On Christmas, that day of the year which best reflects our ‘present’ state of being, I watched three films. Elysium, Consumed, and Obey, which you will find links to below. Being alone for this holiday, I couldn’t think of a better present to gift myself than to open up to the ‘present’ state of our humanity. Call me odd; maybe so. But I wish there were more like me who see the best gift under the tree, as the one that opens ourselves into becoming more ‘present’ to what is happening.
These films are certainly a stark awakening to presence, as they describe a collective truth about the world as it really is: A tragic state of being, shrouded in beautiful images and messages that cloak the fear we are feeling inside about today’s darker social and personal truths. Togther, the films create a tight interconnection about our true present state of being. These films are not easy to watch. Yet I believe they will fuel you with a sense of power for real change – if you can go deep into them. Because they do not just touch the surface about these matters, but instead reach deep into our psyches; that place where worlds are conceived and destroyed.
Elysium presented a story that is about our emerging world. It is about the separation between an elite few with plenty, and the remaining many who are poor, used as slaves to labor the resources needed for the elite’s idealized world. This is not an abstract sense of the present held by the insane. Nor is it science fiction anymore. No. There is too much growing discomfort around this subject for films like this to be taken lightly. It’s real. Watch this film, but be sure to watch the other two films along with it so you can go deeper into what it may mean.
Consumed presented a view on consumerism that points to something beyond mere materialism to something inside the human condition. It suggest we go deeper into what we think consumption really is, in order to transform it. To get away from consumerism being a conspiracy and more as a primary condition of the human mind. A fundamental part of our human nature. It points to the core of consumerism being our inability to accept our own death, and how the best way to avoid something we don’t want to deal with, is to project it outward from ourselves. We must move beyond pointed solutions such as ‘if everyone recycled we’d be fine’ kind of thinking, because it’s not enough and it not at the root of the problem of consumption. The subject ties other aspects of what make us a culture based in destructive consumption, such as marketing and its power to rule our minds by tapping into response mechanisms that address how we see ourselves. And in the process, we are loosing touch with our dependency on the environment that nourishes us. Ironically, to ‘consume’ by definition means to engulf and destroy. And so we then withdraw into ourselves, hiding from the very act that we are trying to avoid, pointing directly at the monster in the closet: Fear of our own death. Hence we are becoming – not citizens, but consumers, eating ourselves to death by trashing the environment for its resources and creating an ecological assault on the natural world. Our home. … This is not an easy pill to swallow, but we must. Watch it and tell me what comes up for you.
Obey presents the most difficult message.Suggesting a truth within that is very difficult for most of us to consider. It addresses a triad of issues including market psychology, mass productivity, and capital labor, reasoning that there is a growing gap between corporate capitalism and personal freedom. It reenforces the slave state that has been created in the name of more jobs, which has been used to build corporate growth, which feeds a distorted power, enticed by its ability to generate technical comfort. Yet more for an isolated elite few in control, while ‘we the people’ are being entrained to obey the rules of their game. It talks about how democratic decision making has been replaced by propaganda disguised with limbic stimulating messages that make us think we have social choice. Assuming we are free to debate issues, we are instead being over-ruled by a black government that is run by the corporate elites. The lie has become the truth and no one sees it, reinforced at the education level to brainwash the next generation into thinking that its enough to be positive and believe in miracles is how we can get everything we desire, falsifying one’s own values and beliefs in the name of a greater system. Interestingly he links this with being employed, where getting paid now does not free you but sucks us into corporate choice and rule. Those who resist their way will become apart of the underclass, pushed out by those who themselves want to eradicate the gap between the rich and the poor. In this twisted state of being, meaning has become distorted through incessant emotionally charged shows, news, and beauty images, creating a world where brand overrides ideology, where illusion becomes the truth, and the sane are seen as insane.
A Way Out? The ideas these films present are presentations on ‘separation’, ‘obedience’, and ‘consumerism”. By blending their perspectives, I believe we can build a yet unrealized power for creating real change. By taking in their messages – done with self question and scrutiny, new insight can appear within our minds that can begin to break down the trans-like state we are in, and wake up to the real world that we are creating. Taking this path is for all of us to follow now, not just a few. Be aware that as you enter this process, your power will first be observed as fear, giving you a desire to suppress the discomfort that it brings up. So do not do this alone. Start a community or small group to discuss what comes up. Be careful to step away from false optimism and have the courage to step into the fear as it arises. Allow that fear to help you and your group break down old beliefs and assumed perceptions, to alter your awareness. Raise the questions of “What is illusion?” and “What is reality?”, and feel into your ‘present’ sense of being as you go deeper into this process. Then – and only then, can we actually create the potential to move toward a world that works for all.
Click Here To Join The Changing Normal Meetup Group.
WHAT IS CHANGING NORMAL?
Rappoport addresses the idea of what NORMAL is in his articles. He speaks to each individual having the ability to create realities, and how our essential creative nature for doing this is being suppressed. [Caution: His writings are not for minds whose belief systems are easily threatened!]
WHAT IS A CULTURAL MYTHOLOGY?
The work of “Changing Normal” is founded on the dream of a new mythology arising. One that is globally aware, and speaks to the magnificence of our individual and collective manifesting potential.
Each person’s true Identity can get suppressed by an unconsciously arising shared belief system. This is when myth takes on negative connotations. However, once an individual awakens to the myth-making method, each holds the power to become creators of grand new worlds. This can not be done until one’s ego is transformed to align with both personal and shared realities.
A cultural mythology arises when individual messages inform group thought (mind), expressed through metaphorical (emotion), and transferred through a collectively connected medium (body). This is how our shared reality is created, controlled, and sustained.
WHOLE SYSTEM COMMUNITIES THROUGH MYTHIC DESIGN
Culture change happens as a conscious co-creative emergent process. Below I describe my vision for an online community that I am creating called ‘Changing Normal’. A collaborative process for designing and developing a more livable and sustainable future using an open flexible framework called ‘community domains’ (see slides below), providing a comprehensive approach for building real-life communities designed with the whole system in mind. Participants will be invited to use the changing normal environment to share their talents, unique creativity, and passion with others. The long term goal is to transfer each person’s creativity into real-life formations and healthier more sustainable communities worldwide.
Linking Cultural Misfits with Changing Normal
Additional considerations under way to discuss how the (so-called) crazed “Cultural Misfit” plays a role in transforming an insane world that is requesting healing and transformation.
TOOLS & FRAMEWORKS FOR CHANGING NORMAL
Click once on the moving pages below to stop pages from changing. Click links on pages to access more details.
Click once on the moving pages above to stop pages from changing. Click links on pages to access more details.
YOUTUBE VIDEOS Uploaded on Apr 10, 2009
CN 040909 Part One
CN 040909 Part Two
CN 040909 Part Three
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social innovation, collaborative design, design ecology
The three ‘V’s – victor, victim, villain. If you are human being, you can’t escape it. We all wear their cloaks at times in our lives. You are more dependent on these three V’s than you probably know.
Our ways of thinking shape our world. Whether we know it or not, the way we formulate our ideas do control how we see the world and how we make choices.
Consider for a moment how our inter-actions and choices emerge through them. How might these 3V’s show up as part of ongoing issues within your workplace and home-life? Most, if not all, of our decisions and actions emerge through the interactions underlying this ‘3V’ culture-making archetype.
Consider This …
Applying quantum physics to human behavior
Villain (Evil Bad Guy)
All models have rotation or spin. Thus each subject within a model becomes one of the others. The victor-victim-villain archetypal interaction has (like all models) a dynamic movement that moves each subject into becoming one of the others. In this case, the victor becomes the victim, the victim becomes the villain, and the villain becomes the victor. Have you ever noticed how this happens in your favorite movies? How the good-guy and bad-guy overlay each other’s light and dark sides? Batman and IronMan are two good examples that present this interplay. Have you also noticed, at least in our Western society, that there is often more attention placed on – not the hero, but on the villain? Because of this, the villain ends up being the real hero. This is the archetypal rotation in action. The policeman-assailant-assaulted scenario is another example how each person in the triad play an unconscious role in keeping this cultural engine running.
Awareness Shifts
Now then, in a (w)holistic view, do we need to allow the time it takes for each one of us to become the other? If so, this is a conscious act, is it not? Otherwise each of us (too often) get unconsciously caught migrating from one identity to another, and then fall back again, creating a polarized oscillation. Bouncing back and forth to and from the identity we had for ourselves previously. Instead of moving through one and into the next identity within this triad configuration, we stuck in one of them, and movement stops.
An Open Conclusion
Psychology, archetypes, and the dynamics of change
Victim (Suppressed Person)
What might be another model that could work better than the one we are unconsciously using today?
If we could become aware myth-makers, maybe we could design something different for a relational dynamic model? We have become the result of it designing us, rather than consciously using the model to create a collective intelligence that supersedes the interplay within the subjects of victor, victim, and villain.
What if we had an archetype for this dynamic? An archetype of archetypes? Would this allow humanity’s failing displays of destructive expression to be able to move downstream into other realms of possible life, form, awareness, and consciousness?
I’m writing a book on ‘cultural misfits’, and it’s just coming to my mind that this may be its charter – to transmute “objective isolated acts” (static) into “subjective interdependent actions” (dynamic). How we think about models – their influence on our beliefs, choices, and actions – may give us a way to begin consciously creating our way of life, rather than be unconsciously run by them.
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A new insight …
The Hidden Healer is ‘Vulnerability’
After watching this TED presentation I realized that the center of this complex, codependent triad, is the hidden healer to the turmoil created by the 3V interactions. It is VULNERABILITY. Watch the below well done presentation, which based on research, and you will see what I mean.
And what does this all have to do with COLLABORATION, INNOVATION, and CHANGE?
To become vulnerable, it means by default that you are connected to others. This simple yet profound point is unlike what most organizations teach. Instead they remove the irritating grit quickly to get to the strategic gems. Known as being ‘efficient’, it is a false premise and ends up not being effective at all, and certainly is not sustainable. In fact, when the grit is removed, it is a rare case where the innovation is not removed along with it. Turbulence, conflict, disagreement are healthy, but have to be placed within the context of our humanity, not our productivity.
More on this later, but it is very clear to me now that the gooey, yucky, sticky, muddy stuff that is created when each member of the organization or team consciously chooses to become vulnerable with each other, the whole game changes. Thus, this 4th V (vulnerability) is a baseline for healthy and effective collaboration and design.
Here’s the part that stops the show for most and they run away: At the core of our shells is vulnerability, which consists of those uncomfortable feelings we have when feeling exposed. And what binds the core together is the festering seed of SHAME.
Brené Brown: Listening to shame; Being vulnerable
As an experiment … I will be continuing my work on this post, so stay tuned.
Here is a framework that can help you to hold powerful conversations.
A way of revealing individual value from community values. Inside this crystal is a movement of energy that defines the health of a community and the individuals that make it. It’s “V” formation shapes the alchemical vessel of community, allowing for the transformation of personal meaning and collective identity.
No matter what we do – from guiding our child’s evening prayer, to the way we prepare our food, to how we hire and fire people at work, to how we say hello on our iphone, to celebrating our nations leaders, to ringing the bell on wall street, to starting an act of war. It’s all loaded with ritual.
Ritual is what defines our lives. The blending of these rituals becomes the tight weave that make up a society’s mythology. Myth, a cloth made of ritual threads, drives all of our actions and decisions, done mostly without knowing it. So for me, it’s less about bringing ritual into our technical lives, as much as becoming more conscious of them.
We have forgotten rituals’ place, their vital power in manifesting our world, thus making their practices irreverent. Bringing back the Sacred into our daily walk and talk, becoming observers of how we ritualize, and transforming the ones that no longer serve us. This I believe, is the most important thing we humans can do to transform our world.
