Stumbled across this post below on how vertical development relates to the elections in the United States today and provided my commentary on it below, both from the possibility of a late stage leader being drawn to a political position but also the importance of how leaders today need to be higher stages to understand the complexity of the problems we face.
Beyond Red and Blue: The U.S. Election as a Test of Adult Development
Whichever side you might be on, the imminent U.S. election is a choice between starkly different worldviews. What might vertical development teach us about the candidates and this moment?
What about Nelson Mandela? Yes, a different country but a late stage leader who transformed their country and their people expectations of what a leader should be from a political position.
Yes, America is different, filled with empty talk and phoniness as the norm in terms of politics, but it doesn’t mean it needs to continue that way. It can take a different path if people choose to take one. But if the dominant mindset of the people is based in lower stages focused on having a “strong leader” to “take control” so that “all their problems can just go away”, that’s who people will vote for regardless if that leader has an actual understanding of the problems and plan for them.
This to me is the more troubling issue. That being the relationship between the leaders stage of development and their ability to grasp simple, complicated, complex, and even wicked problems. Lower stages will often think they know everything and have simple answers for complex problems. Yet in trying to tackle complex problems with simple solutions, they may make them infinitely worse.
This ties into what Robert Fritz said in his book The Path of Least Resistance. It’s not enough having a clear vision of where you want to go into the future. You also have to be seeing and understanding the present reality clearly as well. Yet most political leaders today still don’t seem to understand the full breadth and scope of the systemic wicked problems we are encountering today. Having said that though, at least Harris seems like she’d be open and curious to listening to ideas, whereas Trump would just assume he’s the smart person in the room and doesn’t need to listen to anyone.
I think part of the problem with growth and development is that so often our beliefs are double-edge swords. They both empower us by allowing us to work within a new space of possibilities but also disempower us by preventing us from seeing newer spaces beyond the one we are already within.
For myself, I think my greatest weakness in this regards is my disbelief in myself which arises from societal expectations and beliefs that I place upon myself and thus beat myself up with. It’s almost like my ego is a bully standing in my own way, crushing my confidence on a daily basis.
This is the main thing I need to let go of. My disbelief in my self, my journey so far, and what is possible for me in the future.
For example, I’ve been on this journey for over twenty years now, since 2001, and no matter how many amazing moments of synchronicity occur in my life, guiding me like quest givers within an MMORPG, I still continually disbelieve all of the amazing things I’ve learnt along the way. That’s because it requires me to let go of the external, societal belongingness that I so desperately seek and instead replace it with a truer sense of sovereign belongingness found within the realm of my inner self.
True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.
Even though I grew up within a religious family, going to church each Sunday as a kid, I wouldn’t really call myself a religious person, so much as I’d describe myself as a spiritual person.
The differentiation for me is important because I think this is the transition and journey my mother went through in her own life. She was deeply religious when I was a kid but by the time I reached my teenage years, she was finding the church life cynical and petty, with people often judging others so that they themselves wouldn’t be judged by others themselves (aka psychological projection).
So she went on a journey beyond religion and stepped into the realm of the spiritual, finding her own way, which gave her life a lot more meaning and gave her a much more personal inner journey and understanding of the basic tenets of religion that I think a lot of religious people today are completely missing. It’s not about what’s happening out there and what other people are doing wrong. But about what’s happening within you and how you can let go of these things that are not letting you be the person you want to be (and who you already are deep down inside).
This touches upon my discovery (via Margaret Wheatley) in the past of Thomas Merton, an American monk and writer, and some of the quotes from his writings that I’ve only recently read in-depth.
For example, this quote below touches upon a mantra of mine which is “work on living what you’ve learnt through play.”
A purely mental life may be destructive if it leads us to substitute thought for life and ideas for actions. The activity proper to man is purely mental because man is not just a disembodied mind. Our destiny is to live out what we think, because unless we live what we know, we do not even know it. It is only by making our knowledge part of ourselves, through action, that we enter into the reality that is signified by our concepts.
Thomas Merton Thoughts in Solitude
What I find fascinating about his work and writings though is that in some of his most famous quotes, you can see someone who is on a spiritual journey of self-discovery that resonates closely with what Joseph Campbell describes as The Hero Path, where at “the center of our existence” we aren’t alone but “shall find God” and “be with all the world.”
In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world…
This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. . . . But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.
Thomas Merton Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
I think this is in the deeper sense the connectedness that underlies all religions, yet is somewhat sadly blocked by most religions, as each one often sees their view of the world as superior and right compared to the wrongness of others. So often most religions stand in their own way, just as our own ego stands in our own way as well.
If you can get past this limiting view of the world though, as Thomas Merton did, you can discover a whole new way of being and a whole new way of perceiving the world. This is just another way of describing what vertical development is to me without calling it “vertical development.”
It is liking climbing a mountain into your “self” but with each progressive vista completely shattering and upending the way you view the world and your “self” as a whole.
For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.”
I use the Flipboard app almost on a daily basis, so much so that I often end up doom flipping through it. I think this is a weakness of my explorer mindset in that I’m constantly exploring for new things that relate to my life’s work. Yet this can obviously pull me down rabbit holes where I completely lose track of time, wasting away the day.
Even though I love the way the Flipboard app works in terms of flipping between articles, my number one issue with is that it no longer supports native RSS feeds (even though it is at least embracing the Fediverse).
Another huge issue with Flipboard is that it’s main “For You” feed continually dumps in news that you may not be interested in. Yes you can use the filtering options to say you want “more” or “less” of certain topics (although it very confusing how this works) and you can also completely “mute” a news site if you like as well.
However muting sites actually occurs locally on your device rather than the cloud, so on slower, older machines, it can dramatically slow down the Flipboard experience, as you could end up waiting multiple seconds everyone once in while between flips, as your device filters out certain new sites you no longer want to see from the newer articles being loaded.
Realizing that using Flipboard is overwhelming me by continually distracting me, I’ve decided to go back to an RSS feed app on my iPad called Unread that I used briefly before.
While the basic functions of the app are free (with advanced features included for a monthly or yearly subscription), I find the basic functionality more than sufficient for my needs. In fact, if I was to pay for it, I’d prefer a single payment lifetime option, as well as more options for changing the formatting of what you’re reading (i.e. line height, width, etc).
Nevertheless, it still meets my simple needs in a simple way. And I’m enjoying reading again from people I’ve subscribed to in the past, as well as some newer people as well.
The best thing of all is that when I’m finished reading and go back to my overall list of feeds, I eventually reach a point where there is nothing left to read which gives this strange feeling of being able to just breathe again. Almost like you can finally exhale again after inhaling too much.
But I guess that relates to the rhythm of being creative. Breathe in for inspiration. Breathe out for creation (which hopefully connects with and inspires someone else in turn).
While checking back and seeing what Derek Sivers is up to, I noticed him referencing Bear. Assuming he was talking about the Bear app, I quickly discovered he was referring to the Bear blogging platform instead which is a creation of Herman Martinus.
Shun the bloat of the current web, embrace the bear necessities.
Bear Blog
While highly impressed with the platform as an extremely minimalistic way to blog, what I really loved was Bear’s Discover page which lists the trending and most recent blogs on the platform, as well as a way to search for blogs by keywords.
While browsing through some of these blogs, it totally gave me that old school feeling of blogging from years back which is really nice to see in our overloaded and overwhelming world today.
At the same time, it amazed me how you could create something so simple and yet still foster authentic connections between people without resorting to something much more massive like what the Substack platform has done.
Don’t get me wrong. I think what Substack is achieving is amazing in itself as well, especially with regards to giving people a writing platform to make a viable economic living on. Yet at the same time, I find the Substack platform can be overwhelming and distracting at times, so the simplicity and distraction free nature of the Bear blogging platform is great to see.
I guess that’s the paradox that most of us are looking for in wanting both individuality and collectiveness at the same time. We want to create a safe space where we can daringly be our authentic selves (beyond what other people might initially think we are), yet at the same time find a community of others who resonate with the language we speak and metaphors we’re using in expressing ourselves.
I just had an interesting conversation with Claude.ai that started by asking how to shift your mindset from blogging to taking notes using the evergreen note method. It overwhelmed me with its response but a key takeaway was to shift from a diary approach of “What I did today” to “What am I exploring”
What this made me realize was that I’m often stuck in the details of what I’m exploring so much so that I often forget what I’m exploring. This effectively feels like being stuck in a maze, going in circles, because your viewing things very close to ground rather than having a strategic birds-eye perspective of things.
Realizing what Claude.ai was talking about, I asked it if it meant that I should focus on patterns rather than talking about the details of the patterns so much and it said that’s exactly what it meant.
Why this is important is because this is something I’ve known for a while but have yet been able to construct and organize upon a website, rather than just within my mind.
Basically my internal mind approach is as follows.
See the patterns. See the relationships between the patterns. See the identity and big picture of the system emerging overall.
Again how to show this on a website is what I struggle with but I think an evergreen notes method of interlinking smaller, atomic notes would help achieve it. Yet I struggle with how to start this.
Anyways when I realized what it was telling me to shift my mindset, I asked it if it could be applied to shifting one’s mindset for vertical development and it said it could.
It said to focus on patterns that relate to transforming yourself and your mindset, like 1) perspective-holding capacity (i.e. open to multiple perspectives), 2) identity transition (ie letting go of expert mindset), and 3) paradox navigation (i.e. letting go of seeking closure).
This approach, focusing on patterns, creates something that one can stand upon within the detailed flow that creates the pattern itself.
In closing, Claude.ai indicated the following which really hit home in terms of how I’ve been feeling lately. Both in terms of feeling stuck but also being able to stop and sort of rise above the flow in a liminal moment, witnessing it pass me by without it overwhelming me.
Instead of seeing your “stuck-ness” as failure, you’re tracking how your capacity to hold complexity is actually developing, even when it doesn’t feel like it.
Just had an obvious realization relating to my last post about articulating your view of the world (aka worldview) by highlighting the distinction between an old belief and a new one that embodies a newer value.
In terms of sharing my worldview, as well as vertical development, here’s an obvious myth that jumped out at me that most people still believe today.
Myth: You don’t grow or evolve after reaching adulthood.
So there’s this assumption and belief that when you become an “adult,” you basically know everything that there is to know about living your life now.
This is complete utter bullshit.
Becoming an adult is just a starting point, a transition, to a larger world of understanding of what it means to be a human being.
It’s like levelling up and looking back to realize “you’ve made it.” But then, turning back around and looking forward, you realize you’ve only “made it” to a whole new game. One you have to figure out all over again.
That’s the eternal cycle of life. Levelling up and thinking you’ve made it but only to realize that there’s still a larger game to play.
This is vertical development in a nutshell.
And yes, this scares the shit out of most people because you can never know it all. Although people still try to fake it by trying to be a know-it-all.
Yesterday, while browsing through some of the posts that Tim Denning has, I realized that instead of describing what and how vertical development is, he’s actually showing vertical development in action which explains why it is important in an indirect way (i.e. removes perceived obstacles from your life).
He does this with a lot of his posts by hitting you in the face with a belief that forms the foundation of most conventional people’s mindsets and worldviews but then proceeds to upend that belief to show how false it is in our world today.
This relates to what Tiago Forte said about leveraging your constraints as opportunities. And it also relates to what Joel Arthur Barker said in his book Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future, whereby constraints are often paradigms that one can let go of and be turned around to create newer, more innovative paradigms.
This also touches upon something Bryan Elliott said that Seth Godin talks about in his recent book This Is Strategy. That being seeing the old patterns, so that you can step beyond them.
Understanding systems means identifying the forces that resist change and finding leverage points within those systems to introduce new ways of doing things.
As Seth points out, when launching a new product or entering a market, it’s not enough to just be different—you have to map out the patterns that have defined success and failure in that space.
Even what Robert Fritz highlighted in his book The Path of Least Resistance relates to this. That being having a clear vision of the future you want to create isn’t enough. You also have to be able to see reality clearly in the present as well. In other words, the two of these are required to build a bridge to what you want to create, thus creating the creation tension to impel you forward.
This is what Tim Denning is doing. He’s showing the present reality Unfiltered (which is the name of his publication).
He does this by articulating our society’s present reality clearly and unfiltered, show what one present societal belief is and how it is often a myth and wrong. He then proceeds to show another vision of the future with a different belief, one that often embodies values the empower the person, rather than disempower them, like the old beliefs were doing.
I find this all fascinating because it got me asking the question, “How would I articulate my own worldview right now?” And the even greater question is, “How the hell does one go about articulating their encompassing worldview in the first place?”
It seems like a daunting task. But again, it seems like the touch points for it are where one’s old beliefs are replaced by newer beliefs and values, ones that radically transform the perspective of the person as a whole.
In the beginner stages of life – that most adults never progress out of – we’re taught to be narrow-minded in our thinking. As you progress to higher states of consciousness the world starts to look different.
As you start to transcend into higher states of consciousness – that’s not taught in school, jobs, or university – the world looks different. You see humans as one. You begin to notice we’re part of a much bigger universe.
This sudden transformation leads you to chase a higher purpose in life. That purpose helps you operate daily in never-ending flow states.
As you start to do this, the law of attraction kicks in, and you suddenly meet higher-quality humans who give you better answers and solve some of your hardest problems with ease.
So…
Choosing a niche is the most narrow-minded, useless, stupid way to look at our complex world.
Until you go beyond the surface you’ll never experience the depth that comes with being nicheless, where the world feels abundant and overflowing with money & opportunities.
You’re here because you resonate with the ideas I share. You’re interested in my view of the world (even if you don’t agree with every part). You’re here to think differently.
The ancient Greeks knew writers entered a real, imaginal realm when they wrote and that they encountered the mythic there. They knew there was something more than the merely human involved. Writers, artists of all kinds, enter a particular kind of dreaming state as they create and something from out there, from some other place, comes into and through them. Writers inhabit an older world, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that their dreaming is a bridge between two worlds, or perhaps even that their dreaming allows them access to an ancient, imaginal realm filled with myth and that their writing is an account of what they find there—perhaps it is all three. Writers begin in this normal everyday world in which we live when we think we are awake, and they move, as a way of life, into another, one that is, as Homer intimately understood, filled with powers all of us have been told no longer exist.
Stephen Harrod Buhner Ensouling Language: On the Art of Nonfiction and the Writer’s Life
These weren’t so much for gauging interest on the topic on Substack, as they were a test of seeing whether I could get into the groove of writing again.
Incredibly, it felt amazing to write these and they just seemed to flow out of me. I basically started writing at around 9 AM in the morning and wrote till around noon and published them each, one day after the other.
After I had completed the final of the three, I really felt good about myself and felt like I had gotten into the groove of writing again.
But after spending the weekend to reflect upon them, it dawned on me that even though these felt great in terms of writing them, they weren’t the voice, tone, and language I was looking for. Of course, what it is that I am looking for in terms of these is what I am still struggling with.
The inability to communicate one’s thoughts is in very truth the most terrible of all kinds of loneliness.
Friedrich Nietzsche
If I could put this feeling of what tone and language I am looking for into words though, it would have to be this (along with a video I discovered a couple months back that seems like the perfect metaphor for it).
It would be as though you realized that all of the greatest writers in the world were sharing a secret magical language that in turn allowed you to discover a secret level to life within which lies a whole new world you can adventure within.
And only you have the capability to unlock this world because you are the key to it.
That’s what I want my words to feel like. As though you are uncovering something both mystical and magical at the same time, a deeper truth to life that most people are completely unaware of, one that opens a way to a whole new world by opening it within you first.
This is what vertical development feels like to me when I don’t have to describe the technicality of it. It shouldn’t feel like your reading a dry, boring, technical computer manual on how to upgrade your brain. It should feel like a wondrous playful adventure to a new world of possibilities, one that gives you a collection of moments and experiences that transform your entire worldview and entire way of being.
People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
Joseph Campbell
It’s time. This world has waited for your arrival. It is you. You will open the door. Because you are the chosen. All those moments. It’s a new adventure. Just for you. Come in. You have a game to play.
