I occasionally get these liminal moments of clarity where everything comes into focus and alignment and a larger vista of my life is revealed.
Today I had one such moment, after being unable to sleep and waking up in the early hours of this morning and then later crashing and sleep a few hours in the afternoon. With a mind and body fully rested and reset, thoughts deep within me bubbled up and surfaced, relating to something I wrote a while back on Twitter.
For many of us, our daily struggle is often about being seen, noticed, and accepted by others.
Yet a calm serenity can be found when we begin to start seeing, noticing, and accepting the otherness of our own being.
It is that which lies within the deep wilderness of our heart.
Why this is poignant is that today I also shared some thoughts online on Reddit and I did so without even thinking about it or questioning if I should do so. I just did it.
As I said, afterwords upon reflecting upon my words and how I just shared them without thinking about it, it made me realize something about my life and my Self.
I don’t need plans of where I want to go.
I just need intentions of who I want to be.
My doing will emerge naturally from my being.
To put this into perspective, I will never be able to truly accept myself until I can let go of needing others to accept me first. Or put another way, I will never be able to truly do what I want to do unless I can be what I’m dying to be first. So since the doing emerges from the being, I’m effectively standing in my own way and blocking my own doing by not accepting my own being first.
This is why I’ve continually pushed myself away from others and have taken myself offline numerous times in the past, both literally and metaphorically in the sense of disconnecting from my soul and true sense of Self and being.
Until I can embody who I truly am, without the recognition or validation from others for it, I will never be who I want to be and do what I want to do.
For this to happen, I just need to understand that my writing online doesn’t need to be seen, heard, and accepted by others for me to be validated.
I’m already validating myself by sharing seeing, hearing, and accepting the otherness of my being by sharing my Self online.
In other words, when you can validate yourself by just being yourself, there is no longer a need for an outcome from your actions of doing to justify your being because your being intentionally always comes first.
Essayist Anaïs Nin said: “We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.”
If we want the world to change we first must change ourselves. That’s why people who have zero personal responsibility and act like victims should be avoided at all costs.
Until they do the inner work they’ll keep tripping over themselves and blaming an outside force like politics.
Rule #4 – Struggles are an opportunity
You want struggles or you don’t learn sh*t. You also don’t want to work with people online who will do anything to avoid struggles.
Rule #5 – The mind runs on code
Our mind is made up of information and lines of code just like a computer or piece of software. If you don’t write the code in your head then society will write it for you.It’s why the art of unlearning is more important for most people than new learning.
A lot of these points align with developmental psychology which can also go by the name of vertical development, ego development, or leadership development. People like William Torbert, Susan Cook-Greuter, and Richard Barrett are notable people in this field, all providing amazing perspectives on it. Basically as one progresses, their meaning of life increases in a broader and deeper way, providing a larger context to understand it by. Thus they can grasp more complexity and paradoxes.
I’ve found a lot of Tim’s articles align with this, in the sense that he relays a conventional myth relayed by society and then shows how an opposite, post-conventional approach is paradoxically better. In a nutshell though, it all comes down to understanding challenges in life are opportunities for growth, thus to be embraced rather than avoided or even feared.
The hero’s journey is effectively an allegory for this which can be expanded into a larger allegory of seeing life as a role-playing game. Here are the basic narrative mechanics of it.
When we face a major life challenge that we can’t navigate with our current worldview, we begin to question our assumptions and beliefs, thus leading us on a “quest”. Doing so though, causes us to face our “monstrous” fears tied to these limiting beliefs. In overcoming these fears, we discover “treasured” values and insights about ourselves and life as a whole, especially what it means to be a human being. And finally in doing so, we gain “experience” which helps us to “level up” our consciousness in turn, thus stepping into a much larger “role” to “play” within life (due to having a much larger context to perceive it by).
An extremely deep dive conversation with ChatGPT on how constructing better AI prompts relates to asking better questions for our own growth and development. (Update: ChatGPT’s Shared Links feature seems to be broken. The link shared above may or may not work.)
AI isn’t a replacement for human intuition and creativity—it’s an amplifier. The key lies in combining your perspective with the system’s pattern recognition to produce something greater than either could alone.
This conversation was inspired by this article below on how are our brains are like vector databases.
It’s about understanding how information connects and relates— thinking in vectors, just like our brains naturally do. When you describe a concept to AI, you’re not just sharing words; you’re helping it navigate a vast map of meaning. The better you understand how these connections work, the more effectively you can guide AI systems to the insights you need.
The Death of Critical Thinking Will Kill Us Long Before AI.
We have witnessed a multi-generational decline in reading comprehension. We read less, retain less of what we read, and struggle to engage in critical analysis. And if this trend continues, we risk undermining the very foundations of our society. In the bite-sized content and viral media age, too many of
Brilliant article that relates to my previous deeper points as to why Trump won over Harris. In effect, a large portion of our society’s capacity to make sense and understand the complexity of the world is getting worse not better (which is called regression in developmental psychology).
To overcome this, we have to build safe environments that don’t shield us from the world but rather feel like a safe harbour that we can explore the world from.
Losing the ability to comprehend the world around us and make sense of complex ideas is an existential crisis.
The decline of reading comprehension carries worrying implications for society at large. The tools needed to make sense of an increasingly complex world are at stake. Without the ability and inclination to read deeply, we lose foundational capacities to understand issues, weigh facts, debate respectfully, empathise with different views, separate truth from falsehood, and engage intellectually with media.
Without nuanced analysis, parties propagate misinformation to confirm their biases.
Complex social challenges get oversimplified into stereotyped wedge issues.
A society that cannot patiently read long-form texts struggles to make sense of the world in ways that enable wise judgment, empathy across differences, effective policies, technological progress, economic justice, scientific reason, and fact-based truth to prevail over misguided beliefs. Reviving reading comprehension may be among the most urgent priorities for the future of civilisation.
When one side appears to be winning, it often pushes the other side into a period of introspection.
This dynamic resembles the Hero’s Journey, a concept from mythology that represents a cycle of challenge, growth, and transformation. In this context, polarization forces each group into a “refusal of the call” phase, where they must confront inner fears, biases, and insecurities before they can emerge with new understanding and resilience. Wins and losses are part of this cyclical journey, where opposing groups alternate between positions of power and reflection. As each side introspects, learns, and evolves, society as a whole moves toward greater wisdom and balance.
She ascribed this to the fact that their basic needs were met. Nobody worried about running out of money for retirement or whether they could attend college or afford health care. Because education was free and life was affordable, people chose careers based on their passions rather than on earning potential.
We need something radically different. What most of us need is healing—and a completely different way of living. We need structural changes to how we live in the United States.
It’s not just important to me personally that the US survives and thrives. It’s essential to the world that this young (and incredibly immature) nation grows up and lives up to its claims and promises about what it is.
I’ve been reflecting upon the election and this quote below was the first clue I found that touches upon the real cause of why Trump won over Harris. In effect, Trump won by tapping into and manipulating the existing limiting beliefs and conventional mindset of most of Americans.
In other words, misinformation only works if there is an existing belief or tendency to play off, which means that it doesn’t create beliefs so much as confirm them.
In developmental psychology, these are roughly 60% of people who are operating from their base psychological needs (ie survival, belonging, and self-esteem). In effect, people who are often dependent upon someone else to save them from their situation. And in this case, they believed Trump was that person.
This was the second clue I found as to why Trump won over Harris. In particular, the opening subtitle stating the following.
When the world stops making sense, we instinctively look for the simple solutions. Someone to blame, an easy way out or a strong leader who will “fix it”. But what is the price for the quick fix?
In effect, many Democrats are now feeling like Republican voters in the past. They’ve regressed to a state where they’re feeling like the following. “I’m fearful, angry, and upset. Who can I blame? Who will save us from this mess?” In other words, a sense of hopelessness and a sense of being powerless, with a feeling of being unable to change the situation they are within.
This was the third clue that I found, that revealed why Trump won over Harris, that really started bringing everything together.
But Democrats need to realize that they have less a policy problem than a propaganda problem, one that is evident in both the messages the parties send and the systems through which information is delivered. If Democrats can figure out how to do something about that, they’ll be less likely to find themselves in the position they are now.
In other words, while Bernie Sanders saying that Democrats had abandoned working class people wasn’t completely true (since Biden supported unions), the issue here is that the average, conventionally minded American believed that the Democrats had abandoned the working class person because of the increasing wicked problems (aka highly complex problems) arising in our world today.
Yet the average American, let alone most politicians even, often have no capacity to understand the inherent nature of these wicked problems and where they are coming from. They just want someone to fix them and save them from this increasing uncertainty right now.
This was the fourth clue that I found that revealed why Trump won over Harris, particularly these two quotes below.
Take the time you need to mourn the future we lost on Nov. 5, but as we gear up for what is almost certainly another dark chapter in American history, it’s important to recognize that we still have agency. Experiencing grief and disappointment doesn’t make you powerless, Martin stresses.
“Community is really essential in these moments, and there’s so much power in mobilizing,” she says. “When people are feeling powerlessness and hopelessness, I encourage them to find ways to take that power back, to be an agent of change in your community and your home in the world.”
Those experiencing fear and anger should try channeling those emotions into something productive, like caring for yourself and others.
In effect, go beyond your base reaction to the situation and instead learn how to respond to it positively and creatively. This is the very thing that neither just the left or right need to do but rather what all Americans need to do.
In effect, to step beyond their feeling of dependency and powerlessness to recognizing the independent latent power already within themselves. In other words, the saviour (aka strong leader) you’re seeking isn’t out there. It’s within you…within every one of us.
The fifth clue as to why Trump won over Harris lies within a YouTube interview with Cheryl Dorsey from three years ago, in which she speaks about social innovation and how we need to tap into the collective leadership within us all to bring about the social change we seek (i.e. Gandhi’s “Be the change you wish to see in the world”).
9:11 Toiling in the field of social innovation two plus decades now. The animating feature of social Innovation is this clear-eyed recognition that current systems are not working or not working for enough of us. But there’s this real animating feature to try to fix, repair, rebuild, reimagine those systems to make them more inclusive and provide more opportunity for all.
9:38 But the diagnosis that these systems aren’t working is the same diagnosis that we see from those who are animated by populist anger. Right. So we come at the problem from the same vantage point. The way we have constructed societal forces are simply not working. I often talk about the weight of systems, systems residue, that is weighing folks down. People of colour. Marginalized folks. Women. We can go through all the forms of oppression. And these systems are exacerbating those.
10:13 So we all see it. However our prescription for what to do about it is radically different. Social innovators recognize that indeed there’s a problem but they raise their hands as engaged, committed citizens to say “Well it’s our job to fix it. We roll up our sleeves, we get to work, and we figure out what we can do.”
10:30 So much of the populist anger is a nihilistic one as you said Peter. It’s blow it all up, consequences be damned. And these conflicting forces that are butting heads, there has to be a way to engage more folks from the other side who are as frustrated as many of us arewho are engaged in the work of social innovation but do it within the realm of democratic practice that provides a seat for all of us at the table. I think that’s the needle to thread. And I think we have to figure it out and we have to figure it out sooner than later.
Now in reflecting upon these five clues as to why Trump won over Harris, I decided to have a chat with ChatGPT, so as to see if a dialogue on the subject would reveal something important about the relationship between them all. And it did, in a very surprising way. In effect, it showed me how Trump’s insurmountable power in manipulating people was the very constraint that needed to be leveraged, so as empower people and see him for what he really is. That being someone who craves people’s dependency of him, so that he can maintain his power indefinitely.
Here’s my quote from my conversation with ChatGPT that really highlighted this point.
Wait a minute. What you’re effectively saying here is teaching people how to take leadership over their own lives. This is the exact opposite of what manipulating people with their limiting beliefs does because it reinforces a victim mindset that requires someone else saving them (ie Trump). So it’s asking the person, do you want to be a victim who needs someone to save you or a leader who can take leadership of their own lives. Isn’t this something that Obama tried to communicate to people when he got in but again people saw him as a saviour and when he didn’t save them (because he couldn’t do it alone), they got upset.
Nollind Whachell
And here’s a quote by ChatGPT that touches upon what happened with Obama.
Obama’s messaging often focused on hope, unity, and the idea that “we are the change we seek,” encouraging people to see themselves as part of a larger movement working toward collective goals. However, the desire for a quick fix led many to see him as a savior figure. When systemic change didn’t happen fast enough or his policies met resistance, some grew frustrated, feeling he hadn’t delivered on his promises, even though true change would have required ongoing engagement from both leadership and citizens alike.
ChatGPT
But how can leaders, who have at least a basic grasp of the highly complex problems we face today, actually mobilize people as actual responsible, empowered citizens, taking action to bring about the change they seek?
Again another quote by ChatGPT touches upon this.
Leaders who successfully communicate this message—without becoming savior figures—help citizens shift from a victim mindset to one of empowerment. This shift can be transformative, as it promotes a culture where people recognize both their challenges and their ability to address them. In this way, the real impact of leadership becomes enabling individuals to lead themselves and contribute meaningfully to society.
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 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.
