immersed worlds. Millions of people are doing it already, through FB blogs like this, as well as Second Life and gaming realities.

There was also another film this year called pandorium, which I am yet to see.

I am midway through a google tech video entitled science and the taboo of psi by dean radin. If science manages to penetrate the psi mysteries, take it into its fold as it were, we will be existing in quite a different world. The potential repercussions of this way of thinking made me consult Mamading. I wanted to know how he contained/boxed-away the alternative realities, especially the bit where there's a corresponding peak in a reader before an image is actually perceived by the viewer. This falls in my territory, about the substance of mind, and specifically consciousness in time.

I am not prone to mystical thinking. I have thought, however, that if we achieve a global sustainable planet, there may be some kind of shock through time that could be perceived before it happens. Let's say I was sensitive enough to it, and my monkey mind stuck a date of 2020 on it. A lot more people are sticking 2012 on it.

Seriously, I don't think we will enable a global state of consciousness and inter-individual trust sufficient to undergo the transformation required for our institutions by 2012. In fact, by the end of 2010, I am willing to give up on the idea of us enabling it for 2020. If it is to happen, we need some people to stand up and be fully human, to take the stand, to be heroic enough that ages in to the future they shall be singing our praises.

Who's up for it?

So, while I promote the game armagetron and try to get it into schools, I am meditating on this 2020worldpeace possibility. It's not this blog that will attract the right minds, but if there is anything to psi and global field consciousness or some such, then meditation alone is all that is needed. That's my real job, as it were.

This is the kind of thinking that comes out of pandora's box. I am not prone to it, because it interferes with scientific methodology. The current intuition while watching dean's talk is that I will be in a position of knowing how fabricated the notion is. I knew it when I wrote the tome, specifically how fictional events become reality, and more specific yet, how collective ideals become real. I look forward to a time when I am so detached from it that I can play with it as a fantasy, in contrast to others who will be a little too attached to the notion.

There is something very restful in thinking in this direction.

Be well!

your words

XQ posits there is another side to maths, the subjective side. Also, maths is a minimal language. Only recently did a realisation come that was clear and reminded me of what I already know. Words, clearly, have a subjective side.

When speaking, it is not the words we mean, but the words that are heard that matter. Simple as that. It is not what is written but what is read that matters. You can even find this on the back cover of the monolith I first wrote.

But it has been an age, a decade!, and I have been getting it quite wrong. It happens when you work with adults. There is so much confusion, so much attention to words and their meaning, so much misapplied attention, and ego attachment. With kids, one deals with response, and so one's words are not as important as the effect they have.

I think this is why NLP was such an eye-opener too. The subconscious interpretations compiling beyond first focus attention, assembling an effect in the listeners/reader's mind. And how I had spent a lifetime trying to get through to a point, to being direct. I am doing so again. Reverting to type.

So, if algebra is the equivalent of semantics, of manipulation of unknowns, how does this improve my comprehension/engagement with others? Well, the trick is to clarify certain conditions, the omissions and generalities, in order to get to a solution, comprehension, resolution, freedom from mental obscuration, which is what I tend to to -- or, it is to create complex equations such that multiple unknowns resolve in such a way that do not require conscious attention.

My next life, my retirement perhaps, involves reading and writing. Creating such illusions, that I never fall into my own reality, always enjoying the fabrication of others. That is, never to talk unless I am aware that it is in the reality of the listener. I have tended to be frustrated that others do not engage my reality, especially given what I am attempting to draw attention to, ala 2020worldpeace, but once this gig is over by the end of next year, I shall never have to again. Not in any conscious way.

As for for mathematics, I don't this insight into your reading of these words adds any more weight to XQ.

distributed executive

In traditional structures, especially large ones, there is an executive level. These people are meant to make decisions about the whole organisation, and in particular how it relates and engages the larger and wider world. Which direction the company should take, what policies the government should adopt, etc. The question is: who are the equivalent people making similar decisions in a distributed, networked collective?

We can try to avoid this question, or dismiss it, by saying that a distributed network structure manifests this executive class through a distributed sum of its parts. That is, the whole collective takes its direction from the sum of its parts. Crowd-intelligence, that kind of thing. And this is true, to an extent. We may even go so far as to say that this process is pervasive in current social dynamics (along the lines of 'everything is self-organised')... but if we look at the big picture, this aspect of crowd-intelligence seems to be resulting in particularly stupid outcomes environmentally.

So, let's rethink the question a little. It's not that we are looking for a grouping, like executives grouping in offices or politicians grouping in parliament/congress. The question is, who are the individuals who perform similar thinking to these executives? They may not perform the same function, because the structure around them is different, ie they are not in a position of top-down implementation. So, who are these people?

First guess might be the social media pundits, such as Jamais Cascio or Michel Bauwens or Clay Shirky. These people are certainly influential. They are guiding a lot of the direction we are going in. But I think of these people as journalists, advisors, social servants even. Are they our executives?

My guess is, which got me out of bed this afternoon, is that our distributed executives are invisible. Such individuals appear to behave like any other. They occupy the same desks, work in the same rooms, appear to live exactly the same lives. They are not exceptional. Their solutions are not applauded, they do not rise up through the hierarchy. They are ignored, they are dismissed. Why? Because they are getting the job done, and nothing more. Whatever solutions they do come up with DO NOT fulfill the criteria of exclusively improving the system/structure around them, and hence they can not be recognised, and thus they do not get promoted. They remain invisible.

(In fact, such individuals, because they do possess something vital, exciting, or enthused, are often seen and this quality is encouraged to work within the organisation for the organisation's benefit; they are seduced with the benefits that come with higher position, money, power, social recognition. But it is a quality of such distributed executive, is that they are incorruptible. They honour the people they work with, their principles. They are not working to further the objectives of the structure in which they find themselves. Of course, there are many who are genuinely working with the people they are with, honouring their truth, their reality to the best of their ability. The distributed executive does this, while at the same time, considering a transformation of the system in which the people exist.)

Think about it. Because the network is distributed and not hierarchically arranged, they have to work at different levels of the system simultaneously. They work on the front line. They don't hang around the sidelines and observe like the pundits. But they don't just do the job asked of them, because then they are accepting the limitations of the structure in which they work. They work at solutions on the front line such that they are fractal and can be implemented at all levels of scale. Such individuals appear to behave like any other, fulfilling the minimal requirements of the system, the maximum requirements of the people they work with, and with potential for whole system change.

Of course, this explanation just happens to fit me! How convenient! I worked in education at the front line, and after quitting for failing to induce educational reform, I ended up engaging educational pundits who had no direct experience of school apart from their childhood experience who seemed confident to expound on how the system should change from the outside. But who cares about me. What I want to know is, do you know anyone who is such a person? If so, please direct them here so they can evaluate it for themselves; in fact, my guess is one of the qualities of a distributed executive is that they know.

In which case, are you a distributed executive? And if so, what do you think if a bunch of distributed executives actually get together? What happens then??

a new role for roles

Here's a recent insight, or rather improvement, for our self-organising attempts. First, ask yourself how it is that traditional structures of organisations work? Because they definitely work. Top-down, hierarchical systems provides a unity of some kind. But what are the specifics, the cogs of the mechanism as it were?

We may be mistaken into thinking it is us -- we are the cogs in the machine. But we are not. The actual teeth of the cogs we make of ourselves are the roles/jobs/positions we occupy. That is, the reason why any of it works, is because we delimit our powers to specific tasks and duties such that they mesh with other positions, both within our own organisations, and across organisations. This is what allows us to get anything done, at least in the west.

So, if we are to get better at self-organising collectively, we ought to adopt something like this. Why? Because my experience of working with adults over the last year, those freed from role-description, end up sliding here and there and all over the place, and there is too much overlapping of our interests and powers and dispositions, etc. But we don't want to adopt roles as they are defined traditionally, otherwise we will no doubt recreate organisations we are familiar with; in fact, this is exactly how all organisations end up, even those defined for social innovation. How can we escape this?

Well, the simple answer is, we define our own roles. Mamading is a network weaver, a mentat, an evangineer. Sofia is a large group facilitator, process designer, soul warrior. Tav is a dream architect, agile programmer, self-professed benevolent dictator. I am a collective strategist, experiential teacher, tron monk. But of course, what do they mean? I don't expect anyone to know, so how can they be useful? [EDIT: I just found a solution architect at a banking-insurance firm!]

How is marketing consultant useful? Financial advisor? They only make sense in their context. I remember when I was a kid, we used to have the school janitor, whereas when I returned to school to teach, they were called site staff.

How can these new self-defined roles work?

First it process of naming and defining helps the person clarify what they actually enjoy/want to do. Try it yourself :)

Second, by being open and frank and introducing these terms to standard business organisations, people at least have some handle on what you do. They want to know who you work with, in order to judge whether they can trust you. We, on the other hand, are working on high-trust. We don't want their understanding, or their money, or even their co-operation perhaps. We just inform them what we are doing so that when they benefit from our actions, they have something to relate to. If we don't tell them before hand, they have no way of knowing even after they have benefited from what we do. They haven't been introduced, as it were. And if we get better at this, we can even ask others to describe what their conditions are when engaging us. For example, if they find themselves using an idea or a term I have invented, they will pay me some money, eg £10/£100 that month (or we can use pecus when they implemented). May not sound like much, but this is the future -- micro payment system.

Third, we begin to look for people who's self-ascription resounds in us with respect to a specific task we are committed to. This means, we may be better able to align ourselves and collaborate.

So, making your roles larger, cartoon like, mythic, may appear artificial to ourselves, since we are doing what we are doing and it appears normal. However, for others, it may give them enough of a handle to work together.

Make sense? Well, as I said, I am an experiential teacher. Which means, try it and see :)

changing gears

Been trying for two weeks to change gears. Very difficult for some reason. Still surrounded by too much talk. And it is seductive to just talk about things, as if that actually does something.

OK, here's a way of framing it, sparked by Barnaby. Imagine the universe as a unity, and one's self as a relative part, a player amongst so many other players. What is the ratio of things appearing that you need, versus things that seem to be the opposite? How much of life is pretty smooth, effortless, just happens, versus work, overcoming challenges, having to apply will? What's the ratio for you?

With me, the ratio is somewhere like 1:150 or something like that. It's not too bad, since there are a few nuggets in there. I calculated it in terms of the number of people i have met who have been really helpful, or the number of conversations that have converted into action, that kind of thing.

What is the ratio for most people working? How much is life effortless as opposed to struggle?

I've had a correlating experience in classes. When it is each individual for themselves, then there are 30 students in the class vying for attention and help of the one teacher. With the head set of, I am of service to others, for each individual, there are 30 individuals out there willing to help. The ratio is inverted. And when it does, amazing things happen. It's a state change at the collective level.

We are undergoing this state change, or at least there are pockets of it, but it will only work if everyone is involved, more or less. Changing the ratio, changing gears.

So, how can I change the ratio around, to 140:1? Of course, I can't. But can you?

changes

Well, about 10 months down the line, and I have very little to show for it. At least with teaching a bunch of kids, they had learned some maths, a bit about themselves and each other. With adults, it seems to be a matter of repeating patterns, dissipation of attention and energies, very little change, and not much in the order of production, or progress.

However much we may complain about democracy and capitalism, at least we are free to think and talk about things, and companies actually get things done. Bridges are built, food gets into mouths, it all seems to work. The power of money and a system ordered by position. I have found a more fluid engagement is more difficult to... manage, but only because people don't have sufficient self-discipline.... a learning experience for sure.

I have been playing around with changing my direction, for the final push, as it were, before the opportunity for 2020worldpeace disappears without a trace. Funnily enough, after a few weeks of dispondency or complete disengagement triggered by an onslaught of mindless behaviour, I came back with an invigorated attempt to reprise the Tron potential. Despite my best attempt to formulate a new economic model using old economic methodologies, I don't hold a huge amount of hope for its success. However, I shall pursue till the end of the year, in one way or another, no matter the number of knock-backs.

On another tack, I had a new thought regarding global self-organising: earthtimezero.com, or globaltimezero.com. Since 2020worldpeace seems too... I don't know... big, or threatening, or unrealistic, or far-fetched, this version is more open ended, depends what people think immediately. I thought that I might devote myself to this. I played around with the notion of being homeless, but I think it may be possible to attempt a shift into dependency, from the state, into the hands of people who see it's benefit, whether one wealthy individual or a collective of micro-patrons. I shall set that up.

For the first time in a long time I decided to meditate. This was a very nice experience. I intend to do more. I wish to do so not to concentrate, or focus the mind, but to let it go, to relax it. Many dynamics have contributed to my mind coming up with not particularly pleasant thoughts about people, or bringing our aspects in my behaviour that I would rather not be. I certainly need to change my environment, where I live. But it is also to do with the many thoughts I have come up with this year. There is only so much one can come up with, without it being tested. And not enough has been tested. And so, I need to give up on these thoughts, to let them go, however valuable I may believe them to be. To do so, I need to park them, put them into formats that are accessible, so that should anyone actually be following similar paths they may find some use in my explorations to assist them on their way.

I really like the idea of being dependent. I don't think I can hack being homeless. Too much, too risky, with my allergies, my skin condition, my lack of validations from others, I could enter into a negative spiral. I am not strong enough for that. I know that. However, if I could seek alms directly, on the street and perhaps with organisations, this might be a source of comfort for me and be of benefit for drawing attention to the potentials. I'd like to use the opportunity to send out a signal to the universe, the universe of monkey-minds that we swim in that is. I sent out a kind of psychic sonar when I was 28, and it met with very strange and powerful resonance. Like that.

It is not a call that can be put into words. It is a deep-seated church-bell kind of call. And those who are resonant will find me, in what-ever way makes sense. Either to explore XQ, 2020worldpeace, or the alternative economic system, via the confluence consultancy, through my practice. This sounds very grandiose, I am sure. But it is actually a silent affair.

Finally, I got an insight into the mind-drop solution. I have been attempting to engage people as I have with kids. I didn't do so through control. The best description I have seen of it was described by a conductor chap on ted talks. Incredible. I have been attempting to collaborate in a way which does not have a control issue. It's a matter of reaching higher levels of consciousness, about knowing our part to play. So... given that it hasn't worked the higher I go, I shall go lower.

And it is interesting that the lower end of the mind-drop solution, towards the dissolution of mind into the preconscious processes, is slightly more risky. It's a matter of becoming more grounded, into the emotions and the reception of sensation, into the multiplicity of what is, into the nerve-delta of the body as it were. Keeping one's centre of balance, is tricky. It's not like keeping the dynamic equilibrium of being on a tight-rope, of walking, but ensuring one doesn't sink into one or other mainstream of sensation or feeling; it's like keeping the overal colour white, while embracing all the colours that come along. Or, to maintain one single metaphor, it's not about following a particular melody in the music, but to dissolve into it all so there is not just one channel, one continuity, risking innundation by noise with the hope it all makes harmonic sense. May all sound a bit odd, but it's a different direction for me. Not what I am used to. At all. I am used to laser concentration with my attention.

So, big changes afoot.