Tag Archives: Acceleritis

Heroes Outnumber Emotionally-Damaged Evildoers

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Volume 2, Issue 18

What is it about the beautiful state of Colorado that explains first Columbine and now Aurora? The cowboys and today’s anarchistic militias, fiercely independent, have been associated with the Western frontier that started over 400 years ago in New England and then rolled out across the Rockies to the Pacific shore. Maybe that has something to do with it. Deep sigh.

As always, the tragedy contains a deeply buried profound mystery. How is it that ordinary people turn out to be real heroes when the going gets tough? What are we all made of inside that causes so many of us to unhesitatingly step in front of the bullet to save others?

In my intuitive cosmogony (to be released as a book later this year, entitled Imagine) it is the fact that you and I, all of us, are not who we think we are — separate entities cut off from everything else in the universe, out for ourselves. We are like pseudopods of a giant amoeba of consciousness that is the Universe, itself conscious and divine. Living through each of us is the One Divine Original Consciousness, which is the only thing that exists. What we take to be our own island of consciousness is actually the Universe’s local consciousness cache, temporarily cut off from the consciousness of the whole, for the never-ending adventure of existence.

Why then does the Universe turn bad, becoming so negative in one such pseudopod as to want to destroy complete strangers?

It comes with the territory — where there is free will, there will be error. The Jewish esoteric philosophy of Kabbalah explains that sin, aka evil, is missing the mark. The “mark” is right action for the circumstances. The insight is that no one purposely misses the mark — they are self-deluded into missing the mark.

Acceleritis has been around for as long as the human race has recorded history. According to my theory, the written language (seeable symbolic abstraction) that permits recording history is itself the primal cause of Acceleritis. My colleague Dr. Phillip Romero sets the start of human abstraction 35,000 – 40,000 years earlier than written language, in the cave paintings — when art began — although he does not assert that Acceleritis began with art.

It is Acceleritis that causes error (sin, evil) to be so remarkably widespread, and makes so many people capable of killing wantonly. And yet such people are a miniscule fraction of the human race, and most of us are as heroic as the heroes that populate our movies, TV dramas, and novels.

In the decades and centuries to come, it is my dream that we will conquer Acceleritis by training our minds to deal with the attachment, false ego selves, and emotionally-charged information overload that causes even such a small fraction of us to go so bad as to generate widespread suffering.

May it be so.

Best to all,

Bill 

The Role of Attention in the Zone

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Volume 2, Issue 15

Our nonprofit organization,The Human Effectiveness Institute, may be unique among nonprofit foundations in providing people with heuristics specifically designed to increase individual experience of the Observer and Flow (Zone) states of consciousness. Books that contain ancient scriptural texts from India, and other psychotechnologies derived from these teachings or rediscovered experientially, also offer such advice, since the samadhi, satori and zazen states are neurological levels within Flow.

In recent posts we have looked at Flow from many different points of view, including the relation to Flow of values, motivations, attachments, matching of skills and challenges, doing something for its own sake not for outcomes, and striving for Flow in the work one does best. In this post we will consider how attention  is central to both Observer and Flow states.

ADD and ADHD are two modern symptomologies of Acceleritis, which undoubtedly also existed in the past but were never so prevalent as to warrant being named and studied. With the world culture veering wildly as information overload overwhelms our cortical abilities, our attention tends to be diffuse, unfocused, and constantly hopping from one distraction to another — conditions inimical to Flow.

A terrific book given to me recently by my great new friend and partner in Playshops, Richard Zackon, The Taboo of Subjectivity, by Alan Wallace — which recounts with such authenticity one feels as if Wallace is the reincarnation of William James — describes how James analyzes the most advanced “mystical” contemplative state he himself achieved as being one of alert vivid attention. Furthermore, the state was free of subjective constructs, conceptual thinking, and the singlepointed focus was on the nature of the experience of consciousness itself, thus utterly transcending the usual experience of mindand its incessant chatter. James thus demystified this state by explaining its differentness in purely scientific terms.

So long as one is not master of one’s own attention, none of the other suggestions we have provided or can provide will bear fruit in the way of Flow state. This is why so many of the Eastern traditions start with, and continuously emphasize, concentration training. Such training is no longer optional in the racing world of information overflow in which we now live, it is something we all need almost as much as we need love.

We cannot cover the subject of concentration training fully in this one post. A few key secrets of achieving concentration in current real world conditions will have to suffice for a start:

  • Focus 100% on one thing at a time.
     
  • Be present in the moment.
     
  • Do not rush — go no faster than you can with a rational and appropriate degree of perfectionism for the challenge you are facing.

In order to focus on one thing at a time you need:

  • To ruthlessly block off distractions.
     
  • As distracting but important ideas arise, jot them down on a side notepad and put them totally out of your mind until later. At the end of each day, integrate the list of waiting thoughts in priority order in a single list (or a personal list and a core business list). This will enable you to turn away from distracting thoughts without your mind tugging at your sleeve, fearing that important time limits are being exceeded on one or more of these items. Indeed, get done the side-notes in their own needed timeframes.

More on attention in future posts. This one dimension is one of the most important overlooked matters in world culture circa 2012.

Best to all,

Bill

PS – Gian Fulgoni was kind to tweet our last post – Click here.

Being Amused by the Accelereality Comedy of Errors

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Volume 2, Issue 12

Have you experienced being in a meeting where someone shoots down your idea dismissively and then presents a longwindedly crude expression of the same idea, without seeing that it is the same idea?

Have you pitched something to a company that is so clearly what they need, and then have them take a pass based on the strength of frozen ritual processes that no one believes can ever be changed?

Impossibility thinking, dream state management, “Earth must be God’s sitcom channel”, and other amusingly cynical thoughts pass through my head as I encounter these events daily. Still, I remain ever hopeful that in time the race will learn to use its prefrontal cortex, and see how the psychotechnology techniques such as those of the Human Effectiveness Institute do push back against the tide of information overload, i.e. Acceleritis, which causes the pandemic EOP (Emergency Oversimplification Procedure) exhibited in these funny behaviors.

It’s healthy and pragmatically useful to take these things as amusing rather than become frustrated by them since that negative emotion brings us down to the EOP level. If Observer state and Flow state are the objective and the answer, then the sense of humor is a major ally in the game. Humor and perspective are closely related, which is why comedians are actually philosopher/poets who express profound truths in an artistic and therefore pleasantly diverting form that cleanses the emotions of negativity or sublimates the negativity to a less harmful species of it.

The prefrontal cortex is a radical evolution. Once it was empowered by seeable (written) language starting about 6000 years ago — a mere eyeblink in human history — this triggered an acceleration process that manifests as a fall from grace, a submersion in self-dwarfing pettyism, a loss of the sense of connectedness to divinity and our numinous birthright. Acceleritis as we call it. Written 2190-2070 BC, much earlier in the accelerating information overload period we are still living in, the Lamentations of Ipou-our recall the spiritual culture that Egypt had already lost by that time.

Prior to the discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, the Nag Hammadi library was found in Upper Egypt in 1945. Whereas the Dead Sea Scrolls appear to be early drafts of the Old Testament, the Nag Hammadi scrolls contain what appear to be early drafts of the New Testament. One muses that the wars perennially fought over the Holy Land might have something to do with the findings of these materials — which cast such revealing light on our early Western spiritual beginnings. Not exactly a grail, the scrolls near Nag Hammadi were found in a large jar. The aspect I find particularly interesting about them is the many writers who groped to explain why, if there is God, the world has gone so wrong. These explanations are all variations on a theme of error-ridden/evil early offspring of the original Spirit creator, bad demiurge gods/archons aka the Devil. The early Christian church edited out these heresies (while retaining Satan) probably wisely as they are so negative and paranoia inducing. Also, the far simpler and perhaps more logical explanation is information overload and the time it takes for information-processing beings to learn to manage their own internal resources after such a powerful mutation (evolution of the prefrontal cortex) and its cascading effects.

The most important work each of us does is the work we do on ourselves, which the Human Effectiveness Institute calls psychotechnology — the broader field containing Buddhism, psychoanalysis, Zen, and a host of other specific methodologies springing up in different regions of the world. Psychotechnology is what propels us out of the Acceleritis-driven EOP state. Many of us, with the coming of maturity, reach a permanent equilibrium in the Observer state that allows us to laugh at ourselves and to appreciate the humor in the challenging, maddening conditions of our historical period. Jews call this being a mensch. This is definitely a hopeful sign, of which many abound all around us. Perhaps in a millennium or two, we will emerge from Acceleritis on a global basis — or maybe we are even closer. What can we do to (at least begin to) make it happen in our own time?

Best to all,

Bill

The Immediate Upside Opportunity of Engaged Relationships

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Volume 2, Issue 1

The next boom could be right around the corner, but we have to create it

When one is in a depressed defeatist state of consciousness, one draws down upon his or her self all manner of further difficulties incremental to what caused the depression. Some might say this is just others reading and taking advantage of obvious clues of weakness, while others might say the Divine Matrix is mirroring and giving each of us what we need. The construct is irrelevant because the predictions are the same. Both are accurate.

The same thing happens on a global level, as in the Great Depression and in today’s economic swoon from which we are tepidly recovering. The perception is that there is not enough to go around.

Yet there is evidence that the resources of the planet, properly stewarded, are more than enough to prove Malthus wrong and to make everybody’s quality of life quite acceptable in terms of the basics. The fact that we have been squandering some or all of those resources of course creates a potential shortfall. But these are human actions thus conceptually under our control. We can change our actions.

However, we feel that we cannot control or change our actions. And the truth turns out to be that whatever we feel/think/believe comes true, as if we are creating our own future. Gosh, how can anyone say we are not creating it, as in The Secret? This was not mainstream thinking as recently as the 1970s, when I wrote Mind Magic and Seth Speaks became popular, but many today agree that whatever is in our minds later manifests in the consensual reality in some form. Nevertheless the Will is missing on a mass scale to grab hold of the reins and make the 180-degree course change that we all deep down inside want the planet to make. The difference between the imagined utopia and the present mess is just too vast and we feel exhausted before we begin. Pessimism trumps optimism among the core of the culture. We are indeed seen to be the screw-ups that many interpretations of the Bible said we are. You’ll guess that Bill is about to tell us Acceleritis and the inevitable trial and error consequences of our new cortex is behind the mess, and you’re right, that is my estimate of the situation.

This blog is always about “What can we do about it now?” This week’s post explores how we can start with our relationships and how the ripples in the pond will spread to the ends of the Earth.

First let’s recognize that the immediate opportunity, if not distorted by negative assumptions, could be seen as incredibly promising. The Arab Spring for example is a hopeful sign that the universally available information/communication phase has now rolled out into totalitarian territory and the effect is inevitable.

And there are other hopeful signs. Every member state of the UN has agreed to wipe out extreme poverty in the world by 2020 through implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Inspired by the ideas of economist Jeffrey Sachs, this program has been doing its job and is on track to make its numbers.

Genomics and nanotechnology along with a host of other new sciences and technologies, offer new potential for medicine, and growing realization of how we have poisoned and cancered ourselves with pesticides and other unwise choices. All of this simultaneously offers the possibility that we will begin to dial back the causes of ill health. When we are all feeling physically good and not worried caregivers of loved ones on the descent, this will do a lot to improve the way we use our minds.

However, we have to start now in the more difficult uphill condition of using our minds well, despite the many factors bringing us down to counterproductive mental habits that inexorably and progressively worsen our situational estimates.

Among the biggest opportunities that lie ahead include marketing to the developing nations around the world, and to all of the other nations as well. Global commerce is the biggest upside on the horizon, and Brookings Institute partnering with J.P. Morgan Chase has created the Global Cities Initiative to drive the exports of American goods and services that can bring us back into boom for a long time. This is an opportunity not just for Americans but for everyone.

There will be a host of new and better products and services that are more win/win in terms of the entire ecosystem of our minds, bodies, and external environments. Software will continue to amaze us with where it takes us. Facebook and Twitter will lead our evolution in the direction of developing each individual and marketing him and her across the Global Digital Matrix.

Money will cease to be a problem over the course of time, and fallbacks into depressions may not be necessary, once we learn how to play nice in this big blue/green sandbox. Money is a symbol used in trade and we can and do create as much of it as we want. Over time — once we are spending more time in Observer and Flow states — we can probably improve upon the fiscal implementation details currently in place via the Fed, international monetary policy agreements, etc. so that the symbology system does not itself continue to confuse us into believing we do not have enough to go around.

What about aggressor states and terrorists and other criminal and/or psychotic behaviors? Big challenges lie ahead. Some people are not good listeners and are past willingness to learn they have gone off course in any way. Compassion and good communication will not always succeed — especially here at the beginning of the True Global Enlightenment, while we are at the deepest depths of the Real Dark Ages.

How do we avert a nuclear escalation if Israel and Iran clash, for example? These and other real world threats have an increased probability of occurrence to the degree that we believe they are inevitable and do not use our creativity to dream up compelling alternative scenarios and then sell them at all levels.

Although many Americans have issues and concerns about the UN, this organization is the greatest hope for a communication strategy that the world has or can have. The only way to bring everybody to the table will always turn into what the UN is perceived to be, a place where America feels it is not being treated fairly because it is not the dominant and ruling voice. Every member state has to feel it has an equal voice — this is the nature of the give and take of having neighbors.

This is where Engaging Relationships comes in. We have to look at every relationship as an opportunity, whether we are enjoying it at the moment or not. We have to accept it as a given, making the best of it that we can — drawing upon the wellsprings of unfamiliar creativity patterns in doing so, and pulling out all the stops from the standpoint of making maximum improvements, optimizing all the issues together. We have to decide to appreciate the challenge in each case. We have to stop demonizing the other and accept who he or she is, seeing the good news that difficult relationships are a fine learning stimulus, and finding places in ourselves where we can make excellently productive fine tunings.   

The UN has to itself evolve. It needs a new activism aimed at reducing the incentives for aggression — perhaps something like Mutually Assured DEfense (MADE, as in we all have it MADE) — the opposite of the US Cold War program Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). The UN would have a protocol for discussing each act of aggression to determine the share of blame to each player — never assuming either is 100% to blame — counting up the instances of unnecessary escalation, e.g. who struck the first blow, etc. The UN would also have a protocol for defusing each crisis early on — similar perhaps to Jim Channon’s First Earth Battallion.

Bill Rouhana, CEO of Chicken Soup for the Soul, has a program called Humpty Dumpty Institute that has worked hard to bring UN and Congress members into close communication with one another. This is a worthy program and along with other of Bill’s nonprofit initiatives should be seriously considered for sponsorship by major advertisers seeking to have Engaging Relationships with their customers. Telling people the benefits of your products is not enough anymore. The world is too serious a place. Since the 1930s Coca-Cola has known that its communications with customers must address their values and tensions (presentation to ARF Re:THINK 2012 this past week*). If you only communicate with them on the mercantile level, your customers think your brand is just interested in them as a wallet.

Ed Martin of Hershey is another chap who excels at finding and helping nonprofits with high potential to change the world for the better. For example, he is now helping Leonard DiCaprio and La Columbe Coffee’s charitable alliance, which is donating 100% of profits from its new coffee brand LYON to carefully-selected potentially high-yield environmental and disaster relief projects. At the same time he’s helping Hillary Clinton’s International diaspora Engagement Alliance (IdEA) — an innovative platform for public-private partnerships bringing together communities in the USA and “back home” in the plethora of countries that are the roots of most Americans — to promote trade, investment, volunteerism, philanthropy, diplomacy, entrepreneurship, and innovation.

These are our role models in showing how we can amp up our Engagement with the world — in all of our relationships and in new ones — enjoying each one more, in a gamelike fashion conducive to Flow state. The Human Effectiveness Institute has its own sponsorable nonprofit project involving democracy and social media, which we are offering to brands as a way of Engaging Relationships with customers and prospects. Brands interested in learning more, please click here.

As we focus this week on seizing the day with all our relationships, let’s remember to include the one we have with our self — which deserves some time allocation — and the relationship we have with the postulated One Self that is the Universe, in which we are an aspect and the whole at the same time. Each moment, let’s leave open at least the possibility that the Whole is aware of us.

*ARF will post the Coke presentation to their website within the next month where all ARF member companies can access it. www.thearf.org

Best to all,

Bill