The first step to controlling your world
is to control your culture.
The first step — especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money — the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.
Our Great War’s a spiritual war…
Tyler Durden, Fight Club
our Great Depression is our lives.
Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.
I’ve had some interesting experiences over the past few days that have made me realize my place or role within the grander scheme of things if you will. What I’m seeing in the world right now is that there are a lot of people who are striving to become more authentic and independent which is great because this is what I’m all about at my core. It’s about connecting, empowering, and inspiring people to be their true authentic selves and pursue their own passions.
There’s one big problem in what I’m seeing though and this is where I think I might be able to help. I see all of these people becoming self-reliant and independent but at the same time, I seem them disconnecting from others in the process. In effect, what they are finding is that for them to be truly themselves, they feel they have to step away from society and others because others often pressure them to be what they don’t want to be.
Yet for us to evolve as a society, especially to overcome the challenges we face ahead, we need to be able to collectively work together in harmony. So it’s more than just helping individuals to see and live their lives in a new way, we need to help organizations to work in completely new ways as well. In effect, the change has to be holistic in nature, coming from both the bottom (individuals) and the top (organization) at the same time. This approach, which might seem paradoxical in nature, is something that Margaret Wheatley talked about in her book Finding Our Way.
Life takes form as individuals that immediately reach out to create systems of relationships. These individuals and systems arise from two seemingly conflicting forces: the absolute need for individual freedom, and the unequivocal need for relationships.
It seems that whenever we bargain with life and seek to satisfy only one of its two great needs, the result is lifelessness. We must live within the paradox; life does not allow us to choose sides. Our communities must support our individual freedom as a means to community health and resiliency. And individuals must acknowledge their neighbors and make choices based on the desire to be in relationship with them as a means to their own health and resiliency.
And what happens when we don’t fulfill these two needs? Something that will probably look familiar to a lot of people right now.
Particularly in the West, and in response to this too-demanding price of belonging, we move toward isolationism in order to defend our individual freedom. We choose a life lived alone in order for it be our life. We give up the meaningful life that can only be discovered in relationship with others for a meaningless life that at least we think is ours. What we can see from our pursuit of individualism is the terrible price exacted for such independence. We end up in vacant places, overwhelmed by loneliness and the emptiness of life.
I was just watching a show on the Oasis Channel that was talking about the massive diversity of insects within the world (i.e. quintillion). One interesting part of the show was how they were talking about the simple brains that insects have but when they worked together as a whole they collectively were shown to have this emergent complicated behaviour that was normally seen in more complex brained creatures. In effect, this is one of the core fundamentals of my research. I believe that while we are individually highly intelligent, collectively our emergent intelligence could allow us to do things that seem almost impossible within our existing world view today.
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art,
emergence is the way complex systems and patterns
arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.
Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels
and of complex systems.
I think the key fundamental aspect of emergence though is the “relatively simple interactions”. This reminded me a lot of my symbiotic experiences online while playing FPS games. In effect, the simpler the methods of interaction, the more effectively we worked as a group, to the point that no one relayed what was needed to be done but instead just relayed the awareness of what was happening around them. This in turn created a collective awareness that greatly surpassed our own localized awareness, spurring us into action almost instinctively. Now imagine this same emergent power being utilized by groups of people around the world (i.e. communities, organizations, etc)? It would be a pretty amazing world to live within, something that was hinted at by R.L. Wing within The Tao of Power (Tao Te Ching).
“The philosophy that Lao Tzu left behind is actually an experiment, one that individuals undertake when they are ready to enter the next phase of human evolution – that of fully conscious beings who are actively directing both their own destinies and the destiny of the world around them. In his ultimate vision, Lao Tzu believed that if each and every one of us could realize and gain control of our evolutionary power, it would invisibly unit us and allow us to become a collective, compassionate, and fully aware social and universal organism.”
The following shows some of the world view and paradigm differences between an MMO game world and the real world.
Purpose – Usually before we even begin to start interacting within the game world, we are told the overall purpose of our need within it, usually in the form of some global crisis (i.e. an evil is spreading and it needs to be stopped).
Role – While you may look at a list of classes, you’re usually determining what type of role you want to have within the world first (i.e. tank, dps, healer).
Class – Once you’ve clarified your role, you usually decide upon a specific class that fits your play style (i.e. tanks can be warriors, paladins, etc).
Notice that the above approach is top down in nature and assumes at least a general sense of global awareness from the very start. We see the challenging purpose before us and then we decide how to “heroicly” overcome it through our role and class.
Class – Usually once we reach a certain age, we’re told we need to figure out “what we want to be” and sometimes we’re given some aptitude tests to help us figure out our optimal class or “job” in life.
Role – After living a while and having gone through a variety of jobs (classes) in life, we may start seeing a pattern within our lives that there is an optimal role for us to fulfill within the world which can sometimes be figured out through behavioural means (i.e. personality profiles) or metaphysical means (i.e. astrology, numerology, etc).
Purpose – After living almost our entire lives (and sometimes not even then), we may finally see the greater purpose needed within the world around us.
Notice the above approach is bottom up in nature with almost next to no awareness at the start and sometimes almost no full awareness at the end. Even more so, due to not knowing our real role and often picking the wrong class numerous times, we don’t feel very heroicly able to tackle such a large and challenging purpose, even if it is clearly presented before us (i.e. I’m just one person. What can I do?).
I’m simply stunned. I just discovered Peter Michaud’s website and after reading a handful of essays on it, I feel like I’ve met a kindred spirit on a similar journey in life. To start off, his About page describes a sensation that he feels that is almost exactly like a sensation that I feel myself, yet I’ve never ever told anyone about it except maybe my mother and my wife.
I have this pressure in my chest that feels like a fire fighting to get out. It claws up my arms, forcing me to embrace whatever comes, and to love it all the while. It climbs up my throat, and makes me think, and learn, and grow. I feel its heat through my body, and I have no choice but to spread it.
To me, this “fire” in my chest is my creative energy which defines who I uniquely am through the act of creation. Whenever I’m unable to do authentic creative work for whatever reason, I find this creative energy builds up within me until it reaches almost a boiling point. And there have been times when I’ve literally stretched my arms out and head back to try to release this creative energy in a deep emotional blast from my solar plexus, as I visualize this flaming pillar of golden yellowish energy bursting forth from my chest and up towards the heavens. If I could visually show what I’m feeling, it would probably relate closely to what is seen within the final scene of The Fifth Element movie.
But the similarities don’t end there. Like Peter, my passion at its basic core is helping people to become truly authentic individuals which in turn means helping them to express their authentic selves creatively in some way. The difficulty that I’m having right now though is how to clearly express this in words to people because it might seem quite foreign to them, particularly within the materialistic economy-focused world we live in. How I’ve tried to bridge the gap and communicate on a level that people can understand is by using terminology similar to professionals in design, particularly systems design (or ecosystems). And in a sense, that’s really what I’m trying to do, I’m trying to restore or heal the imbalances within a complex system that is out of balance, so that it begins running more efficiently and naturally again.
I think this is why my “Be Real Creative” and “Connect. Empower. Inspire.” mantras are so important to me because they relate directly with this need to help people be more authentic. But what I’ve realized is that before you can truly help other people, you need to truly help yourself first. And that’s what this journal is all about. In effect, it’s a daily reminder to help myself reveal and retain who I truly am deep down inside. Or put another way, I want it to be my place where I can fall back to when life gets too tough and I need to rest and rejuvenate in reflective thought.
That said though, like Peter, I still have this greater desire or purpose that is burning within me and it needs to be released and fulfilled. All I know at this point in time is glimpses of something I’m not quite sure I understand yet. It’s almost like a new way of living that effects all avenues of life (i.e. living, playing, learning, working) and that makes the most sense to me for one very important reason. Life itself is a complex system on a variety of levels. Often times, we think we can change our lives by just changing one aspect of it. Yet often that doesn’t work because we don’t live within a perfect closed system but within a connected environment. Thus if we want to truly change our lives, we need to look at not just one aspect of it but it as a whole which often requires a new outlook or perspective, similar to a paradigm shift. Once that occurs, then your attitude and outlook are completely changed, thus allowing you to change all aspects of your life as a whole in unison and in harmony.
Have you ever been in a situation where someone around you is so upset that their time is being wasted that they blurt out “Come on! Come on! Let’s go!” If you’re a gamer, this might happen within a raid or pick up group experience. If you’re out shopping, it might be someone behind you in a checkout line. If you’re at work, it might be someone in a boardroom with you who doesn’t want to be at the meeting.
The hilarious thing I find in most of these situations is that our lives are often too fast paced as it is already. Actually they’re going so fast sometimes that it becomes an auto-pilot blur to the point that we no longer are aware of what’s going on around us. But you might say, at least we’re still going, still flowing.
Ya, we are. But the important question we need to ask ourselves is this. Are we going and flowing in the right direction? The only way you can seriously ever know this for sure is if you turn off your auto-pilot, get off the track, and take a pit stop. Even then you need to walk away from the distraction of the track, think seriously where you’ve been and where you’re going.
Then and only then will you truly know if everything you’ve furiously been doing for the past while is actually leading you somewhere you want to go or actually taking you farther away. If it’s been taking you farther away, well then it looks like all of that furious fast-paced time saving has actually wasted quite a bit of your time.
I’m starting to see game developers wondering how they can add symbiotic gameplay to their games. While I’ll try to elaborate later in more detail on how to create a symbiotic environment within your social groups, I think it’s critically important to realize how democracy actually counteracts a symbiotic environment. The reason for this should hopefully be obvious.
Symbiotic groups excel in their ability to deal with rapid change or crisis because they act innately without very little communication between them. In effect, when something happens, they automatically know what to do as a group, so they just do it.
In a democratic group though, even though there is no centralized command and control to slow it down, the process of everyone voicing their individual concerns and suggestions can effectively kill any chance of rapid response because, more often than not, people end up arguing about what should be done (and hopefully this in itself is a great hint as to how symbiotic groups work more effectively).
I think another huge difference between a “typical” democratic group of today and a symbiotic group is that individuals within symbiotic groups don’t need to ask for permission from their greater group or community before they engage something. In effect, if they see something that will affect them and the greater group, they immediately engage it but also relay awareness of the situation to others. This awareness is the lifeblood of a symbiotic group because it determines the decision for self-engagement from each individual within the group without them being ordered to do so.
I’ve got a copy of the Tao Te Ching called The Tao of Power that I’ve had for many many years. And like the other books I’ve got on my shelf, it seems to be an endless resource point for self-learning. In effect, I can read a book once, put it back, and then pick it up months or even years later and learn something completely new. I love having books like that.
What I noticed in reading the book lately though was how closely it relates to this “thing” that I’ve been exploring and pursuing for so long. In effect, something related to social systems design or a natural way of life. One thing in particular, in my last reading, really jumped out at me though and I’m surprised that I didn’t notice it before (or maybe I read it but forgot about it): attitude. Here’s an excellent quote from the opening chapters of the book that explain who Lao Tzu was, what he was trying to teach within the Tao Te Ching, and how it relates to attitude.
Use attitude instead of action, and lead others by guiding rather than ruling. Manage people by letting them act on you, and not the other way around. In this way, your subjects will develop a sense of self-government, and you, as their guide, will be rewarded with their loyalty and cooperation.
What I found interesting about this statement is how attitude seems to be so critical to an effective team as a whole and not just its leader. In effect, if everyone on your team doesn’t have the right attitude then often times it doesn’t “flow” very well. Yet when everyone has the right attitude, there seems to be this thriving hive of activity and things just naturally happen without very much effort.
This directly relates to my experiences within video game clans in the past. I never ever recruited people based upon skill alone. If anything I realized, knowledge could easily be learned, particularly within the right fertile learning environment (i.e. veterans always working alongside newbies). What was important for the long lasting success and sustainability of the group though was a person’s attitude. For example, someone could be incredibly skillful, yet if they didn’t have the right attitude, they often didn’t gel with the team very well, thus causing blockages or friction within the group.
More specifically though, I discovered one critical component of this right attitude, while reading an offhand comment by an MMO blogger recently. He mentioned something about some of the best gamers within MMO games and in guilds / clans are those who are constantly thinking about how to improve their characters and themselves. When he said that, I immediately knew what he was talking about: care. In effect, if you don’t have the right caring attitude to even care about yourself then, more often than not, you’re not going to care about others in turn. Yet if you do care about yourself, then there seems to be this constant desire for self-learning and, in turn, a caring for others around you to the point that you desire to see them empowered as well.
The same applies to business environments I’ve been within. I’ve seen people with not much skill but a boundless desire to improve themselves and these people are an incredible asset to the company because you know when they do acquire that skill (which they usually do rather quickly), they usually go on to do amazing things within the company, helping others in turn. Yet on the opposite side of the spectrum, you sometimes see people who just sit around, with little care for self-improvement, and thus often little care for helping those around them. Again the right caring attitude seems to make all the difference in the effectiveness of social groups.
Before I went to sleep last night I realized something very interesting. I seem to excel (or be more optimized) in “working” environments where I have the ability to relay my acquired veteran knowledge of the system that the team or organization is immersed within.
Even more so, it’s imperative that I be able to do this in a “face to face” manner, in the “physical” presence of others. In effect, the sharing of knowledge has to be done side by side, while both myself and the other person (or people) are working on the same thing, thus allowing both of us to learn from the actions of the other. I experienced this sort of thing both within video game clans (i.e. Quake CTF, Counter-Strike) and within a business environment (i.e. FirstWeb). In both environments, I almost seemed to be like a core hub for the group, in that I was like a resource point or wellspring for others.
Another thing that I realized from this is that my journal is truly about self-learning, more than anything else. In effect, if I write a post that doesn’t at least contain one small piece of self-learning and self-realization within it (i.e. I’m just relaying existing knowledge, nothing new to me) then I seem to falter and go off track. Yet when I’m continually relaying things about self-improvement or self-learning for myself, then I seem to be able to talk till the cows come home.
What interesting in reading the above is that in both aspects I’m sharing knowledge and teaching. But the key thing seems to be that for me to share knowledge that I already know, it has to be within an active immersive environment with others around me in close proximity (i.e. within an office, within a game environment with avatars), so that those others can effectively learn by watching.