BLOCK YYY — OUR EVERYDAY REALITY
- MULTIDIMENSIONAL THINKING
Today, I feel that I have reached a deeper understanding of the way I think.
I have long connected experiences across different areas of life. Now I am becoming more conscious of those connections.
One telephone call can reveal questions about language, technology, organisation, responsibility and human suffering. These belong to the same reality.
- TWO OPERATING SYSTEMS
In my earlier writing, I described two operating systems: intellectual and emotional.
This is my metaphor for human behaviour.
What we call stupidity may be an emotional reaction whose foundations we have not understood. Intelligence does not automatically give us understanding of our own emotions.
A person may be brilliant and still make decisions that harm themselves and others.
- CHILDREN WITH MATCHES
We do not give matches to a child who cannot understand the consequences.
Yet we give adults the power to shape other people’s lives. Have they developed the responsibility that this power requires?
When I speak of preschool children creating our systems, I mean immaturity in responsibility. Intellectual genius can coexist with that immaturity.
From my spiritual perspective, this raises another question: could some understanding remain beyond our reach until we become capable of using it responsibly?
- LOADING THE NEXT LEVEL
The loading of abilities in The Matrix gives me an image for something I have experienced.
When I recognise an emotion and move beyond my habitual reaction, connections can suddenly become clear.
It feels like another level of understanding has become available. Sometimes I experience it as coming from outside myself.
That is how I interpret my experience.
- THREE ENCOUNTERS WITH THE SYSTEM
I called Centrelink. The automated service could not identify the reason for my call. I asked for an operator. I was told that the operators were busy. I did not reach the person I needed.
Years ago, I waited through three traffic-light cycles before I could cross an intersection.
When I sought access to a local GP, I found that practices were not accepting new patients. At the hospital, I was told the waiting time was four hours.
Different services. The same question:
How much of our time and energy is consumed by difficulties that the organisation of the system could prevent?
- THE LEAK AND THE BLOCKED DRAIN
Imagine water leaking into a room while the drain is blocked.
People keep wiping the floor. They work harder. They become exhausted. The water keeps coming.
Who is examining the leak? Who is clearing the drain?
Healthcare needs prevention as well as treatment. Public services need to examine why the same difficulties keep returning.
Endless activity is no guarantee that the underlying problem is being solved.
- THE ECOSYSTEM
For me, the ecosystem represents interdependence.
Every part affects other parts. Our institutions need to understand those relationships.
Adaptation is necessary. But when the same harm continually returns, we must ask whether our adjustments reach its cause.
- THE INHERITED COMPASS
Parents cannot pass on what they themselves have never developed.
I believe this applies to morality, nobility of character and the inner compass that guides responsibility.
But inheritance does not have to become destiny.
We can begin to develop what previous generations did not give us. My blogs are an invitation to begin.
- THE SHOCK OF RECOGNITION
I want these words to disturb our complacency.
We must examine the gap between our intelligence and our responsibility, between the systems we praise and the lives people actually experience.
How mature are we in using the power we already possess?
