Invisible Hands Mis-Guiding You

The Invisible Hands That Guide You
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

"It seems likely that we often ride along on the energy of hidden social streams without even noticing their existence, while they influence the way we think, make us align ourselves with some ideas rather than others, or affect what we find fashionable and socially acceptable."

"Diamonds don't glitter because the atoms making them up glitter, but because of the way those atoms fall together into a special pattern."

" Its often not the parts but the pattern, that is most important, and so it is with people."
- Mark Buchanon "The Social Atom"

Patterns convery more meaning than meets the eye according to Mark Buchanon. Parts and their nuances have a lesser value in providing pertinent information about a system. The quote regarding the pattern of the diamonds atoms is very clever. Whether the part or the pattern is more important is not the question. The high level of meaning and information conveyed by patterns is the interesting thing.

A pattern can also be seen as a system. For example, a business usually works like a conveyor belt of sorts (a system)...it has a pattern to produce its commodity. Employees fit themselves into the role and nothing else. The system taken as a whole has a distinctive pattern, and analyzing an individual employee, or an individual department would give you erroneous information as to the working and function of the business model (pattern).

Patterns are endless. Generally speaking much of our Western education neglects the importance and power of being skilled at finding, using, and creating effective patterns for progress. We have for the most part accepted that everything outside the realm of our specialty is some anomoly that is beyond our comprehension.

In psychology "archetypes" can be seen as a pattern that helps us understand the human psyche and culture itlsef. What this means is that when we find patterns we can use them immediately as guides to "form" the "structure" or pattern we want. Following this insight, we can mimic the patterns of those individuals, businesses, groups, etc., that have formed compelling patterns.

Seeing patterns insinuates the ability to observe a system from a "big" perspective. In a way, it would mean to look at the forest not just the tree. In building a business it would mean to look at the production process not just the product. In self-development of any kind it would mean looking at the process and steps needed for the goal, not just the immediate result. When the pattern is found, its replication, is simply the mimicking of the same pattern.

Whether we like it our not we are following a pattern at the moment. By becoming aware of what we are forming, and what we wish to form we can restructure our habits and awareness to form the patterns we choose to create. One more quote from Buchanon's book..."Patterns reveal regularities that show how the seemingly complicated actually isn't so."

Angel Armendariz