(this is my third and final attempt to write this post given that transfer to google+ has lost the two previous versions to my great chagrin, a feeling i haven't felt for many years, when you lose something you have created and with the wrong click of a button, it is lost for ever... remember those days...?)
I will write deeply about my father and brother one day, though it will not be contained in a post let alone a book. Here, let us talk about hearing and listening.
My father is hard of hearing. As a result, we have a tendency of increasing the volume, of our machines and our voices. As a result, the tv at my parent's house blares, and during the commercials and action scenes, the volume can be overwhelming.
There is an alternative which may appear counter-intuitive. Turn down the volume.
How can this work?
When I have mixed my jax tracks, I deliberately put the voice within the music, subdued, at the side. The listener is then free to appreciate the music directly. If they wish, they can concentrate on the voice and pick out the words. They must attune their hearing.
Whatever the physiological basis to my father's hearing, whether it is a calcification of those tiny stirrup and anvil bones, or a reduction in the flexibility of the eardrum material, or etiolation of the nerve cells around the cochlea, the signal to his brain is lessening. By attuning to the new levels, by re-learning, he might be able to improve his hearing by becoming more sensitive.
Try it yourself. If we can get verification, this may improve the quality of life of many of our elders, and also make our own journeys more pleasant as we take inevitable steps towards the later stages of our own lives.
My brother, on the other hand, can hear perfectly well, but like many people in the west, born as we are in such violent and noisy environments, our ability to listen is somewhat disturbed. I have attempted to be as clear as possible, and as simply as possible, but the medium of wording seems to be all confused with the medium of reading, full of words, so many words, books and blog posts, and it can all be quite overwhelming.
Consider jaxing again. The jaxer is not concerned about saying anything to anyone. They are merely recording their thoughts. If you listen to jaxing as if you are listening to someone talking to you, then it just doesn't work. You are looking for too much, you may be listening too critically. The trick is to listen as if you are listening to yourself, or someone you care about, someone you respect.
Taking the effort to listen, to attend to the small voice improves one's quality of listening. I know because I have done it. Not only for others, but for oneself. I am waiting for others to catch the vibe, the manner of listening so that they can jax, and I can get an insight into their minds, their thinking, their perception without their telling me directly. Something to look forward to in my old age.
Listened in this way, with greater sensitivity, what can be heard? And in turn, what can be said? The deeper aspects of our souls await us, and a sharing of which can only improve the relationships between us, individually, personally, as a family, and should we get our act together, the family at large, humanity. The centre of weight deepens, from the vast and dry tomes of academic discourse, and the rapid and light sound-bites of blogs and pop songs.
The centre of weight between us deepens, fathers, brothers, sons.
elation and spin
There is something strange about this kind of work. I made a significant break-through and started to use spreadsheets to track eco^2 moneyflow. But I don't understand how people can manage it day in day out. There is something about getting dumped, getting caught in the spin of numbers.
Here's an image from the moneyflow google spreadsheet app -- the elation bit:
I know a lot of people live with these kinds of display, especially if you work anywhere close to business and government and are responsible for money, and most households have some domestic accounts. Well, I have avoided this most of my life. Whenever I got paid, I trusted the organisations to get it done, and though I am self-employed, I am very reluctant to keep track of my moneyflow.
However, this little spreadsheet above represents a mathematical experiment. If I alter the first starting value, in this case £30,000, the entire numerical content changes. And whenever I alter the number of people who are invited on the first day, everything changes again.
It may be limited in terms of modelling the eco^2 entity, and I am still exploring/inviting a mathematical description. However, it is something unusual for me. It is actually empirical, as opposed to my more abstract, mathematical and conceptual explorations. I was very exciting to have created it. It is not often I do these things. Hence the break-through.
But here's the rub. I can't concentrate on it. Or at least, as I attempt to refine the model, and it gets seriously complex when I attempt to create a relative temporal model, my mind takes on that strange spin quality that I find uncomfortable. There are too many numbers, too many variables, and I end up either having single-pointed attention, or when I fall out of that, I end up getting dumped. It is like surfing, or at least swimming in the sea. When you are with the wave, everything is used up in one's attention, and one is full and complete. But if you fall out of it, you end up in a spin of bubbles, and worse, getting completely dumped.
I don't like the medium. I much prefer my deduction and insight and human involvement. When it comes to this level of mathematical experimentation, this empirical experiment building, my mind doesn't seem to be able to maintain its focus. Perhaps I have something like the equivalent to myopia, not of the eyes, but of the third eye? I seemed to feel a kind of straining of my third eye, as I stare at the numbers and go through various permutations of complexity.
Any advice? There must be hundreds of people who experience this kind of mental shearing after staring at a screen of numbers for too long. What's the trick?
Here's an image from the moneyflow google spreadsheet app -- the elation bit:
I know a lot of people live with these kinds of display, especially if you work anywhere close to business and government and are responsible for money, and most households have some domestic accounts. Well, I have avoided this most of my life. Whenever I got paid, I trusted the organisations to get it done, and though I am self-employed, I am very reluctant to keep track of my moneyflow.
However, this little spreadsheet above represents a mathematical experiment. If I alter the first starting value, in this case £30,000, the entire numerical content changes. And whenever I alter the number of people who are invited on the first day, everything changes again.
It may be limited in terms of modelling the eco^2 entity, and I am still exploring/inviting a mathematical description. However, it is something unusual for me. It is actually empirical, as opposed to my more abstract, mathematical and conceptual explorations. I was very exciting to have created it. It is not often I do these things. Hence the break-through.
But here's the rub. I can't concentrate on it. Or at least, as I attempt to refine the model, and it gets seriously complex when I attempt to create a relative temporal model, my mind takes on that strange spin quality that I find uncomfortable. There are too many numbers, too many variables, and I end up either having single-pointed attention, or when I fall out of that, I end up getting dumped. It is like surfing, or at least swimming in the sea. When you are with the wave, everything is used up in one's attention, and one is full and complete. But if you fall out of it, you end up in a spin of bubbles, and worse, getting completely dumped.
I don't like the medium. I much prefer my deduction and insight and human involvement. When it comes to this level of mathematical experimentation, this empirical experiment building, my mind doesn't seem to be able to maintain its focus. Perhaps I have something like the equivalent to myopia, not of the eyes, but of the third eye? I seemed to feel a kind of straining of my third eye, as I stare at the numbers and go through various permutations of complexity.
Any advice? There must be hundreds of people who experience this kind of mental shearing after staring at a screen of numbers for too long. What's the trick?
eco^2 weighted moneyflow
Let us say a book attracts £40,000 and eight people worked together to write and produce and market it. The amount is split up equally in terms of numbers of people. (Whether we balance this in terms of the amount of time that people were present in the eco^2 to make this, giving fractional amounts, or it is distributed to everyone who is present at the end of the project, as continuous distribution.) Effectively it is about calculating the number of manhours, and dividing the sum. These are shown by the little arrows in the diagram.
But instead of each person receiving this fractional amount of money, it is immediately divided in the ratio of the subjective values given throughout the project’s history, and in the relative ratios between people. That is, if one person only worked an hour, and their contribution is not considered astronomically important, they will end up only receiving a small percentage of the money that is directed towards the person who worked for a month. So the subjective enumeration acts like a weighting system.
In the example above, let us say that everyone has spent the same amount of time and are present at the end of the event, and they get £5,000 allocated to them, this money is distributed through the enumerated values that have been given throughout the project. If I worked with Nick, Lloyd, Pam, Sal and Luke out of the eight staff, and gave them fractional evaluations of 0.4, 0.2, 0.1, 0.1, and 0.2, then Nick would receive £2000, Lloyd £1000, Pam and Sal £500 each, and Luke £1000. I appear to get nothing. However, I am getting the fractional values from all the people I worked with, and this sum might end up as higher or lower than the base average of £5000.
If we derive a google-esque network calculation, the money flow can be distributed proportionally before this money flows. And we can do this not only with eight people around a specific project, but everyone within the entity across all projects.
Is this considered fair? The weighted moneyflow, so that perhaps the original writers are estimated by their fellows as contributing most value and thus get the highest split of the moneyflow. And if this can be done with a sub-group of the entire population of the entity, why not extend this to include everyone in the eco^2 entity? Imagine, even if you don’t produce anything of value that has a monetary return, you get a small amount from every project that converts into money.
Imagine, everyone working in the hub, everyone, even if you haven’t spoken to them, is actually working on producing value, most of which converts into moneyflow at some stage. And if you think about our current situation, this is what is happening as a nation, Britain plc, USA Inc. Only, the largest entities that are based on traditional financial structures, these social objects of government and corporations, can not form a global entity. The closest that has been managed is the United Nations, and it doesn’t take much to recognise the arthritic rates of change that the UN is capable of.
The eco^2 entity is more flexible, and not only leveraging the power of the internet and rooting value in real-world person-to-person engagement, but also giving humanity an opportunity to deal with the massive environmental collapse that traditional organisational structures and moneyflow have produced. Eco^2 offers us a vehicle, a means, for humanity to create sustainable relationships, and a sustainable global society.
(from 5.6 weighted moneyflow from eco^2)
end-first thinking
One line of thinking has arisen, and mentioned in the last section, that of thinking of the end. It goes along with the notion of a name being attributed to someone’s actions retrospectively [like the teacher who can only take the role once a student makes them so]. Similarly, at the highest level, is it possible to think of the end of the whole entity? Or at least, if it scales to a global entity, and there is more money at the edges of the entity, contained within this scalable invitation membrane, than money in the outside world? Is this kind of thinking useful? It is a type of thought-experiment called backcasting, but I have never attempted this with numbers, at least, not to this extent.
The total global trade of the world was estimated to be around $27 trillion in 2010. This does not include the ludicrous amounts of money transacted on stock exchanges, the futures markets, and all the other absurd money-on-money games. I believe this figure is as close to the ground as is practically possible to compute. The amount of money to keep the world going round with regard to the distribution of things, foodstuffs, and the like.
So, if our entity is to exist at that level, then it needs to have this amount of money at the boundary, and contain half the population of the world, or there-abouts. Can this be a useful consideration? Can we plan ahead and consider that this entity reaches this point sometime during the 21st century? This allows funders to play at the century level, knowing full well that they are funding a possible transformation of the social world. And if this is stretching things, my intuition threw up an even more unrealistic date of within the decade.
As yet, this level of thinking might be best suited for wise^0, though it may give us some useful figures even at the outset, with the kinds of guidelines if we are to hit certain beautiful and optimistic results.
The total global trade of the world was estimated to be around $27 trillion in 2010. This does not include the ludicrous amounts of money transacted on stock exchanges, the futures markets, and all the other absurd money-on-money games. I believe this figure is as close to the ground as is practically possible to compute. The amount of money to keep the world going round with regard to the distribution of things, foodstuffs, and the like.
So, if our entity is to exist at that level, then it needs to have this amount of money at the boundary, and contain half the population of the world, or there-abouts. Can this be a useful consideration? Can we plan ahead and consider that this entity reaches this point sometime during the 21st century? This allows funders to play at the century level, knowing full well that they are funding a possible transformation of the social world. And if this is stretching things, my intuition threw up an even more unrealistic date of within the decade.
As yet, this level of thinking might be best suited for wise^0, though it may give us some useful figures even at the outset, with the kinds of guidelines if we are to hit certain beautiful and optimistic results.
(from 4.35 end first thinking from the eco^2 entity)
eco to the power of two
inducing a new economic entity
This work-in-progress ecological economics document describes a new economic entity, a non-bounded non-group, the moneyflow around it, and the internal network of relationships that encourage subjective evaluation, as well as how members of this non-group interact financially with standard groups such as corporations, government bodies, educational centers and so on. In terms of culture change over the next decade, this entity effects a transformation of money-making into value-creation in a financially viable way.There are four main elements (and two optional ones) to this new economic entity:
- self-selecting filter to the non-bounded, or non-group
- regular non-directed group meeting
- established action cycles
- scalable invitation
- (tracking subjective enumeration, as part of the confluence model platform)
- (macropatronage to inject money into influential individuals)
The fourth, scalable invitation, is the main operator of eco^2 since it combines the functions of funding, buying-selling, and investment all in one scalable “transaction”. We are working on a maths equation for this moneyflow. By modelling it theoretically, we can estimate the ideal funding to initiate the system. Once functional, it can be coded in order to track the moneyflow through operational practice on an hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month, decade to decade and even century to century period!
provisional proposal
This system is to be proposed initially to Westminster Hub (“hubminster”), and their associated bodies, with three levels of initial engagement:- honourary guarantors, where they enable the process at the hub
- minimal guarantors, in the order of £2k funding
- optimum guarantors, in the order of £30k
- (optional guarantor, fulfilling one of the tests, which is to attract a £1m-decade guarantor)
We’d like to give the system a run for its money, for a month or a season. It is projected that the system will reach break-even within three months given the optimum initial commitment in terms of funding and time.
Because the subject matter has multiple-aspect within deep subjective experience -- we are offering an alternative way to deal with money after all -- this document consists of different people’s contributions. Rather than producing a mashup, each persons section is their own, offering written descriptions and graphics to explain the concepts, processes and mechanics of the new entity. The one consistent format we are aiming for is a mathematical description of the movement of money.
eco to the power of two provisional proposal david’s intuition a little more detail on the eco^2 entity a little more detail on the eco^2 proposal explorative engagement at hubminster 2012 0117 explaining the elements of the eco^2 entity 1) self-selecting filter 1.1 Pam’s Landscape of Change 1.2 Subjective Tests 1.3 action cycle 1.4 Data Entry 2) regular non-directed gatherings 3) establishing action cycles 4) scalable invitation 4.1 fundamental generalised contract - “double your money” 4.2 moneyphilic and moneyphobic aspects of being 4.3 scale of contract 4.4 how is the money guaranteed? 4.5 is the money that people bring used in any way? 4.6 what are the dangers involved? 4.7 who is empowered to invite? and how many? 4.8 general equation of “incoming” 4.9 operational model and outstanding questions (5) subjective enumeration 5.1 subjective enumeration 0-10 5.2 relative to total evaluation over a period 5.3 value is experiential 5.4 sharing the surplus 5.5 weighted moneyflow 5.6 outstanding questions (6) macropatronage explaining the elements of the eco^2 proposal what the eco^2 entity is not! glossary otherwise lloyd’s consideration
time and value
As usual, the big posts, when they come, come of their own accord. This being the first of 2012, a big year mostly because it is self-created by social movements, a collision between different cultures (mayan? who would have guessed), and suffering from the ignominy of not having a nice round figure, like 2010 or even 2000. In this post, we will find ourselves contemplating self-discipline, the necessary conditions that give rise to it, and how these has been displaced by the illusion of money and the authority of position. This has direct impact on my own personal life, and how alone I am, and how my social value is next to nothing, a good thing to contemplate at the beginning of the year! As well shedding light on the most exciting possibility of creating a non-bounded group, the birth of a new politico-economic unity -- perhaps the first and last of its kind! But first, a monkey beside a river...
a monkey beside a river
A beautiful river. Wide, so wide as to be mistaken for a lake or a sea. Clean, open horizon, uncluttered by mountains, trees, anything, almost mathematical in simplicity. The complex sparkling, the sun reflecting off a million waves, an ever changing pattern. A living thing, this river, unique with each passing moment, like the monkey on the bank observing it.
So the monkey plunges its hand into the living thing that is the river, and pulls it out, grasping tightly. It relaxes its hold, opens his hand and looks there -- no river. The monkey plunges his hand once again into the river, and pulls it out, but no matter how tight its grasp, the river eludes capture. So the monkey gets frustrated, gets excited in turn, jumping away from the water's edge, now hopping back, this damnable snake, this river, so obvious and big, so elusive and ungraspable.
Exhausted finally, lying on the bank of the river, an arm falls to the side, the hand slips into the water. Noticing the passing of water, the movement of the river. Feeling the passing of time, with this river, this living. Being part of the water, the moment of the river. Finally, being human.
conditions for self-discipline versus money and position
People have jobs. They work for the money. If the money was not there, then they would not work. For some people, or some of the time, we do the work and that's it, glad when it is over, washing the dishes, cleaning the toilet. For some people, some of the time, if you are going to do something, you might as well do it well, cooking food for others, fixing a car, teaching another a skill. However the job is done, people return to do it again and again. The necessary condition for getting a job done is it needs to be done, perhaps repeatedly. I have a blocked toilet upstairs, and if this continues, I will be taking a dump in already blocked toilet. Not good. It needs to be cleared, for it to be use sustainably as a toilet. And pooping definitely needs to happen.
Necessity is what is required to sustain living. This is the required condition for self-discipline. Because of the complexity of our social living, such necessary conditions have been replaced mentally with making money. We need to make money (to pay for food, electricity, sewage services), and thus, mistakenly, we perceive a need to do the job. But of course, do all jobs need to be done? Perhaps the toilet needs replumbed, perhaps the car needs repaired, perhaps the phones need connected, perhaps the proposal needs to be read or written. Or perhaps not.
Consider, for a moment, the necessity that is born with a mother's love to care for their child, of the love that Jesus or Mohammad demonstrated for their people. Consider the devotion that monks have to their order, or the incalculable acts of generosity demonstrated by people all around the world today. There is a necessity somewhere in here, a necessity that encourages us to be human, to exhibit qualities of ourselves that we can term self-less or virtuous. To live a principled life, to follow not the external form of law, or position, or money, but an internal and invisible form that poets might reach in exalted and agile leaps of faith, their their spirits outstretched, only to bring back words, baubles of air for they capture nothing, words such as principle and hope and love. There is necessity here, and we feel it, all of us, at one time or another, to return to this, to being human.
my social value is next to nothing
When I was a student, I did my best. Not with any particular amount of effort, just being attentive, doing what was asked of me. Some things need to be done, so do them, and do them well. My social value was high, as a student, because I accepted the collective wisdom of adults to learn maths and science and english literature, and sports too. And it was also high because I had groups of friends and we played sports and games. So, when I reached adulthood, the end of a twenty year journey, a whole generation had passed away, and my social value was high, locally, and presumably, globally.
In the adult world of work, there seem to be a lot of jobs that are being done, but purpose of doing them is not entirely clear. Digging oil out of the ground, so we can form plastics and drive trucks around so we can distribute food, makes some kind of sense. And I found, after twenty years of playing adult games and working as a math teacher, another generation has passed away, and it is clear that the global situation is terrible, at least environmentally. The toilet is blocked, and we keep dumping in it. Not good. The world of work, and this includes education and government and even religion, the adult world is broken.
My social value is next to nothing. I have used what social value I had to draw attention to alternative means of approach, from problem-solving to problem-prevention. In effect, I have exchanged the denomination of social value from information, knowledge and skills, from business and work, into a denomination of social value of wisdom, awareness and sensitivity, of responsibility and play. And this social denomination is hardly worth anything. Honestly, my social value is next to nothing.
my social value is near zero
Let me emphasise this point, perhaps too much for it makes for painful reading. It is a rather sad one, but only if we take it personally. At the time of writing, I am living alone, and this a consequence of the decisions I have made. I do not own a home, or even rent one. I do not have friends who call me up to see me. And I do not have a fraternity of colleagues, who respect me professionally. Honestly, the only people who actually look forward to seeing me, are my mother and my father, and the rare exceptional bod. Really. Not my siblings or their off-spring or partners, not my old school friends, certainly not their partners, not my old tango partners, not recent partner entrepreneurs. Not those I consider wise, not those I consider bright, excepting children. Only a couple of parents invite me to their home, for they witness the liveness evoked in their children. Next to no-one, a twilight zone of social spirit.
There are few adults in this twilight zone I frequent. The only people I have met and spend any time with, are the destitute insane, and I have met two in my wanderings. Those who take regular walks from their warm and comfortable homes because they are so unbearably unhappy with their partners and are in desperate need of human companionship. Or those pitiful ghosts who drone and wheeze their endless angst because they are "trapped" at work, even when that work is actually self-selected -- and I have met plenty of these. Or those blind optimists who dream of utopias out of reach, sing the praises of long-dead visionaries and poets, or from the comfort of their armchairs cheer mistakenly for reactionary conflict (eg arab spring) and then turn away from the consequential, bloody mess of fall-out. And a few high-flying geniuses so pre-occupied with pure things of mind or spirit that they shine with their own light and find their own way in this shadowy no-man's land.
I have been mistaken for a lunatic, a forlorn lover, a complaining worker drone, a misguided idealist, and even a genius! I only wish I was, because then I would have some comfort in some kind of fraternity, albeit a mutually deluded one. No, I have chosen the path, or it has chosen me, and I have been shaped by the love of my parents, the warmth of family, the self-selection of friends, the administration of teachers, the mutual growth of friends, the inspiration of adolescent students, the rare wandering genius, and this has resulted in the exchange value of my social worth to be near zero. I am alone. Which is ironic, tragically so, since my solution is entirely social! But this only makes sense if one understands why I have not found my place, why I have not found contentedness with some group, politically bounded as a UK citizen or culturally as a Scot, professionally as a math teacher or personally as a friend or a father, within a business of my own making or a fraternity of entreprenuers, or with like-minded hobbiests of GO or tango -- the only group that I identify myself with is, humanity. No less (however all-encompassing the intense worlds of children may be), and no more (hence no religious brotherhood either, alas).
the world's first and only non-bounded politico-economic group!
My solutions over the years reveal a certain pattern. It is evident to them all. It is to do with this singular identity, as being human. And thus the main problem to be overcome is miscommunication. Miscommunication of word between us as individuals, miscommunication between our social institutions, and miscommunication embodied as the mis-distribution of our natural resources. We need to realise the wisdom between us.
To this end, I am aiming to approach the top of our social pyramids, our executives, namely Richard Branson of the Virgin network. I am engaging low level entities, our colleges, with non-linear learning lessons. On the entertainment side, we are approaching tango communities to improve social dynamics, diminish the calcification due to cliques. And we shall propose a working methodology for business to conduct itself, using Pam's filtering process, Lloyd's non-directed group, Tav's or Wahome's trust metrics, my action cycles and perhaps macropatronage. If it works, we shall have formed a non-bounded entity. Something like the internet, or Facebook, but in the real world.
I shall find happiness, as a human being, once we are communicating well. My range is expanding from the middle frequency of adolescent, slowly into young adults though they can hardly believe what I am suggesting, easily into the mystery of the young like Anna and Joe, Wendy and Steve's kids, and the veritable wasteland of the old, and shall ever-so-slowly dawn into the adult world of my peers. This rate of communication, personally, shall be determined only by personal capacity (and I have even given up on buddhists to escape the mental contraption they have for a headset), something ineffable, something like innocence. AND, the rate at which companies and governments and various crystalisations of human minds dissolve, something I shall attempt to address over the next few months in this portentous year of 2012. AND, as a consequence, though we may only see the beginnings of it this year, the equable redistribution of resources, of food, energy, communications, commodities, service and experiences.
the timing of this year and our ultimate social value
So, pulling it all together in some kind of terse conclusion. I require discipline from others, merely to be human, that is all. And for myself too. To allow our souls to lift with the qualities of spirit we are gifted with, all of us, but not in some religious house, not in prayer, but in our homes and factories and offices. To bring ourselves to presence, to allow possibility to grow where we least expect it, to plant seeds in the concrete of our daily work. And should we manage this miracle, the harvest shall be a blossoming of our souls, a blooming of consciousness on this planet. But this can only arise if we exhibit the same kind of discipline we apply to work, more precisely that internal sense "work ethic", a strict self-discipline that will enable us to over come the challenges we will face not merely physically, but psychically. Money, work, institutions, governance, all of it, takes on different form, and this can be quite unsettling to the part of us that likes patterns and comfort. We must be comfortable with not understanding, and still giving things a go. An adventurous attitude. Courageous. Determined in not knowing.
I have been describing myself as hard-nosed recently, evoking the manner of Alan Sugar or Steve Jobs. I shall not suffer fools gladly (my teaching experience was a strange mixture of im/patience) and though it is against my nature, which is rather forgiving and laise faire, I shall allow personal responsibilities to fuel this drive. My parents' condition is deplorable, for his genius and her heart. For my personal love for the next generation, and the love of their mother, I direct this personal motivation into my action, giving it momentum and force. It may occur to you that expressing my vulnerability in this post is foolish, such self-disclosure in a business or even a personal setting is social suicide. I have nothing to lose, for my social value is next to nothing. We have nothing to lose, considering the cesspool we are making of nature's divine garden. Indeed, we have everything to gain, or re-gain. The beginnings (for it is a result of so many beginnings since we invented computers) of a non-bounded political-economic unity, in this year, 2012.
I shall be calling this entity ecological economics, eco^2. It has a boundary of engagement that is like a living thing. Starting as a trickle, you may feel its movement as a stream with each new person who aligns, and with all the momentum of a river, it will make a sea of us. Don't try to grasp it with your mind, merely add to it your humanity. It is a social unity bounded by humanity, a natural boundary. It is a living embodiment of our social value. It is our home; as our individual consciousness has made a home our individual body, so our social consciousness has made a home of our planet.
Be human! Be well!
old age and denial
Denial mounts, builds, encrusts, and is the very thing that makes old people old. So, whatever your age, if you haven't cleaned your teeth as often as you should, you will have a build up of plaque. If you haven't cleaned your mind as often as you should, your mind will have a build up of routines. If you are busy, you have regular responsibilities that have just become part of the mental furniture of your life, whether they take the form of children or jobs or whatever social behaviour you participate in, then you are old, or are in the process of ageing.
What's the way out of this? Regular cleaning of the mind. What's the test that you are not old? Open mindedness, an ability to see what is before you. The world is changing, and if you are old, and living in denial is part of your operating system, then you won't be able to see the changes. They just build up and up, until massive changes, just don't impinge, because you live in a such a tiny corner of the world, a bubble, a cave. That's being old. And whatever your age, if you don't wake up to this, you will grow old, you will be old, you will be treated as we treat old people. Which is disgraceful.
Where does this come from? Living with my parents for a week, noticing how disconnected they are from the state of the world, and how isolated they are in relation to their own family. And allowing my subconscious to bubble away with some ideas, and let this manifest as a mindflow that involves my brother, an old friend, and a person I respect.
mindflow
This mindflow worked as far as I allowed it in my mind, waking me up and getting me out of bed to make a note of it at 7am. I was so enthused I sent off an email to three people who might be interested. And got nothing back. Nothing. Of course, it is the holiday season. People are busy. As busy as they are when they are at work? Wait a mo! Is that a good thing??
For some reason, my mind turns things I have heard or witnessed, about the quality of life people have, and somehow conjures up a possible new formulation, a thing of beauty. It converts negative into positive. I did this with kids, and it worked wonders. I do this with adults, one-on-one, and it can work wonders too. But, my god, with family and friends, it is damned tricky.
the lesson
Be careful about what one dreams up. I am attempting to become harder, more concentrated, to be able to go in the direction I wish to go in. This means more will. This means making decisions. This starts to invite judgement, dissatisfaction with what is.
Creating opportunity is an art. And I am pretty good at it. That's what I do. And I am free enough to do it. I am directing myself to the executive approach, and the college one, and perhaps a little with tango and with business hubs, and I have a soft spot in pulling together an opportunity for Westminster Hub just because it is fun.
I must be self-disciplined enough to not allow myself to veer off from any of these. Simple as that.
old age
So, my mother would like to think that things are ok, with the world and with her family. Se is in her seventies. The world should be ok, and her kids should be too. But for some reason, whatever the reasons, the world is falling apart, she sees this on the news, and her family members experience troubles. The challenges they face, whether it is my great niece divorcing or my brother not meeting with critical acclaim, are things she feels very personally. She can't help it. Their sorrows are her sorrows, their happiness is her happiness. That's the way it works. And so, at her age -- and rightly so! -- she would like to share the happiness, and not suffer the sorrow.
My father is different. He gets angry. He feels for them, for sure, but converts the feeling into aggression. That's the way it works for him.
As their kid, I played around with conversion, keeping my eyes open and translating this into a win-win for us all. This hasn't worked. It has left me with the response which induces "bad practice" -- to engage others with possibilities and then being dismissed. This is makes for powerless relationships. Energy goes nowhere. It just dissipates. It evaporates. Hence, opportunities are lost. This is something which is not good to repeat.
So, how does one keep young minded, open minded, and yet directed? Be responsive and yet focussed, without just getting into repetitive cycles of behaviour and thinking? I need to learn a way of dealing with dismissal that does not involve me being confused, and just waiting, wondering what on earth is going on. I did that for a decade. The only other way I know I have is to be aggressive, as demonstrated by my father, or super entertaining as my brother which can get rather harsh. It is not asked for, hence the required energy levels, just like what happened in classes. The dynamics get a little heated, but if it works, the results are rather spectacular.
the answer
Can I do this? Well, watch out! If I don't take it personally, and end up in self-pity and confusion, then it comes across in a different way. My natural conclusion is people are too busy, they are confused, blind, maybe even ignorant, incompetent. Even idiotic, imbecilic! In a funny way of course. I never used these terms in my classes. But I made it quite clear that certain behaviours were unfavourable. I will turn up the positivity, but just like a class that doesn't go for it, and the few individuals who want to drag us into tedious social dynamics, one has to bark a little. And with adolescents, the desire to play is a lot closer to the surface. With adults, it is buried so deep under so much crap, the volume levels required to wake the soul, can be rather loud, the light rather sharp. That's the way of it.
Female violence wreaks as much damage on the soul as male violence, if not more so. But that's for another post. Be awake! Be alive! Be well!
What's the way out of this? Regular cleaning of the mind. What's the test that you are not old? Open mindedness, an ability to see what is before you. The world is changing, and if you are old, and living in denial is part of your operating system, then you won't be able to see the changes. They just build up and up, until massive changes, just don't impinge, because you live in a such a tiny corner of the world, a bubble, a cave. That's being old. And whatever your age, if you don't wake up to this, you will grow old, you will be old, you will be treated as we treat old people. Which is disgraceful.
Where does this come from? Living with my parents for a week, noticing how disconnected they are from the state of the world, and how isolated they are in relation to their own family. And allowing my subconscious to bubble away with some ideas, and let this manifest as a mindflow that involves my brother, an old friend, and a person I respect.
mindflow
This mindflow worked as far as I allowed it in my mind, waking me up and getting me out of bed to make a note of it at 7am. I was so enthused I sent off an email to three people who might be interested. And got nothing back. Nothing. Of course, it is the holiday season. People are busy. As busy as they are when they are at work? Wait a mo! Is that a good thing??
For some reason, my mind turns things I have heard or witnessed, about the quality of life people have, and somehow conjures up a possible new formulation, a thing of beauty. It converts negative into positive. I did this with kids, and it worked wonders. I do this with adults, one-on-one, and it can work wonders too. But, my god, with family and friends, it is damned tricky.
the lesson
Be careful about what one dreams up. I am attempting to become harder, more concentrated, to be able to go in the direction I wish to go in. This means more will. This means making decisions. This starts to invite judgement, dissatisfaction with what is.
Creating opportunity is an art. And I am pretty good at it. That's what I do. And I am free enough to do it. I am directing myself to the executive approach, and the college one, and perhaps a little with tango and with business hubs, and I have a soft spot in pulling together an opportunity for Westminster Hub just because it is fun.
I must be self-disciplined enough to not allow myself to veer off from any of these. Simple as that.
old age
So, my mother would like to think that things are ok, with the world and with her family. Se is in her seventies. The world should be ok, and her kids should be too. But for some reason, whatever the reasons, the world is falling apart, she sees this on the news, and her family members experience troubles. The challenges they face, whether it is my great niece divorcing or my brother not meeting with critical acclaim, are things she feels very personally. She can't help it. Their sorrows are her sorrows, their happiness is her happiness. That's the way it works. And so, at her age -- and rightly so! -- she would like to share the happiness, and not suffer the sorrow.
My father is different. He gets angry. He feels for them, for sure, but converts the feeling into aggression. That's the way it works for him.
As their kid, I played around with conversion, keeping my eyes open and translating this into a win-win for us all. This hasn't worked. It has left me with the response which induces "bad practice" -- to engage others with possibilities and then being dismissed. This is makes for powerless relationships. Energy goes nowhere. It just dissipates. It evaporates. Hence, opportunities are lost. This is something which is not good to repeat.
So, how does one keep young minded, open minded, and yet directed? Be responsive and yet focussed, without just getting into repetitive cycles of behaviour and thinking? I need to learn a way of dealing with dismissal that does not involve me being confused, and just waiting, wondering what on earth is going on. I did that for a decade. The only other way I know I have is to be aggressive, as demonstrated by my father, or super entertaining as my brother which can get rather harsh. It is not asked for, hence the required energy levels, just like what happened in classes. The dynamics get a little heated, but if it works, the results are rather spectacular.
the answer
Can I do this? Well, watch out! If I don't take it personally, and end up in self-pity and confusion, then it comes across in a different way. My natural conclusion is people are too busy, they are confused, blind, maybe even ignorant, incompetent. Even idiotic, imbecilic! In a funny way of course. I never used these terms in my classes. But I made it quite clear that certain behaviours were unfavourable. I will turn up the positivity, but just like a class that doesn't go for it, and the few individuals who want to drag us into tedious social dynamics, one has to bark a little. And with adolescents, the desire to play is a lot closer to the surface. With adults, it is buried so deep under so much crap, the volume levels required to wake the soul, can be rather loud, the light rather sharp. That's the way of it.
Female violence wreaks as much damage on the soul as male violence, if not more so. But that's for another post. Be awake! Be alive! Be well!
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