Paul's Blog

The solutions are already available

2012-11-26T15:12:00.001+08:00

Sure we face big problems and complex global challenges like dwindling natural resources, the end of cheep energy, over population, climate change and global warming, insane debt and financial instability, war and political ineptitude.

But the solution to these problems is already available to us. However it's either not what we want to hear, or the significant mindset shift, shift in values and behaviour, development of relevant skills and the political will required to make it happen pushes us way beyond our levels of comfort.

The truth seems to be that the 150-year old party is over. That the age of exponential economic growth which rode on the back of a seemingly never-ending supply of cheep energy and the American Dream as we have come to know it, is over. In fact the end began about 20-years ago, we just haven't yet gotten around to acknowledging it.

We now face the rather dreary task of cleaning up after the party and getting down to the business of constructing a culture that values and measures growth in new more integrated ways. And not just financial or the bottom line. And of finding ways to live within our ecological means using substantially less energy and with considerably less stuff.

What scares us, I think, are images of post-modern slums and sci-fi movies depicting the barren post apocalyptic landscape.

But it really doesn't have to be like that, only if we believe the party can go on forever, which is just silly. Yes, life will be different and it is going to mean some dramatic changes in how we think, what we value and how we live. But on the other hand it could, if we cultivate the political will, mean greater equality, connection and human well-being.

A time of unparalleled creativity and innovation, which contrary to what we have been led to believe is not cultivated through pressure, stress, insanely long working hours, meaningless deadlines and fear.

Yip, it's going to mean that we carve out another definition of what it means to be successful, a more relevant and dare I say it... complex and mature one.

Contradictory values aren't trustworthy

2012-11-23T14:39:00.001+08:00

It's when we say we believe or value one thing, but our actions communicate something else entirely.

The friend who says he is excited about attending your book-club meetings probably believes he is. As does the company that says it believes in the value of team work, and the importance of client and staff [retention]. And the religious person who talks about 'love thy neighbour' wants to hold that value, but lacks the maturity to do so.

The problem is that how we behave and what we do is often [far more often than we would like to acknowledge] communicating something quite different to want we think or would like to think, we believe.

Contradictory values destroys trust without which there is a breakdown in relationship. This wrecks marriages, clients relationships, friendships and social integration. And forms an invisible barrier to authentic communication, cooperation and innovation.

We tell our partner and family we love them, but miss events and family functions. This communicates, we don't, that they are not a priority. And they see and understand this, even if they pretend they don't.

We go to great lengths to avoid exposing someone's contradictory values, because we won't be thanked for it, and probably more to the point... we don't them to expose ours. It's a silent social agreement designed to keep things functioning, albeit without any significant levels of trust.

Hence the need for regulations, lawyers and a ridiculously complex legal system.

But at a time when creativity, innovation and 'wicked' problems are too big for any one person, group or organisation to solve, trust becomes important.

Values, it's easy to see why they seem unimportant

2012-11-22T14:45:00.001+08:00

We tend to marginalise the importance of embracing values. Because everyday we're confronted with examples of people or organisations expressing them, and then acting or behaving in ways which clearly contradict.

So what's the point? Is it just for philosophers and armchair discussion?

You start a book-club and a friend although they continually say how excited they are to attend misses three out of four.

The company you work for claims to value team work and cooperation, but continually rewards individuals. Or claims the client is important, but cuts services to cut costs. Or claims you are important and consistently cuts staff increasing your workload.

A religious acquaintance talks about 'love thy neighbour', but at almost every corner offers either generalised, ignorant or derogatory comments about other groups or nationalities.

(Think adverts and advertising)

And so we conclude that there is little point to developing values. But we are misreading the situation.

It's not that values don't drive our actions, they do. Your friend who misses the book-club has other more valuable priorities. The business values individual talent over team work and profit over client or staff. The religious acquaintance values scorn over love.

Forget what they say. Their actions and behaviours are telling you everything you need to know about what it is that they truly believe. As yours is.

It's a big leap in maturity when we begin to intentionally align what we really believe with what we're actually doing. Of course we become more authentically impactful and influential.

And don't expect others to thank you for saying... 'Well I can't attend the book-club meeting tonight because I value watching TV over attending, but thanks anyway'. And good luck drawing peoples and organisations attention to their contradictory values, without an invitation. You'll get a slap in the face.

Your most valuable asset may just be your biggest liability

2012-11-20T19:33:00.001+08:00

Given how much marketers, politicians, corporations and advertising companies are willing to pay to attract your attention, it must be important. If fact I would comfortably argue that your attention is your most valuable asset.

Well this is not exactly true. Your attention may be valuable to others, but it only becomes valuable (to you) when it's trained and obedient. Until then, if it bounces around like a hyperactive five year old, it's a serious liability.

I call obedient attention, concentration... The skill to place your attention where you want it and effortlessly hold it there for as long as you need to. The effortlessly part comes with lots of practice and begins with hours of grind. Just like starting gym or running.

Concentration can also be understood as exclusive attention on one object, or our ability to stay focused on the task at hand. It's the key to improved thinking, wellbeing and performance, and radically improves the speed with which we acquire new knowledge and skills.

Given the role of concentration or trained attention to our success, it's important that we intentionally create a deliberate practice to develop and deepen it. Ahemmm!

It requires no muscle memory, no physical skill at all. So in this way it's a purely mental activity. That of course does not make it any less demanding, in fact in many ways it's more so.

There are two forms of concentration, one useful and the other very damaging.

a/ Hard, focussed and exclusive concentration works on the principal of domination or denial. And although it may keep your attention focussed it destroys your quality of life. This is the easier of the two. Control always is.

b/ Soft, open, aware and yet focussed attention - both expansively aware + narrowly focussed. It's aware of everything but firmly holds only one thing as a point of interest, without denying anything else. This is much more difficult, but has much better all round results. And makes you a much nicer, healthier, happier person. Which weirdly enough contributes to success.

It helps to get guidance or a mentor at the beginning.

If it's not better, why replace it?

2012-11-19T17:03:00.001+08:00

Our patterns of behaviour be they personal or relationship and our systems be the commercial, political or economic are not real systems in that they're made from iron, steel or concrete. They are psychological, the intellectual product of our fears and aspirations of our thinking, assumptions, values, knowledge and beliefs.

I.e. money and money systems are not a real things. They are ideas supported by processes and systems... simply the product of more thinking.

It stands to reason that in working to change the status quo without first or at least simultaneously having transformed, evolved and developed the thinking that designed them, then the effort is destined to fail. Or in political terms the leader may change but the regime stays the same.

If our systems are creating more problems than they solve, which they are. If they're unsustainable, which they are and if they're inequitable, which they are. We can change them.

But it's unreasonable to expect that those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo be the agents of that change. In much the same way that would be unreasonable to expect a monarch to be the instrument of his own reform, even demise.

This is neither good nor bad and in it I see no judgement. I'm not sure how interested I would be to change a behaviour or system within which I prosper, especially if I believed that I had worked hard to achieve my success and influence.

I guess I may be tempted to say, 'stop being a bad loser'.

But that's not the end game. What's better that we can offer. What are we bringing to the table. Just opposing something because we don't like it, even if it's defunct, is not the same as replacing it with something more intelligent that works even better.

Actions speak louder (and truer) than words

2012-11-18T16:34:00.001+08:00

"I love you unconditionally and I want nothing in return, no gifts, no goods or demonstrations of love... Just knowing that you love me too".

Wow, what a loaded sentence, given that communication is roughly 7% words, 28% intonation and 65% visual (give or take depending on the model you use). This means the bulk of what we are communicating to others is through our actions and behaviour, what they can see, and not through our words.

It's the movie Stardust and Yvaine is declaring her love to Tristan, who at that moment is a mouse. But before that tragic turn of events was on a mission to demonstrate his love to the girl he mistakenly believed he loved, Victoria.

"What I'm trying to say Tristan is that I think I love you.
My heart feels like my chest can barely contain it, like it doesn't belong to me anymore, it belongs to you. And if you wanted it I would want nothing in exchange, no gifts, no goods, no demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing that you love me too. Just your heart in exchange for mine".

The tricky part however lies in the phrase "knowing that you love me too". That deep sense of knowing is build up over months, years and decades of consistent behaviour communicating a very simple and clear message... In this case, 'I love you!'

I'll leave it to you to translate and apply this to your marketing message, relationships and beliefs in sustainability and change.

It's not important for now to know what that behaviour may look like--you can't consistently fake it and neither is it an automation--although there are some common patterns and themes. But it is important to contemplate that when it comes to communicating what we feel and believe (our business vision and mission), there is simply no place to hide.

If your have eyes to see and ears to hear, which although we may not consciously be aware of, we do. We've been communicating a lot longer through behaviour than we have been thinking or stringing pretty words together... Think advertising!

Victoria on the other hand desired only a trinket, a symbol of love, not love itself. Much easier to deliver on... Think what we expect from government, corporations and other people in general!

Grab a beer, pull up a chair... Join the conversation, why don't you?

2012-11-17T14:18:00.001+08:00

We talk about patterns of behaviour [and of changing them] for individuals and systems for collectives, or groups. But the systems we have chosen to create, be they political, economic, business or those we have developed to provide the energy which sustains our activities, are in essence mental frameworks providing for and rationalising collective behaviour.

But we didn't really choose them. They kinda haphazzardly evolved around us. The big difference between now and then, is that now for the first time in the history of humanity there are enough people who have enough connected and collective influence, know enough about intentionally designing systems or are prepared to experiment... To intentionally design better ones, which serve more people, in a more equitable way.

And of course acknowledge the real limitations of our natural non-renewable resources.

This group of people who are now working to develop new or emergent systems [for the benefit of eveyone] are not some secret privileged hi-powered group. But rather people like you and I who have chose to be part of the conversation.

They do what they do in spite of the fact that they too have families, mortgages and work obligations. But regardless they have chosen to study and learn what they can about sustainability, leadership, personal growth and spirituality. And have stepped forward to answer the call... If not you, then who?

Join the conversation, why don't you?

Momentum is a hell of a thing.

2012-11-16T14:19:00.001+08:00

As parents why do we spend so much of our time and precious resources in educating, teaching, training and explaining concepts to our children... Because we want them to have a better, happier life and future.

Why as parents do we try to protect our children, especially the younger ones... Because as parents we can see that the consequences of their actions are going to come back and bite them in the ass. They can't, we can.

As awake, aware and intelligent adults we can see further into the future. We can connect the dots. We can predict with better accuracy, the future. Because of this we make sometimes small and sometime larger course corrections. The point is that we don't have to actually meet the consequences to learn, we can simply predict, learn and adapt. This is the evolution of intelligence.

And so it is with the sustainability or social movement, not all of it, in fact just the leading edge. They can see and predict, they have connected the dots. And they can see that the consequences of our behaviour, now, are going to cause us progressively more pain and suffering, tomorrow. And they wish with all their heart to help us adapt.

They see this because they have rigorously investigated, they have done the math. And they get that exponential economic growth, production and consumption compounded by an exponentially growing population, exponentially rising debt and exponentially dwindling resources including the mother of all resources, cheep energy... Are all leading us to a very inevitable and absolutely predictable conclusion.

That life, our life, life on planet earth earth is going to fundamentally change.

But tomorrow is tomorrow, the next moment is ages away says the small boy hurtling toward a very predictable and inevitable collision with a plate glass window.

Momentum carriers us forward even when we stop doing whatever it is that we are doing. Ask the captain of any super-cargo ship. Momentum is a hell of a thing. When we take into account momentum, tomorrow is already here, it came yesterday.

Maybe we should start paying more attention to what those weird sustainability dudes are saying. Forget the right and wrong line of reasoning, rather look at the coherency and data supporting the arguments. It might just be that they care about us more than the industrial-financial complex. Which seems reasonable given that we know for a fact, it doesn't.

But hey, we have time... How much is gas now?

It's not that we need to freak out. Impending crisis or not, freaking out won't help. Rather study, learn, educate, empower ourselves and join the conversation. This is a relevant, intelligent and appropriate response.

And has delightful and unexpected rewards that benefit us now.

Old man's philosophy... Let's get real.

2012-11-14T18:25:00.002+08:00

So imagine you're teaching your children the value of sharing or of being polite and they respond. 'All this philosophy is nice, but let's talk about reality'... But this IS reality you answer.

Whenever we learn new values which shape and influence our behaviour it initially sounds philosophical, but not to the person teaching. To them it is a reality. It is part of their DNA and informs their thinking, behaviour and the systems they develop.

Of course with children we can't work directly on the level of values. So instead we model the behaviour the values shape, thus training the values indirectly. This of course is slow and time-consuming and invariably meets with loads of resistance. But with adults, because our thinking is more developed, because we are more mature and subtle, we can work directly on the values themselves.

It's subtle, but a much faster and more sustainable way of aligning [and changing] behaviour.

That's why organisations and businesses, at a certain point in their development if they committed to sticking around, start taking their mission and vision seriously. But to the young and uninformed, it just sounds like old man's philosophy.

Hope is not the future

2012-11-13T14:58:00.000+08:00

Hope is passive and a way to avoid dealing with the pains, trials and tribulations of the present [and the demands of getting there, wherever it is we're headed]. Rather it's vision and the creative process - the consistent effort to create especially when circumstances get difficult - that designs the future.

But the future emerges from the constraints of the present and not in spite of them. The future builds on what already is, less of course the extraneous or unnecessary. Knowing what physical and psychological realities to develop and what to abandon are always skills worth developing.

Vision is more than an intuitive peek into the future. It's your intention to create, forge or make a path from here to there.

Imagination, dream and hope don't rely on understanding the constraints of the present, which there always are. Whereas vision embraces and uses them to energise and guide the creative process.

But vision is demanding and requires skill - knowledge and the consistent application and experimentation of that knowledge. Mostly it's just easier to hope and leave it to someone else to fix.

Innovation happens when creativity is constrained, as it always is.

2012-11-12T03:30:00.000+08:00

We tend to think of creativity as a blank sheet, filled with unlimited potential, with the capacity to become anything. And this is true, however the artist's work is constrained by her skills as an artist, her courage to produce, the colors available, the size of the canvas, the amount of sleep she's had, her health, patience and prior emotional trauma and current maturity (plus an almost infinite array of other factors).

The painting we see, the creative act of making something from nothing ended up as the emergent result of pure potential filtered through the real, and in this case mostly unacknowledged, constraints and limitations. Not all limitations are the product of scarcity thinking.

And so it is with all innovation. Many constraints are personal, some cultural and others resources. But all shape and influence the final creative product, be it a report, book, painting, product or strategy.

Innovation depends on acknowledging and honoring the real, dissolving the artificial and transcending the relative. And wisdom I guess lies in working out which is which.

Interested, excited and intrigued about the future

2012-08-28T18:39:00.001+08:00

Look from almost every perspective the future looks grim and learning more about the reality and causes of that grimness makes it look even more overwhelming and grim.

We're mostly aware that things can't go on as they are and that change must come, or that we face a number of rather odious scenario based probabilities... No-one is quite sure of what's going to happen next or collapse first.

Not to mention that we still got our own personal stuff to deal with.

So in the midst of this, how do we stay positive, excited, relevant and interested in playing a role in this unfolding future?

And here's the thing, if we're not positive and excited about the future we're anxious, fearful, timid and reluctant. Not a good place for creative, innovative and productive efforts.

Mastery; insight or understanding and skill. There is no secret insomuch as we don't know how to do this, and no quick fix.

It took us eons to create the culture and the challenges we have and it's going to take us time to change paradigms, ways of thinking, create new human values and new systems.

It's a bit like the overweight person going to the doctor saying, 'doctor, how do I loose all this weight quickly?' The doctor replies, 'and how long did it take you to put it all on?'

Interested and excited though depends on deeper levels of autonomy and freedom especially from the garbage that normally occupies our intellectual bandwidth. It requires deeper levels of conversation, personal identity and purpose and a deeper connection to community, support and care.

It requires that we get and practice the traditionally spiritual art of surrender and action, of the transformation of suffering, of awareness and presence, because that's the only place we find real joy and autonomy.

And I believe it also means that we do all of this, knowing that whatever we do, may in fact be to late to change any of those rather grim probabilities.

This is why more than ever we need to learn the skill to moderate very intentionally and skillfully which thought, feeling, concept is allowed to grow in the garden of our awareness, and of increasing the scope and depth of that awareness.

Our greatest and first gift though should be mastery. And then from that place of deeper understanding and skill tackle the challenges we have according to our developed interests and passions... joyfully and skillfully.

Engaging and grappling creates solutions

2012-08-26T20:24:00.001+08:00

From the moment the first bucket of gold was extracted from the earth, or the first barrel of oil was pumped from a well, the end was in sight. It's naive to believe that a finite resource can last forever, especially when consumption doubles every set period.

On the upward slope of the bell curve, there is more than is needed (it's easy to get) and the cost to extract it is relatively inexpensive, but on the downward slope, every barrel, every bucket costs more to get.

Have you noticed prices going up?

Eventually a point is reached when a barrel out costs a barrel to get and the utility of the resource has come to an end.

On a local level we get it... on a global level we seem to think that the resource is inexhaustible, which it isn't, the same law of a finite resource applies.

A little blue ball hanging in the blackness of space, finite in dimensions and resources.

When multiple exponential curves collide; energy, debt (economy), environment, population, technology and complexity it's going to be time to rethink the very principles and values upon which our global culture is build.

It's going to be time to [re]ask, what it means to be human?

It's possible but not probable that technology will solve the problem (immediately). It's possible but not probable that the next generation will suddenly develop the mastered complexity of thinking to solve the challenges, but are we willing to bet on possible over probable?

Although the solution depends on new and different ways to behave, how we behave depends on how we [on the leading edge] understand and think, and our thinking only changes when we engage and grapple deeply with the challenges.

And believing that a solution will miraculously present itself denies the opportunity of grappling, but also relieves us from the responsibility of making uncomfortable choices.

Our talents, although important, is not purpose.

2012-07-16T22:50:00.003+08:00

I think it's often assumed that purpose is something that is developed internally, and in part that's true ... it's our passions and interests. But it's the context, or what's happening on a global, national and community level that shapes it and makes it relevant.

There are many expressions of purpose that seem disconnected from a required level of complex understanding or connection with the change that appears to be unfolding, except personal anger and/or discomfort.

It may be useful therefore to create a distinction between

Talents, which are our developed abilities, skills and passions and
Purpose which implies relevance and a grasp of the complexity [differentiation and integration] of context.

For the independent professional and business owner committed to making a difference, the question may then be, how relevant is my business and business products? Or even more fundament, how relevant is the model of business I'm using?

Which is a tough question to ask.

And which is only a relevant question if the objective is to contribute to making a real difference and playing a role in the unfolding of our cultural evolution.

We are the solution

2012-07-03T16:52:00.001+08:00

This simple truth that the degree of mastery of mind or control of consciousness determines our quality of experience and capacity for creative thinking has been known for a long time; in fact, for as long as human records exist.

This is interesting because as life gets more complex and we learn more about our psychology and physiology, so new capacities (or levels) of control and mastery emerge.

In this complex fast moving world we need ever higher levels of mastery just to maintain the status-quo. But to create new solutions, we need to be pushing the envelope.

The way out is to believe in a preordained new age, the immanent collapse of current systems, a coming saviour, the end of the world or whatever other paradigm of thinking relieves us from the responsibility of learning about both the systems of the world, and the functioning of our minds.

When was the last time you read a well researched book on psychology or creative thinking, or attended a workshop that really challenged your current way of thinking by encouraging another?

Or are you waiting for the storm to pass?

Well meaning doesn't make it right

2012-06-30T17:56:00.000+08:00

I believe it's fare to say that all of us want happiness, most of us want success (in whatever field or area is real for us) and some of us want to make a difference.

Most of us see happiness as a consequence of success, which it isn't, and some as a consequence of making a difference, which it isn't.

And living a happy life, being happy, discovering the secret to happiness and well-being doesn't automatically deliver success or the ability to make a difference. It rarely does.

Happiness, success and making a difference are three completely different things, with success in one although possibly providing brief respite or momentary fulfilment, usually coming the cost of the others.

That is not to say we can't create happiness, achieve success and make a difference simultaneously. It means to do them together requires very specific information and very consciously developed strategies and tactics.

Loosing weight makes you thin not happy. Making money makes you rich at our expense, not happy. A successful business makes you a business man, not happy or socially responsible. Mastering happiness makes you neither successful nor socially responsible.

You won't find it in 99% of the self-help or achieve your goals, books. Mostly they are either deliberately or misguidedly appealing to your mistaken idea that achieving one means achieving the other. Not the reality that achieving one usually marginalises the other.

As one of an infinite number of examples and as well meaning as it may be, in today's money narrative your success comes at the expense of your community, our culture and the planet. It doesn't have to be this way, but it is, that's how the system is designed. So if awesome financial wealth and security is your goal, making a difference can't be. And if you never trained yourself to be happy before, you'll definitely be miserable (and angry) after.

The quest for happiness, success and making a difference... a powerful statement of the intent to develop high levels of personal mastery, wisdom and leadership.

Anyone can risk money... but what about personal identity and social confirmation?

2012-06-28T13:05:00.001+08:00

What do you do if you become aware of a truth so self-evident but so contradictory to every thing you've ever believed (but intuitively suspected) that it compels you to question the very basis of how you live, love, make money and grow your business?

Do you ignore it in the hope that it'll go away?
Do you wait for others to take the first step and confirm your theory?
Do you investigate it carefully, contemplate it deeply, and then do everything you can to help it manifest as strange new behaviour?

Can self-evident be ignored?
Can self-evident be stifled?
Can self-evident wait for others?
Will the manifestation of that self-evidence look exactly the same for everybody?
Will it make it any easier to sacrifice the little true joy, happiness and security you have, on the results other weird people might have achieved but which can't be proved to work for you (until you do it and prove it to yourself). Will that really make it easier?

And can the behaviour and results of new behaviour be accurately predicted, can we make it safe and known? I guess this is the paradox of transformation -- we feel isolated, stuck, trapped, frustrated and caught in a narrative we don't really believe in (to one extent or another), and yet we want the way out to be known, predictable, safe and understood by our parents, friends, partners, children, neighbours and the dog.

Revolution... sure. As long there's guaranteed benefit and I don't have to lay anything of real value on the line.

And what could be of more value than your own personal identity and philosophy. Your narrative of how things work, and why and how you (we) should go about doing what you (we) do.

But what if self-evident compelled you to question your most deeply held beliefs, and in-so-doing you suspect you might just come to acknowledge that they themselves are the cause of your suffering and the source of the little happiness, meaning and purpose you have.

Would you be prepared to wager even that for more? Can you risk the real threat of falling into oblivion?

The solution is not always productivity

2012-06-27T18:36:00.001+08:00

Increasing productivity and developing skills has it's uses, but if the systems themselves are the problem, then that simply makes you better at making a bigger problem.

Cautious about abundance

2012-06-26T16:22:00.000+08:00

I have been very cautious over the past few years to use the word abundance, I guess in part because of the initial relatively immature expression of this understanding -- It's all about wishful thinking and visualisation.

But upon a deeper reflection, I've not really found a better word.

Abundance is experienced on several levels:
As a expansive state of conciousness (a feeling)
As a logic of thinking
As logic of behavior
As a logic of strategies and systems, especially those of our business.

A state of consciousness is always the easiest and usually the first expressions, but translating that into consistent personal and business behaviour gets progressively more complex. Especially since the world is governed by the laws and systems of scarcity. There's also the question of translating the language of abundance into that of scarcity, let alone the impossible task of communicating the underlying principals coherently -- it's so contradictory to everything scarcity comprehends.

And we experience abundance:
Personally
As a community and culture
As a society and nation
As culture and humanity

It's easiest on a personal level and again gets more complex as we include more people in the narrative and dialogue. One of the biggest challenges being that there is no consistent or right expression of abundance, we are literally working it out as we go along. This is one of the reasons it's so difficult to get a handle on the #OWS movement, especially by the mass media. They are heavily invested in the narrative of scarcity.

What we are getting considerably more clear about is that there is a change, and that this change is in response to the deep appreciation that the rules and patterns which got us here, can't get us there.

Does our future look grim, and should I be insuring myself against it?

2012-06-25T15:44:00.002+08:00

A friend send me this question in response to the post, 'what happened to the promise of leisure (and pleasure)?

A few years ago I heard someone claim that people were insuring against the future. I think they meant that people were believing that the future was going to be worse than the present or past. I'm wondering how might we live in the belief that the best days are ahead of us while also being aware of what is real? Holding an optimistic perspective despite the signs of breakdown all around. Is this emergent thinking?

Thanks, and I believe this question to be so relevant I want to reply to it as an open blog post.

Underpinning our culture and way of life is what we call our socio-economic mode of production. It's what keeps us busy, the lights on, the roofs over our heads and the food in our stomachs, and it's typically what we use to define our progress.

So the question may well be.

Is our current socio-economic mode of production on the verge of collapse, which from what I'm hearing, seems like a real possibility?
And how can or should I protect myself from the fall out of such a collapse, if it happens, while keeping a positive mental attitude?

I'm uncomfortable with hyperbole which principally seeks to induce a contraction provoking a predictable response. For example, 'Click here to save the word', or 'Do you want to earn $500 per hour, working 1 hour per day from home with no previous experience?'

I'm also uncomfortable with simplistic yes, no answers (in this context), which minimises or even negates the need to explore and understand, but rather seeks only tacit agreement or disagreement. And where to from there?

I would therefore prefer to frame the first question thus.

Is our socio-economic mode of production in the process of (more or less radical) transformation? Now this raises a few more interesting questions. For example, transforming from what to what? What are the indicators, or what is the supporting evidence to corroborate such a theory? What is the depth of the transformation, in other words is it a profound core, or a superficial surface transformation. What's the best guess estimate on the timeline. How may I best participate or oppose, which is in a way asking how to best protect myself from the worst of the fallout, or even benefit through and on the other side of, this process of transformation.

And the questions framed as transformation also helps us better understand how we might go about insuring ourselves from the worst consequences of such a transformation, if such a thing is possible. Because insurance requires we bet on how things are going to be in the future, be it options, stocks even attitudes. If we make the wrong guess we lose, if we make an accurate guess, we benefit. So in order to make the right guess we need to be as informed as possible about what's really going on.

Collapse also implies a shocking end with nothing, or little of value and beauty to follow, whereas transformation implies continuity from past to present to future, a change to something higher and better. And this would help us in keeping a positive mental attitude through the process of transformation, which can be both destructive (yes collapse of the old) and traumatic. The degree of destruction really depends upon the degree to which we cling to that which is dead (or dying), inhibiting the natural process of transformation.

And the evidence is just pouring in. Global warming and climate change, over production and consumption, mental dis-ease, financial turmoil and, and this is important, incredible break through's in thinking, intelligence, science, spiritual awareness and cognitive insight.

Of all the indicators, simple maths is the best. Constant global growth be it at 3% or 10% per annum is impossible given that we live in a finite context (planet earth). At an average of 4.9% growth the world consumes double what it consumed and produced in the entire history of the world before that, every 14 years.

This is significant.

Every 14 years, based on average global growth of 4.9%, the world produces and consumes double the amount it has in total ever consumed and produced through-out its history until that point. This means we are currently consuming and producing double the amount ever produced and consumed, for the entire history of the world prior to 1998.

And we can't stop growing because then we go bankrupt. We need to grow at that speed, or even faster if we are to stay ahead of global debt payments and the interest due on that debt.

Quite simply, we can't stop growing (we go bankrupt) and we can't go on growing (we run out of raw materials).

Constant growth is a myth because

We will run out of materials, be they natural resources or intellectual property, to commercialise
We simply don't need all the stuff we are forced to make to sustain constant growth. Most of it moves rapidly from factory to garbage dump, hence the need for the throw-away culture.
We will alter the biosphere to such an extent as to make in inhospitable to humanity
We will go bankrupt if we slow growth beyond a point allowing us to service the debt.
And it's all escalating at an exponential rate, 2x2, x2, x2, x2 at a constant rate, like seconds ticking away on a clock.

Even now the only way we are staying ahead of the game is through monetising and commercialising every dimension of our human cultural commons (which belongs to us all), exploiting every natural resource (which also belongs to us all), whilst exporting the real cost of that production into the future. This is a trick companies like Enron used, except they got caught, but we just do it in smarter ways. Well not so smart, it's just called global denial.

And this all happens while the money system, as it is and because of cultural design, pools profits into smaller and smaller points of collection, meaning the disparity between have's and have not's also grows exponentially.

The data conclusively shows, the system as it is will break down (whether we lynch culprits or not). It is inevitable and it will happen quickly when it does, in much the same way a business recognises its bankruptcy, quickly. This does not mean is goes bankrupt quickly, just that it refuses to recognise the signs until it's forced to acknowledge it's real financial position. Until that point the directors live in the powerful elixir of false profit, hope and denial.

And bankruptcy seems like the point we will get to first, although this is not certain. In bankruptcy, all commercial activity stops. There is simply no money available to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. Willing sellers and buyers have no medium of exchange, except for the few who may have access to precious metals, but this would be a very interim solution, since the have's already control it (and it's another scarce resource, which doesn't really solve the problem of scarcity).

Of course the old system (transformation always implies the death of the old) does not have to end so traumatically, if we recognise early enough and respond to the data. The longer we delay, the more inevitable the traumatic collapse of the 'scarcity' based system will be.

And I can hear you whisper. Sure sounds like collapse to me, and it would be if something new wasn't already emerging.

What we are witnessing in the world today is a global shift, at the leading edge, from scarcity to abundance consciousness. This in itself is simply a necessary precursor to a new way of thinking and the development of a 'revolutionary / evolutionary' new economic mode(s) of production. And it's important to point out that the current model got us from wandering the plains in search of our next meal, to here. It was necessary, in that this was how it happened.

Scarcity and the age of growth are not bad. It played a crucial role in our human evolution. It just can't take us from here to there. Everything is useful to a point, ceases to be useful anymore and then deteriorates into a problem. If not attended to it shifts from a problem to pathological pattern, ending its life in psychotic self-destruction. Our current system appears to be in the final stages of psychosis. And even now, there is lots of money to be made. There is incredible profit in destruction and many merchants who are happy to profit while 'Rome Is Burning'.

It's important to recognise that abundance is not the opposite of scarcity, that's simply the antithesis and a negation of the principals of scarcity, a subtle confirmation of those very principals. Abundance is the step after scarcity, after the benefits which flowed from that level of consciousness, have run their course.

It may be easier to picture this as the most significant step in human evolution is over 50,000 years. As the emergence of a new species, playing by different rules, rules beyond the comprehension of scarcity mankind. There is simply nothing I can say to scarcity man that will help him understand abundance, in much the same way that it would be possible to explain to Neanderthal man, the rules of modern commerce.

Suffice it to say, that we will witness and are witnessing the transformation of the financial systems, of our understanding of 'what money is and what it does'. From a thing holding independent value, to knowledge (an idea), signifying a level and degree of contribution.

At the heart of a new socio-economic mode of production is going to lie a new story of why we are here, what we are supposed to do. Growth will not be measured by economic activity, but rather by community, wholehearted participation and care.

We will no longer be driven by the need to earn a living so that maybe at some point we can get around to doing what it is that we really want to do. It will be the revolutionary shift to a steady state economy, where the gifts of our planet and cultural heritage are recognised as the human commons and our real wealth.

And the best insurance policy. Personal transformation. Your shift, the shift you bring to your family, community, society, culture and together we bring to the world. Your reconnection with community (scarcity and the age of growth came at the price of isolation and separation), because when the money system as it is fails, which it will, it's the community who will support each other.

There is no free meal; this is not a change external to the very essence of who you are. It is not a cognitive, dry intellectualising. It's a metamorphosis of being, becoming and participating. It runs so deep and alters our world so profoundly that the impulse to deny it is overpowering.

So of all things, I would suggest the biggest insurance policy would be, knowledge, verifying and learning. Is what I have written here the delusions of the insane? Just wrapping your brain around the fragility of our financial system and economic mode of production causes incredible angst and tension. It causes us to contract, deny and dig further into the very system which mathematically cannot continue.

This will create anger, even rage and this is healthy. In any relationship that is dying, there is pain upon the recognition of its passing. However, we don't want to use that pain and projected anger to force us to take the next step. Pain, anger and suffering simply can't comprehend the systems of abundance, let alone participate in developing them.

What happened to the promise of leisure (and pleasure)?

2012-06-23T16:57:00.000+08:00

The promise of technology and industrialisation was... more time and convenience for culture and the individual. So what went wrong, because we now have less time, more pressure and more debt?

We are in every respect just like the dog chasing its tail. The faster we run, the more dizzy we get and our tail, the anticipation of leisure and reward, remains just as far away as it's always been, if not further -- If we apply the quantum theory that the faster we go the smaller we get, resulting in the distance from nose to end of tail growing.

Back on track. The problem is twofold, mindset and systems.

Mindset
The mindset of growth converts every opportunity [of more time] not into the opportunity for greater leisure, but rather the opportunity to do even more, so we can make more, buy more, have more. The false promise that more is somehow better, even when most of the more is completely and utterly unnecessary, and adds nothing to our quality of life, cultural development or physical comfort.

In fact it could easily be argued that it's hurting us now and mortgaging the future.

Systems
The other is the systems of which the money or financial systems is the biggest culprit. The vast bulk of our money is created through the mechanism of debt creation (home, business and government loans), and attached to debt is interest. The interest however, is never created. And so trapped in this false scarcity, we are compelled to produce more to firstly stay ahead of the debt payments, and secondly to service the interest on that debt (which was never created)

The only solution to this quandary is constant economic growth. And even a child can reason that constant growth within a finite context is destined to fail.

So even if there was a sudden planetary mindset shift from the idea that exponential growth equals progress, which it may have been many decades ago, but now is actually counter progress, to a steady state equals progress. We would still find ourselves trapped in the traditional money narrative of chasing debt and the interest [never created] on debt.

It's a bit like using one credit card to pay another. It's an ill conceived plan ultimately destined to fail.

And as complex as it may seem, and it can get a little tricky, both mindset and human systems can be changed. Mindset can be mastered and moulded, the ideas and narratives which govern our behaviour and the systems can be transformed. And we can change the narratives of the existing systems, the values and principles on which they are build.

The point here is that money and the systems governing is creation, distribution and final dissolution (required in a debt based system) are all the creations of our minds and mindsets. We can change them. Money is not a real thing like trees and tractor tyres. It's an idea of how we should go about exchanging value (our gifts) and keeping score.

It is as illusionary as Celsius or meters.

The challenge comes in when we try to change the systems without first having changed our mindset. The money system is a product of mindset and it has been a powerful instrument in human development, but now the cause of looming catastrophe and untold misery. But to change it, we need to master a new level of enlightened mindset, with which to design and experiment with other more relevant narratives and systems of money.

It we simply tear it down, we can only ever replace it with another variation of the system which we have just gotten rid of.

Mindset mastery or transformation alone is not enough, but playing and redesigning systems from within the very mindset (values and beliefs) which originally developed them, is... well pointless.

Consistent winning, in a finite context, is just another way to lose

2012-06-21T18:49:00.000+08:00

As our recognition of the inter-dependantness of all things deepens, so too does the absurdity of the psychology of sustainable winning (growth) in a finite environment become more apparent.

Let’s use the game of monopoly as an example. The game has a finite number of players, money, resources and properties -- just like planet earth. Inevitably, and in a relatively short time one player through chance or skill emerges the winner. But at that point the game breaks down and comes to an end. And when the game comes to an end the winning itself turns to loss, because the game has ended, even winning itself.

And when the game ends all lose, and the only winning is the memory of winning.

It's worthwhile noticing that the strategy of development and growth is initially useful as properties are purchased and developed. But at some critical point in the game when development has run its course, when everything that can be commercialised, has been, for the game to continue the rules need to radically change.

From growth to consistency, from private ownership to communal use and from competition to care. In that space the game now has a chance to evolve and bring forth new potentials unrecognised and not needed during its phase of growth.

In our human evolution, we have come to that point. The rules of the game are changing as we recognise the inevitability of loss, the inter-connectedness of all things and the finiteness and fragility of this small planet we call home.

Waiting for the old game to end so we can start a new one is not the option we want to be shooting for.

Adolescence is always painful, not least for the rest of us

2012-06-19T16:48:00.000+08:00

It's a mistake to believe that abundance is the opposite of scarcity and therefore plays by exactly the opposite rules. It's more useful and certainly more technically accurate to think of abundance as the next step in our human [psychological] evolution, which finally integrates the core learning points of both unconsciousness and scarcity consciousness.

From Unconsciousness to Scarcity to Abundance... to Relevance.

In the 1960's we witnessed necessary, but rather crude expressions of World Consciousness and the Woman's Liberation Movement. Over the past 50 years these expressions have developed and matured, are infinitely more sophisticated, complex and beautiful.

So to with Abundance Consciousness. Its earlier expressions held in stark contrast to the heaviness and pain of scarcity, and with it some mystical magical power to achieve all we want through wishful thinking and visualisation -- Usually corroborated by a few pointed anecdotes.

Abundance is not the opposite of scarcity, not is it prior to scarcity, not is it equal to scarcity. The age of [leisure] abundance lies after scarcity, because it's more complex, sophisticated and paradoxical, and depends on us as a culture transitioning through scarcity. It plays by new upside-down rules, redefining the realities of limit.

It only happens when we make the invisible [unconscious] rules now governing our world of progress visible. When visible, we have the opportunity to de-construct the ones no longer necessary and are keeping us trapped, transform the ones which have meaning but are still relatively immature, and create new ones.

It's by design.

We live in a world of finite resources and limitations. These do not go away because of a shift in consciousness; we just begin to experience, relate to and use them differently. We see abundance in deeper more subtle levels of reality, while respecting and working with the limitations of the finite more apparent world.

Scarcity is not limitation, and abundance is not without limit. Scarcity is a state of consciousness, a governing feeling, an experience and interpretation of life from which all strategies [even corporate] emanate. Limit is limit; constraints in any finite environment, exist.

More than anything, abundance is the adolescent human, growing up.

3 methods for change

2012-06-16T18:47:00.000+08:00

1/ Spend your time burdened and victimised. Insist on finding the culprit. Want change, but resist all attempts to change. The systems are corrupt and inequitable, unless you can figure out how they can work for you.

Effortlessness means doing nothing new.

2/ Search for inner peace and serenity, but do nothing to threaten your sense of identity, nest egg and investment portfolio.

Effortlessness means detachment.

3/ Transform the way you perceive, experience, think and act and then go out into the world and live your personal philosophy. Cooperate, build synergies and where necessary bring accountability. Be psychologically prepared to risk everything for a better future, while working in new ways within old systems, to build your business and develop your career.

Effortlessness means doing everything (relevant to you) in a new way and with a new mindset.

Ending badly is a bad ending

2012-06-14T13:03:00.000+08:00

All relationships end, but they don't have to end badly.

They end badly because we play them out passed the time they could or should have ended, naturally.
They end badly because we avoid the short discomfort of confronting that end, and instead fearfully wait for them to spiral into pain and anger, where we are forced to acknowledge that end.
They end badly because we are scared of a unknown future.

We are in relationship with people, business, money, govenmental and cultural systems. And it will end badly if we don't confront our fears, and talk about why they are not working and what to replace them with.

It may still end badly, because we can't control the responses of others, our partners. But ignoring the problem guarantees it ends badly, and confronting the problems only means it may end badly. The more caring, intelligent and skilful we are in confronting the problem, the less probable it is that it ends badly.

We are in relationship with a way of thinking, in exactly the same way we where in relationship with our ex-partner, with the same fears and doubts about a new way of thinking that lies beyond.

Don't be fearfull, this is how our evolution feels from the inside. It's a messy process full of false starts and abandoned projects.