Month: July 2020

All we concern ourselves with & encourage

Engaging with something, aren’t we almost casting our vote for the value of its presence in our lives? Our attention on any given thing being, perhaps, an act of validation or approval that’s giving each thing greater power (Notes One). In a similar way to how we show interest in others or choose to ignore them: that, with our minds, we might decide which things we want to reflect, acknowledge or understand.

Isn’t human attention a powerful thing? That we would allow certain things – be they words, opinions, inferences, images, conclusions – into the sacred space of our minds, where they’re free to interact as they see fit with whatever else happens to reside there. Once accepted, isn’t it hard to fully erase something? It’s trekked its path through your thoughts, breaking or challenging other ideas in ways we mightn’t notice.

How are we to know the impact of all we’re letting in within modern life? It’s seems we’re fairly constantly assailed with many quite questionable sources of input (Notes Two). Compared to even the most recent past, isn’t it incredible how much information we’re now receiving? Also, how unregulated it all is in terms of production, distribution and consumption – that we’re essentially all free to do as we please, unobserved.

Yet, within it all, aren’t there still many important things at stake? Perhaps the potential repercussions of “all this” are vaster than they’ve ever been; given how quickly ideas can now travel between us and evolve to fantastic proportions. Without the checks and balances of a community’s oversight, concern and expectations, are there many limits to where individuals could go under the power of their minds?

Sometimes it seems we’ve been given quite an incredible amount of freedom: that we’re free to choose exactly how we’ll see the world and all those within it, freely self-selecting which voices we’ll listen to and attitudes we’ll adopt. Everyone free to do as they please, who’s to say where we’ll all wander off to and how easily we’ll be able to relate to one another once we get there?

Theoretically, it seems people in the past generally followed the affairs of their environment quite closely: concerning themselves mainly with events that fairly directly impacted their lives. Things they understood and had power to influence. Focussing on what surrounds you – what you hope to create there – seems such a beautiful notion of grassroots engagement, much as it’s also a recipe for meddling (Notes Three).

Looking at life as this fast-moving global reality of interlocking ideas, activities and repercussions, how are we best to use the power of our attention? If “how we spend our time” and “the things we let into our minds” have powerful consequences in terms of either distraction or of the subtle shifting of underlying values, assumptions or beliefs, isn’t it important we think about all we’re casting our vote for? (Notes Four)

If, as humans, where we place our focus is how we have an effect, where’s all this leading?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Attention as a resource
Note 1: Where do we get our ideas from?
Note 1: Do we know what we’re doing?
Note 1: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 2: Meaning in a world of novelty
Note 2: Do the “lies” blind us to truth?
Note 2: Passing on what’s important
Note 2: Is this the ultimate test?
Note 3: Inspiring people and ideas
Note 3: All that we add to neutrality
Note 3: The idea of think globally, act locally
Note 3: What does community mean?
Note 4: Powerful responsibility of a media voice
Note 4: Effect, if everything’s a drama
Note 4: Understanding & staying informed

Ways to share this:

Seeing where others are coming from

Thinking in part of community and in part of global awareness, isn’t it important to fully understand situations? To see where people are coming from; the influences that’ve formed them; the narratives or voices shaping their inner commentary on life and all that surrounds them. Don’t we hear different things? All seeing reality from different perspectives, in different lights, and interpreting it differently.

How much difference does it make? The stories we’re raised with; assumptions we have around certain characters or actions; and ideas around the weight of consequences or rewards different paths in life will be met with. Doesn’t it all inform how we approach things? Subtly shading our reading of the world around us with the inferences, judgements or hopes of all we’ve ever heard over the years (Notes One).

Almost as if we each have a different world in our heads, individually as much as collectively. The shared – or, conflicting – mindsets of nationality and unique mindsets of personality merging into our own, specific take on “life”. Yet, within and between our various communities, don’t those ideas on life converge? Jutting up against one another as we attempt to have just one conversation; despite all our subtle or dramatic differences.

Sharing space and meaning as we attempt to cooperate with one another seems an interesting challenge. Won’t we have different agendas? All hoping, perhaps, to get something different out of any interchange. Whether it’s economics or culture, isn’t there always give and take going on? All these compatible or diverging intentions, expectations and compromises as we each seek to push forward in our own directions. (Notes Two)

As if the world – as much as our local communities – is this strange convergence of disclosed or undisclosed interests crossing over one another in confusing, impenetrable ways. Each player coming from their own backstory, it’s intriguing to imagine which voices are actually speaking and what they’re ultimately aiming to achieve. Also, how many are fairly innocently being taken along for the ride.

My point, though, was that awareness of where people are coming from seems so important. Beyond the knowledge of history or current affairs being a simply academic pursuit or tick-box for citizenship, isn’t it vital that we understand who we’re engaging with? While we might all be having this one, increasingly hasty and tense conversation about “life”, there’s still a lot of nuance and history to our words and their meanings.

Grasping the context, the issues at stake, the underlying values or priorities – the firm or bendable lines – must be essential to communicating or interacting “successfully” with anyone on any matter. This sense in which we need to be using comparable terms and seeing life through others’ eyes if we’re to understand what everything means and how best to respond (Notes Three).

Whether it’s global players, local neighbours or digital strangers, don’t we need to know enough to place one another against a relatively thorough sense of where we each stand if we’re to relate well to other people?

Notes and References:

Note 1: The stories that we hear
Note 1: Connecting truthfully with life
Note 2: Reading between the lines
Note 2: Plausible deniability
Note 2: Economy as a battleground
Note 3: Can there be beauty in communication?
Note 3: Understanding & staying informed

Ways to share this:

Situations which ask us to trust

Aren’t a lot of situations in life asking us to trust? Relationships, conversations, activities, commitments, the idea of society itself – in countless ways, we’re repeatedly placing our lives, our hopes, our outcomes into the hands of others (Notes One). It seems this fundamental “step” in the constructs of human society and community: trusting one another and the overarching thought process behind what we’re working within.

At the core, it seems life perhaps comes down to this notion of being “able” to place trust in others and in the structures governing our lives in all these big and little ways. That we “can” rest safe in the knowledge that everyone has their side of things in hand and those at the helm are bearing our lives in mind as they’re making decisions on our behalf. That the whole thing is working for the good of all people.

This basic idea of each person being responsible for all that’s falling to them; a person of character who appreciates the faith placed in them by so many unknown others; someone whose words can be believed, who’ll stand by their commitments and carry them through in ways that resolve problems rather than creating more. An ideal of fully-informed, concerned, actively engaged members of society. (Notes Two)

While that doesn’t seem the most accurate description of what’s often being encouraged by modern culture, education or media, as an ideal it’s a beautiful notion: this dance of each person understanding the world and society in which they live then acting with the clear intention of making everything better and leaving nothing neglected (Notes Three). Everyone working towards these common goals of progress, harmony, love.

Yet, if the people or systems surrounding us aren’t deserving of such trust, what are we to do? As intelligent creatures, turning a blind eye to paths that might prove harmful in the long run doesn’t seem right. Not being sure of the words being spoken or truth of what others really have in mind seems deeply stressful and concerning. After all, don’t we “need” to be able to trust this conversation we’re all part of? (Notes Four)

The situation we’re currently in seems to be calling on that trust more than ever: that we believe what we’re told and act upon it, even if we don’t fully understand the science or the thinking that’s being applied. Just as so many disparate voices are planting seeds of doubt, society’s needing us to trust and act in accordance with the vision of whoever’s at the helm. Almost like this modern act of faith in the unknown.

As with any act of faith, don’t we need to trust? To believe in what’s said and the intentions behind it. How much that basic trust – in others and in systems – might’ve been sorely tried over the years becomes a troubling thought. How much faith do we actually have in our fellow man? How much transparency has there been around all the paths we’ve been placed upon?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 1: Being trusted to use our discernment…
Note 1: Knowing who to trust
Note 1: Trust in technology?
Note 2: Understanding & staying informed
Note 2: Common sense as a rare & essential quality
Note 2: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 3: Picking up after one another
Note 3: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 3: Knowing the value of what you have
Note 4: Which voice can we trust?
Note 4: Diplomacy and knowing where we stand
Note 4: Treating people like sims?
Note 4: Trust within modern society

Ways to share this:

Treading carefully in the lives of others

How easy is it to judge others? To wander into the realms of their being and cast forth our thoughts about how their life is, what it means and all the obvious improvements they could make. To laugh at mistakes or choices we would never make, somehow imagining “our” way of being and thoughts about life to be the right ones – if only others could see things as we do and do as we say.

Sometimes it seems we’re almost being “trained” in that kind of deconstructive thinking. Don’t all these shows we watch and conversations we have model exactly how we could be picking everything apart; dissecting intentions; evaluating appearances. As if that’s the only way to approach life: critically. As if the world’s just there, waiting for us to cast judgement upon it all. (Notes One)

Yet, aren’t all of our thoughts, beliefs and ways of being deeply tied up with “who we are” as people? Everything standing within the framework of “the human life” and growing out of all we’ve lived through and come to think about it. All the words, gestures or estimations of worth others have cast in our direction. All the conclusions we’ve reached or ideas that we came to believe. (Notes Two)

Don’t we all have different things that speak to our soul? Different interests – be they cultural, literary, visual, or whatever else – that, for us, make life sing in colours that make our own worth living. Who’s the say which “style” is best? Which way we should grow our hair, hold ourselves, speak or act in the world. How we should be presenting our homes, our online presence or our selves to make the best impressions.

If all we hear when we look in the mirror is the judgements others have made – or, might make – of us, how are we to live? Won’t we always be hearing criticism? There’s presumably always “something” we can attack; something that could be done differently or, perhaps, better. In a world full of options, we could spend forever trying to find exactly the right ones or arguing between the relative merits of them all (Notes Three).

Almost as if all we’re doing here is trying to make “them” wrong and “us” right. Anything we do could be done another way. Any position we’re choosing to take could be harnessed into a watertight defence and ridden confidently through all the other opinions. We might pass all our time telling others where they’re mistaken and convincing them to agree with us.

When it comes to others’ lives, though – their choices, wounds, ideas, experiences, struggles – are we ever “right” to wander into their space and cast judgements? If each person’s a house, filled with all their life has furnished them with, what does it “mean” to walk in, pull everything off the shelves, critique it all, then say we’re doing it to help them? Who are we to say what they’re living with, hoping for, or trying to achieve?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Society that doesn’t deal with the soul
Note 1: Thoughts of idealism and intolerance
Note 1: What is it with tone?
Note 2: The stories that we hear
Note 2: Where do we get our ideas from
Note 2: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 2: Personal archaeology
Note 3: Absolute or relative value?
Note 3: Tempting justifications of self
Note 3: Meaning in a world of novelty

Ways to share this:

Everything culture used to be

Thinking, broadly, of “culture”, what is it that it means within our lives? Between the moments of every day and the larger moments of our years, seasons or lifetimes, isn’t it generally weaving rhythms of meaning, purpose or intention into existence? Tending to pull our thoughts in certain directions, remind us what matters, refocus our priorities, and channel our activities down established paths or into new patterns.

As if each culture, place or family creates its own way – its own narratives, traditions, routines or practices that serve to carry forward a specific understanding of life and how to live it (Notes One). This framework that holds our relationships; structures our lives; guides our thinking; reinforces our values; lets us know where we stand. An overlay of organised, meaningful habits we build “life” around and relate ourselves to.

Whether on the personal level or reaching beyond that to family, community or nation, its events or ideas seem to filter through to define so many moments, conversations and thought processes. Almost this “way of thinking” that accompanies us through life, letting us know how to see things while grounding us in the familiarity of routine – helping us interpret reality and respond to it with our feet firmly in place (Notes Two).

Over time, that must build to quite a substantial sense of “meaning” as each person, each day, each year walks the same lines in thought and action, overlaying all that went before with this intentional repetition of fairly timeless practices. The inherited rhythms of culture having been picked up with new hands and carried on in new ways – subtle or dramatic shifts that, hopefully, still have a similar effect.

In a world of slowly-shifting habits, such a thing would presumably impart a reassuring sense of belonging: routines that carry us through our days with the gentle reminder of expectation being met. Seasons rolling round, specific events or culinary traditions passing by one after the other, the rhythms of life letting us know we stand as the latest in a long line of people living their lives in this familiar fashion.

Almost like tides of meaning that hold us in their thrall as the same stories, characters, meals, expressions or ceremony mark each day off in order as we arrange our lives in tune with the overall structure it offers. As we age, that familiarity perhaps helping tether people in the reassuring arms of “how things are” and “what we should do”.

By comparison, “modern” culture can seem divisive and unsettling; this ever-shifting landscape of trends that define and set us apart more than unite us in one, harmonious conversation about “life” (Notes Three). Perhaps the beautiful blending of previously disparate cultures into this new, individually-chosen culture of personal identity was always going to be less unifying? Each choosing their own way.

Doesn’t that choppy divisiveness create new challenges, though, for people still seeking the reassuring threads of a common meaning that’s somehow able to hold us all together throughout our lives?

Notes and References:

Note 1: The stories that we hear
Note 1: Culture as what we relate to
Note 1: Culture as information
Note 2: Visual language and spaces
Note 2: Learning from the past, looking to the future
Note 2: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 2: Navigation, steering & direction
Note 3: Making things up as we go along
Note 3: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 3: Do we need meaning?

Ways to share this:

Might we lose our social muscles?

Whether it’s through isolation, technology or heightened individualism, might we not risk losing our social muscles through lack of use? Sometimes it seems “getting along with others” is perhaps as unnatural as it is natural: having tended to live within social groups, it must’ve always been part of our makeup; yet happily making room for others and their way of being doesn’t seem to come effortlessly.

For whatever reasons, it also seems “modern living” exacerbates the trend: amplifying our own experiences, perceptions, ideas and struggles to a level where we’ve little spare for showing genuine interest in others or tolerating all our inevitable differences (Notes One). If “our own thoughts” are dialled up to the point of becoming “all we see”, how are we to make room for another equally dialled up individual?

Looking to the notion of technology forming some kind of ideological echo chamber around us, doesn’t it constantly emphasise our own ways of thinking? Isn’t the focus completely on “you”, the user, and your experience as mediated through this highly-tailored portal? Each of us, perhaps, living in our own interactive, self-confirming world of information, communication, and so forth.

Sometimes it’s like we’re all retreating into our own personal version of reality and having it confirmed for us at every turn. As if the walls of personality, constantly reinforced, could potentially become the prison we’re trapped in or barricade we’ll defend to the hilt. Of course, we’re all a world unto ourselves in terms of our experiences and ideas; but setting up permanent camp there seems questionable. (Notes Two)

I mean, isn’t social life generally some form of compromise? Some form of “letting another exist in your presence” without attack: respecting their right to be who they are and express their viewpoints. This strange act of communion, accommodation, acceptance as we make space for another who’s just like us yet, conceivably, completely different in the sense they’ve made of things and concerns they have in life.

If “to be human”, now, is to experience the self dialled up to the point where it might fill our own consciousness and drown out anyone else’s, how are we to live alongside one another? Are we to push our own thinking, our perceptions and conclusions, into their space – projecting our understanding over theirs then relating to them on that basis – or allow their way of being space in our mind to be itself? (Notes Three)

Rather than completely identifying with our own ideas of life and everything in it, might we not be better off realising every single one of us sees life our own way? If we’re expecting others to accommodate us, surely that needs to go both ways if things aren’t to descend into a strangely aggressive, mutually intolerant world of indignant self-insistence.

Maybe living alongside others has never been easy, though? While convention or expectation might’ve guided people more firmly before, it seems we now have this strange encouragement to abandon the challenge and think mainly of ourselves.

Notes and References:

Note 1: All in such a rush
Note 1: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 1: Joining the dots
Note 1: Life’s never been simpler…
Note 2: Can “how we relate” really change?
Note 2: Does being alone amplify things?
Note 2: Letting people change
Note 3: Modern challenges to relationship
Note 3: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 3: Conversation as revelation
Note 3: Mutual awareness and accommodation?

Ways to share this:

Belief in what we cannot see

With anything we’re looking at in life, how much can we know and how much is belief? Isn’t almost anything we think a form of belief? Belief in the validity of a certain way of seeing, piecing together and thinking about life. Thought’s funny in that, much as it helps us a great deal, isn’t it equally capable of tying everything up in knots? Untangling and ironing out exactly “how” it helps or hinders seems a strange challenge.

I mean, we might claim “modern Western thought” is merely “knowledge”: this system we’ve developed for relying on what our senses, or tools designed to amplify them, tell us about the observable nature of reality. A reality committed to the world of thought and pulled apart into all the theories we’ve strung together to explain it (Notes One).

Isn’t it a form of belief to assume the physical world is the only reality, though? This basic assumption that all that exists is “what’s observable by human senses”. As if we’re detectives, searching through physical evidence, probing deeper and deeper, in the hope we’ll eventually find the whole truth on that level. As if nothing animates it all – nothing invisible, unquantifiable, immeasurable. (Notes Two)

Sometimes it feels like we might be digging our own grave – denying our own existence – by clinging to this belief that only the evidence matters. Almost as if “our way of thought” is as much a question of faith as any other: belief that this is all there is. Like an anti-religion, insisting there’s “nothing beyond” because we cannot see it. Isn’t it entirely conceivable there could be an intelligible realm beyond all this?

But, pulling that back a little, isn’t knowledge also always a question of what we believe something “means”? As if knowledge itself is as much “the facts” as it is the theories we see them sitting within and conclusions they allow us to reach – these whole bodies of connected thought we accept as true and build our lives around.

What if the meaning we see as true carries as much weight as facts themselves? This invisible world of thought where we’ve each strung together our own set of beliefs around life’s meaning; ideas we’re then acting on in every area of our lives. Each person, perhaps, living in their own unique world of personally accepted meaning about self, society, ethics or reason.

Pulling back to the everyday, don’t our thoughts affect every aspect of how we’re living? Beliefs about our relationship with society and which voices we trust to tell us “the truth” must shape a large part of the world we all live within. Ideas of what things mean, how they come together, the forces at play and best paths to take “becoming” what reality then “is” (Notes Three).

Some might spin together seemingly reasonable theories about what’s going on and the choices we should make, but how well those ideas will translate into reality – the path they’re leading us on – sometimes seems doubtful.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Ways thought adds spin to life
Note 1: Making things up as we go along
Note 1: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 1: Caught in these thoughts
Note 2: Spirit as the invisible
Note 2: What is real?
Note 2: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 2: Mastering life’s invisible realities
Note 3: What if it all means something?
Note 3: The relationship between statistics & reality
Note 3: Society as an imposition?
Note 3: One thing leads to another

Ways to share this:

Systems, their power, whose hands?

Do we live within reality, or the systems that’ve been designed around it? In our natural state, it seems we would’ve lived within reality and all its laws: the interrelatedness of climate, geology, time, cycles of growth or decay, and the creatures with which we share space having determined, to a large extent, what “life” was. Now, though, don’t we exist within all the systems others have dreamt up around all that?

Almost as if humans have stepped in between themselves and reality, creating all these mediating thought structures that shape how we’ll live, the ways we perceive the world around us, and the paths we’re likely to take (Notes One). As if “we” created these grooves with our ideas then shepherded others into seeing life that way and living our lives on those terms.

Isn’t that, in a way, what culture or education are? Passing on the ideas with which we see the world; the things we consider as our options; the judgements we’ll tend to form about the choices we’re all making (Notes Two). This sense in which “society” – be it global, national or otherwise – attempts to convey its thinking and have that shape the lives that are to come: the ways people will interact within its boundaries.

What’s behind that? What kind of vision or sense of life’s meaning is being used, from the back-end, to inform the options we’re offered? Whether optimistic, functional, idealistic or coldly calculated, it must make a difference the kind of ideas those dreaming these things up have in mind (Notes Three). At this point, are we interacting with systems that truly have our best interests at heart?

Arguably, though, human societies have always been “systems” designed from a certain perspective: from the earliest civilisations through to our own, there always seems a “logic” or set of values around which people have organised their communities. As if, as humans, we apply thought to understand our situation then create meaningful thought structures within which we are comfortable to live.

Now, though, what “is” that vision? This freedom to choose within the vast, unregulated marketplace of our options; making from it whatever will emerge from the sum total of all our disparate, seemingly unconnected habits, actions or decisions. There are presumably endless ways the component parts of society could be dismantled and rearranged? Countless potential configurations we might bring into being. (Notes Four)

Sometimes it seems interesting to consider the kinds of choices we’re actually being offered: often, the choice “between” options already set by others, above our heads. Within that, how much power do we actually have to shift things in directions of our true choosing? Is the overarching vision of “where this is going” something that’s in our heads or theirs?

As humans, effectively governed by free choice, isn’t it intriguing to imagine where things are headed and how much power the systems weaving themselves around every facet of our existence might truly have over the lives that we’ll all be leading?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Value and meaning in our lives
Note 1: The thought surrounding us
Note 1: Shaping the buildings that shape us
Note 2: Culture as information
Note 2: The stories that we hear
Note 2: Connecting truthfully with life
Note 2: Making things up as we go along
Note 3: The self within society
Note 3: What inspires collective endeavours
Note 3: Treating people like sims?
Note 3: Knowing the value of what you have
Note 4: The incredible responsibility of freedom
Note 4: Markets, and what they might mean
Note 4: Who gets to define us

Alongside this, there is also the thought of Having confidence in complex systems.

Ways to share this:

The relationship between statistics & reality

In thinking about life, how much do statistics shape things? While often painted as this fairly neutral representation of reality, don’t they also have an effect? Giving pictures of reality in such a way as to inform our responses or leave us feeling certain trends form inevitable paths we must follow. Almost these strange scientific predictions; wielding a power not dissimilar to superstition.

Of course, that’s not really “true” in the sense that they do depict reality through making inquiries of it and presenting the results. But aren’t there numerous ways things can be represented, many conclusions that could be drawn, and a deep significance to the questions being asked? So many variables that could make the same, raw situation appear quite differently, then lead us down different paths.

As thinking beings, aren’t we looking to statistics to inform us about reality? Valuing the oversight and insight this offers in terms of understanding situations deeply and purposefully enough to chart our way within them. Numbers giving us this dispassionate, objective sense of how things stand and where we stand within them. This very specific way of breaking “life” down into calculations for navigating it.

But, isn’t there an interesting space to be found between reality and our thoughts about it? This space where we create and maintain our understanding of life and how best to live it – a place filled with values, priorities, beliefs, opinions, inferences, judgements and evaluations. That delicate line between how we see things and how we will act (Notes One).

Don’t our ideas always, subtly filter out through the choices we’re making each day? Through our attitudes and assumptions; words and gestures; habitual and occasional decisions. Everything we do becoming this rhythm of how we’ll interact with the world – the kinds of sentiment or belief we’re giving voice to and bringing to life through our presence (Notes Two).

Ideas about reality “must” always be shaping how we’re acting within it and responding to all we find around us. And, increasingly, it seems we view situations quite coldly – as if others were patterns or types rather than people to care about. As if, given our overwhelm, we “can” use the cold lens of data to read and analyse human existence.

In some areas, why would we ever rely on statistics? Say, with faith: do the reported beliefs of any number of people bear any meaningful relation to what we ourselves might believe? Given how belief, by its nature, exists in that subjective space of “how we see things”, it can’t really be affected by data, trends or the decisions of others. (Notes Three)

Isn’t life, then, almost a question of belief? Our ideas around what matters; whether individual contributions count; or the trust we’ll place in others. Life, in its way, depicting our understanding of reality and belief in what’s possible. Whether those choices are shaped by statistical representations of bleak situations or trust in what our lives could serve to create must make quite a difference.

Notes and References:

Note 1: All that we add to neutrality
Note 1: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 1: Understanding & staying informed
Note 1: Being trusted to use our discernment…
Note 2: What we create by our presence
Note 2: Any such thing as normal?
Note 2: Values, and what’s in evidence
Note 2: Things we give voice to
Note 3: The picture data paints of us
Note 3: Spirit as the invisible
Note 3: What if it all means something?
Note 3: Ideas that tie things together

Ways to share this:

Rich Roll & the spirit of transformation

When it comes to all the voices speaking into this modern world, who we choose to listen to and the attitudes with which they’re choosing to approach our complex realities must be important in terms of the influence it’s likely to have on us. While we might have almost endless options within all that’s currently being pumped out into the world, how much is truly valuable for where it’s likely to lead?

Sometimes it seems quite incredible how much is being churned out each day – all these new perspectives joining in our already quite intensely populated global conversation (Notes One). Almost as if there’s this new digestive process accompanying our life on earth, as we all consume this constant commentary, deconstruction and analysis of everything that’s going on within and between all our various groupings.

What are we to make of it? Presumably it could become quite a paralysing level of self-awareness, as everything’s drawn into this intense scrutiny from every conceivable perspective. As if almost nothing can emerge unscathed from that kind of multifaceted critical analysis. Few actions seem like they could withstand it – bringing to mind the Buddhist notion of not taking a step for fear of treading on ants.

Not to say there’s not immense value in expanding our awareness to see things from every angle as we reflect on the impacts we’re having in life and best way to be living it, but aren’t people generally both flawed and limited in outlook? While this new, global conversation increasingly asks that we see from all sides, don’t we traditionally tend to look mainly in the light of own perspectives and interests? (Notes Two)

In that context, I find the contributions of Rich Roll and his longstanding podcast pretty valuable in the sense that they both acknowledge the struggles yet set the target high in terms of self-development. His own personal story, and those he tends to draw out from the lives of his guests, often focussing on this fundamentally human journey from limitations, wounds and flaws through to insight, mastery and transformation.

Isn’t it fairly common? That people have a dream, a vision or gift we can offer the world, but also need to face up to this other side of ourselves which often tends to work against our higher ideals and threaten to tear down any success we might hope to achieve. Each person, perhaps, existing somewhere between their light and their darkness – the blessings and the challenges – as we seek our path in life (Notes Three).

Delving into fundamental questions around what it is to be human and what we might be able to make of whatever situations we’re finding ourselves within seems so valuable. This basic attitude of hope and belief in what’s possible when we commit to working on ourselves and expanding our level of understanding to create the solutions we desperately need.

Whether we’re talking on the personal or collective level, it’s an outlook that could perhaps help make all the difference.

Notes and References:

Rich Roll website, with links to his podcast, blog and other activities: https://www.richroll.com/

Note 1: What is the public conversation?
Note 1: Attention as a resource
Note 1: Where do we get our ideas from?
Note 1: Inspiring people and ideas
Note 2: Understanding what we’re all part of
Note 2: Joining the dots
Note 2: Integrity and integration
Note 3: Complication of being human
Note 3: Will things change if we don’t make them?
Note 3: Letting people change
Note 3: Starting over in life

Ideas around how we use our opportunity to contribute to conversations was also one part of Things we give voice to.

Ways to share this: