A New World in 2011

The words to describe our condition as humans on this planet are largely inadequate to promote any real understanding of how to change or evolve our lives toward something better. Perhaps that's the main reason we've come along so slowly. Do you ever wonder why we haven't made more progress toward solving (healing) our problems, whether personally or on the planetary level?

I have often felt the struggle and frustration of seeking to change my life while seemingly putting in the maximum effort for the smallest possible result. At other (rare) times, it seemed to me the smallest intention or desire effortlessly became reality. Was it serendipity? Divine intervention? Luck? Perhaps, but maybe there's another level to this perception and problem solving.

Call it the quantum, spirit, or energetic realms (or dimensions) versus the physical, Ego, material, or real world as we know it, the place where most of us reside most of the time. Whether we claim some special shamanic abilities or diploma from a mystery initiation, we still spend most of our time bound by the constraints of the ideas and opinions of those around us. Whether that be institutions or governments or simply the perceptions and agreed upon reality of even those closest to us -- or, of course (more likely), our own minds.

Nassim Taleb writes in the introduction his new book, The Bed of Procrustes:

"We humans, facing limits of knowledge, and things we do not observe, the unseen and the unknown, resolve the tension by squeezing life and and the world into crisp commoditized ideas, reductive categories, specific vocabularies, and prepackaged narratives, which on occasion has explosive consequences. Further, we seem unaware of this backward fitting, much like tailors who take great pride in delivering the perfectly fitting suit -- but to do so by surgically altering the limbs of their customers" XII

Taleb identifies the heart of the matter. When we move in the dimension of our Ego's and the hard reality of the material world, we are bound mostly to reap suffering and frustration -- that means relying on what we already know to be concrete and absolute -- using the same mind to solve the problem that created the problem. When we play in the energetic dimension, even the smallest or simplest intention can become manifest on a grand scale with relative ease -- but we're trusting in something unseen, not unlike the faith so many religions have required of their followers, or the landscape of a dream compared with the rude awakening of a morning alarm clock.

When I say trust in the power and consciousness of weeds to heal, one might certainly assume I'm not operating in the realm of the known or established world! That the process is so simple even underscores for some people that it cannot work.

In the spirit of Taleb's book of aphorisms, I've come up with one: In the energetic dimension, the simplest intentions offer the most profound results; in the realm of the ego, the most complicated and strenuous effort, usually produces only short term gain, mostly suffering, frustration and exhaustion.