Vision and Mission for Today - West and East interpenetrate

The vision for society is no-longer a single statement or goal that hopefully everyone understands, and interprets the same way.  We no longer need to 'get with the program'.

We can now treat the economy less like an engine of growth along a track to some inevitable destination we're not sure about, and more like development of a society-wide ecology that brings balance, ease and sanity to our lives.

What I am sharing with you next, I feel is very important.  It`s something that our civilization has only begun to grasp at the beginning of 2012.  

Now the Internet is up and operational, the vision for society has become mutual fulfillment. 

We achieve this vision through coordination.  Therefore the mission for society is to become fully coordinated.  

The specifics of what mutual fulfillment looks like differs from individual to individual, and changes as each individual moves from situation to situation.  The Internet allows us to update and share in a timely way, what we feel will fulfill us and become our next contribution to society.

There is a word for something that each individual understands in a different way, at different times.  It`s called a symbol. Artists are experts in the use of symbols.  Therefore, what governments are calling arts-based professionals are here to help in our new social environment.

As individuals we create the space for a new culture and a way of educating ourselves in order to contribute within today`s economy.  Our society adopts the symbol of mutual fulfillment and the practical mission of fully coordinating our projects.   


We have been adapting to become the change we wished to see in the world.  We`re moving beyond occupation by an inner empire of linear timelines and singular exceptional progress.  The empire is quickly super-ceded through ecological thought and balanced outlooks. 

Thank you Gandhi.  Thank you India.  Thank you art.

Knowledge-based Economy?

Strategic notions of a knowledge-based economy in `developed countries` require all levels of government to put in place policies that ensure citizens get paid for their knowledge.  


Realize that when governments ask us to submit ideas free-of-charge we limit the quality of input as well as the possibilities of some kind of economic knowledge recovery.  Then we could spend in our neighbourhoods and strengthen local economies.

Knowledge is embodied in each individual.  Supposedly it's lodged inside each person's neurology and muscle fascia.  But who knows where knowledge extends?  


Officials at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, have been pumping out ideas of a knowledge economy for some time now.  It's an international institution run by unelected officials that use ideas about economics to help governments tackle the economic, social and governance challenges of a globalized economy.  Ministers of industry and finance subscribe to these ideas and dutifully pay their membership dues each year.  The notions of the OECD result in national strategies that have very real consequences in all of our lives.  www.oecd.org.

I've never heard of economies other than those derived from creating less demand on limited resources, or less need for action.  Who knew we are strategically planning our competitive stance as societies based on economies derived within the accretion and rearrangement of bioplasma in brain cells and electronic impulses in body cells?



If we want to progress through economies of knowledge then would we be well advised to drop ideas of competition and work together internationally, much like how learning progresses through sharing of academic studies and research.


We need to change as individuals so we're able to produce the items and services that contribute to whatever kind of society we want to live in.  The specific nature of your ideal society differs from that of other individuals based on cultural outlooks, values, education, and experiences.


It would be tragic if government talk of competitiveness tended to distract us from making our unique contribution and fulfilling our unique needs and aspirations.  In economic crises are soothing words delaying the need for personal introspection and the prospect of shared  adaptations?  
 

The Future is Unclear. Adapt accordingly.

It’s easy for governments to ignore issues surrounding creativity and the mounting significance that heart-felt individual action takes in terms of our socio-economic future together.  Outside-the-box, creative, or values-based thinking is readily discouraged even though it is essential for dealing with areas that remain unclear and in the realms of probability, such as our future. 

True, there`s some interest in better ways of getting things done. Governments will continue to ask people to pitch in, and 'submit your ideas'.  Perhaps government employees see themselves as encouraging participation, of switching to a more `participative' style of government.  However participation is directed rather than facilitated.  

The familiar authoritarian style is also perpetuated by this wonderful capacity governments have of setting the questions ahead of time.  Allowing participants to define the terms of a discussion is not an option.  Every question,  every review, every national commission, is phrased into existence based on the solidified and dogmatic assumption that our representatives are there to lead the way to fulfilling needs in each and every situation.  

Nothing can change when government representatives define the terms for a discussion of our great rethinking and our great reworking.  Because of how things are set up for us we can confine ourselves to giving input and contributing in ways that won`t work.  

Don't look to Governments for a Recovery

The real and timely solutions to our problems reside within local communities.  Let's take a look at why this seems to increasingly be the case.

Governments are not well positioned to handle the details of each person’s life needs.  Challenges to providing meaningful and well paid work for educated people go unmet. 

To address issues of economic recovery we have to include community in the mix.  Perhaps this is because a local community is better positioned to supply what is necessary when people are in-between jobs, in distress, or simply wanting to be pro-active and discover a new way of being in the world. 

Why meet to address the needs of the government when we could be addressing the needs of societies where governments are increasingly powerless to effect the necessary change?  It’s relatively difficult for institutions to think and act differently so as to allow us to turn things around. It would be illegal for governments to spend tax-payers’ money, held in trust, to move towards outcomes that are not understood ahead of time. 


Money and effort must be in service to an outcome that is readily broken down into clearly defined objectives.  However those days are probably over. 


When a government insists on clearly defined outcomes it does not help society.  This means that we cannot limit ourselves to project management.  Therefore creativity is difficult for a society reliant on leadership through representation.  Creativity is required when we are dealing with probabilities and do not know outcomes before we start.

Why not work together creatively as individuals, in ways that increase the possibilities of recovery?

It is only when an individual determines what is fulfilling that he or she feels motivated to act.  It is only when we ask questions we want answered that we maximize our chances of figuring out what will work and outperform, in terms of effectiveness, what is currently in place. 

The real tragedy in all this is that authoritarian forms of government distract us.  We continue to delay personal introspection and therefore our prospects of making the adaptations we need to make.  

We need to change as individuals.  We can produce items and services that contribute to whatever kind of society it is that we want to live in.  No-one has to know ahead of time what that society, or mix of societies will look like.  

Lonely at the Top - Powerful at the Bottom

The previous post was about how the Internet supports us in directing our own fulfillment with greater immediacy.  This is happening because of greater self-awareness, and the Internet bringing more people together.  This is happening at the same time that lone leadership has entered into voluntary decline.


Lone leadership is in decline.  But that does not mean our impulses to command and control others has declined in the least.


To compensate for ineffective leadership, as a society we’ve entered into an elder-ful era.  The idea of the role of elder is from indigenous cultures to distinguish anyone who voluntarily dedicates his or her life to taking care of the greater good.  These days, I’ve noticed elders 18-years of age or younger. Look at what happened to Craig Kielburger when he was 12-year old in April 1995! http://www.freethechildren.com/aboutus/history/

I have experienced aspects of the Occupy movement taking responsibility for the greater good.  This is happening with varying degrees of self-awareness.  Some of us have noted our urge to shadow-box, to thrash and strike out at aspects of life we despise.  We don`t admit that whatever we’re fighting set up camp inside us long ago.


It’s on the record that the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring were spurred on in part because of  tools for organizing made readily available on the Internet.  We conduct the details of coordination for mutual fulfillment using both on-line tools, and those potential little-spies-in-your-pocket, we lovingly call cellphones.


Thank you social media.  And thank you open source software.


Coordination for mutual fulfillment tends to be carried out locally, in and among neighbourhoods.  Public spaces are where you’ll find those soul pools and nutrient rich spawning grounds where the elders swim.  Neighbourhoods are now vessels where projects wriggle and interweave, where adaptations arise from the cross-fertilization among notions. Social adaptations hatch in local places.  These are challenged, chased around, and later dismissed before becoming strong enough to find their way into the mainstream.


There’s no way of knowing what comes next from the shallow waters where social adaptations emerge.  Some new ways of doing things have inherent capacities to grow and plunge straight down because they are designed to trawl through the depths of our collected realities.  These surpass the role of lone leadership.  Drawing on what is deep within us has always been the role of muse.

Contribute within TODAY`s Economy

In the USA, Obama's annual State of The Nation address continued the illusion that life in ‘developed nations’ is all about manufacturing.  

At least citizens of the US get a regular pep talk.  In Canada we have no idea where we are heading, either as an economy, or as a society.  You'd think that somebody in government would do something to rectify that.   

When you walk up to the door into a public washroom you notice that someone has been thoughtful enough put a little phrase or graphic on the door.  It’s something that everyone knows indicates a public washroom.  The reason it’s placed there is to indicate what to expect next.  

There needed to be something placed on the door to the future, decades ago.  The word for that little phrase or graphic that everyone understands is a sign.  

We achieve new kinds of society.  It's something we all agree to strive towards.  Together we put our life blood into making it happen.  All we need is a little sign.

Many of us distrust, or simply don’t know what kind of society we’re supposed to be moving towards let alone know what we`re contributing towards achieving.  The last time we heard a politician describe a vision of where we are going as a society was during the 1970’s when John F Kennedy told us we were going to the moon. 

As it turns out it was not a vision for society but a message to calm the military-industrial complexes of the US and USSR.  Kennedy was thoughtful enough to place a sign on the door to the future to indicate what the military and war industries of the two superpowers could expect next.  

Talk about the moon was a sign to indicate to the military-industrial complexes that they had a future in a world that was relatively peaceful.


Maybe that's why people are looking for signs of the times.  The sign we need is TODAY when we look around us.

Maybe that's why people talk about signs of the times.

Envisioning the City we want to live in

Its good to be aware of changing approaches coming out of our city halls.  It used to be that a city hall was all geared up to handle people with problems, but had no way to handle people with visions. 

In Toronto Councillor Joe Mihevc, www.joemihevc.com has sent out an invite to everyone around the city.  He has put together a three part series of events aimed at bringing citizens together to envision the city we want to live in.  This is refreshing.  

Should this approach be encouraged?  I think so.  How else do we know what we're all so busy working towards?