79) Magic, Motorcycles, and Mandelbrot: Part 3 - Mandelbrot
When you shift from Motorcycle thinking to Mandelbrot thinking, then problems take on a different dimension. Instead of thinking about “the solution” that you need to Invent and then apply over the world and change everything, Mandelbrot thinking is about “the processes” we need to set in motion, in order to SHIFT the way the world organizes itself.
It’s such a subtle distinction, but it filters through everything profoundly. For example, think of the difference between a boss/parent/teacher, who is very clear, and structured, disciplined and powerful, versus a boss/parent/teacher who is a true collaborator, encourager, mentor, and role model. Think of the difference between “doing to” and “doing with.”
78) Magic, Motorcycles, and Mandelbrot: Part 2 - Motorcycles
There’s a hungry-ghost kind of thing that happens with the exertion of power. You start to feel more entitled to exert power, because after all, you are pretty smart to have gotten all this power in the first place, and you start to depreciate “the other,” assuming more and more that other people just don’t have the same perspective as you, the same depth of understanding. They “don’t get it.” So, maybe you still need them as minions, to carry out your bidding, but you don’t really need people questioning your decisions anymore….
77) Magic, Motorcycles, and Mandelbrot: Part 1 - Magic
Let’s start with when we’re young. Really young. As young as we can remember. I wholeheartedly believed in magic when I was a kid. I’ll bet you did too. You might have held onto it as an adult, but you probably didn’t, or at least, it faded and changed. This “loss of magic” as childhood morphs into adulthood is such a cliché that it is, in fact, a theme in many children’s stories themselves.
76) Dances with Wolves, Part2: Relationship patterns with Gas-lighters, Narcissists and Spiritual Predators
WSCs, abusers, cult leaders, tyrannical leaders, toxic ‘friends’ — they want you all to themselves. They want to control your reality as much as they can. And because they know that other people might see through their bullshit and warn you, they do everything they can to convince you that THOSE PEOPLE are the untrustworthy ones. Only you and the WSC, in your nice little soul-mate bubble of trust, are the Good Ones.
75) Dances with Wolves, Part 1: Gas-lighters, Narcissists, and Spiritual Predators
I would like to explore some patterns of destructive behaviour that people far-too-often experience in their intimate relationships especially, and we’ll focus on three “types of people:” gas-lighters, narcissists, and spiritual predators. Although these are not exactly the same things, there’s a solid ‘family resemblance’ between them. So let’s call them Wolves In Sheeps’ Clothing (WSCs).
74) The Law of Attraction -- A Favourite Weapon of Abusers
Many people believe in the Law of Attraction. Itʼs practically a truism for many (not all, thank god) personal-growth devotees, spiritual practitioners, New Agey-types, go-getters and motivational coaches. Itʼs a truism for the people who write books and sell inspirational videos about….the Law of Attraction. They make tons of sweet, sweet cash off it. Thatʼs because they BELIEVE in it!
See? It works!
73) Dear Ancestors,
Dear Ancestors, thank you for this chance you’ve given me, to live. For the songs you passed on. The babies you nursed at your breasts, taught to walk, and speak, and play, and fish, and build, and love, and read, and forgive. Thank you for your courage, the sacrifices you made in the wars of your time. The wisdom you discovered in silent meditation. The poems. The traditions, dances, beautiful creations of art and worship. Thank you for the recipes you passed down through generations of care-takers labouring over hot stoves, for the endless mouth-watering concoctions we coaxed from the abundance of water and soil and sunlight. Thank you for the luminaries who inspired all who came after, to strive for the Good, to love unto death.
72) Purpose -- Part 4 -- In Between
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.
I’ll meet you there
71) Purpose -- Part 3 -- I hate you.
If I met you on the street, or at a party, or in a class, or at a job, there is a very, very, very good chance that we would get along just fine. Or at least would be able to refrain from cannibalizing whichever of us was unlucky enough to get knocked unconscious first.
70) Purpose -- Part 2 -- Why the Environmental Movement has Failed (so far) -- Act III: Full Circle
My message is, I love you. I believe in your good hearts. I honour the sacrifices of your visionaries. I weep with you as ecosystems fall apart. The Amazon burns. The Arctic melts. The Great Barrier reef disintegrates. The oceans become a graveyard. Forests turn into grasslands, and grasslands into deserts. Bird song turns into the white noise of traffic. The buzzing and clicking and colourful vibrancy of insect life turns into the empty whisper of barren spaces.
69) Purpose -- Part 2 -- Why the Environmental Movement has Failed (so far) -- Act II: Change or Die
“Change or die” does not work. It convinces basically nobody. Changes almost no behaviours. It’s like being attacked by an enemy. You don’t open your doors to them and welcome them into your home. You barricade your door, dig trenches, lock and load.
This is one of the biggest reasons the “environmental movement” has largely failed. And it’s why it will likely continue to fail. Unless it changes its strategies.
68) Purpose -- Part 2 -- Why the Environmental Movement has Failed (so far) -- Act I: Me & You
I love you.
You might be thinking….”Really? That’s creepy.”
Or you might be thinking….”Really? We’ve never even met!”
Or you might be thinking…..”Why, what’d you have in mind?”
Or you might be thinking…..”Huh? I thought this was about why the environmental movement has failed.”
67) Purpose: A Four-part series -- Part 1 -- "Tearing Down the Wall"
The antidote to suffering and alienation, is love. It’s trusting. Reaching out for connection. It’s admitting weakness, accepting yourself, and accepting the Other. It’s embracing the unknown, together. It’s courage, in the Brene Brown sense of speaking your truth, with your whole heart.
65) Protesting: What’s the point? It’s just a bunch of activists getting arrested and stopping traffic or some shit, amiright?
I didn’t talk to a single person who wasn’t uncomfortable with, or unaware of the fact that we were inconveniencing people who were “just trying to get to work”. But, The System IS killing us. We’ve spent literally DECADES trying to – do good science — raise awareness — establish dialogue — pass laws — change lifestyles — inspire people — work with governments — etc. etc. etc. etc. And it has not worked. Things are worse in the ecology of our Collective Life Support System than ever before in the history of Homo Sapiens. Everything “normal” has been tried. A thousand times over.
It’s time to misbehave. So these are some of the people I met today who, reluctantly, joyfully, were misbehaving.
64) Jordan Peterson, Part 5: The Perfect House Problem; Subsection 7 -- The Rebel Alliance
The Rebel Alliance depended on a dead dude, a quixotic Elf who talked like Grover, a wannabe hero with an inferiority complex, an arrogant smuggler, an incomprehensible BigFoot, an annoying and basically useless robot, a super-cool robot who looked like a futuristic garbage can, and a bitchy, bad-ass princess.
63) Jordan Peterson, Part 5: The Perfect House Problem; Subsection 6 -- Lived Experience
Perhaps then, you will start to understand ‘that look’ — that gleam that is so unsettling to the intellectual skeptic or theorist, that unwavering solidity that you see in eyes that are past fear, eyes that have seen so much pain they won’t close to ugliness ever again. When you see the stability in people’s eyes who have witnessed sufficient suffering, you have met a person who can drink in the entire ocean, who can absorb an entire sun, because their hearts are broken into so many pieces they have atomized and become the Universe.
62) Jordan Peterson, Part 5: The Perfect House Problem; Subsection 5 - Love vs. Fear on the Protest Lines
Judging protest as useless and protesters as idiots because someone threw some rocks at windows is kinda like an alien, zooming over the earth, sampling only the murderers and rapists and serial killers, watching a war or two, and then leaving. Conclusion: Humanity is terrible. Planet should be obliterated for the hyperspace super-highway we planned to put through this area of space. No great loss.
61) Jordan Peterson, Part 5: The Perfect House Problem; Subsection 4 - Atheist Indigenous Immigrant Women Should Rule the World
Let’s let the peace-lovers and wisdom-seekers, the poor and disenfranchised, ‘rule the world’ for, say, one generation of humanity, and see if we’re better off, or worse. I have every bit of faith that they’ll do no worse, at worst, than the men, most of whom are very wealthy men to boot, who’ve had the reins for MOST of the past….uh….forever?
60) Jordan Peterson, Part 5: The Perfect House Problem; Subsection 3 - Jordan's Tarantulas
You show me the "class" of people who you think have their house in perfect order, and let's see who these people are and whether the rest of us think we should actually trust them with the fate of us all.
59) Jordan Peterson, Part 5: The Perfect House Problem; Subsection 2 - In Jordan's Own Words
The luminary activist Elie Wiesel said “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.“