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Tag: change

  • Theme:

    To change: Contradictory action over reaction

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    1–2 minutes

    We have infinite resources (capability) for change. Every moment provides an instance in which we can react contradictory to our normal reaction.

    To react is to remain who you are.
    People speak of finding themselves, which is impossible; instead, you construct yourself into the person you want to find.

    To do so requires a persistent situational awareness and the courage to act instead of comfortably react.

    (In tandem: Reactionary people often claim others should love them for who they are. These people have found themselves and stopped trying: it is up to others to accept them on their terms.)

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    Overindexed identity vs goo

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    1–2 minutes

    Everyone has some facet in which they are over indexed for identity.

    "I may not drink, but I run marathons" or "I may be soft around the middle, but I’m hard-core for (name your salvation)."

    this point of fixation (fixity) becomes our flag and crutch. while we prefer the single utility machine, taken to a robotic, uncompromising extreme, there are those looking for the mutable and mushy, the gelatinous, from which fluid change is possible, and no singular point can be determined or taken.

    

  • Theme:

    improbable identity

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    1–2 minutes

    There is another probable version of you that you could choose. This is the other you, the potential you.

    You could continue choosing the most unlikely version of yourself until you move into the improbable: you choose your way out of reality. Yet, we tend to have elasticities that snap us back into a recognizable self.

    It is only the courageous, or the crazy, who can continue beyond the probable to become something entirely other.

  • Theme:

    Trivial repetition as antidote

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    1–2 minutes

    Much of our life is trivial, banal, and absurd. To give it meaning, we focus on something particular and drive it forward.

    The temptation will be to do something grand: become a Mozart or Michelangelo. However, if most of life is trivial, you could choose to excel at the trivial.

    Bypassing society’s heroic values through excellently boring repetition would allow you to find an acute (and more accurate) sense of who you are in relation to the world, sans manipulation.

  • Theme:

    Succession, rebellion, insurrection

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    1–2 minutes

    Americans (Texans specifically) comment that an invading country (or even our own government) would never be able to subdue us, largely due to the proliferation of firearms, which is ludicrous.

    It is not a matter of being brave or well-armed against an army with drones. Being armed only matters in the ability to dissuade or combat your fellow citizens.

    Revolutions (coups) generally require the populace, but a smaller percentage of it than you would think:

    • 1) It is a matter of having already won an ideological battle.
    • 2) Followed by seeding political choke points and infrastructure with your faction from which you can asymmetrically leverage power.
    • 3) By converting the violent rule-following rebels (the gun-toting patriots) as they will enforce ideology at an inverse proportion to their numbers. (say 150 armed ideologs can control a town of 15,000.)
  • Theme:

    Guilt as power

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    1–2 minutes

    When one party feels guilty, it is healthy to assume that not both are to blame.

    However, there is a relationship between the guilty party attempting to atone, apologize, or acceed to the other they feel they have wronged.

    In this sense, feeling guilty bonds you to another, often in a subservient manner. And as we know, from Hegel’s Master/Slave dynamic the subservient party controls the dominant one.

  • Theme:

    Top down change

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    1–2 minutes

    A position of power is the only way to manifest change. And the most power is at the top of a society.

    In part, the top positions accrue authority through entrenched hierarchy as systemic programming. with access to people, media, and money through stable systems, a small number of people can create lasting change.

    However, defending the position consumes more resources over time until a change of leadership must occur.

  • Theme:

    Bottom up change

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    1–2 minutes

    Change is commonly driven from below.

    The top requires stability for profit and maintenance, which is a form of power.

    To enact change is to replace those in power, creating a cyclic win-loss cycle, where there is always a bottom and top: the bottom craving change, while the top stagnates, fending off change.

    (Tomorrow I will argue the opposite)

  • Theme:

    Flipping: Conservative v Progressive

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    1–2 minutes

    Perhaps a “conservative” merely wants stability, and the “progressive” merely wants change.

    The complication is when the backward-looking move forward to recreate and the forward-obsessed stall out into regressive stability.

    This flipping of values for achievement combats the motivating soul of the movement, forming a contradictory spirit versus action paradox seemingly impossible to rectify.

  • Theme:

    The double humble

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    1–2 minutes

    There must be a word for when you lie and exaggerate in a humble fashion to make others feel better about being around you. It is placatory to a level of derangement.
    It isn’t a humble brag but a "double humble" of negative denigration; the politeness cancels out politeness and shifts into pathos.