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The chaos exists only because we have the time for it
Life as such is a strange animal or may be we, human, are the tricky part of it. Life is usually an easy flow of events (from very large ones (think of interacting galaxies) to tiny ones (like a caterpillar transforming itself into a butterfly) with the vast majority of them being predictable and very few of them being non predictable. Nature adapts herself to the changing environment at a slow pace, because there is abundance of everything she needs on earth and because non predictable events (responsible for disorders) are rare.
Animals are living in a space of three dimensions and live in harmony with the nature. They have every day to eat, drink and sleep and start that loop of actions over and over again. They have smaller loops like daily habits, and longer loops like yearly seasonal habits, as plants have too. Beside these intrinsic loops, time doesn’t count.
With the ability to think, the human conscientiousness rules the world and the 3D space. And because we have organized that space by adding a fourth dimension to it (the time) we create a chaotic environment around us. For our loss.
Our conscientiousness makes us believe that the time has always existed in the way we perceive it. We take pictures to remember the good old times. We are making big plans about our future and we need to pay our bills in due time. We are convinced that the time has always existed and will always exist. Many of our actions are related to the past and the future. We take the time as an element which cannot be avoided. In fact we have built all our society around it.
The time orchestrates our agendas and our agendas rule our lives. We plan everything and most our thinking is occupied at analyzing the past and planning the most desirable future. This is because we have plans that we are modifying the natural flow of life that runs through us. Because we expect something, we change the course of our lives and doing so disrupt the system.
The fact that we take the time as granted makes us believe our goal and reasons to be on hearth must be different from the ones for the animal, vegetal and non organic worlds. Why should it be? In fact using the time to drive our lives render us less natural. Less in contact with the nature. We are losing ground. We do not act, as animal do, based on our instinct, but based on our plans. Our minds are polluted. And because billions of us are setting goals independently from each others we are building the biggest chaotic event on earth, ever. And the triggering element of this event is the time. We are guilty to think that the time will help us to make a better living. It won’t.
Can we get back to a more natural, less chaotic life? Forget the time to do so. Don’t reassess the past, don’t make big plans for the future. Be in the now. Listen to your feelings and act upon it. Feel your body and decide if what you are currently doing is right for you or not. If it is, you will be like animals, living in the flow of life, connected to a greater order. If you go against it, you increase the disorder in your vicinity.
Remove the time in your live and you will suddenly be back to your origin with the same basic needs and only one possible action: to live the present. There is no more plan to aim for, no possibility to show off. Yes you are smart. Then all will profit from you because you will share the benefits of your action. You cannot stock something, there is no need, no plan. There is no future to think at. Of course there is a future but if you let your instinct taking care of it, you will go through the tuff times as any animal does. Some hibernate, some are making reserve (instinctively), some are traveling.
There is a natural way for each specie on earth, why not for us, human?
Living like a pendulum
Nothing is permanent. Like a pendulum our lives are oscillating between two high points. We are existing because at one extreme of the swing we act while when reaching the other end we receive a feedback from others, the reaction. And from cradle to grave, this back and forth movement never stops.
Our actions have an impact on our environment. We leave a footprint behind us. The perception of these acts by the people surrounding us will influence us in return and will either strengthen or undermine our convictions and believes. All the way during the swing we observe, analyse, internalize, plan, decide. This is a digestion period. Things are internalized.
In the pendulum swing, beside the two extreme points (the action and the reaction) we have another singular location: the zero position, the equilibrium point. This is the introspection moment, a short period when we can be deeply rooted to our self.
If the two extremes of the pendulum course are occupied by our actions and the reactions from the others, then the equilibrium point can be represented by the meditation.
This is the time when we can either assess our convictions to make sure our next action will be in line with our deeply rooted desires, or a time of mindfulness and serenity after having performed a deliberate act.
This is the moment when we can live the silence, in between two events. The time of zeroing ourselves to make space to what we have to discover. The time to let the future blossom. A time to let it go.
These crazy little things
From bad luck to synchronicity.
Some people see bad luck. Some people see random. Some people see luck. Some people see coincidences. Some people see fate. Some people see magic. Some people see synchronicity.
Beauty is like feelings. It is all about our own perceptions.
Taking care of someone is empowering. If this someone is ourselves, it is self nurturing. It provides the fuel required to perform actions. It helps to pass from a static world to a dynamic one. It opens channels that were closed since long, since the childhood probably, that allow us to be.
Moving makes us feel the movement, the wind, the noise. As we move we get more sensitive to the signs that are sent to us. The more I move tuned to my own inner rhythm, the more I discover the world around me as I never saw it.
Filters are probably the most annoying things that exist. They pollute the truth. They pollute the beauty of the truth. They make us blind towards the essentials. They randomize what we see, dilute our perception, create new realities on their own and tend to make themselves invisible.
Filters are visible only when we know they are there. And this reality is probably true for all what we see, live, feel, …
We are experiencing things because we are conscientious of what they are. If we don’t know them, we will not realize they exist and will not take them into account in our living process. We will just pass them near by without noticing them.
It is the same when we discuss with someone. Realities and perceptions are different for both persons, therefore opinions are different. It is not our role to force people to remove filters. Either they are open to the process of discovering new realities or are blurred by their own history, stress, wishes, environment and believes.
Accepting what is without asking for explanation and without willing to transform the other is probably the most difficult thing to do (for me). It requires to be so well grounded that you nurture yourself from your inner thoughts, not anymore from the external world. You act in place or reacting. You fuel yourself in place of pumping others energy to compensate for your lack of vitality.
In my life, I reacted a lot to events or was acting to force or induce a change in the other’s perceptions. These days are (mostly) over. I pealed many filters out of my bulk. I today act, I listen to my body talks) or signs that I perceive and move on.
To me, there is no other things than synchronicity to propel us to the right place.
The new revolution is there
At first the man developed a language.
Then he learned to write.
After few centuries he understood how to print books.
Today everything is accessible to anyone, we are building a collective intelligence!
The technology is modifying all behaviors more than we can believe ourselves. Having all the knowledge at our fingertips, having all locations at home few coordinates away, and connecting with anyone instantaneously dramatically reduce our space to … ourselves.
Our industries and the current culture from the 70ties are based on getting there, spending money here, creating a need and using advertising to enable every one to show his difference. There is no reason anymore to buy a new product to show our uniqueness, it can be bought by anyone, or to buy another product made in China, you can print it at home. Our new world makes everything accessible to anyone. We today need to express our identity in different ways. The world space is becoming virtual and shrinks to nothing. We had to work to travel, spend money and differentiate ourselves. We have now to think because our new world is immaterial and cost almost nothing. We don’t need our body anymore to be productive, only our minds.
What will happen to our brain if we can access the information we want right away? We don’t need to retain information, we can ask for it. We don’t need to gather knowledge, any field is made available to all, from the beginner level to the most experienced aim. Our brain is free of work and free rolling. It will become creative because the mankind is curious.
And because most of our production will become immaterial, our conscientiousness will make a huge leapfrog. We will develop an agility at understanding the others without communicating verbally. Most will be said through body and telepathy. We will listen to the animal which is living in ourselves. We will be like these birds in flocks. We will all build our uniqueness, not as individual, but as a community. We will get back to our roots: our animality with a touch of self-awareness, to be one among the many and the many as a part of the One.
We are not yet there, but it is coming very fast. Watch out, it will be very nice.
Our evolution suffers from our strong scientific bias
An essay to try to understand why the human kind has so much difficulty to evolve towards better models… In our current world, two main potential streams are co-existing at the same time: the material and the immaterial reigns. Both have proponents and opponents. But looking around, it seems that the material aspect of our lives is driving us with much more power than the immaterial ways we could engage ourselves in.
Why is it so that science dominates the world and philosophy is just the apanach of some intellectuals. Why are we so much averse to spirituality and so incline to the ambient consumerism? Science tends more and more to rule the world. Most of us perceive today the need of something else, but we have much difficulties to trust in ourselves to make a decision on the direction to take.
To me, a philosophy cannot exist by its own. It needs a support to express its point of view. It needs a context and substances. Without these a given philosophy wouldn’t become live. This means that a philosophy grows, evolves, changes and becomes obsolete as the evolution of the ecosystem in which it lives in. A new context will require a new interpretation of a philosophical point of view. A philosophy is like a painting of a given expression which would be modified pending of the dominant style of the epoch in which it is drawn.
By contrast, science is “true” forever. Science is like an infinite puzzle. Each piece has its own space and place. One can either increase the resolution of each piece and get more knowledge about a very narrow and specialized field, or one can learn about a side effect of the current knowledge and extend the puzzle a bit further. Through the years, since the man was given the possibility to reflect, science confirms theories or hypothesis and explores its borders and gaps.
While philosophy would superpose new color layers on the same painting through the ages, science is building a piece of art which has an infinite lifetime and an infinite reach. While each new generation has to reflect, confirm or build a new philosophy of life, science is trusted and accepted as is because of its perpetuity. Therefore our civilizations are so much inclined to live in a material world rather than in a spiritual space. And it takes something like 50 years to every human to realize this fact. Meaning that, for each new generation, science gets a 50 years bonus development time versus the philosophy evolution.
In scientific words, science evolution is exponential while philosophy evolves linearly with time. I strongly believe that if our philosophical knowledge and acceptance would be at the level of the science one, we would live in a far better and peaceful world.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I am not by far an expert in philosophy while I have some knowledge in science. So any learning is welcomed 🙂
For a discussion on a related topic (philosophy versus science) see the following article from The Observer dated September 2012.
Accept, accompany and discover new possibilities
One of the most beautiful property of the human being is that we can take conscientious decisions. At any moment, we can decide for ourselves what we do, what we say, and how we behave. It also means that all interactions we have with the external world depends on our choices. All thinking crossing our minds are triggered by ourselves, and we choose ourselves the directions in which they go. From all possibilities in front of us, we are the sole responsible for the ones we decide to live in.
Quite often we believe (it is easier) that external factors such as the weather, the news, the environment decide for us in which mood we are. It is a fact that these events can affect us. But we can also recognize these events for what they are: external perturbation points and decide what to do with it. We can drop them, we can carry them (we take the monkey), or we can accept them, take them along for a short period of time and then move on, because they do not reflect our intentions, our mood. To me, the later reaction is possibly the most desired solution.
Like in Aikido, you accept the move of your “partner/attacker”, you build on it (while preserving yourself), and then redirect the gesture in a new framework. You respected the opponent while preserving yourself in changing the movement reality. Suddenly all becomes much lighter, you are surrounded by new perspectives.
We can do the same with all events we face. We can turn them such that they won’t affect us. Let’s accept these events, take the energy they threw to us and use this energy to build a new constructive framework of possibilities.
At any time, in every situation, we can conscientiously decide how to act.
Oh yes, this is not an easy task. Let’s enjoy our new possibilities!
100%, always !
Since our childhood, we are trained to compare ourselves to others to find our position in the society. In the classroom, with our brothers and sisters, at the sport club, with our friends, our neighbors, we are in competition to be the smartest, the fastest, the greatest, the richest.
Since ever we are measured, weighted and assessed in all what we do, against others. I think this is wrong: we shall only be assessed by ourselves, against ourselves.
No one on earth has my track of records. No one is born with the same environment, history nor fingerprints. So why then shall we compare ourselves to others? Measuring each others ability to do the same thing will not help to create a gentle atmosphere to live all together. It will rather result into a competition where most of us want to be first. And this race has only one winner and many loosers.
Is it really what we want or shall we bypass our self inflicted constraints to discover a new world?
Let’s accept that everyone is giving its best, all the time, and that everyone’s current behavior (and the decision that has preceded it) is a result of all past interactions one cannot influence anymore. Trusting people for their good faith will open new dimensions in our collaboration space and will unleash our self confidence, creativity and motivation. Removing the competition / comparison chains is like opening a cage and let the bird fly.
It opens a new space of possibilities because we are not anymore driven by external factors such as our neighbor’s last acquisition or performance but by internal feelings, hope and drive. Our energy is used to build ourselves in a direction we are choosing rather than to defeat a competitor in a game that was impose to us. It frees up our path from roadblocks, speeds up dramatically our evolution and enables each of us to realize ourselves in full.
It also means that all differences are accepted, that there is no judgement in our perception of others and that when we speak we talk about ourselves and not about us against an other entity. It shows respect and enables a true dialog with a common purpose to live together in serenity.
Let’s give the assurance to everyone that we know we all give 100% of ourselves, always!
With Love, Xavier
Moving from an emotional democracy to a conviction democracy
The current transformation that the world is undergoing today in the communication space will modify our behaviors in ways we can only dream of because it is so powerful that we cannot predict when this transition phase will slow down, nor what will come out of it. And this is pleasant.
During the last decades we have learned to react to what was pushed to us. The newspapers and magazines were the monthly, weekly or daily sources of information. It was mainly a one way communication channel. Our only possible reaction to the received information was to build up emotion and express it to our neighbors. Expression was not possible, with the exception of artistic works, strikes, demonstrations and elections.
New technologies have reversed this concept.
from 
to 
While the takt time of our actions was shortening, the possible travel distance was increasing. The time period reference shifted from being the year, to seasons, to months, to weeks, days, hours, minutes, … Today’s high speed trading takt time for a stock exchange transaction is the millisecond.
New technologies transform the concept of New into the concept of Now. We move from a passive reign to an active participation to most decisions which are taken.
Here are some observations of these changes (unknown source)
ERA OF NEW -> AGE OF NOW
ATTENTION -> PARTICIPATION
INFORM -> INSPIRE
INTERRUPTION -> INTERACTION
RETURN ON INVESTMENT -> RETURN OF INVOLVEMENT
GENERATE TRANSACTIONS -> CREATE MOVEMENTS
These changes transformed first the information sphere, then moved to the culture space. Now it invades politics, and will soon land in the corporate world. This is unavoidable.
Top down mass marketing strategies have been replaced by a bottom up approach where individuals tell companies what they want. The convictions have replaced the emotions to define the actions we undertake.
What does this mean for our corporate life ?
Which new corporate governance will emerge from these behavioral shifts ?
I don’t need to be, I need to do
The “Who am I?” question I asked myself in the previous post is possibly not the right one to ask.
I am a man. Yes, but more than that too.
I am a dad. Yes, but not only.
I am a physicist. Yes, but with much more capacities.
The “Who I am?” question is restrictive and encloses me in frameworks which doesn’t allow me to move out. I am stamped. The “Who am I?” question also involves the point of view of the others and doesn’t allow me to be free. It is referring to conventions and to options which must also be well understood by others. To answer the question, I need to transform my reality through the prism of the others’ dictionary. Words are delicate, opinions are shifting and meaning can be different pending on the point of views.
I shall better define myself through the actions I do, replacing the words (and the good intentions behind it) by facts. So, rather than asking myself “Who am I?”, I shall answer the question “What do I do?”. And to choose what I do, I need to decide what is my holy grail made of, to have a purpose and give a sense to my life.
By seeing the consequences of my actions bringing me closer to my goals rather than by interpreting my intentions, I will start to love myself.
Yes!
With Love, Xavier