This simple graph*1 is one of my most influential insights. It shows how organisms interact with their environment. It is an eternal balancing between adapting to the environment or adapt the environment to survive and get needs satisfied. The organism (like you and me) wants to survive and therefore has to adapt to ever more challenging existential problems. Those challenges (horizontal axis) range from the most primal need for drink, food and sleep to the most complex system challenges like today’s climate crisis. We need to adapt our internal circuitry (vertical axis) to develop new behaviors that help us to survive and solve the problem that threatens our survival. Each time it is simply: change or die. Yet once mastered, we can use our energy to adapt the environment to serve our needs. The dynamic works both ways. Shown in the graph as two distinct complementary evolutions. The numbers indicate stable stages between the next inevitable turn.
Once you see it this dynamic, it is visible all around us: How people act differently when the circumstances change. How the world we created, made our culture possible and why today’s threats are not just an invitation to evolve, but an undeniable necessity. If once again we do not adapt our behaviors and come to a new perspective about how the world works, we are doomed. Again it is: change or die. This time the change needed is monumental and on a global scale. The systems we live in and are depending on are collapsing and if we don’t find a way to literally do better, we will perish. Our existence is just another expression of the eternal changes, so beautifully modeled in the ancient book I Ching.
The I Ching built a complete world view based on the dichotomy between (any) difference. The only thing we can perceive in our life is difference and change. That is all. And how that drives evolution is effectively visualized in the above graphic. A more modern mathematical approach by Stephen Wolfram leads to the same perspective: Complexity arises through endless repetitions of simple interactions. Ruthild Winkler and Mannfred Eigen even wrote a very readable book about it, called ‘The Rules of the Game, how nature governs chance’. All illustrate the same dynamic that shapes us. And the brilliant mathematician Stephen Wolfram also wrote a huge 1000+ page big book about it.
So what does this imply? Are we just the causal outcome of the past? Or is there more to it? Do we have a say in all of this? And if so, how?
For many decades my mental sarcasm prohibited to look outside logic for useful answers. Until that started to fail miserably. From the kingdom of my skull I could not find my way out anymore.
So I had to try other means. Beyond the comfort zone of logic. My first undeniable unexplainable experience was some 25 years ago with Shiatsu. Shiatsu is a Chinese pressure point massage that has no roots in any Western science. It was dismissed as some unscientific woo woo about ‘energy’. Only because my youngest sister reported its impact I ultimately agreed to try it myself. Long story short; it was amazing. While it was supposed to be bullshit! It did not fit my logic and understanding, yet it worked. That day I had to open my narrow mind to new perspectives. Like the now well known concept of Chi, the body’s life force and energy. A truth without the required Westerns scientific validation.
As I had to rely on my own assessment, I needed some structure to grok and asssess my observations.
I deduced many approaches to tree simple criteria about any information that reaches me.:
1. The mental/rational one. How true is this, Is it undeniable logical? This has been my stronghold for the most of my life. And I had many opportunities to train my ‘crap detector’.
2. The emotional/intuitive scale. Does it feel right? Does it feel good? Does this make me happy?
3. The practical factual reality as a final test: Does it actually work?
I grew up in a pragmatic technical oriented culture. So logic and practicality were highly valued. Emotions on the other hand were easily dismissed as sentimental and overly sensitive signs of weakness. Yet many less inhibited people confidently trusted their gut feelings. And when puberty hit, I viscerally learned the power of feeling. The familiar denial of ‘sentiments’ turned out to be a frustrating coping mechanism. I worked through a lot of intense therapy and even harder life lessons to get beyond that.
And I now know that any information that scores sufficiently on two of those three parameters most likely is true. The combination of coherent logic with factual validation is well accepted, but what to think about something that feels good and works, but can not (yet) be explained? Like my Shiatsu experience? My brain has a hard time accepting that. And the same goes for many people around me. Yet the logic itself grudgingly admits that any two positive measures deserve equal attention.
This crucial insight first came to me arond 1980 trying to understand what made information actually useful. Back then, this is the way I visualised it. My disdain for blind instinctive action does stand out.
I did not picture the cowardly version, which I despise even more. Since then the concept has matured and I started to recognise the pattern in many places. I could see it when politicians talk about winning the hearts and minds. And today the more mature neutral term ‘hands, heart and hands‘ is broadly accepted in my circles.
Years later I synthesized the same threefold distinction into this visualisation. The three aspects thinking, feeling and doing are visualised as layers. The mental brain space on top, the feelings (heart and gut) in the body in the middle and on the bottom the action in the legs moving forward. Note that the middle layer mediates between thoughts and action. This is where the real choices are made. The numbers correspond with the stages in the graph on the top of this article. The even numbers are the outside signals evoking a response. The uneven numbers are the inner expressions of your organism.
Two out of three means explore
Marriage, daughter, steady depleting job, burn out, therapy, divorce, in need of real help.
The Shiatsu experience took place in a period in my life where I thought I had it all figured out until my world collapsed around me and took my failing worldview with it. It forced me to take factors into account that – until then – were comfortably outside my scope. Yet, the things that did no add up, still existed. Shocking experiences can function as a wake up call. I have had quite a few. The lesson stays with you until you learn.
It was around the turn of the century that I ran into a humorous self help book called het Spiegologie Handboek. An hilarious report of the autor’s encounter with a concept he called the Fanclub. I could not stop laughing which made me read the whole book quickly. And the message could not have been more profound. Once again the way I perceived the world took a major turn.
I set out to test the ridiculous central claim of the book: That the universe is basically the support system that helps you manifest life according to your beliefs. You basically put out any order and connect with the feeling of it being fulfilled. Then the universe takes care of all the details, you forgot. So be careful what you wish for. In order to train this the book suggests you join a so called Fanclub, where all the participants unconditionally support each other, thus multiplying the felt energy…
So as a first test I ordered that I only would join a Fanclub if it was right around the corner at a walking distance. I assumed that would short cut the whole claim. Yet lo and behold, the nearest Fanclub actually was around the corner in the next block. What? How?
I strive to be consistent so I joined for further testing. As said, I needed only two of the three parameters to be met. Although my brain insisted on it being totally crazy and absurd, if it would work and be joyful, I would have to accept its value.
Long story short: Although irrational, it works. Let’s just park unpacking that why, how and what of it and focus on the essential aspect: What you deeply believe and feel about how reality works, that is what the universe mirrors back to you. So if you believe this is impossible, the reality will reflect that. And when you believe the support system will bring you prosperity and happiness that too will happen…
The crux is that this confronted me with all the dark parts of my belief system. Dare I trust the unfolding process of life and totally surrender to the endless sea of possibilities it holds for me? Now THAT is the real challenge and a massive change of world view. Instead of me surviving in a cold cruel and unsafe world, I now supposedly walk around in my own 3D projection screen.
Decades have since past, but there is no way of going back to the sober safety of a simple causal factual world. There is more than that, vastly more. And very probably all coming from within your self…
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https://www.arnoldpatent.com/
clarewgraves.com
making things visible 