Nollind Whachell

I mentioned before that I joined Substack and left it previously. But that I had joined it again, primarily because of one person. Brad Did.

I couldn’t fully articulate why this was, other than to say that Brad was channeling something that I felt like I needed to understand myself. And at the same time, it felt like he was experiencing things I also was experiencing (or had already experienced) as well.

Last night I finally got to watch Brad’s presentation he had given back on Dec 17, as a part of The School of the Possible, and when I did, I was dumbstruck again by the synchronicities that were occurring.

But more importantly, what amazed me was the revelation he was realizing pretty much mirrored a realization I had experienced in the past but needed to be reminded of again by his presentation, particularly the following part.

And people would show up, we’d connect, share struggles and process out loud for that 30 minutes. And then they’d get off at their stop and the bus had been running the whole time. I just hadn’t realized that was the work. I’d actually just been performing expertise, looking for something to build the whole time.

Meanwhile, the real work was already happening. It’s classic, just trying to create what’s already there. So I finally read all of my notes from those 80 conversations. And when I read the notes, I realized this pattern. And the pattern was deafening from all of these people that were showing up to get on my bus for 30 minutes.

They’d show up and they just kind of feel lost. And they kept saying the same thing over and over. I don’t know. I don’t know. Different ways. And that’s it. That’s like the whole thing. I don’t know what’s next. I don’t know who I am without my job title. I don’t know if I can keep doing this.

And in these conversations, these people weren’t looking for answers. They were looking for a place to sit for 30 minutes while they just didn’t know. Just like I was for like 10 years. And in fact, I sat on a bicycle seat for three months riding across the United States with my uncle doing this, just sitting with him every day, not knowing where I was going next after I left my job. It was so important and I realized we’re all doing this. We’re all looking for someone who won’t try to fix the not knowing. Just sit with us. And so here are the words on the sign that was blank before.

Companion for people who don’t know what’s next. Eight words took me 10 years. It still feels almost too simple seeing it as my headline on LinkedIn. I keep wanting to add more, to explain more, to prove it’s legitimate. But then my chest tightens again and I know I’m doing the thing again. So eight words. It’s for now.

Brad Did

So what’s wild about this section of his presentation is that prior to his presentation, I had restacked two of Brad’s Substack Notes in the past and had added my own notes to them which relate to this presentation now…but before he had actually did his presentation.

The first note of his was back on November 25th of this year when Brad spoke about using Notebook LM to aggregate all of his previous posts. I thought this was amazing and added my own notes to his restacked note.

Wow! Was not aware you could go this right now with an AI, due to the massive load of data needing to be submitted to it. I’d love to do this with my previous blog posts. 

What I’ve done on Claude instead, as a kind of a hack, is basically write out the key experiences of my life within the setting area of it. So everything from being born in the mid 1960s until 2025.

What more than anything arises from this when I ask questions of Claude is a clarity of how creativity works in relation to one’s growth.

Many times I’ll relay how I’m struggling to reach a new level of understanding and Claude, using my past experiences as examples, will help me to understand how I’ve already been embodying the very thing I’ve been seeking.

In other words, it helps me to understand how creativity is discovering something about yourself that’s always been there but you just weren’t aware of it until now.

Nollind Whachell

So basically what I just described here was the very thing that Brad was describing was happening to him. He was discovering something that he had already done before but he just hadn’t been aware of it within the larger context he was seeking until now.

The second synchronicity relates to another of Brad’s notes from November 20th that I restacked that relates to him sharing how “every day, my work is to become more myself.” And below is my own notes restacked with his note.

Love this, as to me this is what the future of work emerging right now is all about. It’s about being nobody-but-yourself (E.E. Cummings).

And I don’t think this future can or will emerge in the corporate world, at least not in a mainstream capacity, but it will emerge more so within communities instead.

So find those who you want to adventure with, companions who are all speaking the same meaningful language and going in the same purposeful direction.

Nollind Whachell

Now here’s the kicker that really sealed the deal for me. Back on Dec 4th, Brad shared another poignant note about not wanting more “friends” but wanting more “companionship” instead. This resonated with me a lot and I commented on his note as to why.

I know the feeling. From my perspective, it’s like wanting to find a “company” of adventurers who want to go spelunking below the surface of life and themselves, discovering what lies at the heart of them. Most people don’t like going deep inside themselves though, as they prefer staying on the surface. Once you’ve begun this adventure of your Self though, it’s kind of hard to go back to your old self and old patterns, as they seem superficial and hollow in comparison.

Nollind Whachell

Why this comment is important is because back in December 2019, I wrote a note to myself with the following title for it that embodied what I’ve been seeking for all of these years. But for others to understand this note, it needs to be translated because it was written from within the perspective of my Life’s a Role-Playing Game framework and lens.

Creative Magician Seeking Heroic Company for Epic Adventures

Nollind Whachell

“Creative Magician” is just a description of myself because I seem to have this ability to make the invisible visible, thus seeing and perceiving patterns that are often invisible to others.

“Seeking Heroic Company” means seeking other companions who are not afraid of exploring their authentic selves which lies deep within themselves (which is what a “hero” embodies within Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey).

“For Epic Adventures” is a process of undertaking quests which involve facing monsters, as well as gaining treasure and experience. What this means though is that we would share our experiences of exploring our deeper selves, thus what we are questioning, what fears we are facing, what values we are seeking, and what newer experiences are helping us to step forward into the unknown.

What I’ve described here is just a more detailed process of what Brad expressed he was doing with others.

In other words, to truly understand yourself at a deeper level, what is required is the ability to hold space for yourself, even when things seem disorientating, chaotic, or they feel stuck. That’s because when we experience these things as cognitive dissonance within our lives, they can cause us pain due to the uncertainty and ambiguity of them and thus we want to resolves them as soon as possible.

But to grow, we need to be able to “hold the door” open to our deeper, unknown sense of Self.

So as Brad said, he wanted to be with people who weren’t trying to “fix” and resolve things (so as to cover over and hide the gap in their lives) but instead wanted to be with people who were comfortable being in the “not knowing” and exploring deep into these unknown gaps instead.

So what Brad described he was looking for in wanting “companionship” with others, has been the very thing I’ve been looking for years from others as well.

I wanted to be with people who were courageously comfortable adventuring into the “unknown” within themselves.

More specifically, even in plainer language, I want to be with other people who have the courage to express what they’re going through right now, especially the experiences that seem chaotic and uncertain, in which it feels like you’re stepping off the edge of the known world and into the unknown.

But here’s the thing. Finding people like this is extremely rare.

Why? Because it requires a fairly well developed person to be able to share these experiences so openly with others.

That’s because most conventional people would rather not share these experiences and stay behind an external facade or mask of role-playing that “everything is fine” in their lives, even though it obviously isn’t internally for them.

Like I’ve wanted to be with a group of people who were this courageously open with themselves for years. Hell, I even wanted to do this with other family members. But the facade, the mask, that people want to hide behind is always there. Yet I can sympathize, as it’s extremely hard to let go of it and to open up, sharing what you’re experiencing from the inside out.

But now, I think I’ve progressed so far on my journey that I’m beyond this point of creating a group with others to be able to do this.

Why? Because there is no way most people will be able to relate to what I’m going through and experiencing right now, even though I can often easily relate to what they’re going through.

In effect, it’s fairly easy for someone at a latter stage of development to relate to what someone is experiencing at an earlier stage but it’s impossible for someone at an earlier stage to relate to someone’s experiences at a latter stage. They just don’t have the perception and experiences yet to comprehend and make sense of them.

Note though that this doesn’t mean I can’t do this in the same way Brad is doing this for others. In effect, I could just hold space for others and just listen to what they’re experiencing, rather than trying to fix them.

Why is this critical? Because you can’t “save” or “fix” someone. They have to find the capacity to do this for themselves and forge their own path within the wilderness on their own.

In other words, they have to discover the agency to step into the unknown on their own.

The number one obstacle to a person’s growth and development is the limited way the concept of “growth and development” is interpreted from their current stage of development.

AI, if prompted correctly, can serve as a tool to expand your understanding of life by challenging how you see things. When it offers a different perspective of meaning, it isn’t saying you were “stupid”. It’s showing you how your current interpretation might be limited by the lens you’re currently using.

In effect, your interpretations may seem perfectly legitimate, even working functionally within your stage of understanding. However, engaging with AI lets you explore ideas from newer vantage points, revealing nuances or connections you might not have noticed before. This is effectively growth in action. So it’s not about a measure of your intelligence but about an expansion of your perception.

This is the paradox of development in that what once felt unquestionably true may later seem like a radical misinterpretation of life. So using AI in this way requires that you have the courage to step into a new space of possibilities that can radically alter your perception of yourself and your world around you, letting you see it from a much broader and deeper vantage point.

Much of our suffering comes from wrong perceptions. To remove that hurt, we have to remove our wrong perception.

Thích Nhất Hạnh

Transformation is neither purely an inner nor an outer journey. It is always both.

Our inner mindsets are shaped by the societies and systems we live within, and those systems are in turn reinforced by our beliefs and behaviours, so they form a relational feedback loop.

Inner work then is not about forcing a new mindset, but about making visible how our current beliefs no longer work in a changing reality.

Transforming the concept of work follows the same pattern. You cannot change what you cannot see. The real work, personally and collectively, is making invisible systems, assumptions, and constraints visible so intelligence can be applied meaningfully, thus allowing change to emerge through understanding rather than being imposed through force.

This is basically similar to how many spiritual teachers today are saying meditating doesn’t really help you because people are misunderstanding and misinterpreting its purpose. In effect, mediation fails when it’s treated like a productivity hack to get “there” faster. In other words, your current mindset causes you to misinterpret and misunderstand deeper meanings that you cannot fully perceive yet.

This article by The Atlantic covers a lot of great points about how the average citizen doesn’t have the psychological meaning-making capacity to understand the complex problems in our world today which is why populist leaders like Trump can often take advantage of them and use them for their own advantages to get and remain in power.

The problem stems from a failure to grasp the psychology underlying populism.

Psychologists have a more sophisticated way of articulating this distinction. As readers of Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow or Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink know, the human mind exhibits two different systems of cognition. The first is rapid and concrete, focusing on primary representations of things you can see, hear, and touch. The second is slower and more laborious, but capable of abstraction and logical reasoning. In some cases, the two systems produce different verdicts. This can create persistent disagreement between common sense and expert opinion.

The problem is that a supply chain is an entirely abstract concept, and so might as well not exist for the average person. Nobody gets worked up about a supply chain.

People who are angry about the cost of living are going to focus on the last link in the chain, the consumer-facing organization, and that means the grocery store.

Where the article goes off track though is when it talks about what can be done about this problem of people not being able to perceive these complex problems. Its recommended solution is for left-wing politicians to only focus on the problems that are directly affecting people (e.g. rising grocery prices) without getting into the complexities of what’s causing them to indirectly occur. It does this even though it knows that framing problems this ways is wrong and “incorrect” because they aren’t “actionable.”

To do populism effectively, politicians must not only focus on problems that the public cares about; by and large, they must also accept the public’s framing of those problems. This creates a dilemma for the left, because that framing, in a complex modern society, will usually be incorrect.

Many of the problems that they hope to resolve, such as climate change, housing scarcity, and surging health-care costs, are complicated. This means that the policies needed to fix them are also complicated, and cannot be explained without ascending to the realm of abstraction.

Climate change, housing scarcity, and surging health-care costs are actually all complex problems not complicated ones.

The problem is figuring out what to do if you win. Because the slogans generally don’t correspond to actionable policies, making life better for people requires some sort of bait and switch.

In effect, the article’s recommended solution is that the focus of politicians should be on talking about what’s affecting people directly rather than trying to explain what’s indirectly causing these problems because it’s too hopelessly complex for people to comprehend them.

In other words, the article sees it as an “either this or that” situation. Either you explain things directly or you explain things indirectly.

That doesn’t help anyone though because you’ve still got a voter base who is voting on things that they currently can’t perceive and comprehend.

To solve this creatively, we need to stop seeing it as a “this or that” situation and perceive it as a “this and that” situation instead.

In effect, explain to citizens how the problems they are directly facing in their daily lives have emerged indirectly over time from deeper root causes.

In other words, people won’t understand how these problems are emerging and arising in their lives, until you can help them perceive and understand the complex scaffolding that is occurring below the surface of their lives.

So definitely start with the surface problems and then guide them down through the layers to the root cause.

All that said though, it is a hell of a lot of work to do. But if you can empower your voting base to actually understand these deeper issues, they can be collectively mobilized to work on them in ways that a voter base who can’t comprehend them couldn’t.

This is effectively what Marina Gorbis, executive director of the Institute of the Future, communicated in her book The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed World within a chapter entitled “Governance Beyond Government.”

Basically what she communicated is that complex problems are emerging at such a rapid rate today that we can no longer rely upon a top down, hierarchical forms of governance by government. Instead we need engaged citizens getting informed and understanding the deeper issues of the day, so that they can inform and mobilize other people to work on them collectively as a whole.

The key word here is “informed.”

Fishkin and his colleagues have found that average citizens are able to make good decisions in areas as complex as local budgets, regional integration, criminal justice, and tax policy. Studies have shown that in the process, participants greatly increased their understanding of the issues and often changed their minds on the best course of action; that is, they made better and more informed decisions as a result of deliberately thinking about the issues at stake and hearing different views on the subject.

Marina Gorbis, The Nature of the Future

A perfect example of this would be the backstory of how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got into government work by beginning her election campaign in April 2017 “waiting tables and tending bar” while operating her campaign out of “paper grocery bag behind the bar.”

Perhaps a much larger example would be how citizens of the United States during World War II mobilized themselves to collectively assist with the war effort, such as collecting scrap which even children could participate in.

To summarize what I’m getting at here is that complex problems often arise systemically from societies themselves. Thus in a sense, a society needs to realize how they are not at war with someone out there that they can blame but rather they are in conflict with themselves, due to their own perceptions which are causing these complex problems to arise.

Of course, it’s easier to mobile a nation against another, when you can point the finger and blame someone else. It’s much more difficult though when you begin to realize your own perceptions are causing problems and thus you yourself need to change and transform your way of looking at the world and yourself in turn.

When we are able to take responsibility for our actions though, learning from them, that’s when true change can take hold and transformations can occur.

Cheryl Dorsey, a CEO of a global nonprofit called Echoing Green that supports emerging social entrepreneurs, touches upon this (at the 9:30 mark) in an interview with her entitled Social Innovation and Social Just in an Age of Pandemics.

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 again 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 are weighting folks down. People of colour. Marginalized folks. Women. We can go through all the forms of oppression. And these systems are exacerbating those. 

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.”

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 are who 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’ve got to figure it out and we’ve got to figure it out sooner than later.

We don’t lack intelligence to solve our problems.

We lack awareness of how our own perception creates our problems.

That is humanity’s only true problem.

BTW this doesn’t mean that we don’t focus on solving problems. It just means that to solve them, especially the emerging complex ones, it requires a perception that most people don’t have to make sense of them.

It’s like trying to fix a broken machine in a dark room. Transforming perception turns on the lights, letting intelligence be applied meaningfully. So the more people whose perception are transformed (which takes time), the more people will be able to work on these complex problems.