It is a bit of a joke to create metaphors that explore the impact of stories on our habits and habitat. That is what helps me not to take it personally though. If I become invested in the story, my biology may begin responding to threats or validations to “my story” instead of my external reality. Phew that’s already pretty deep. Hope I did not fry anyone’s pre frontal cortex already ha ha
Hey Everyone!
Thanks for dropping in again.
Jumping back to flow states again, the beauty of the “state” of flow to me. It’s a state, where I stop trying to control, put all assumptions and strategies aside and lose my self in the full richness of pure experience. How can we loose our selves? Is it really necessary? Aren’t we supposed to accept ourselves?
Pulse
What is, is, regardless of what could be, or could have been. Control is only possible by adding tension, by applying force. When we hold tension, we change what was happening, and we also change the way we sense what is happening. (Go back the guitar string metaphors again). Changing the tension on the string, changes both the way it receives and transmits. Athletes, artists and the most graceful animals apply minimal force for the shortest time, they “pulse” the energy. That way they can keep checking in with reality and updating their “response”. This if very different to reactivity.
So where does Reactivity come from?
So glad I asked :)
Let’s go back to our fish trap maker and his PR manager, his marketing team mate.
The fish trap maker, may of got his idea from observing how fish get left behind in rock pools when the tide goes out. The idea, hmmm what if we make our own rock pools, or damn these rocks are heavy, what if we use bamboo, reeds...nets.. what if we had a big floaty thing so we could take the net out to sea?
His reference point is always, what actually works, what is nature doing, how is my technology responding, what might actually be even better? He has to keep checking in with reality to gain effectiveness. Just like evolution, he becomes specialized through sensitivity to his environment. In this way his technology is a kind of evolution.
Any structure we place into our environment alters the way energy was being transferred. That is the whole point of making them. A single sheet of metal placed in a jungle clearing will alter its surroundings. It will gather water, and release it at its downhill edge, creating a channel in the ground, it will get hot, beneath there will be different kind of plants, perhaps more fungus.
That sheet of metal will not create energy but it will begin harvesting water and heat, concentrating and releasing them. It just alters the flow. Now it will rust, or get grown over or blown over. Nature does not abhore a structure, but anything that is not flexible will erode.
Eventually it will succumb to force, or become a diamond lol.
Our structures require maintenance, even if they save work, they will always create work.
They will always alter their downstream environments in unknowable ways.
The fish trap maker will notice how he is impacting his habitat. So may his marketing team, but their job is to create fish trap makers, not confuse them with tough decisions.
They have to remove information, filter it, keep it simple, remove the context and supply just the “knowledge” of how and why to make the traps.
Best case story tellers
The ancient idea of a young person learning a trade with a master was helpful in passing on experiences in a safe and effective way. This allowed our species to flourish while still remaining sensitive to our environment. This ability to specialise and add value without destroying future resources was the birth of our economics - it was ecologically sensitive.
Math, perhaps our most pure form of knowledge has zero context and so can be applied to anything, but without context, it contains no wisdom about the consequences of using it. An old and experienced fish trap maker and tester may understand the best way to use his traps so that he does not reduce next years harvest. An engineer may know how many trucks of concrete he will need to build a damn, but not even consider effects 1000 miles away on a coral reef. Though if we wanted to build ecologically sound damns, clever engineers would be indispensable.
As we become more specialised and more focused into remote niches of expertise, we began to trust experts more.
There is just way too much "science" for us to test even a tiny part of it for ourselves. Even if we wanted to,It is impossible for a teacher to pass on three decades of rich sensual experience to a room full of people in 3 years.
They won’t get it and probably will not even understand why all the details might matter. Even if teachers could somehow pass all that wisdom. It would be tough to keep students focused and engaged with even the most brilliantly devised multi media and field trips.
So stories get diluted, to just the bare minimum, all that remains is the what to do and a why you must do it that way to get the promised benefits. They are passed on in a way that makes them memorable - the more emotionally engaging the story, the less repetitions are required. If the recipients are personally involved in the projects (projected) outcomes they will feel emotions of attachment.
The problem with this is that experience turns in to belief which gets confused with knowledge, worse still it nearly always gets tied up with a persons sense of value. Our cultures are built on the idea of a persons value being related to their usefulness and morality - this feeds insecurity and attention seeking and makes people easily manipulated.
Worst case story tellers - are con-men
Con-men can project images of advantage, pride, power, control, beauty, fame, (no more fear), then they will snatch them away and create the fear of missing out on those promised wonders.
They will play the emotions, training the biology to tense and release until a body memory has been produced. If the autonomic nervous system is engaged - Bingo - the program is installed.
Con-men are experts at identifying where people are fearful/greedy and insecure, they don't wast their time on anyone else, though they may find them more interesting.
Wise people are in touch with their emotions, and that really means, they listen to their bodies inner tension levels, and can tell when they tensing needlessly, (inappropriately - wastefully non gracefully.
They are able to listen to stories and enjoy them, while remaining aware of the sensory data of what is "actually" happening right "now". They remain deeply rooted in their physical bodies even while allowing word pictures to form in their "minds eyes". (the visual processing area of the brain is also used for creating imagined images - so our biology really is easily fooled). they are probably switching back and forth - rather than getting swept away by mind.
People who can remain sensitive to their inner body tension, rather than to the emotion created by "mind movies", remain free to focus on what "really" interests them, which will be where their greatest skill lies.
Their ability to provide real care to others and have fun doing what they are good at, allows them to live with less fear. Kindness comes naturally and so their net-worth increases in proportion to the quality of their network, though it is a side bonus and not the main purpose of their action.
I re-wrote the last half - I was slipping into opinion rather than staying loose. None of this needs to be strictly right, I am not trying to change your mind, its more like sharing my own curiosity. Of course I totally lose the plot from time to time...thats half the fun :)
Bye now!
=8-P