Compassion, Collaboration & Cooperation IN TRANSITION

The entirety of our species – homo sapiens sapiens – now 7 billion individuals and counting – through the process of evolution and as a consequence of the actions of others and the events of history – have found themselves established as members of a diverse and complex arrangement of – A Global Collection of Collectives.

Clare Graves was one of the first psychologists who understood that we live, act, make decisions, and undergo change through complex systems. His informal drawings and illustrations would be familiar to any serious student of quantum physics, general systems and chaos theory. His ideas can best be crystallised by this following statement –

“Briefly, what I am proposing is that the psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating, spiralling process, marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order behaviour systems to newer, higher-order systems as man’s existential problems change.”

The consequences of the complex interactions between the belief systems of both the individuals and the collectives – has resulted in a supposedly democratically agreed status-quo of Global Free Trade, based on an Outdated Economic Model, consequential to what Eisenhower referred to, over 50 years ago, as the Military Industrial Complex – 

or what might otherwise be described as –

The Dynamism of CHAOS within the Serenity of Order.

As Hamish McRae has so lucidly concluded …

“There can be little doubt that order has become a more important element in the competitive mix than it used to be. The frontier spirit of Britain’s industrial revolution or of US twentieth-century capitalism, with ALL its vigour, can make great ships and create giant oil companies, but IT DOES NOT foster the meticulous attention to detail and marketing that has enabled Japan to flood the world with video-recorders. The TOP-DOWN CONTROL by the bosses of Britain and America in the past has not proved as effective as the BOTTOM-UP SENSE of RESPONSIBILITY generated by the highly-educated workforce of Japan today. But if the added value in societies comes increasingly from services – for example, the programmes which are shown on the video recorders as opposed to the manufacture of the VCRs themselves – then societies must foster CREATIVITY alongside ORDER. At one extreme there is a society where people sit in rows and do what they are told.  At the other there is one where everybody does their own thing.

The key to economic success in the future will be to find 

a way of balancing the two … 

GROUP RESPONSIBILITY and INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY.“ 

In the context of web-based online social networking – I would envisage a future comprised of an AlphaINDEX of AlphaINDEXs of Stories but this – my own particular AlphaINDEX of Stories – is dedicated to the event in history that was ZAADZ. 

AN event which Brian Johnson initiated towards the end of 2005 and ended with

the demise of zaadz@gaia.com as it transmogrified into giamtv.com.

The WHY WHO HOW & WHEN variances of The ZAADZ Complex as compared with those of The Baader Meinhof Complex can best be explained by the juxtaposition of what I would refer to as Healthy Anger and Toxic Anger …

Healthy anger sets boundaries, communicates violations, expresses moral outrage. Healthy anger can be channeled into hard work, creativity, passionate engagement. Healthy anger can create real intimacy – because it is honest and direct.

Toxic anger is usually tied to some kind of repressive cycle such that it builds up and needs to be discharged either by out of proportion reactivity or passive aggression.

Healthy anger is a function of ego-strength.

Toxic anger is usually part of an ego-defense.

As we engage in practices that allow development and healing to occur, INSIGHT arises. Insight IS distinct from belief in one simple way: belief is an outside-in phenomenon. INSIGHT IS as the word suggests an inside-out phenomenon.

So, by way of this introduction, the first few of my stories are yet again revealed to ALL of you out there who might be interested in the WHY WHO HOW & WHEN of LIFE in the 21st Century – and as Daniel Levin – my own modern day Spinoza – says in his really wonderful book –

“My hope in writing down the sayings and stories in this book is that you’ll

discover the “ZEN MIND“, the mind that sees all things for the first time. 

Each time you read a story, it will be as if you’ve never read it before. 

And each time – the meaning of the story – will enter you anew.” 

http://alphaindex-of-stories.net/index.html