I remember a classic image representing “strange attractors,” a kind of butterfly shape woven spiral based around a pair of attractors. I think I first saw it around 1995 in the book titled “Chaos,” by James Gleick.
Polarities (resonant phenomenal expressions), for example, aversion and desire, agency and communion, wave and particle, contraction and expansion, etc. appear to be ways of perceiving1 these strange attractor fields.
In this sense, one can imagine something of a “unified field theory,” as a dynamic ontological superfluid. In this case, “reality” is a nonstatic phenomenon; not simply in the regard of “always changing,” but beyond that to say absent of any fundamental principle, while paradoxically consistently giving rise to strange attractors which appear like principal or law or constant, but have no meaningful center or persistent integrity of their own.
Is this making sense to you? In the spirit of this inquiry, perhaps it shouldn’t. Perhaps what is evoked here might better reflect our poetic sensibilities, giving rise not to some new keen intelligence, but rather a slightly deeper felt sense of being here, present in the unfolding world of which we ourselves expressly manifest.
In my own approach to life in this very moment, echoing into time spans and scales of “right now,” “these days,” “lately,” a consideration of where I’ve “been” and where I might find some sense of intentional orientation to trajectory, I seem to circle around these strange attractors of a sort. This sense of motivation in weaving spirals of relational dynamics, giving rise to the “enlightened activity” of a transcendent divine expression emergent, holistic, and present in all things.
Allow me to attempt to describe these particular attractors…
Quantum awakening…
Evolutionary and Existential humility…
Metacrisis response…
Agency and Communion in culture…
I circle and weave, dancing these orbital dynamics, responding to that inner sense of tumbling through risk and grace, heart opening joy and the humble embrace of realities too fine and true to ignore.
I think I will seek to express these here not quite in the order I have listed them above…
Taking the last for the first, what is my agency in this culture? My friend Daniel refers to this most sincerely as my “right livelihood.” By now it is apparent, I have not manifested as some conventionally recognizable doctor, lawyer, professor, clerk, sanitation engineer, or even really (as yet?) coach, consultant, or economic advisor. What then?
When finding communion in culture, it is our fit within the structures recognized in that social construct that allows our agency to flourish. Cultures and societies are, in this regard, ecosystems of human agency within the larger ecosystems of our world at large. [This nested, holonic, agency in communion is a theme that will be revisited, at least implicitly throughout this reflection.]
In this regard, the integral health and wellbeing of each individual interplay throughout, both building of and being infused with drive by the sociocultural agency of our collective expression. This wellbeing is defined by the larger scales of fit and conforms to reflective but not precise iterations of context, from river valley to bioregion to continent, to globe, and beyond, each with resonating conditions of synergy and dissonance.
I come back lately again and again to the words of Krishnamurthy:
“Is society healthy, that an individual should return to it? Has not society itself helped to make the individual unhealthy? Of course, the unhealthy must be made healthy, that goes without saying; but why should the individual adjust himself to an unhealthy society? If he is healthy, he will not be a part of it. Without first questioning the health of society, what is the good of helping misfits to conform to society?”
[For those interested, it is worth following the link here to read a little deeper into this reflection.]
Really for most of the first half-century of my life in this incarnation, I have managed to live in aspirational conditions just peripheral to the deeper stream of what I perceived to be an unhealthy society. Fortunately for the aspiring wisdom of my heart, I find myself of late more confronted with the reality of very simply being part of the gestalt of our human society. Finding the right livelihood of agency in that new conditional constraint persists as a welcome inquiry of economic wellbeing; at first deeply personal, but also sacred to our collective evolutionary predicament as well. (This latter, to be revisited again in the context of metacrisis response.)
Fortunately for me, the practical design constraints of this very plain attractor (though no less strange in its qualities) are quite well defined, complex, and substantial such that any “education,” I might derive in confronting the process are very likely to lend themselves across scale to other contexts for myself, others, and our wider collective and relational dynamics.
In simple terms, I’m speaking to the fact that my basic functioning existence as a quadriplegic places me not in the formally recognizable IRS category of economically single and independent adult, but rather as the center of a complex of individuals comprising my care team who depend on me financially and with whom our interrelating is a part of our multi-perspectival value economics. Therefore, my income status doesn’t fit so nicely into categories like “individual, head of household, married,” or other recognizable “independent economic actors.”
Beyond that collective constraint, there is also the contextual effect of public disabilities benefits and the necessary eligibility constraints in those domains. Within that context, our current social economic paradigms generally don’t recognize beyond the individual into their implicated subcultural paradigms when calculating renumeration; this dynamic is recursive and scales contextually and is therefore not easily addressed on a per case basis.
In short, figuring out how to “make a living,” as a quadriplegic dependent on participation, in some sense, in the “workforce,” is hardly straightforward and certainly not unique to my situation personally.
Underlying all this of course, and as I have alluded to, is my own independent sense of what it means to be a “fit actor” on terms acceptable to a more holistic appreciation of biospheric integrity.
And so I orbit around the very strange attractor of defining the ongoing boundaries of my agency in communion with the modern human society of which I am naturally a part. What is the job to which I am competent, that is of value to my community and also, at the very least, not harmful to my biosphere, AND fit to the evolutionary moment of which we are a part?
Not necessarily an easy inquiry to resolve, but certainly one replete with evolutionary tensions forcing the refinement of the wise, caring, and intelligible re-solution.
I do believe this particular economic inquiry is in fact well suited to a larger and ongoing necessary and implicit inquiry of our humanity of large. Our existing economic disposition is not at all well suited for an enduring future of a thriving biosphere, certainly not on the local scales of our particular civilizational persistence. Just as the threshold between two related but evolutionarily distinct systemic dynamics can most often be characterized as a zone of turbulence, so too is that threshold between one predominant system of human economics, and the next.
For those of us considering the poly crisis, and more particularly, those of us considering the metacrisis, and implicitly for all of us living the journey within, this is an important distinction, how to navigate the turbulent rapids or stormy seas successfully from one phase of this existence to the next without undergoing a wholesale and large-scale systemic collapse.
Working my way back up the aforementioned list, this brings us to metacrisis response as a possible domain of my own particular socioeconomic fit in the world at hand. From where or how to approach this subject…?
I have, on one hand, a personal sense of concern for the imminent, ongoing, and enduring suffering of so many living beings. Whole ecosystems devastated, desertification and habitats buried under mountains of garbage, entirely new and perverted expressions of bioregion, countless indigenous expressions of human collective inquiry of living into this mystical experience of coming into being on earth in space in time, all consumed by this unconscious drive of expansion now reaching the limits of its own internal integrity.
An entire predominance of humanity whose sociocultural expression is unfit for an enduring presence on a flourishing earth; responding wisely, strategically, intelligently, and practically to this condition, what could be a more audaciously inspiring context in which to work? Yet such an activity still evades our general collective intelligence regarding the constitution of “right livelihood.” What does that even mean on the scale of the species? (I do note that I often conflate species with “dominant cultural expression,” this comes from an honest sense that for us to continue, the two need to find a higher order synergy.)
I find myself in the turbulent territory describing the threshold between two of my previously and loosely defined strange attractors of focus, attention, and disciplined agency in this modern communion, and definitional relationship to a “more meaningful” domain of work.
The work is not simply orienting myself (or oneself) to the “task” of a skillful response to a metacrisis, but to the underlying task of establishing a functional economic fit of ground from which to engage in that work in a manner sufficiently avoidant of an entropic dynamic to endure through phases of evolutionary maturity necessary to overcome a larger entropy at play.
I’m thinking of the Coastline Problem now, perhaps we will revisit that in a moment…
As one has likely observed by now, I am really thinking out loud here.
I have been working in a condition of relative economic distress for a number of years now, retrospectively dependent on profound moments of dumb luck, good fortune, and the compassion of others (and in some part, no doubt, the grace of my own resilience.) It is that final aspect, of resilience, that comes to mind now with the mention of entropy.
It has been exceptionally hard moment to moment to endure the sense of struggle at the interface of a financially recognized contribution to society sufficient to meet the demands of my (not so unique) collective economic situation. To this day I often feel a near presence of futility in the struggle, as the consequences of failure are very real, and endurance dependent on truly remarkable successes on many fronts.
Always there, on the other side of challenge, dangles the carrot of enticement: that should I persevere I might find a greater surface area of opportunity to participate in that profoundly meaningful task of serving on the front of metacrisis response.
This domain of a strange attractor is, to my eye, such a magnificent complex of making home of self in relation, here on this earth, in this time and space, with the values of life and love and light at the fore of my intention.
To even begin to comprehend the complexity, nuance, and majesty of such a mandala of inquiry, let alone exploration, prototype and evolution of response demands a dynamic of profound conversation, humility, and synergy of engagement. Bringing this living dynamic into the fore of our awareness, or at the very least into a greater integrity across the scale of our fragile globe presents an opportunity to practice those values at a scale commensurate with the demands of our time.
So this is the second of these strange attractors that I wanted to name: in collaboration, defining, enacting, and sustaining a grounded metacrisis response initiative. Doing this not just as a matter of theory, but economically well grounded in the modern context, and clearly driving towards the meaningful, if fantastic, goals of world peace, sustainable human flourishing, and a profoundly well biosphere.
I will leave it beyond the scope of this reflection to define that in more detail, but that is one of those strange objects which draws my orbit consistently again, moment to moment, day to day and through my appreciation of linear time stretching out ahead.
All of this gives rise to the next attractor: Evolutionary and Existential humility.
An operating assumption of this metacrisis response perspective is that our existing human social identity constructs have met the extent of their evolutionary fit and must now decay into the raw nutrients that will give rise to the next expression in this dance of ecosystemic progression.
This is the existential humility aspect of that perspective. The evolutionary humility aspect is the idea that we ourselves may in fact have no say at all and are doomed like so many expressions before us to pass away quietly while time and matter and space moves on to paint new vistas with no more place for us then we in our hubris have made for the “least” among us.
This is echoed in my own personal struggle when in the face of the latest failure or most present confusion, I hear that whisper to surrender, just collapse, try nothing, forgive the compulsion to respond and let come what may. If I fail to see my culture reaching out to me in abundance, who am I to insist otherwise?
Yet there is something in all of this, something in the humility of recognizing the futility of any discrete effort in the face of vast and infinite enormities, and yet we step forward in that enduring quality, that virtue of faith, to make a difference nonetheless. Of all this humble endurance comes the boundless scape of transcendent majesty ranging from horizon to horizon in those countless eyes perceiving beauty in the moment that never ends.
(Disciple) "What action shall I perform to attain God?"
(Master) "If you wish to attain God, there are two things you must know. The first is that all efforts to attain him are of no avail."
(Disciple) "And the second?"
(Master) "You must act as if you did not know the first."
-- Anthony de Mello: "One Minute Wisdom"
excerpted from The Daily Spiritual Seed
This concept of existential humility came up for me some years ago when reflecting on the stage progressions of organizational development suggested by Mr. Frédéric Laloux in his work on Reinventing Organizations. As each successive development in the sophistication of these structures emerges, they do so based on novel values translated to practice. My thought for next steps in the suggested progression seemed well-suited to orient to this larger scale natural evolutionary progression where each moment gives rise to something impermanent, a fleeting expression whose whole being can be seen in context both simple and precious, like a link in a sacred chain of mysterious majesty.
And so this attractor, how to live into this inquiry of humility at every scale of “my” presence in the world, in what I embody, in the ways that I offer my care, and in the drive I lend to those flickering lights of inspiration dancing in my awareness. The endurance of self, the endurance of that which I love, the endurance of that which may come to be, all of these at once in question and at the root of disciplined commitment.
From where to find the wisdom and the skillful means to meet these energetic polarities of possibility and realize the true joy of being that abundance that never wavers, pouring through every instance of awareness into the vastness of a timeless and boundless clarity, ephemeral yet diamond perfect, hard and unbroken, the very face of transcendence smiling back into our faces, childlike in the fullness of our existence.
A quantum awakening perhaps…
This is another domain that returns again and again, day and night, intruding my dreams, my meditation, my sincere approach to making love for the world. What is the substance of all this action, all this wondering, all this arising? What is this open field awakening in constant motion flourishing in unbroken stillness that is the essence of wisdom awareness and the most elegant of skillful means to meet and overcome the suffering of the world?
I feel like some strange flower blooming, peeling back layer after layer of petals through the rush of time, the warmth of sunlight, the patter of rain drop and the shake of wind. I am fragile in this great place, fragile and beautiful, and I come from somewhere deep below, roots made of this place, this water, this light. My very essence offers the pollen of new life scattered into the world, from my heart seeds blossom and fall to earth.
It is not on my account what will endure, but I am integral to it. I can be no more and no less than that which I am, and I may be nothing more than what the poetess suggests:
“…a somewhat something moving dreamlike on a fading road…”
*giving rise to a perspective taken.
Dearest Kabir,
I am so enjoying our re-connection with your written words. I am still marinating in this excerpt. “Is society healthy, that an individual should return to it? Has not society itself helped to make the individual unhealthy? Of course, the unhealthy must be made healthy, that goes without saying; but why should the individual adjust himself to an unhealthy society? If he is healthy, he will not be a part of it. Without first questioning the health of society, what is the good of helping misfits to conform to society?”
Thank you for igniting more inquiry on my end;)
Also, have you read the book, 2150 A.D. I recently read it and a few things you said reminded me of what this book stirred up within me. I have it in e-book if you are interested:)
LOVE
Heather:)