Embracing Change - From Ecology to Economics - Part 6

Putting it back together
Religion means to come together or enjoin.
Yoga means connection
Sin means to crack, or to dis-integrate.
Knowlegde - to know the ledger - memorise the books
So how do these concepts that begin as beauty, joy and acceptance end up creating dissent and conflict?

We capture ideas or patterns of tested beneficial behaviours and we want to share them, that is a kindness.
Our experts and our "masters" do their best to create, dances, maps, diagrams, text, ledgers and even video to capture or memorise these frozen slices of the past so that we may "re-apply" or replay them.

Experts specialise, their skill arises from the practice of focus. However to retain a more integrated view of how our actions effect the wider community we need to consult with many experts and be ready to update as fresh evidence arises. Investing heavily into projects that disturb others or the environment is not conducive to open mindedness.

Taking things Personally
Within the families, companies and markets where we find our income and support we learn how to be contribute, trade and interact to get what we need. We build skills, learn methods and we memorise tricks and rules that we can apply over and over.

Our economic value, (ability to do work) and our ability to socialise shapes our personalities. The articles of knowledge we adopt and the skills or patterns of movement we embody shape our communications. When people show that they do not accept, (reject) either us or the ideals that we represent we either do not mind or we get upset. If we are getting upset it is because we feel threatened. If that threat is not a real immediate physical danger to our person, then it is to our personality.

Our persona is made up of all our preferences, opinions and attachments, it also contains the good stuff, like humour, creativity, kindness, playfulness, unique sensitivity and vision.

Sharing Not so Great Memories
Our personality is formed party from direct experience and the memories and skills we retained, and partly from ideas and concepts that we adopted for personal profit or safety. When we adopt ideas, opinions or beliefs because they enhance or protect our status, (our value among others) our stress response is triggered and we become, irrational, reactive, even angry when those ideas are challenged.

When we feel threatened we also turn to other group members for support or sympathy. In this way even foolish and nasty ideas can spread rapidly if they are scary enough. Being intelligent is no defence at all, especially if the person holding the opinion depends on it for a tittle or entitlement.

Trick or Treat
The more anxious we are, the harder will try to find ideas that reassure us. Ideas that we come to accept while we are agitated or nervous are very hard to let go off, because they reassure us.
That is why we rarely change our mind until we feel calm and safe. The ideas we adopt when we are calm and secure, are not anchored in our identity, we don't take them personally and they do not trigger our stress response - our automatic "nervous" system.

This is why we do not trust people who use negative emotions such as guilt, shame, fear, anger or the threat of rejection/expulsion to convince us of something. That is why clever marketing campaigns will relax us first, build our trust or even our greed before they scare us into adopting their ideas. (Greed is fear of missing out or FOMO).

The experience of Fresh Evidence
No model or map of the territory, will ever be more accurate than the territory itself. The ability to quickly realise when we need to update our concepts without getting upset is a sign of great maturity. It is a sign of great security also. Those who are bolstering their ego’s or their income with the entitlements of tittles may not like the idea of changing the stories they have been telling or admitting to errors they have been selling.

I have listened to incredibly wise masters of psychology and philosophy giving advice on nutrition when they themselves care little about their ability to move, apply force for manual work or work gracefully with ancient food chains. Its not that they do not mean well, its that they are assuming they have knowledge of all things when in fact they are reaching beyond their personal experience. I too am guilty of this, it is a cost of trying to visit so many subjects and retain a 50,000 foot view. I am open to examining blind spots and faulty assumptions, curiosity rather than absolute “truth” is my goal.

Embracing Change - Accept Death
By now you may also see that social fear is at the root of much of our less conscious and reactive behaviour? That social fear is rooted in the idea of being excluded, shunned or shamed. For our species, to be alone is to die, or at best to survive a life barely worth living. While some do enjoy solitude and the great sensory wonder that opens to the silent mind, for most of us our greatest moments are in relationship with others as well as our environment.

Since it is quite impossible to control everything that may happen to us, the only way to ever escape fear is to embrace it. To experience getting close to it, and to accept that death is not only inevitable, it is the only reason that life exists at all. Organic life is a cycle, we all know this, but we confuse suffering with death, we confuse pain with death. Pain is a strong signal to let go, fear increases when we do not, and so does the pain. We then assume that death is a terrible thing because it involves so much suffering. It is not death that creates suffering, it is attachment. It is not detachment that allows joy, it is acceptance. Life is relationship and we can only know it through our senses.

Concepts are great for sharing ideas and reaching consensus on brilliant infrastructure projects such as bridges, market places, schools and hospitals. Concepts are not great places for experiencing relationship, for they at best, are models stripped of texture, frozen and lifeless.

Thank you once again for taking this journey with me.

=8-P

This series is written as a thought experiment, I am a surfboard salesman,( wind and SUP, not the sexy kind lol) so please do forgive my ignorance of existing conventions. I understand that my method and presentation may be disrespectful and even annoying to those who are better trained in such things. I try to keep research and reading to a minimum so that I do not end up repeating assumptions. It is more fun to create fresh and abstract metaphors.

This blog is more about inspiring fresh avenues of curiosity and the property of focus itself rather than the "objects or things" delineated. This way of writing is state dependant, when I go back over what I have written, I often do not “get it” either, so I apologise in advance for any confusion. Phew thats almost a blog in itself…

Ecology to Economics Series
Part 1 - Jelly Brains
Part 2 - Colonies
Part 3 - Consensus
Part 4 - Memory
Part 5 - Decentralising the nervous system
Part 6 - Embracing Change