the source

[magda]

Since a few months now, I'm trying to "get involved" and "join meaningful causes". It does feel "nice" yet I'm not satisfied. In fact, I feel somewhat irritated...

Most people address society's problems as separate things...so we end up with a bunch of organizations that help this issue and that issue...racism, child/spouse abuse, drug addiction, crime, pollution...etc...the list is long...

But don't you think that we need to attack "the source" of all of these problems instead of losing ourselves in segmentation?

Um, just a thought.

[Barry]

I believe that the best solution for the current society of the world is to accept it for what it is with all of it systems, forms, and messags, it basically is like trying to push the earth to make it move. I beleive the answer is not in trying to reform socieity but to show those in that society that there is a better way, a different wy. That is why I am here, hoping to communicate with others, work and think together, and maybe some of us could get together and try to live a life as we would hope that the world could follow.

It is good to do good things but really the problems are not in what people do, but those things in their heart and their understanding of life. We can try to stop the action but the conditon remains. The cure is hope, the hope is that there is good inside of each of us, the way is to beleive in each other and in all who are around us, and the true answer is love.

Yet love not as in a word, but love that is real which guides and guards our thoughts, actions and words. The nswer is not to fix the problems but to live the solution. :) Well that too is just a thought.

[I-P]

The nswer is not to fix the problems but to live the solution. :) Well that too is just a thought.

I very much like that thought! the "Solution" though, has got to be in some sense an experimental and self-critical and open enterprise in my opinion. otherwise, things become dogmatic and inert and there is no way to correct those parts of the "solution" that are not really the solution but disguised and unconsiously smuggled-in versions of the problem. in my opinion we can expect that this would happen at times just because we have all been initated from birth in the dominant culture and so there needs to be some kind of real and used way of discovering, naming, and correcting that in ourselves as individuals as well as in whatever group dynamics or larger organization there might be....you know what I mean?

[Barry]

Yes we must often safeguard ourselves from those thing that have been the downfall of about every work that was based for the good of others yet fell into the hands of those who desre control or wanted to create a process. Instead this it to find a way of life, a way of living together, no controllers nothing to conform to. And that we beleive in those things that are in each other and who we really are. It is about freeing everyone to the good that is inside of them and their potential. There is no need to be threaten at all by anyone's gift, intellegence, beauty, or any quality but rather to honor and appreciate those things in others.

Yet there is much we must undo in ourselves, those things we can help each other with but never as one who controls,or places judgment, shame or fear on another. All give and share with others according to who they are and that they desire to give. All must be done according to the conscience, desire, and willingness of each person, without pressure or humiliation. We can come to see we are not separate but each is like a part of the other and that no one is left out in our consideration for they too are part of the whole.

[I-P]

Hi Magda,

I have very much felt the same way. Please read my profile regarding this and tell me what you think if you feel like it. you will find that I see the source of societies problems in what I call a "culture of apartness". I think the "segmentation" you write of is actually itself apart of that sick culture--and least the primacy of segmented and specialized aproaches over a holistic approach is part of it. I is a kind of intellectual version of priviledging "apartness" which goes along with all of the other emotional, economic and social ways of doing the same thing.

this is a quote from the very begining of the latest post on my blog integralscience.motime.com:

"Part of what a cosmology of Togetherness in a healthy culture does is coordinate and integrate problems and areas of life in such a way as to avoid the typical result of trying to understand issues and solve problems in isolation, which is of course just the creation of other problems in other areas of life not considered when "solving" (and usually only temporarily) the original problem."

but I think the seperation that is often most relavent is not that between is part of the world outside ourselves and some other part of the world outside, but between the world inside ourselves and the world outside ourselves.


what follows is a excerpt from something else I posted in a blog:

"In a healthy culture... there is the assumption of the primary togetherness of Subject and Object, of Inner and Outer, of Self and World. This assumption of fundamental togetherness has some surprising implications since it actually suggests that Both the idea of changing the world first and then (perhaps) changing oneself (the "political" idea) as well as the other Idea of first changing oneself and then the world (the "spiritual" idea) are both misconceived objectives. From the point of view of fundamental togetherness, it is only possible to change and heal the inner and the outer together, at the same time; because that is the fundamental way they exist at all. From such a point of view the whole the issue becomes something like: "what gesture can I make both in this moment and in the future, to catalyze my own healing together-with that of others and the world?".

To call such an intention an "Objective" would be misleading, since the idea of an Objective implies a fundamental separation, if not necessarily of the subject from the "object" (the inner from the outer), at least of the future from the present, and past (and eternity too for that matter). So instead of talking about the above mentioned intention as an objective, I call it an “Integrative" (pronounced "In-TEG-ra-tive").

Having an Integrative means having an Intention of catalyzing ones own healing together with that of others and the world, and it means being involved in an ongoing process of experiment, hypothesis and theory regarding how best to do this. Of course this must involve some idea (at least a theory) of ones own subjective individuality, including ones "shit"; ones own subjective sick culture. It also means some idea as well about how that fits into and the outer sick culture that is around one, this then implying some idea of how to act so as to increasingly challenge both these things in the same gesture (which would then be the experiment).

Individual-Persons involved in healthy culture all have an Integrative by definition, and though it might be true that the overall outline of this situation is the same for everyone so involved, the practical working out of that intention is something that must take into account the details of each individual-persons inner and outer situation, and so deal also the variations on the common theme of healing sick culture inwardly and outwardly.

For example, how do I as a Myers-Briggs INTJ, as an enneagram 5, (I could add many other ways of tentatively understanding and talking about my subjective situation) successfully challenge my tendency to withdrawal and, judge, and conceal, (all in inappropriate and unhealthy ways), how do I challenge this IN SUCH A WAY THAT the outer world is also maximally moved toward Healthy Culture? My whole life (at least the deliberate intentional part) is my reply, my experiment, regarding that question. This Tribe itself is part of that reply and that experiment."

this integrative idea is just one the implications the living matrix concept that I introduce in the integralscience blog post I quoted at first. the idea behind such things as a suggested way of getting to the source our problems is that the world is the way it is because of the way people live in the "their culture" and so giving the world and example of an integrated way of life (which includes, but is by no means limited to, an integrated way of thinking) is the sustainable way forward.
otherwise it'll always be "one step forward two steps back" is you know what I mean...

hum...I am not sure how well I did in responding to your comment. maybe what I am saying is just confusing...well hopefully I'll be more concise and articulate in other posts...

take care,

i-p