Moving from the information Age to the Conceptual Age

Creating Flow-Entering the Zone-Engaging Left Directed + Right Directed Minds- Creating Happy for No Reason-Balancing our Three Brains

Here are the guidelines for the new skills and senses to move into the conceptual age. These are stretches and need to be incorporated into your life.

·      Humor-Is the cure for Seriousitis™. Using the Yes, And concepts of Improv to accept the offers life gives and laugh. Humor is one answer to health care, medical costs, and (duh) happiness. “Whatever arises, love it.’

·      Story-You can’t argue with a story. Stories are compelling narratives that engage change. They are from our Great Oral traditions, fairy tales, fables, sagas, epics, from the Odyssey to The Matrix. To boldly go where no one has gone before and return the hero to tell the tales.  Pay it Forward, tell, but don’t tell them it all.

·      Empathy-Learning compassion. Learning to place your attention out on others without judging or sympathy with a detached feeling of caring for everyone. Appreciating diversity. No one cares how much you know till they know how much you care. Being able to walk a mile, or across the room in their moccasin.

·      Symphony –Instead of a mile deep and an inch wide, knowing, sensing and feeling the interconnectedness of all things. Making the quantum leap of combinations that brings forth the big picture. Connecting the dots and seeing the patterns that ancient wisdom show in Tarot cards, I Ching and Runes. Using metaphors, understanding brainstorms and vision boards.

·      Play-If it’s not fun why do it? The opposite of play is depression. The baby boomers got spoiled, spoiled their kids and learned to learn from games. The onset of Video Games as teaching devices, comedy clubs, laughing yoga, sports as mediation. For the millenniums play is purpose!

·      Meaning-The meaning of life is the meaning we give it! The WHY! Finding purpose and sharing. The only reason to give a speech is to change the world. The Dali Lama winning the Nobel Peace prize and writing The Purpose of Life is Happiness. The correct understanding of Thomas Jefferson’s phrase the  Pursuit of Happiness is to PRACTICE Happiness.

·      Design-Understanding the box, the circle and triangle. The use of symbols like the Ennegram. Branding ourselves in whimsy, or Deco, Rocco, or Bauhaus. A personal renaissance as a change designer. Creating and consuming experiences not things.

·      Balance-Moderation and flow of all the senses, choices, chances and changes. Using the fulcrum point in life’s continuums to make choices. Seeing the future with and without tech. Being a verb not just a noun.

These are the concepts and values which are changing the world.                                                       

        8 skills when refined equates to CULTURE.

        An environment in which we grow-Like a Pearl

Acknowledgments to the works of many and lately Dan Pink, Mikaly Csikzentmihalyi,  Marci Shimoff, Steven Pressfield, Fritjof Capra, Marvin Oka and you & me.

Distraction

Distraction

            It’s rampant in our society. We live in a colorful, noisy and often fragrant world that captures our attention. It is a planned attack on our senses. We have new diseases and medical professions to deal with the outbreak of distractions in the form of attention deficits. It seems somehow related to the outbreaks of autism, video games, multi-tasking and the growing need for pointless, tasteless information. The word Google itself boggles and distracts, while it represents an incredible source of value, especially money. The massive amount of trivia and spin doctors has cyberspace, book stores, educational outlets, waiting rooms, and my bookshelves filled with distractions. I myself am guilty of using clichéd, esoteric, urbane humor to distract.

            Distraction is addictive. It may be first cousin to procrastination (the disease of tomorrow), excuses (the only person who cares about excuses is the excuse-maker) and ‘whatever’ (the insidious disbelief in communicating what the “as is” is).

            

            I remember the movie The Point in the 1970’s. It is “an animated story of an unusual kingdom in which everything and everybody is pointed -- except for a young boy named Oblio. Despite his round head, Oblio has many friends. But an evil Count, jealous that Oblio is more popular than his own son, says that without a pointed head, Oblio is an outlaw. Along with his faithful dog Arrow, Oblio is exiled to the Pointless Forest. There, he has many fantastic experiences (including encounters with a three-headed man, giant bees, a tree in the leaf-selling business, and a good-humored old rock). From his adventures, Oblio learns that it is not at all necessary to be pointed to have a point in life.” (From IMDB.com)

         I am from that age that made outlaws heroes. It was an age and a movie that sensed that not everything needs a point. Yet in the forty years since the release of the movie, society has found points to such pointless activities as fun, stress freedom, meditating, random acts of kindness, often easing the constraints of the incantations of WIIFM (what’s in it for me). As often happens with wisdom, it gets subverted into its opposite. Or maybe the opposite exists and The Point just allowed distractions to grow, be acceptable and profitable then and run rampant.

         My point is: paying attention is our best investment, for only I can decide if there is a point or a distraction or a situation for paying attention.

         The challenge I love is to share  the lessons of paying attention.