The Twilight of Ideals

"...we cannot understand greatness by studying the average." - 'Soar With Your Strengths' Donald O. Clifton & Paula Nelson

“I sought to do my own thinking, confining it to only experientialy gained information, and with the products of my own thinking and intuition to articulate my own innate motivational integrity instead of trying to accommodate everyone else’s opinions, credos, educational theories, romances, and mores, as I had in my earlier life.” Buckminster Fuller (received forty-seven honorary degrees, held twenty-eight patents, was awaarded the Medal of Freedom, and was the author of 29 books


Ideals are the primordial seed of motivation.  They are yearnings that impel action in humans.  The proper judgment of an ideal is not whether it is reasonable or not, but whether it compels life-affirming action.  Buckminster Fuller whose quote is above had the following ideal:


      "...lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth."


This was a written record in his "Chronofile," on ongoing journal he kept about his life and experiences since he was twelve.  He made this entry at the age of 32; fresh out of a bankruptcy, which cost him monies that friends and family had lent him to start a business which went belly-up.  In his own words he was a "throwaway"...having an "economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree"  Hardly a 'realistic' ideal by someone in such a grave circumstance.  Yet failure to accomplish his ideal still propelled him far enough to be named one of the most influential people of the 20th century.  He even made it on to a U.S. stamp and had a molecule named after him (buckminsterfullerene or buckyball).



The beauty of ideals is not realism.  The beauty of ideals is their power to compel you to work towards something when nobody is watching.  It is establishment of a personal motivational integrity.  Whence this fear of ideals as big as Bucky's?

The ideal of being the wealthiest man alive was hardly a realistic outlook for a novice book keeper, who left high school to find work in the up and coming Cleveland area in the mid 1800's.  Yet from the very beginning John D. Rockefeller would say that he would one day be the richest man alive.  He was by most estimates the richest man that ever lived.



Exceptions are no less ripe for study than common occurrences.  It is customary to study the mean, or the common, or the deviation from such.  We have a love affair with the Bell curve and feel that all should tend toward the norm in life.  

One could argue that the progress of human civilization rests on the nurturing of 'unrealistic' life-affirming ideals.  Begin with those personal ideals that, though they may be scoffed or laughed at by those less inclined to dream, are the very sustenance and faithful accomplices in your journey through life.  Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best "God will not have his work made manifest by cowards."







 

Social Spaces and Perfectly Increasing Returns

" Information has perfectly increasing returns: spend the money to learn something once, and that knowledge can be reused at zero additional cost forever; double the number of uses and the cost per use halves." Philip Evans & Thomas Wurster, Blown to Bits

Sociology moves towards modeling a coherent structure of society. This means understanding interactions, establishments, relationships, and the overall inherent tendencies of societies to evolve. The fundamental unit of action is the individual. Although, true to categorical separation Psychology typically upends sociology when studying the behavior of the individual. They are not mutually exclusive however, and studying the individual only will lead to an incomplete picture of society, behavior, and the individual. After all, it is not the shiny carbon atom that gives a diamond its shine, but the structure and organization that creates the affect.

The next step in the evolution of the business of sociology involves the networking of social space. A networked social space captures discrete data bits. The wave of this phenomena is well underway. A smart networked social space knows who is there, why they are there, how long they have been there, and what behavior is likely to occur. For instance, when I go to the gym the "gym" does not "know" anything about me, other than I am there by the mere fact of me clicking in my key tag. What does the gym do with that information? Nothing! What could it do? Imagine....

A well networked health club would know that I am there, why I am there, how long I've been there, what i like to do, etc. This would allow a communication between me and the "gym" to precisely adapt and cater their offerings to my evolving needs. Every health club I know is a floating social space of data that floats away.

The first step is knowing that the data exists. Second, is to be able to conveniently capture this data. Cometh the smart phone to the rescue. The smart phone is missing link in evolving social space to capture meaningful data for productive communication between business and consumer.

The next businesses to realize and use these blue oceans of data will drive a competitive advantage. They will truly "know" their customers and be able to evolve offerings and meet needs almost intuitively. What more could a consumer and a business want?

In the context of sociology, this business model is an evolving thread of the human species. A next level communication in our inherent need to communicate. To be heard to be part of a group, or groups, that can lift each other up to new heights.

Natural Economic Behavior

"Never follow the crowd." - Bernard Baruch



If our behavior guides economics, and our behavior is guided by natural inherent tendencies, then, wouldn't it make sense to study nature and organisms to best underpin economic theory? "What Went Wrong With Economics," is the headline of a recent article in The Economist. What went wrong? Well part of it is the assumption that we have a complete knowledge. The second thing that went wrong is ignorance of behavior. The third thing that went wrong is lack of understanding history.

Complete knowledge doesn't exist in anything. Anyone that speaks with the pedantry of complete knowledge is severely blind to this reality. We don't know what we don't know. Every generation since written record has held assumptions as to having complete knowledge and understanding of many factors of existence. Science especially is a perfect example of how this assumption has always been wrong. And what is economics? At best an evolving science. At worst speculative guesswork.

The easiest way to see that bubbles in economy will probably always exist is to consider the most minute fundamental fractal of economy. In a capitalist system every movement in commerce stems from 'exploiting a profit.' Now, by exploiting i mean simply engaging in a transaction that will yield profit. That is all business is. Everyone one of us lives from this. Every act of profit will be replicated by almost any witness. This initiates a cascade of participants to engage in the same act. By this fact a widget that is being bought to hold for profit (say a stock) will ultimately be bought up to extremely high prices. Its a very natural process all individuals seek to profit. So the problem in economics is simply the fact vast number of economic participants can't self reflect and see this.

History chronicles tulip bubbles, stock bubbles, currency bubbles, gold bubbles, art bubbles, etc. Its almost like seasons. They are a reflection of human behavior. The fact that winter withers away much plant life is not bad; it is a natural cycle. It would seem foolish to us to wish to have a season of harvest perpetually. As it would seem foolish to wish to stay awake without having to rest or sleep. Economy accelerates and de-accelerates perpetually as well.

The lessons we learn is to harvest and build prudently, not exuberantly. To acknowledge length of cycles and bubbles. To save and to cultivate. To build value within ourselves and our businesses. To be adaptive. And, above all to learn from history, seek to understand, and be intellectually humble.

The Case for Boldness

"Let us seek, in the depths of our experience, the point where we feel ourselves most intimately within our own life." - Henri Bergson



Boldness is a semantically loaded word. It conveys a number of things. To the German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, boldness was said to have "genius, power, and magic." Boldness is specifically an action taken that is outside the typical realm of common experience, highly risky, and simultaneously highly profitable.

Boldness involves no inherent guarantee, only that of a new experience; which in and of itself is valuable. Boldness, however, I suggest is the one principle that has produced the highest reward in each of our lives.

In the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin he begins the story of his noble life with such a bold stroke:

"I sold my books to raise a little money, was taken on board the sloop privately, had a fair wind, and in three days found myself at New York, near three hundred miles from my home, at the age of seventeen, without the least recommendation or knowledge of any person in the place, and very little money in my pocket."

Peter Drucker, the 20th Century Management icon, boldly gave up a promising and lucrative career in finance to pursue his dream in management consulting, when such a practice was still in its infancy.

In a more personal commonplace scenario; through our surveying of our current life and personal history, we can probably locate an act of boldness that initiated a train of events to lead us to who we have become today.

To add to Goethe's description of boldness I would further suggest that boldness is absolute faith in oneself, an uncompromising desire for success, and that which breathes divinity into the present. Boldness expands our boundaries - whether mental or physical.

To boldly commit to acquiring a new competency opens a new dimension of experience. To boldly exert ourselves through rigorous exercise makes our bodies adapt to a higher level of function and performance. To boldly speak when shy, to boldly ask when afraid, to boldly do when unsure, and to boldly give when someone's in need...this is life - unapologetic and free.

Angel Armendariz

On The Passions

From Synchronicity - Carl Jung:

Albertus Magnus:

"I discovered an instructive account [of magic] in Avicenna's Liber sextus naturalium, which says that a certain power to alter things indwells in the human soul and subordinates the other things to her, particularly when she is swept into a great excess of love or hate or the like.

When therefore the soul of a man falls into a great excess of any passion, it can be proved by experiment that it [the excess] binds things [magically] and alters them in the way it wants, and for a long time I did not believe it, but after I had read the nigromantic books and others of the kind on signs and magic, I found that the emotionality of the human soul is the chief cause of all these things, whether because, on account of her great emotion, she alters her bodily substance and the other things towards which she strives, or because, on account of their dignity, the other, lower things are subject to her, or because the appropriate hour or astrological situation or another power coincides with so inordinate an emotion, and we [in consequence] believe that what this power does is then done by the soul....

Whoever would learn the secret of doing and undoing these things must know that everyone can influence everything magically if he falls into a great excess...and he must do it at that hour when the excess befalls him, and operate with the things which the soul prescribes. For the soul is then so desirous of the matter she would accomplish that of her own accord she seizes on the more significant and better astrological hour which also rules over the things suited to that matter....

Thus it is the soul who desires a thing more intensely, who makes things more effective and more like what comes forth....Such is the manner of production with everything the soul intensely desires. Everything she does with that aim in view possesses motive power and efficacy for what the soul desires."

The Sodden Routine Factor

"An ideal...must be something intellectually conceived, something of which we are not unconscious....and it must carry with it that sort of outlook, uplift, and brightness that go with all intellectual facts. Secondly, there must be novelty in an ideal...Sodden routine is incompatible with ideality..." - William James

The pursuit of ideals is the central theme in every story. We pursue the ideal mate, ideal body, ideal family, ideal career goals, etc. The sustenance of every story, play, and endeavor is a certain ideal. The place we find ourselves versus where our ideal lies is the storyline of every living being.

C.G. Jung, the Swiss born psychologist once said, "Without psychic depth we can never be adequately related to the magnitude of our object." I believe that he referred to a relation that exists between our ideal and ourselves. This relation is ongoing until union with the ideal exists. It means that before our ideal becomes manifest we have to become greater than or equal to the task.

Our ideal exists in two points. First it is latent within us as a seed, potentially capable of fruition. Second it exists beyond us in the not yet manifest future. We further can conclude that an ideal is antagonistic to, as William James put it, "sodden routine." After all "sodden" or, a more common word, "habitual" routines actively stifle growth. And, by this fact we can figure that they will actively prevent us from creating or becoming our ideals.

The path to our ideals lie in novelty. Imagine a child habituated as an infant. An infant that doesn't become, an infant that stays within its own "sodden routine." The infant would be enslaved to babble cries and crawling. Novelty is embedded into our nature for a reason. That is to grow. Only by means of seeking new experience and new information is novelty alive within us. Only through this method can we be called alive and develop our ideals.

The embrace of sodden routine has all too many times led to a premature psychic death. Benjamin Franklin, once recalled, of a man who he had known of that died at the age of 25, but was not buried until the age of 75. Benjamin is referring here to dying by means of succumbing to a sodden routine that contradicts novelty.

Through novelty, the psychic depth that we develop, will breed the confidence within us to prepare and act on our ideals. Without the arduous pursuit of our ideals we simply become the spectators of our wishful thinking.

Angel Armendariz

Evolve Yourself

"Everything in life must be intentional, and the will constantly taught like a muscle." - Andre Gide

All life obeys a form of evolution. I use the term in the most liberal sense. To evolve involves a process of change towards fitness. Two broad points channel this process and act like feedback mechanisms. Extinction and creation are the two continuous end results of evolution. Although, there are no end results per se, we can agree that stable moments occur along this process of evolution.

Apparently, one of the best ways to achieve a "fit" species is to keep what works and eliminate what doesn't. This simple yet powerful principle is at work constantly in our own brains. Through a process called "parcellation" our neurons eliminate unused parts and further reinforce those neurons most in use, a process of consolidation. Basically it submits atrophied neurons to extinction and creates enhanced support for the active ones.

When we think about this process of extinction and creation most of us can see the benefits; and whether we like it or not it is the very process that has been built into us. It works. If it works so well, than does it not then follow that we should apply this principle to every aspect of our conscious lives?

When we apply this to a habit what happen? Well lets say we have a habit of unhealthy eating. Now if we submit this habit to extinction and create a new habit of healthy eating what is the result?...Exactly. Where we err sometimes, is that we consciously address what needs to happen, and what we want, but we are weak at elimination and extinction of that which holds us back. We like to carry old baggage around. Unsuccessful old baggage can include emotions, identities, thoughts, beliefs, actions, concepts...etc.

I decree we should be as bold as nature. Courage supposes that we have inherent power overcome limitations. Courage is executed by extinction and creation. By extinction of unsuccessful, inefficient processes, and creation of successful, and fit processes. We must continually scan ourselves for inefficient process and boldly cut binding ropes of inefficiency.

Is It A Downturn or Opportunity?

"All our dreams come true - if we have the courage to pursue them." - Walt Disney

The cyclical nature of things always seems to take us by surprise. Everything we learn from history to geology have cyclical natures. The rise of a civilization or empire is met by the fall to a worthier or better prepared new comer. We witness the rise of a business and its fall; the growth of an industry and its downturn. Farmers have harnessed the Tao of leveraging cycles. They are fully aware that reaping and sowing are cyclical, and any attempt to challenge this natural cycle is futile.

Our current state of financial affairs as a whole can be seen as a movement towards a downturn. We should perhaps borrow a word from agriculture and use the term "sowing" as opposed to downturn or recession. Sowing conveys a time of preparation, cultivation, of harnessing our capabilities and planting seeds that will later come to fruition.

Lao Tsu, who wrote the Tao Te Ching, promoted a philosophical method of embracing the flow of things, as opposed to battling the natural forces of life. We speak of embracing the flow, not becoming submissive, or complacent. The difference is in using what is given and maximizing the opportunity.

In our own private lives for example, many of us detest "loneliness." Those who embrace there situations however, call this "solitude," and maximize the moment by becoming more intimate with themselves, god, or refining their mental capacities.

Simply by re-naming, or re-framing our situations, we can transform lack into abundance, and failure into opportunity. Leaders must cultivate this. By doing so,
we work with the flow of nature so to speak. At the same time we become responsive, adaptable, and versatile. The moment is perfect to differentiate ourselves by asking questions of opportunity and their by sow the seeds of innovation.

Angel Armendariz

Imaginary Themes for Real Results

"Mentally rehearsing a new way that you might behave in the face of adversity activates the prefrontal cortex, and your imagined activities begin firing neurons and wiring them into brain patterns that can be activated whenever they're needed. Without attentive rehearsal, your brain will not mobilize in advance, and despite your best intentions you will act out old, counterproductive routines instead-or new counterproductive ones, fired not by calm effectiveness but by frustration, anger, and other emotions that can distract you from giving your best. When you prepare the prefrontal cortex to activate ahead of time, you will be better at calmly, effectively performing the right action." - Robert K. Cooper

Mental rehearsal, and visualization in general have a long history of use. During the pre-scientific period most visualization was tied to metaphysical, spiritual, and magical phenomenon. As far back as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which date back thousands of years before Christ various forms of visualization where practiced to enhance the development of consciousness.

Most recently visualization or mental rehearsal has made a leap into the realm of neuroscience. Modern technology allows us to observe neuronal function under varying circumstances. Although visualization and mental rehearsal have been in the daily regimens of people such as Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, Carl G. Jung, and even Larry Bird, only recently has rigorous scientific study yielded detailed insight into the powerful effects of visualization.

The mere process of rehearsing movements such as exercises and performances has been shown do improve efficacy at near the levels of actual physical practice. Neuroscience shows that the very same neurons that partake in the actual physical movements are activated upon the mental rehearsal of the same movement. The question now becomes how can we use this information for self-development. Well, consider that any action that seems difficult, challenging, or warrants improvement can be dramatically improved through mental rehearsal. Here are some areas that can be improved by mentally rehearsing effective execution:

- public speaking
- sales pitches
- negotiations
- athletics
- interpersonal communication
- emotional management
- technical skills (engineering, programming, etc.)

This is simply a short list. Almost anything imaginable can improve dramatically by a consistent rehearsal. The key word here is consistent; like anything else consistency of purpose is the most essential ingredient for the utmost efficacy of any function.