A mindset for the 21st century — And the secret to belonging
How activating your metaphysical self will provide your path to the future
BFI shared this important and timely Bucky quote and asked:
“What kinds of behaviors are needed for us to avoid extinction?”
A good question, though maybe the wrong place to start.
As a friend of mine realized, and replied to my sharing of this post, responding to a question with a question:
“What inner mentality is needed to produce these behaviors which are necessary to avoid extinction?”
An excellent question, and probably a better place to start.
Our behaviors result from our mindset.
Who we are as an observer of reality, how we interpret it, determines our range of choices and ultimately our available set of actions.
So, what is that mindset, the origin point for our behaviors that could support us in avoiding our extinction?
Bucky already hit a key word here: metaphysical. Beyond the physical. It is about awakening the adult part of our selves. To understand this, let’s take a moment to understand our physical and metaphysical existence:
I seem to be alive.
I seem to be a life.
I seem to be life.
On the most gross physical level, we have a body made up of cells. A complex evolution of life. Life seems to evolve fractally, each evolution advancing beyond and integrating prior evolutions. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Each of us on the basic level starts of as a few cells, doubling and doubling again until we begin to grow plantlike in our mother’s womb.
Eventually, we pop out, are violently cut off from our nourishing ground, learn separation, and begin to explore our second level, that which we have in common with animals, we begin to be animated, exploring our environment through movement, crawling and eventually walking around, toward that which we like, and away from that which we don’t like. Moving toward pleasure, and moving away from pain. Seeking connection, and shying away if there is too much of it. It is the source of the gift and plight of emotions. Our second circuit of processing reality.
Thirdly, our thoughts. As we became symbol manipulators, began to use language, we also created our egoic mind, our mental body, the one who “thinks” (and therefore is) — and apparently “thinks” depending on statistics somewhere between 12k and 60k thoughts per day (most of them self-defeating and repetitive). Our thinking creates past and future, our sense of time. And awakens the idea of “i”, since there is now also a designator symbol for us as individuals. Our name separates us from everyone around. Especially in the Western world our first name is becoming more important than our last name — individualism has already expressed itself in pop icons with only one name (or even symbol).
We have become individuals instead of part of a collective.
This gives rise to our next and final level on the physical level of existence. One that most have dipped into, but tend to avoid: The level of “i” and “other”, our relational intelligence. Being in “i” is one of the most profoundly painful experiences. It is the place of utter loneliness, as in “i’ everything else becomes “other”, separate from us, leaving us completely alone and without anything to rely on, without any certainty. It is when we realize that all “other” is merely based on our distinctions, that reality, from Latin “res ales” — other things, is merely a figment of our imagination, that we really have and cannot have any idea of what is going on.
If we can bear this loneliness, advance through the abyss, we also realize that we can belong at any time by creating value for others. If we actively love, as Erich Fromm suggests as a remedy for this greatest human fear of alone-ness, we can connect to the world no matter the circumstance (the lesson in “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”)
Love is the act of extending your understanding of “self” beyond the boundaries of “i”.
Realizing that “i” and “other” are ultimately all life, that there is no separation in the underlying fabric of reality, and that each of us is a value creation system born to add value to the world (instead of maximizing and super-sizing our inputs, our consumption, the death culture we have lived in for a century).
In that realization, we awaken our Christ mind, our Krishna mind, our genius and higher self. We become aware of “dharma”, the natural order of things, how each of us is part and parcel of “God” and has a role to play. We realize that there is more to who we are, our metaphysical self, that in our aloneness is also a valuable uniqueness, that each of us has a voice, an expression to share.
All life creates more output than it consumes input, otherwise it shall die.
Creativity is the ultimate expression of life.
But not the hedonistic egoic expression of the budding artist. That of the mature creator, who realizes that self-expression has to be in service to something bigger than oneself, to a vision of some potential of beauty, justice, freedom, or other ultimate and unreachable value.
It is then that we can take our rightful place as co-creators of this reality. As conscious magicians who change reality in accordance to will, as Uncle Al put it.
This is the awakening of the metaphysical self that we get to educate humanity on swiftly.
The awareness of self as life and as creator.
That we are that already at all times, each of us, but that most of us don’t know that, instead unconsciously create in service to someone else’s vision. That most believe they don’t matter as individuals, are careless in their agreements with others, have a mind that rules them instead of being its master, don’t know how to emotionally self-regulate and cause pain for self and others, barely noticing their vessels, at best thinking of their body as an athletic trophy, at worst having it self-destruct in neglect.
Of course, there is no arriving. Awareness of these levels does not mean that you have, or ever will reach “enlightenment”. Each of these levels has near infinite expressions. Each of us comes here with a unique constellation in each level, a unique adventure and journey to take.
Think of it as a human punch card. Each of us comes here with certain holes open and certain propensities to open our path through these levels, to have certain archetypal experiences. The open holes and propensities might be there due to epigenetics, past life times, our particular birth moment and planetary influences or whatever (who could possibly know? - it might all be a simulation anyway or at best a magnificent ride?). As we have experiences, more holes are opened and we grasp more of reality and, unfortunately, now also have more ways to judge ourselves against that. Now we get to learn whatever lesson we are meant to learn, and to love ourselves for it, and in that learn to love others in their journey, love all of life for its innocent exploration of purpose.
This, of course, is only a beginning. We have found in our work that as you address these levels or circuits (or chakras, octaves, alchemical stages, rungs on Jacob’s ladder, sephiroth, or whatever you wish to call them or whatever they have been called in the various traditions of the world), there are certain key capacities:
- Adaptability — understanding yourself as a dynamic learning system that constantly adjusts itself to the world around it, starting with ensuring flexibility and pliability of your vessel.
- Empathy — the ability to lean into one’s own and other’s emotions. To sit with joy or discomfort, to extend yourself beyond yourself, to take on someone else’s experience fully as your own, even if seemingly opposite to yours, and love them, love life for it — to have the courage for vulnerability while self-regulating your own limbic system.
- Learning — to know that you cannot know anything, that all of what we perceive is filtered through our distinctions and cognitive biases that we have been taught by mother, father, preacher, teacher, and have learned ourselves. To understand that all of our understanding is an abstraction and that the map can never be the territory. And that we get to constantly expand our capacities on all levels.
- Accountability — if we wish to belong, we have to create value for others. In a world of VUCA, the only thing we can at best rely on is ourselves, our integrity, to know that our word matters, that what we agree to binds us. That creativity needs constraint, and that we can only stand on what we show up for. Through our commitments we establish possible exchange of value. Through delivering value, or clearing when we don’t, we create relationship, and ultimately a solid identity with a sense of belonging.
- Enrollment — the ability to inspire others, to share your unique voice in a way that resonates, to use symbols, like the letters of the words you are reading right now, to use art, to use visuals, to use whatever you can find to make someone else’s heart sing, entice them to empathize and experience your views and vision.
- Vision — the future you can see, that thing that is bigger than yourself. If you have nothing that is bigger than yourself, you have no reason to grow. To take on self-evolution. To get up in spite of it all. To have that intrinsic motivation required to keep going in spite of growth and transformation bringing the necessity of death.
- Agency — because as life, you are also the bringer of death. The holder of transformation, yours and that of the reality you find yourself in. This is your world. You have the capacity to destroy it. Through every action you contribute. Through every piece of trash you generate, through every step you take out into the world, through every glance, every word, with every breath you create life and death.
Knowing this, knowing that you are creator of the future, this awareness, this mindset activates your invitation to responsibility. Responsibility being expressed in your behaviors. In the actions you choose, in your constant becoming. Everything else is detail.
Through choosing responsibility, you ultimately end up in ownership of your reality.
By creating consciously, by being focused on the outcomes of your life, your value creation system, you will begin to adapt your behaviors bit by bit as the circumstances demand, no matter what you face.
In all that, there is one simple secret that the wise one mentioned as the key to it all. The secret that makes all this simple. Once you understand that you are life, and that all of what is around you is also life, your kin, there is one simple thing to guide you:
Be kind.
The future belongs to those who create it. That is why I serve as a culture catalyst and planetary strategist for visionary leaders. Through my work with LUMAN and other projects, I provide frameworks and operating metaphors to support leaders around the world in their individual evolution and in growing innovation capacity in their teams and organizations — all with the aim of a planetary society. I have worked with startups, NGOs and with global Fortune 500 organizations in a variety of industries around the world. More at http://philiphorvath.com.
