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The universe and me

Summary:

This blog is an open reflection about the universe, the start of lifeforms on Earth and its evolution all the way up to consciousness and eventually humankind today. It finalizes with a evolutionary suggestion for us which is also coincides with my daily contribution to humankind through Sustainocracy. The text refers to my own “relationship with the Universe” enhanced by the convergence with the Maya calender, the special date of Dec 21st, 2012 and the hype around this era. I made short divisions in the text:

  • 21.12.2012
  • Awareness
  • Comfort zone
  • Materials
  • “Purpose”
  • The answer
  • Learning curve
  • Conclusion

While re-reading my contribution I came to my own definition of ethics; “Ethics is the universal law of harmonic relationships”. When you read the blog you may understand why I got to this definition, worthy further elaboration on what this really means for sustainable human progress in a next blog.

21.12.12:

21.12.12 was a memorable day because (surprise, surprise) no Maya apocalypse happened, it was much warmer in my hometown than normal for the time of the year and it was again the longest night of the year, meaning that as of the day after we get 2 minutes per day more daylight every day for 6 month.

All these things affect me. Since I had lived a few years in Sweden the issue of light and dark had reached my emotional awareness. In Stockholm the days were extremely short around Dec 21st, getting onto one’s nerves sometimes. The prospect of longer days has an extra dimension then even though after the joyful city decorations of Christmas there are still at least three months of darkness to live through. On June 21st the midsummer party celebrates fertility with extremely long days. Despite the happiness of this intense public party the prospect of days starting to shorten again adds another emotional dimension there. People in tropical regions do not live through such contrasts and hence have no emotional awareness around it, not the stress or the happiness. They have other things to celebrate though, related to their specific geographical relationship with the Sun and its light.

The whole discussion about the Maya’s, their impressive multidimensional calender, the Milky-way with planets and suns lining up, +/- 250000 year cycles, etc it all added up to my curiosity.  It made me wonder what relationship I truly have with my surroundings and the surroundings with me? Already as a teenager I was fascinated with astrology, astronomy, numerology, tarot, chess and all other mystical expressions of the humankind throughout history related to life itself, its origin, predictability and complexity. People like Plato, Moses,  Aristotle, Pythagoras, Galileo, the different empires, Jesus Christ, Buddha, but also the hype around Nostradamus, had a tremendous attraction on me ever since I have any recollection of memory.

And all the time we see the human relationship with the universe coming back in everything. So 21.12.12 was a kind of culmination of facts and fiction around universal attention. But what is fact and what is fiction these days?

Awareness

My own daily life evolves within a certain confinement which is “my own world”. It consists of perception and interaction, just like the world of any other living species. But when these Maya’s came in the picture with their calender and this special date of 21.12.12, my own universe widened to beyond the stars. I became for a while the center of my own enlarged universe and the stars revolved around me. As a self conscious observer this is natural. The crazy perspective of an apocalypse and all the merchandising around it had amused me a lot. Also all those people who asked me what I would do on doomsday 21.12.12? In between we still recall a similar hype : the millennium cross over of the year 2000. Of course it was fun to see all the crazy speculation, yet it was also disturbing to witness how serious so many people took these things. It was a calender ending, that’s all, just like our year end on Dec. 31st, decades, centuries and millenniums, but then in intervals that are significantly larger and involving a bit more than our Sun and Earth. These intervals are intriguing but that’s all. Or is it?

The event certainly provided me with a feeling of living in a unique era. My grandparents and parents had seen the coming of the automobile and airplanes. Their world had expanded through mobility. They had witnessed emancipation, suffered wars or stood the barricades for equality.  In my lifetime we saw globalization, TV, space travel, internet, open borders, the millennium switch and the end and beginning of the Maya’s 250.000 year cycle! I could talk directly via social media with political world leaders and observe Earth from a spacecraft as if I were God Himself. Impressive, don’t you think?

All this also again did something of course with my awareness, not just the Maya’s, the whole era.

Comfort zone

My direct surroundings, or personal environment, can be seen from very nearby, starting with my own comfort zone. Spreading my arms I define my comfort zone as an invisible bubble around me. It is as if I am surrounded by a shield. Within this shield I feel protected by a certain amount of individual control which is enhanced by the way I interact with the outside world. Inside that space I think and act freely, dress myself, wear a coat, a beard or sunglasses, decide what others perceive when they see me from outside this comfort zone. It makes me feel comfortable with myself. It is a zone in which I feel that I take the decisions, interacting in freedom with the world outside my bubble. It represents my own universe with ME in its center.

My comfort zone

My comfort zone is my own little universe, my bubble, within the Universe

Beyond that space there is everything that is “not me”. It is an external world which I can observe and interact with but not control. Still I need this outside world to survive for instance. It provides me with energy, food, water, a partner, friends, family etc. In a way my surroundings is like a huge sea of bubbles to interact with (like other people and species) and many more things,  material and immaterial.

Materials

From a material point of view I realize that I do not differ much from my surroundings. The materials of which my body is made are the same as that from outside my body. The only difference is that I am alive. The unique state of “being alive” has a certain effect on those materials that make “Me”. They stick together in a special and unique way. I can think about it so I am aware of it. At the same time I am also aware that I am a just a small heap of stardust, just like everything else around me that I can identify as “something”. The uniqueness of the many “somethings” with a name make up the world of perception and interaction that I live in.

Does water known that is water? It sure does. Why else should these molecules of hydrogen and oxygen combine in this unique way and stay like that in stability and harmony? In a way water is aware that it is water. My own many molecules combined in an even more complex way and made ME, a unique self aware, reflective combination of molecules and complex “somethings” that glue together according to some kind of miraculous common, yet unique pattern that we call a “human being”. I am a unique variation of that pattern. While alive these molecules stick together in stability and harmony. When dead they fall apart again. But why such magic?

“Purpose”

What purpose does it serve? Life does not occur just like that. Place the same molecules inside a big container and you will not get “me”, no matter how much you shake or put sparks of energy through it. The material composition of stardust is not enough to make me into a living person, let alone to make ME.

From a Darwinistic point of view the huge diversity of lifeforms can very well be explained as a result of self selecting competitive interaction between species within a closed environment, such as an island or the entire planet Earth. Still today we see that species that overcome natural boundaries “disturb” the other habitats. Eventually all species together create a totally new diversity and balance, usually only after some reshuffling chaos. The interaction with a certain environment and its complexity defines therefor the type and characteristics of lifeforms that develop. Competition for nutrition,  survival and procreation explains hence the appearance and development of diversification in nature. But this combination of purposes does not explain the origin or purpose of life itself yet.

This mystical secrete can be found in the way water and other complex elements formed into stable formats that repeat themselves. This shows a preprogrammed awareness that guarantees the combination of molecules into unique harmonic formats and special conditions. Scientists and researches have discovered a strong relationship between the connecting frequencies of the universe and the tones of music of our likings. It suggests that matter combines with matter when frequencies combine following certain patterns. Water is one of the very first to appear in abundance in our visual world due to its apparent simplicity with its unique complexity and its stability. Its special condition of fluid “under normal environmental circumstances (of pressure and temperature for instance)” gives it a great mobility and flexibility, with access to locations where it can filter in to. It is influenced by energy (s.a. heat or gravity) and the obstacles on its path. This unique condition brings it in multiple contact with other elements. It also is a connecting carrier of elements that dissolve in it or float. The early consciousness of water over time can develop into all kinds of complex combinations that stay the same too in a programmed way and under specific conditions. They in turn develop into more complex structures with more and more complex development of awareness. Chance and programmed steering become a mingled situation proper to evolve into a competitive environment where more pressure is put on growth, splitting up (fractal evolution) and eventually on survival and procreation through different degrees of self-awareness, produced by interacting frequencies of music. What is music to our ears combines also in nature. What is not in harmony will not combine or become unstable and eventually fall apart.

Water shows us within a visible format the underlying secrets of invisible patterns that shape and connect in a very harmonically similar way. The stirring and mixing of less then quark level elements and energies may well have already reached a certain point of conscious complexity inside the state of water. This suggests that water already has a memory of its own that can be traceable when we know how. In fact, this memory is inside us already since we consist of 70% water. Accessing this information is a simple matter of trained awareness.

The primary purpose of life became the gathering of energy to grow, survive as unique, harmonic element and divide as a predefined “something” when growth reached a limit. With the growing war between the species this creativity became a natural competitive element that could grow into tremendous specializations. Humans are such evolutionary result of a perfect competitive physical machinery that evolved out of stardust with an equally perfect system of defending its self-interest. Our extremely potent rationality in self preservation got us where we stand today.

Shouldn’t I, individually, then live the simple evolutionary life of open competition for material wealth and take from my surroundings as much as I can for survival and life in material abundance? Can I not just leave it up to the universe to deal with universal things and me with my things serving just my own bubble? From an evolutionary perspective this might be a correct assumption, considering we all are programmed like that in our essentials. In a way we see that humankind behaves that way when surrounded by the wealth of our current system of consumer economics. I could have children without giving it all a second thought? Why then had the Maya’s disturbed my selfish comfort and made me reflect from a broader perspective? Why did they break through into my comfort zone and the sensory interaction with my small world to make me a citizen of the universe?

The answer

The word “purpose” from an awareness point of view can evolve too in interpretation,  just like the competitiveness did in orchestrated material composition and evolution. Do we solely evolve in the individualized purpose of short term greed? Or does “purpose” gain in long term evolutionary meaning through individual contribution to the Whole? Have we reached a new dimension of human development, an immaterial dimension?

When the United Nations in 1987 published the first definition of sustainable development (Brundlandt) an evolutionary movement within the field of “awareness” was started for the first time on a global level. We realized that our material abundance on Earth was not unlimited and that we carry evolutionary responsibilities, not just through procreation but also in conscious behavior. Prior to that the same interpretation had already been presented in the modern world by spiritual people like Gandhi. But spirituality and materialism had long be developed along different principles, not together.

After the 1987’s first attempt  many more people and institutions started to interact and interconnect on the basis of universal responsibilities together. It is as if humankind had reached a different level of potential harmony that is appearing next to the old, obsolete one. People find each other in a new level of resonance. This has been small for many decades, hardly noticeable due to the dominance of the other type of awareness (greed). Until crises seemed to open people up for new types of awareness with which we started to get familiar through experimentation and need. My sustainocratic partner Marco said in AiREAS “You can write or talk about it but people only understand when they experiencing it by taking part in it”. Sustainocracy is a society format based on that evolutionary path and is put into practice with early precedents in Eindhoven. It all shows a particular natural evolutionary route and increased collective awareness around our natural relationship with our surroundings. People who participate obtain “a good feeling” and can’t explain why. This blog explains why. It has to do with different frequencies in our relationships explained in meaningful relationships, commitment and levels of trust.

When I interact with the universe from my predefined consciousness my only motivation would simply be to survive and procreate. But when my consciousness awakes into a higher awareness I seem to want more than just that. My own decision to pass on a society “worthy of handing over” to my children shows my own evolutionary consciousness. Self-consciousness has come with fear and disbelief, but also with curiosity and creativity. When you become aware of your surroundings at the scale of the entire universe then the current perceived abundance suddenly translates into scarcity.  The vastness of the universe is out of my reach and so is my span of control to access it. I become aware of my own finite situation but also of the limitations of my direct surroundings. What was materially big now becomes tremendously small. The universe and I seem to get to an understanding, a harmonic sensitivity.

Funnily enough my own self aware “I” does not shrink, nor does it disappear into a sense of vulnerable minuteness. My own self stays the same, only the universe comes closer, nearby, making me grow as a self-aware conscious creature. It is as if the universe and I become equivalent. My body may be a small heap of composed living stardust, probably totally unperceivable on the largest scale, but still the same as the entire universe. I AM the universe! Yet from an awareness point of view I become as big or even bigger then the universe itself. This is because my living body unites all the billions of years of living “purpose” that uniquely developed near and inside me, conditioned by the local circumstances around and on planet Earth, all the way into to my own small bubble.

Inside me is the awareness of quarks, molecules, water, the first complex combinations combining into the smallest and simplest lifeforms, the first amoebae, the fish in the water and first land mammals…..the competition, the evolution, diversification, ever since the first existence of matter, energy and awareness in ever growing complexities and combinations. “I am” from a universal perspective of consciousness is a therefore a very special reflective issue. There is a kind of eternity already inside me. I am experiencing the uniqueness of being able to think about it and “feel” the billions of years of stirring combinations. I break through and understand that it has nothing to do anymore with competition and self interest, not even with “me”. It has to do with my degree of adaptiveness and stirring abilities to create new combinations out of chaos. Combinations that last for ever again after me.

The universe and me

The universe and me

When this happens the balance between me and the universe becomes important. My interaction is not just material, it is there on multiple levels. My consciousness awakens me for a learning process, a classroom of the Universe.

I become interested and realize that the most direct life enabling relationship is that with our Sun. The Sun is provider of the light, gravitational uniqueness with Earth and energy that is needed to produce and sustain life after the early stirring that brought about this unique solar situation. The Earth now provides the materials and the Sun provides the immaterial part. Both provided the stirring through rotation that allowed frequencies to meet and mate through material combinations. All this can be found too on a larger and smaller scale throughout the entire Universe.

My unique me is not more than an extra complex “something” that, as a highly aware bubble, in combination with similar entities like me, forms a liquid-like structure that flows freely, stirs with its surroundings and forms complex new connections, some stable others unstable. Over time this has happened intensely, creating societies, hierarchies and communities. This we call among ourselves “history” but is no more than a natural process of stirring evolution. My own contribution to the Whole is that we have reached a point that competition turns against ourselves as a species. It does not serve our survival anymore and hence requires a new phase in our consciousness. Our collective evolutionary greed and self-interest has taken us to become masters over our local environment without natural competition other than our own selves. Pollution, over-consumption, wars among the species, elimination of our life supporting resources, it is all contrary to the “purpose” driven prospect of survival of our bubbles. When our material composition has reached a degree of competitive excellence we need to excel in our awareness and create new shapes of human interaction with our environment. They need to be  life supporting with sustainable progress instead of self destruction. Else we may find that our composition evolved too complex and inflexible. It would eventually disappear like many other species did over time due to lack of adaptability.

As Janos Vargas said alongside the Danube: “water needs to flow freely” I added to that when I returned home “spirituality (awareness) needs to flow freely” too. Both, water and awareness, have the tendency to flow and gather more of it in its path, to end up in seas of it. While water flows down through gravity, spirituality flows up in human organizations through meaning.

Learning curve

The universe taught us that evolutionary progress is based on freedom in flow, the stirring of the elements and dynamic fixation according to the circumstances and frequencies at any one time and place. The purpose is to evolve both in material AND awareness complexities, surviving by being adaptive, creative and flexible, not just in individualism but also in multidisciplinary combinations. We should not compete between equals of an evolutionary species (humans against humans). We should however develop always our sustainable uniqueness within the diversity of all evolutionary patterns. We need to use materials in a repetitive cyclic way for reuse without polluting it or the environment because we ARE the environment. If we pollute our outside , we equally pollute our inside. When we pollute ourselves or isolate ourselves from our universal environment we lose our evolutionary powers and harmony. We become sick, physically and in awareness.

To evolve we need to understand our own complexity by understanding both our material and immaterial selves and universal surroundings. Our awareness is part of that understanding. It needs to be taken as seriously from a scientific point of view as our material existence. If we are evolutionary designed to conquer the universe of living species we now need to learn how to conquer our own ancient greed while confined to our planet Earth, without natural predators but ourselves.

What is the next step in our evolution? Well we have bene practicing this already for some time. Just like in the universe we also need to learn to connect in the diversity of awareness to gain effective progress. This is done in organizational structures of people that contribute with different knowledge and authority. We create living organisms of human beings in purpose driven structures. So far we have gone very far in developing such structures however organized them around the ancient inner greed as if we had competitors to defeat. We simulated our inner universe by creating an artificial outer universe through hierarchies, rigid townships and civilizations based on power of individuals of masses of people. We learned through painful experiences to deal with our own inner Darwinism. None of the societal solutions we invented have been based yet solely on sustainable human progress. That is why they all eventually failed and fell apart just like and old warn down body would do. They end up in crisis, chaos and war by natural obsolescence. To make sustainable human progress happen we need to make this quantum leap in human inner evolution at the level of spiritual resonance. We need to listen and act according to the symphony of universal music, inside us and out there around us. This needs to be transparent without the blockage of our current impositions.

Sustainocracy is a first attempt to apply all what we have learned so far and create progressive cooperative communities that interact as if they were a living species, using the “rules” of the universe for sustainable human progress.

Conclusion

“The universe and me”, that is what the Maya’s have contributed with their calender. It seems to be much more than just an ending and new beginning of a cycle of data. It coincides with a new phase in humankind. Has the old human world collapsed? Yes, it did for me, already some time ago. Has a new world appeared? Indeed. Because we may now reach a point that we understand our own evolutionary process, the ethics of our relationship with our environment and the next steps to follow as humankind. We are ready and in urgent need to reinvent ourselves making awareness our guiding factor, individually and in our societies, not our ancient materialism or fear for shortages. There is plenty if we learn to trust our level of conscious awareness on how to deal with healthy usage of materials in multidisciplinary cooperation within just one single purpose: sustainable human progress.

And this is not that difficult because we are a living complexity of it ourselves. To understand that we simply have to learn understand ourselves and adjust our sustainable progress to it. Those who feel the music inside will join the process and grow it into a new symphony.

Otto Scharmer (U-Theory) versus Jean-Paul Close (Human Complexities)

This is the second in my series of comparing commonly used methods and models in current human organizations (business, government, society, etc). The first reflected about Kondratiev and Close.

Today I try to compare the “U-Theory” of Otto Scharmer with my model of Human Complexities and its phases of Fear for Change, Paradigm Shift and the positioning of Sustainocracy. (Watch a short  11 minute explanation on Sustainocracy via YouTube here)

The U-Theory

The U-Theory has become a popular tool for trainers and coaches as well as executives teams in organizations to develop new, innovative ideas in a co-creative way and bring them into practical reality.

The U-Theory of Otto Scharmer

The U-Theory of Otto Scharmer

We see a U shaped model with five key points for progress: Co-Initiation, Co-Sensing, Presencing, Co-Creation and Co-Evolving.

When I compare this with my own model of Human Complexities there are of course striking similarities but also some curious differences to think about.

The cycle involves: organization, regression, collapse and recovery

The Human Complexities cycle

The four arrows (regression, collapse, enlightenment and co-creation) in the model of Human Complexities represent the movement between four states of evolving communities (greed, chaos, awareness, wellness) using the complex psychology of people and ways of structuring organizations and communities. It is always cyclic in a clockwise manner. After ever cycle the community has gone through a learning process. When we place the cycles one after the other in history and over time we can see an evolutionary path resembling a spiral, producing a line from chaos into sustainable progress.

The representation of human complexities in a crosslike drawing has to do with our perception of progress and organization by drawing a line from left to right. Right to left meaning just the opposite, a regression. Up means an increase or growing awareness and down the decrease or disappearance thereof. In the middel we see the crissing of the lines “to be” (search for unique edity and universal ethics) and “to do” (our actions and organization). The cross shows the continuous conflict between these two issues that produce the self aware learning curve. In each of the four resulting quadrants the overall dominant human culture is different and so is the intrinsic motivation or fear for change.

Fear for Change

Inside the model of Human Complexities I use the concept of “Fear for Change”.  This is needed to show people near or within the stress of a crisis that this a normal path of letting go for renewal. Once aware of this they can face a crisis with more confidence. The current global paradigm shift from economic societal collaps to sustainable human progress  is my main concern. In my approach I tend to focus on the side of transformation from collapse via chaos towards renewed wellness in the model. My approach is holistic inviting the entire society to become co-creative.

Schwarmer does exactly opposite, working from with the institutionalized fragments of society.

The psychology of change in a paradigm shift is the true transformative challenge of humankind

The psychology of change in a paradigm shift is the true transformative challenge of humankind

Human Complexities (J.P. Close) & Fear for Change

Important differences between the U-Theory and Fear for Change

When we look at the U-Theory and the path of Fear for Change in the model of Humian Complexities we see that both use exactly the same processes to get people to activate their inner energy for creation and co-creation.  Despite the different names the steps and significance are the same. Still there is a huge difference…..

U-Theory versus Paradigm Shift

U-Theory versus Paradigm Shift

At first sight both methods look and feel the same

In reality the creators of the U-Theory did a very smart thing. They created a sense of simulated chaos within the comfort of a running business.  Getting people to step out of the running business of greed to undergo the intense process of reflection and finally reach a state of co-creation is in reality the application of the chaos theory and human psychology in exactly the same way, yet without the need of a formal crisis or fear for change.

Drawing the U-line from left to right (against the stream of human complexities) gives a sense of a deepening spiritual experience within the context of financial recovery, enhancement or growth (greed). The smart thing is that the U-Theory gives innovative meaning to economic systems that have the tendency of becoming bureaucratic an reluctant to change (seeing themselves as eternal cash cows, which they are not).

The paradigm shift and its related fear for change is known for thousands of years already. The first people to describe this intense fear and its process of freedom when one finds a new route by letting go, were intellectuals like Dante (13th century) and later the psychologists and anthropologist of the 19th and 20th century, s.a. Steiner, when the hierarchies started to grow in magnitude and with it the complexities of organizing people and emotions.

The natural process of a system to collapse into chaos, like the Roman Empire and so many other civilizations before and after, is well documented. The intense learning curve through fear, pain, letting go, etc. is also well known now and well positioned, with logic, along the modern cycle of Human Complexities. It is typically applicable in these days of pain, chaos en crises today that are affecting everyone. People start to look at two ways to address the problem:

  1. How to avoid collaps by applying timely renewal and innovation (U-Theory)
  2. What to do when inside the collaps to get back into co-creative wellness (Fear for Change)

These are the two routes of least and most resistance, as written before in a previous blog.

This blog also introduced the law of opposites and we can see many in the Human Complexities model (transition quadrants, poor and rich, complex and simple, warm and cold cultures, spiritual and possessive  etc). The smart thing that was done by Otto Scharmer and his people was to turn the model of the paradigm shift, including the fear for change, around (fear avoidance).

Just observe the logic:

The model of Human Complexities follows a cyclic route clockwise. The segment on the circle that refers to the paradigm shift starts at the left hand side almost upon the line between chaos and enlightenment, when people let go of old security and become aware of the need of renewal. It continues all the way up to the state of co-creation for wellness. The shape is more line a big “n”.

Positiong of both theories

Positioning of both theories

When we look at the U-shape of Scharmer it starts at the same (virtual) point but travels down and to the right to end up on the line of wellness through greed. The psychological effect of visualizing this direction is that fear is eliminated by connected the process to greed (desire for unlimited prosperity). The process of the U-shape is to avoid jumping into the unknown by simulating it within the comfort of an existing organization that looks for renewed innovative or inventive success without the immediate need of a paradigm shift. It is a method for smart executives to transform an organization within its normal operations without the traditional reorganizational stress. This is brilliant.

So the method and knowledge of the Fear for Change within the need for a Paradigm Shift positions themselves essentially in left hand quadrants, the areas of poverty, chaos, illumination and experimentation with survival. The method and knowledge of the U-Theory positions itself in the rich areas of wealth and greed where enterprises want renewal, revival, inventiveness without disputing their reputation nor their original positioning. It is a protected environment for efficient creativity to enhance a competitive position.

Positioning application of the methods

Positioning application of the methods

The model of Human Complexities helps us to clarify the particular use of both models and in which situation they should be used. In fact, it is not just applicable in business, it can be applied to the entire society too. Sustainocracy is an example of jumping the state of chaos by inviting executives to co-creative renewal in a multidisciplinary setting that eventually will feed again an obsolete economy with true innovation.

Sustainocracy

The application of both theories is of interest. Sustainocracy positions itself in the wellness quadrant from a societal point of view.  In most occasions the paradigm shift through chaos is needed  in society due to the different power positions that try to uphold themselves at the expense of the others in the same community. Within each of the institutional pillars the U-Theory can help leadership to progress in such competitive environment. However in a multidisciplinary setting such a Sustainocracym where everyone has a co-creative mission at societal level, the combination of both can lead to remarkable results for the entire society.

So while the executives may be confronted with the own fear for change, within their own leadership, and the intense process of undergoing the risks of re-positioning a company within the context of sustainable progress of society as a whole, the organization itself may well be served through the techniques of the U-Theory that do not include this fear or risk. Knowing about the emotional difference between the two models the executive teams and participating consultants can create programs that are as effective as they can be in turbulent times, producing progress even in crisis with both societal and institutional success.

It would be very interesting to develop situations at regional level to experiment with this.

Kondratieff versus Close

Nicolai Kondratieff (1892 – 1938) introduced a theory about cycles of 50 to 60 years in capitalist economics. The cycles show a sinusoidal shape that can be divided into four different “seasons”: prosperity, recession, depression and improvement.

Those of you who know my model of human complexities (see below) will also recognize the same four situations or states, named in a similar but different way and also following each other in a chronological way, despite human tendensy to counteract the flow in certain stages. Rather than showing a sinus timeline I show a cyclic movement that evolves into an evolutionary spiral (not drawn in this particular drawing that represents just a single cycle showing the phases we go through).

moral complex1

Human Complexities

Using my own model I relate a number of human variables to the cyclic experience, as individuals and as communities. Each phase and change among them has much to do with the human psyche which would explain the linear fluctuations in time in both the Kondratieff and my (Close) model. We can also  map generations on both models to see where they stood in relation to economic development or recessions and what emotional or cultural environment supported each phase. In the Kondrakieff sinus this is easily done against very specific chronological data. It is easy to plot also very specific events as points of reference, s.a. World War II for instance.

The points of reference help to relate the different models by synchronization in time and region. World War II got us (large parts of Europe) into a state of chaos for instance. It would be a “starting” point in my model due to the time reference that can also be further extended to a specific regional location. This you can read for Holland, Spain and the USA in chapter 11 of my ebook on the Global Shift (2011)

Then we could observe how generations evolve, one after the other, with the effects of the cycles of human complexities and the Kondratieff sinus of economic seasoning on them. In my model I show that people who grow up in a situation of wealth are being educated accordingly. This means that we are being educated with wealth as a matter of fact. I remember my own growing up phase in the midst of the post war culture of prosperity of the late 60’s early 70’s in Holland. We all wanted to be a millionair by the age of 30. What we were really doing was to create our own crises by mere cultural mentality caused by the environment in which we lived. Generations follow each other up every 20 to 25 years which would show another sinusoidial wave based on culture and mentality following Kondratieff in a different phase. We could probably draw the technological peaks with the mentality ones on the models, just to see how they influence each other.

In my model I do not relate necessarily to periods of 50 or 60 years for one cycle to complete as this may have to do with administrative economics rather than human (generational and environmental) complexities. I have even suggested that in prehistorical times a complete human complexities cycle could take hundreds or even thousands of years, affected more by natural environmental periods of abundance, interaction with hostile encounters or the chaos produced by natural disasters. When we look at the Chinese dynasties a direct link can be made with such cycles. Economics did not exist nor did therefor the Kondratieff sinus. My model did apply though.

Only now, the recent few hundred years we have found the cycles shorten to such an extend that we live through one or two complete cycles in an entire lifetime. My model hence relates to environmental circumstances (culture, war, periods of peace, nature, catastophes, crises, etc) as key influencial factors on human behavior and a historical clear reference with which we can relate human reaction and evolution both technologically and socially.

My model also introduces the line of sustainable human progress along which the traumatic human events can be plotted. This is new in any documentation. I use my transition phases (greed and enlightenment) while economists would only refer to entering and leaving the chaos quadrant as two seperate phases (bull and bear markets respectivily). The line of sustainable human progress is an evolutionary straight line that moves from chaos to wealth and beyond. The transition phases (greed gets us back into chaos and enlightenment gets us back to organized wealth) can also be seen in the sinus of Kondratieff.

Transformation of greed to wealth

Transformation of greed to wealth

Kondratieff shows an organic human logic in time phases with a build up of technological highlights and the economic effects. The same complex origin for progress can be found in the human complexities (psychology, education, culture) within the phase of chaos (war, depression) and enlightenment (the left hand side of my model). Humankind apparently needs stress to be inventive while in times of wealth and greed little to nothing new is added. Instead we see then an increase in risk avoidance, bureaucracy and hierarchies, which translates into a measureable increase in costs of society. This is also the reason of sudden collapse into a recession in cycles of about 7 years (domino effect).

  • Year 1: market crisis (consumer crisis for whatever reason)
  • Year 2: business crisis (expected turnover not reached)
  • Year 3: government crisis (expected tax income not reached)
  • Year 4: government dependent instances crisis (education, police, etc)
  • Year 5: business downsized, fused, innovated, went broke..builds up again
  • Year 6: government gets more tax income
  • Year 7: government dependencies get more air

During those seven years all economic institutions go through reorganizations, eliminating bureaucracy and trying to open themselves up for innovation. Costs are eliminated and they are downsized, renewed their structures to get a positive impulse. The impulse gets everything into a new investment round that results in 7 perceived good years and then it starts falling back again. This would suggest that the traditional 7 bad years, 7 good years, 7  bad years, 7 good years could be expalined in a sinusoidal wave of 49 years. With economics we created an artificial environment that shows a more organized sinuswave than when interacting with the multidimensional complexity of nature and the chaotic tribal confrontations of the past.

Sometimes the economic years are stretched a bit after a capital injection, an overenthusiastic increase of national debt, etc. The figure we see returning all the time (“about 50 years” – equivalent to an ancient average generational lifetime) is just a logical reflection of our administrative economic organization of one natural year and our human “perception” of what we believe is good or bad. This would also suggest that if we would half the administrative year or extend it to two years we would see the waves shorten and lengthen respectively. This may be something for further study by someone even though natural seasons may still have some significance in our, otherwise highly automated artificial productivity.

It also has to do with our fragmented structure of society along a chain of economic dependencies. If we set up society differently (eg a Sustainocracy) then the economic world would never collapse. Sinusoidal waves would not exist because we eliminated the duality in our progress by concentrating on a single higher common purpose (sustainable human progress) with highly flexible, dynamically adaptive non fixed, hierarchical organizations. We unite our knowledgeable awareness with our adaptive productivity towards a permanent never ending goal.

What the Kondratieff model does not foresee is the piling up of an exponential curve within the current artificial sinusoidal. This is effect is caused in the last 40 years after the liberation of money for speculation around shortages by the entire, global institutional world. It coincides with the “information technology” era of the 5th Kondratieff wave, which is why it confuses the analysts. Taking also the limited Earth resources into account, the dip of the 5th Kondrakieff wave coincides with my crossing over from greed to chaos and a point of singularity of overall financial collapse.  

The creditcrisis of 2008 has been just a warning signal. Banks will never recover despite the huge capital injections and government finances collapse all together. The Kondratieff’s winter and my model’s point of chaos are this time expected to be more dramatic then ever, making the Russian natural winter feel warm, and the Arab spring feel peaceful, compared to previous events. Some think that the solution lies in a new technological phase s.a. nano-technology. I personally believe that the next phase has nothing to do with technology or capitalist economics but awareness and a totally new type of society.

And that is where I come in with Sustainocracy. I cannot create a Kondratieff sinusoidal counter wave now to avoid a mayor crash, nor prevent local poverty from rising, or avoid a potential new world war. I can however introduce a new paradigm that can instantly transform current society, situated structurally in greed (recession) on the way to chaos (depression), into one positioned permanently in wealth (prosperity) by taking institutional responsibility today. This would maybe break or interrupt the sinus or introduce a new aspect that actually supports the sinus but from a different point of view.  My own shortcut, interrupting the traditional ups and downs of society, has to do with our current state of collective understanding (awareness, consiousness).

We now collectively understand the above and the consequences of continuing. By introducing sustainocracy we now have a choice. We could trust the sinusoidal wave as an external matter of fact and realize that a new generation of prosperity is hopefully being born today to grow up and make it happen during the Konfratieff dip. We can also take responsibility and use what we know now to create a society based on new facts, a higher awareness, before it’s too late. Like building a Sustainocracy right now in ever city or region in the world.

The revolution of the consciousness

The revolution of the consciousness

How powerful will people remain when the collapse continues and the point of singularity makes the sinus wave the deepest ever? What interest can people have in total collapse? How powerful can these same people become when they assume sustainocratic responsibility and turn the ship with consiousness and planned wisdom before organic logic does it with brutal force? If you are in a position of power today just ask yourself that question.

It can be done through human ethical behavior, leadership and awareness. It is difficul but worth it. I am doing it with people around me who have fragmented authorities and power (government, business, science, civilians) and they use it with me in purpose driven social and technological innovation. We do not place money in the center of attention but sustainable human progress, a clear environmental and social balance in circular economics of value creation. By doing so we create a rapid change in mentality and see a period of many decades and even centuries in reformatting and organizing our civilization with a positive consequences for economies. That I call the second quantum leap of human kind. Not by chance but by willpower and awareness.

Purpose driven venture

AiREAS is the first sustainocratic venture in the world

Sustainocratic transformation is a voluntary act of responsibility