Scared and curious

I have always been both scared and curious. The label Schizoid fits me. But I always struggled to explain how this affects my behaviour. Since I stumbled on this lovely little puppy video on Youtube, thats became a lot easier. It metaphorically shows how I go about daily life. I approach every situation like the puppy approaches the plastic bottle. I love my life, but it is sometimes hard for me to stay present in it. So I constantly zoom in and out of reality…

Globally Committed Companions

I have been joining the conversations in the Global Challenges Collaboration (GCC) very early from when it started. Mainly as the next step after joining the Conversational Experiments by Flemming Funch. Following my desire to learn and master mainly two things: ‘Better Conversations’ and genuine generative ways to globally collaborate. The first has been a theme since 2006, the second felt more like still behind the horizon for me. No clue how to ever get there.

The Global Collaboration Group has been active for over a year now.

We have had endless conversations and surprisingly little real world results.

I wondered, how is this possible considering the gathering of so many mature and intelligent minds and talents..?

There was no lack of ambition, commitment or motivation, yet seemingly nothing has happened. And right here lies this almost indiscernible essential find. At least for me.
In order to be able to have genuine conversations and in order to even consider my use in the urgent societal turn we want to help happen, I firstly need to do the inner work. What I need to change first are these counterproductive behavioural patterns in me, before I can address any pattern elsewhere.

So inside me a huge silent revolution is taking place. And I can tell you, it is a total and deep disruption. Currently I feel scattered and very vulnerable, yet at the same time more whole. I do not fear the pain anymore. Although I do not know how to navigate the waves of old emotions as they become unfrozen. I have to submit until they are done with me. They no longer appear as demons and dragons I need to fight or escape from.
I now see them as long forgotten or forbidden aspects of my true self, that I could not  live in the culture I was born in. My first interpretations of being alive distilled to one huge block for my development. I understood one single message: “Not you, Harry.”

Many old beliefs still try to deny my birthright as a living being: To aspire to live life to the fullest, despite anything and anyone. Yet, thanks to the vast unconditional safe space that we (the steady GCC participants) have co-created together, I know I can heal these old wounds and prepare for the work outside myself.

One bonus has already realised itself: I am not alone anymore on this journey. I have very committed companions that will not give up until the Work is done.

How do values and needs relate?

image credit: https://irfankhawajaphilosopher.files.wordpress.com

There is a lot of talk around values in the GCC. Values – as the word suggests – are important. So what are values? It turns out the scholar Shalom Schwartz* has researched this extensively and the image above illustrates his findings. (more )
So there seem to be sets of values that are common in any given culture. Universal human values.

What struck me is that this image shows distinctive social oriented values and egocentric values. That corresponds with the distinction I learned from Clare Graves* namely  the pendulum between self expression and adaption to outside challenges in the subsequent levels of existence he described

That made me wonder if the values and needs would match up. If this model and the levels of maturity Graves distilled from his data validate each other. As a layman, I suspect this could be true. I am not an academic researcher, but I think coming from different angles, they approached a shared truth.

It would be interesting to use the above image as a reference the next time we talk about values… What do you think?

Patterns of life

Today’s society demonstrates the destructive combination of absolute private property rights and limitless resources exploitation (including ‘human resources’!). We seem to be heading towards self destruction.
Many of the ‘woke’ human population try to figure out solutions for the mess we got our species into. Never before has a species voluntarily been able to constraint their natural tendency to expand and grow. Growth is a natural pattern, but we now have reached the end of our ‘petri dish’ and risk to die off as the result of the effects of polluting the very domain that has fed us for so long.

There are hopeful possibilities though, that are undervalued. Humans have always been adapting to change and more importantly to each other. We possess a huge ability to copy behaviour that seems successful. Together with the current technical possibilities to know what behaviour that could be, we have the possibility to experiment and learn faster than ever. And find the new patterns for survival.

My current guess is that those patterns will be situated in the relational domain. In what happens when two or more humans interact. Despite it’s very fundamental nature, there has been little to no scientific attention to it’s effect. Only this last century has seen academic disciplines emerge studying and researching this. Social skills are not part of todays standard curriculum.

My sense is that exactly this underdeveloped domain holds the promise of better love and understanding between humans of all kind. And the good news is, that behaviour is not as easy to monopolise or alienate as a private right or property. So successful social behaviour will be copied and spread like wild fire.

So while going about my daily life and every day challenges, I will filter for patterns, even more than before. Generative social patterns and their dark counterparts.