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Top 7 readings after 5 years blogging and blueprint for prosperity
Change
Someone who wants “to change the world” has an easy job. He or she simply has to change oneself and the world has changed. All you have to do thereafter is to show people how you are by being yourself. This serves as inspiration to some and may eventually spread…..In times of internet, with the possibility of blogging, to express our ideas and show the world the changes one has made, this process gets a modern unprecedented dimension. The problem people face is the huge amount of information that becomes available and the selection one makes for one’s own inspiration. By doing so one creates his or her own world of information and personal progress.
My own progression
After 5 years of blogging I see a progression in my own activities and also in the way I share this with my surroundings. I also see a steady and even exponential progression in the support I receive from you. The amount of readers has exploded in recent months and my practical contribution to the world through Sustainocracy is becoming a serious source of inspiration for people across the world. When I look at the blog items that drew most attention I see a certain tendency too, obviously provoked by myself through social media and public presentations, but also by a growing interest by you around the different views that I present. WordPress advises, through its statistics, that I should pick up these items and continue that line of inspiration for you.
The top 7 readings and topics are:
1. Why people avoid spirituality – This post was extensively read by the academic world after my presentation during the scientific encounter on Sustainability and Spirituality in September 2012 in Hungary.
2. Alternative definition of Sustainable Development – This post is key because it is used all the time to define the ethical basis of Sustainocracy. So every time I address and audience I need to clarify this point first to create the right mindset to follow my statements. The post is there extensively used by me as hyperlink.
3. Feminizing masculine cultures in crisis – This post appeals much to female groups who see a justification in it for their own emancipation. The masculinity of current manipulation and speculation of economies is often despised and purposely negated by masculine authorities but strongly recognized by the feminine structures causing an interesting Yin-Yang also among my readers.
4. The day after economics – I found that this post was appreciated by a broad audience that saw it as an eye opener to a trusted paradigm that was falling apart without anyone really knowing what was happening. “Economics” is a word that is seen as eternally connected to human development. To project it as a finite thing with a “life before and after” got readers to open up their mind to new worldviews.
5. Kondratieff versus Close – This recent post was re-blogged various times by people who like the analytics of human and economic systems.
6. Anthropocene I and II – Many people do not realize the effect we have on our surroundings and that this even is being defined as “an era” that will leave a lasting print or scar on the face of the Earth just like other natural disasters of the past.
7. Why only Sustainocracy can save the human world – This post is especial popular among the growing list of supporters of Sustainocracy as a solution.
Blueprint for prosperity:
I will certainly come back to these in forthcoming posts, as the trusted old world collapses and we all need to put our shoulders under the renewal. From the above posts, and observing the line of progression I made in my own work, we can define the key ingredients for a stable society:
- Ethics should rule (eg. Sustainocracy), not money
- Higher human purpose should lead the democracy, not economies of growths
- Self-sufficiency should prevail in primary requirements (food, housing, energy) to avoid dependencies
- Co-creative craftsmanship should provide sustainable local human progress
- Harmonious partnerships should connect self-sufficient neighboring regions for safety and sharing prosperity
We still have some work to do before this blueprint will be accomplished. What goes for societies, goes for us individually too. We are back again where I started. Change the world by changing first oneself by taking the above blueprint at heart. The rest will come automatically.
Warm regards,
Jean-Paul
Why people avoid Spirituality
From Sept 21 -23 a group of academic and entrepreneurial visionary intellectuals from 14 countries met for the annual conference of EURO-SPES. The topic was “Spirituality & Sustainability” and the gathering took place in Visegrad (Hungary), 40 km north of Budapest. Our organizing host was Prof. Laszlo Zsolnai.
A beautiful weekend in a beautiful place full of history
Spirituality is a word that in the world of hard materialism is being neglected or despised as being soft or religious. This is a huge misconception and a true mental and practical blockage for development of true sustainable progress. Spirituality has various definitions as participating scientists correctly pointed out but the general description of the word is “the inner quest for the true meaning of our existence”. For people who live the simplified life of materialism such quest is of course a scary confrontation with their own consciousness and certainly something to be avoided. The world of the “having” is exactly opposite of the world of the “being”. Both reject each other like poles of a magnet. The transit from a “having” kind of mentality to one in search for identity (being) is usually referred to as a “crisis”. The process is one of letting go (voluntarily or involuntarily) of material securities and trying to find comfort in the new world of inner feelings and meaning.
In such open field of emotions people start reacting in many ways, some aggressive or depressed, others become artists or find unprecedented hidden forces of leadership. During the conference we were enlightened with views in each of these fields of expertise. Academic research is showing the importance of spirituality for humankind to recover from crises and develop sustainable evolutionary progress through the renewal of true meaning. It represents a combination of rationalization of inner search for meaning and putting the growing awareness into practice in experiments around new ways of organizing ourselves, individually and as a community. This is called the pre-paradigm, a phase before, after or within crises, in which alternatives develop to a reigning paradigm that is falling apart. Such pre-paradigms are always confrontational to the one that is being disputed. A pre-paradigm uses the logic of spiritual consciousness and is usually neglected and even denied by those who are unaware, or intentional to uphold the existing paradigm out of personal or institutional interests. The old paradigm has lawful support while the new paradigm has the power of timeless meaningfulness.
It was shown that such human evolutionary patterns of obsolete but reigning paradigm, crisis, pre-paradigm development through spirituality, and the opposition between old and new paradigm, are a natural evolutionary phenomena of a self-aware species. Even the dramatic consequences of a powerful yet obsolete paradigm, that could cause death and destruction, can be seen as a universal natural disaster hitting humankind, forcing ourselves to renew our spiritual awareness and develop a new evolutionary cycle. But this natural phenomena is of course not an excuse for those who are aware of it to let it happen just like that. The force of reasoning and new paradigm development is nowadays, thanks to many modern elements of peaceful reflection, education and opposition, capable of overcoming a forthcoming crisis without the natural need for or potential threat of a mass destruction.
Academic intellectuals, artists and entrepreneurs from 14 countries meet for the paradigm shift
Sustainability was explained from an existential and practical point of view, using also nature as a point of inspirational reference. Various presentations coincided about the forthcoming mayor crash, a melt down of the world order of economics after decades of exponential growth and speculation. For the first time academic financial specialists looked at the broader picture and showed the unsustainable truth of current economic materialism. Not many presentations could pinpoint yet a solution. Some were still tempted to use economic instruments that were contrasted by others, including me, as “decades too late” and at this stage unrealistic and equally obsolete.
Solutions needed to be found in the inner world of reflection, awareness and consciousness, not the external worlds of old material securities. My own practical presentation of sustainocracy was well received. As I was one of the very first to present my case I had three more days left to get some deepening reflection about it with those who connected with the complexity of my line of thinking and my practical proof of concept that already went beyond the phase of pre-paradigm. During the questioning rounds after each presentation the power of my own model of human complexities proved its worth for my own inner guidance for reflection and interaction with the others.
The psychology of change in a paradigm shift is the true transformative challenge of humankind
The complexity of the current global situation was also beautifully shown through expressions of art around the world, presented by academic scientists, and available to create awareness in a difficult world of opposition, apathy, ignorance, commercial over-communication, fear and manipulation. The surprising beauty or challenging intellectual creativity brought forward in all kinds of artistic disciplines was mind blowing. Speakers could pinpoint where the problems were in the unbelievable massiveness of humankind in the world today, but also that solutions were not easily at hand. Humankind was expecting solutions from the external material world while all agreed that the real solutions needed to be found in the inner world of meaning through spirituality and structural renewal of our civilization’s organization around life and evolutionary essentials.
Many presentations therefor referred to the necessary inner quest for reason and meaning, not just as an individual but also as an organization and entire civilization. Many also referred to the powerful explosive potential that spirituality has when it hits the individual and the masses. “Water must flow freely” (biologist and journalist) Janos Vargha stated when he explained his decades of battle against the system of political and economic madness when the Danube was nearly doomed for exploitation with damaging effects beyond repair. He won!
In the red circle the “monster of the Danube”, artificial remains of human institutionalized madness
And so will spirituality as this too must flow freely. The dam that was going to affect natural life, including human’s, in and around the Danube, is now a metaphor for the blocking forces of artificial institutionalized economic and political interests that stand free flow of awareness and reason in the way. Public opposition builds up powerfully and eventually breaks through the dam with force. Right now we are all like Janos in the 80’s, claiming the free flow of meaningful reason and renewal in a peaceful but demanding way, before damage is irreparable. We have time at our side, those who try to uphold their unsustainable power position do not. This personal reflection should give us trust, no matter what happens:
“Spiritual meaning will eventually win as it always has, simply because it has eternity on its side while the temporary power of the self proclaimed mighty dies with those mortals that try to uphold it in their lifetime”.
The encounter was very powerful indeed and finalized with people who found each other in meaning, reasoning and purpose. Friendships were born, alliances too, and solutions were shared that went beyond the stage of experimental pre-paradigm. During that weekend in Visegrad along the Danube bend of Hungary the cultivators of a new human future shared seeds to sow across the world. The new paradigm of sustainable human progress exists and will grow there where true spirituality meets with purpose driven leadership and entrepreneurship.
Business and Spirituality – The Pyramid paradigm
Today I received the news that my paper on the “universal working model for sustainable progress” was accepted for the “Sustainability and Spirituality” conference in Hungary on Sept 21-23 2012. It is great to gain some international exposure for a method that I worked out in theory and also put into practice in my own living laboratory (The city of Eindhoven and the The Netherlands).
Many of the individual people involved in the related processes do it whole heartily. The institutions that I involve have still a strong dependence in the economic world and often lack sufficient backbone to show a sense of value driven responsibility. Here we encounter the true complexity of the paradigm shift from a money dependent society to a value driven one. The first is packed with institutions that have learned to uphold themselves artificially by the chain of financial dependencies, forgetting often the true original purpose of their existence. The value driven community of my model demands from the entities a commitment based on their true identity and contribution through application of competences and responsibility to the results we seek.
There are two moments when institutions become aware of their mismatch with sustainable progress and their confrontation with their lack of genuine and meaningful identity:
- When they fall over when their financial stakeholders withdraw their support in a crisis,
- When they get involved in value driven, co-creative processes and get blamed of incompetence due to internal bureaucracies, hierarchies and lack of capability to commit to true results.
We see this in most institutions, business, government and public services especially. In the second situation they “may” develop the awareness at senior executive level to transform into something that has a deeper meaning then just financial survival. In fact they start looking for genuine meaning and purpose, which is spiritual process. To take this executive action out of the sphere of abstraction I created the practical and measurable pyramid for multi-dimensional, value driven identity development and positioning of any institution.
Modern 21st century organizations are truly value driven along business and spiritual lines.
When a company or institution remains at the traditional ground level in the base of the bottom triangle, it will develop and maintain an old fashioned a deteriorating strategy of financial dependencies. When it starts rising into the pyramid it will include much more value driven commitments that keep the organization alive and connected to a daily reality. The company become more sustainable if it finds a meaningful link with the surroundings.
To develop a true multidimensional value driven image (i.e. moving up the pyramid) represents a complex transformative process that affects the entire structure of the organization and all people related to it, internally and externally in the surroundings. As the value driven processes reposition the organization in society it will encounter a huge amount of organizations that are trying to do the same. The shake out is intense, driving organization to the kernel of their existence with a challenge to excel in their commitment to values rather than financial growth. Money becomes no issue anymore nor profitability. Profit becomes much more relative to results than just financial benefits.
From a multidisciplinary co-creation perspective only such companies will survive and link with value driven ventures in a sustainable way. It are not the products that make the difference but the set of values the company represents. Since these values represent the multiple inner meaning providing purpose to the commitment there will no customer relationships anymore but partnerships with other competence and responsibility driven institutions compatible with one’s own ideas.
Spirituality involves the profound understanding of a cosmic reality (matter, energy, purpose, finite limitations and abundance, her and now, eternity) and an evolutionary reality (dependence and independence, leadership, adaptability, sustainable progress). Business based on profound spiritual meaning is called multidimensional entrepreneurship. The difference can be summarized as follows:
The difference between traditional and multidimensional entrepreneurship is business spirituality
Sustainocracy, the new democracy 