Ah - this was beautiful, Ernesto. I see the same image you do, and I love that you are also seeing science, spirituality and other ways of seeing as simply different apertures on the same whole.
Interesting that we came to similar moments in the same week - I posted this earlier this week, and I think it might be related..
Reading this, I realized that I have been seeing myself as an outside observer of the goings-on in the world. What power do I have in such a huge system to make any difference beyond my own consciousness and the small circle of beings around me? Maybe this point of view has been a cop out. I'll have to sit with that for a while.
In general, I like what you have shared. However, the three horizons and the regenerative path that goes with them, to me, has such broad generalizations as to be close to meaningless. There are Utopias that exist now, although many do not know of these models, and I'd suggest that this lack of knowledge is mainly because of generalists. You constantly refer to the "we," and to "our," but what about the "I" and the "me?" Again generalization of principals to all people and to all life. Perhaps your neglecting to define "life" is intentional? I do not think that this will be clear until we have more contact with extraterrestial life as a comparison.
Ernesto, thank you for another thought-provoking reflection. One idea that especially resonated with me was your distinction between changing the world and changing the way we perceive it. The image of Narcissus mistaking the reflection for reality offers a powerful metaphor for how easily we become trapped within our own paradigms.
Maybe it's just me but this piece has a clarity and depth that reaches right inside and lodges in that place that recognises something that is real. This road started for me with Iain McGilchrist's The Matter With Things which opened up so much in my thinking. How I go about responding to this is still a work in progress and I suspect is as unique as your narrative suggests.
Relationships with others have always been important to me even though they have often been tricky but I have become much more aware of those with the world at large and the natural world in particular. The systematic part of me is keen to recognise and name birds, butterflies, trees and insects but another part is pushing back and suggesting that this is a conceit, a way of polishing my mirror, to use your analogy. Why not just stand and appreciate without naming, acknowledge the recognition of something familiar and wonder at the unfamiliar.
This is perhaps the hardest part, to remain in this receptive space and resist the urge to hold it, to pin it down and hoard it as an accretion to our comfortable representation of this world.
I enjoyed the series but this is the standout one for me.
If I find my billionaire to buy us an advertising campaign to uplift humanity, us being so skilled at selling that I think this is a fabulous idea, I nominate you to work on what messages to sell humanity on. One way to characterize everything is that there's education needed, and our ad campaign would take that on!
I am not sure we need to begin by finding a billionaire and building a campaign large enough to awaken the world.
A seed does not need a hydraulic reservoir to begin growing. It needs a little water, fertile soil, the right conditions, and someone willing to care for it. Perhaps consciousness grows in much the same way.
The anthropologist Margaret Mead is widely credited with saying: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” The precise origin of the quotation is not fully documented, but the idea remains powerful.
So perhaps we should begin there: not by trying to reach everyone, but by bringing together a small group of people with sufficient clarity, commitment, and trust to nurture something alive. If the seed carries real potential, it will not remain small forever.
I'm on that one, too. You would know that. And how challenging it is. It was less so before Covid, when were engaging in person, and before, for me, L.A. turned into a wasteland after a money game pyramid decades ago killed everything interactive that was going on.
And time is of a very significant essence now. Of course, look to local activity (maybe you don't read my Substack, where I not only talk about the necessity to know your neighbors but I recently cited an older post of mine where someone had a template for how to organize your block. But that doesn't preclude other, immediate ways to push on system change.
Spectacular reframing & regenerating the ancient myth of excessive-Selfing ("mono-perspectivalism"?) into a reflective pathway for additional perspectives--including memory and predictive imagination--which collectively allow for metabolism of additional dynamics into coherence/meaning greater than the single perspective grasp alone.
Ah - this was beautiful, Ernesto. I see the same image you do, and I love that you are also seeing science, spirituality and other ways of seeing as simply different apertures on the same whole.
Interesting that we came to similar moments in the same week - I posted this earlier this week, and I think it might be related..
https://substack.com/@theaperturefieldnotes/note/c-307391385?r=781cue&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
Reading this, I realized that I have been seeing myself as an outside observer of the goings-on in the world. What power do I have in such a huge system to make any difference beyond my own consciousness and the small circle of beings around me? Maybe this point of view has been a cop out. I'll have to sit with that for a while.
In general, I like what you have shared. However, the three horizons and the regenerative path that goes with them, to me, has such broad generalizations as to be close to meaningless. There are Utopias that exist now, although many do not know of these models, and I'd suggest that this lack of knowledge is mainly because of generalists. You constantly refer to the "we," and to "our," but what about the "I" and the "me?" Again generalization of principals to all people and to all life. Perhaps your neglecting to define "life" is intentional? I do not think that this will be clear until we have more contact with extraterrestial life as a comparison.
Ernesto, thank you for another thought-provoking reflection. One idea that especially resonated with me was your distinction between changing the world and changing the way we perceive it. The image of Narcissus mistaking the reflection for reality offers a powerful metaphor for how easily we become trapped within our own paradigms.
Maybe it's just me but this piece has a clarity and depth that reaches right inside and lodges in that place that recognises something that is real. This road started for me with Iain McGilchrist's The Matter With Things which opened up so much in my thinking. How I go about responding to this is still a work in progress and I suspect is as unique as your narrative suggests.
Relationships with others have always been important to me even though they have often been tricky but I have become much more aware of those with the world at large and the natural world in particular. The systematic part of me is keen to recognise and name birds, butterflies, trees and insects but another part is pushing back and suggesting that this is a conceit, a way of polishing my mirror, to use your analogy. Why not just stand and appreciate without naming, acknowledge the recognition of something familiar and wonder at the unfamiliar.
This is perhaps the hardest part, to remain in this receptive space and resist the urge to hold it, to pin it down and hoard it as an accretion to our comfortable representation of this world.
I enjoyed the series but this is the standout one for me.
If I find my billionaire to buy us an advertising campaign to uplift humanity, us being so skilled at selling that I think this is a fabulous idea, I nominate you to work on what messages to sell humanity on. One way to characterize everything is that there's education needed, and our ad campaign would take that on!
Johan has a new piece dealing with fundamentals for you to have a look at: Being Here Now Is the Claim: https://substack.com/@johanuniverseends/note/p-209409325
Dear Sue,
I am not sure we need to begin by finding a billionaire and building a campaign large enough to awaken the world.
A seed does not need a hydraulic reservoir to begin growing. It needs a little water, fertile soil, the right conditions, and someone willing to care for it. Perhaps consciousness grows in much the same way.
The anthropologist Margaret Mead is widely credited with saying: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” The precise origin of the quotation is not fully documented, but the idea remains powerful.
So perhaps we should begin there: not by trying to reach everyone, but by bringing together a small group of people with sufficient clarity, commitment, and trust to nurture something alive. If the seed carries real potential, it will not remain small forever.
I'm on that one, too. You would know that. And how challenging it is. It was less so before Covid, when were engaging in person, and before, for me, L.A. turned into a wasteland after a money game pyramid decades ago killed everything interactive that was going on.
And time is of a very significant essence now. Of course, look to local activity (maybe you don't read my Substack, where I not only talk about the necessity to know your neighbors but I recently cited an older post of mine where someone had a template for how to organize your block. But that doesn't preclude other, immediate ways to push on system change.
I'm seeing millions of seeds (people) in many more places together than when I started looking at all of this 20 years ago. I'd offer that ILSR.org, WeAll.org, Jessica Friday, ICLEI.org, StrongTowns.org, P2Pfoundation.net, TransitionNetwork.org, R3-0.org, WeDontHaveTime.org, TheGreatSimplification.com are great places to start and to connect with whichever mission statement strikes your heart. This is the fertile soil.
Just let the conditions of extractive capitalism keep watering us--we'll be great.
Spectacular reframing & regenerating the ancient myth of excessive-Selfing ("mono-perspectivalism"?) into a reflective pathway for additional perspectives--including memory and predictive imagination--which collectively allow for metabolism of additional dynamics into coherence/meaning greater than the single perspective grasp alone.
Bravo!