Your explanation for 'yearning' as the tension between what is and what could be, aligns very closely with the purpose of my Peace Compass - an instrument to navigate where you want to be, from where you are now (assuming that there is always somewhere we want to move toward and away from). I actually refer to the distance between where you want to be (optimum) and where you are now as 'risk'. As a practical measure it represents the risk of failing to synchronise universal needs. I am trying to develop the Peace Compass as a way to measure the risk (or yearning), respond with a design for life based on choices that are more effective at moving toward optimum and be able to follow up to evaluate the change. This might seem unnecessary because it is obvious what is good and nourishing...but I don't think it is so obvious for many...hence the state of contemporary society.
I like the idea of the compass - I think aligning it with the so-called hierarchy of needs - social and individual would also be useful. Instead of a hierarchy, we'd simply have a compass (like you're suggesting), perhaps with individual needs on the X-axis (personal, physical survival on the left, spiritual, personal development on the right) and social on the Y-axis. This visualisation can help pinpoint which quadrants of a person's spectrum of needs are lacking, and also how each need relates to other needs, thus resolving any potential conflict...
Perhaps the underlying truth in all this is very simply that human beings evolved over a million years (or however long one wishes to call it) in a state of complete nature - the human brain evolved to be best adapted to that environment. Thus, if you take that brain and put it in an unnatural environment then mental illness is the result. In the same way one sees zoo animals pacing back and forth. In a benevolent society, with a benevolent government, those social decision-makers would understand this and enable it. Given we have malevolent governments, this putting people into unnatural environments is deliberate, because of the mental illness it causes, the 'cognitive dissonance', not to mention the anti-education system, and that prevents people from being able to ask all the right questions and make all the right demands, and thus they are more easily socially controlled. They have effectively been put in cages, and are only 'allowed out' every now and then (perhaps to prevent revolution etc., which only seems to happen when the people feel they have nothing left to lose). It's the state of dependency, an intrinsic part of gaslighting, which needs to be overcome. Also, there is clearly a difference between what an individual (or small group/community) can do, and what a people as a larger whole can do (Dunbar's number etc.), and without that much greater collective action, the bad guys win. If everyone understood this yearning, and that everyone else has it, then we come nearer to collective action.
Yes, we feel this, but how many will even nod when such sentiments are spoken aloud in another choking, stifling HR meeting? “It disempowers us, on every level, stifles and stunts us, forces us to repress our deepest feelings, intuitions and desires in order to fit into its gridwork of conformity and obedience.” We naturally gravitate towards freedom if there weren’t massive barriers and boulders blocking the way.
I have just posted a text-graphic piece I created some time ago to my substack, which includes a link (via bit.ly) to your ever-relevant piece on impact investment. It is here:
Far too many seem to have already lost this yearning. Perhaps the most urgent task of those who still have it is to reawaken it in others — which your essays do in a wonderful way. Thank you for that!
Yes, paying for food and lodging and some measure of comfort while not getting killed or imprisoned kind of gets in the way. There are all manner of barriers.
Your explanation for 'yearning' as the tension between what is and what could be, aligns very closely with the purpose of my Peace Compass - an instrument to navigate where you want to be, from where you are now (assuming that there is always somewhere we want to move toward and away from). I actually refer to the distance between where you want to be (optimum) and where you are now as 'risk'. As a practical measure it represents the risk of failing to synchronise universal needs. I am trying to develop the Peace Compass as a way to measure the risk (or yearning), respond with a design for life based on choices that are more effective at moving toward optimum and be able to follow up to evaluate the change. This might seem unnecessary because it is obvious what is good and nourishing...but I don't think it is so obvious for many...hence the state of contemporary society.
I like the idea of the compass - I think aligning it with the so-called hierarchy of needs - social and individual would also be useful. Instead of a hierarchy, we'd simply have a compass (like you're suggesting), perhaps with individual needs on the X-axis (personal, physical survival on the left, spiritual, personal development on the right) and social on the Y-axis. This visualisation can help pinpoint which quadrants of a person's spectrum of needs are lacking, and also how each need relates to other needs, thus resolving any potential conflict...
Lovely little piece.
Perhaps the underlying truth in all this is very simply that human beings evolved over a million years (or however long one wishes to call it) in a state of complete nature - the human brain evolved to be best adapted to that environment. Thus, if you take that brain and put it in an unnatural environment then mental illness is the result. In the same way one sees zoo animals pacing back and forth. In a benevolent society, with a benevolent government, those social decision-makers would understand this and enable it. Given we have malevolent governments, this putting people into unnatural environments is deliberate, because of the mental illness it causes, the 'cognitive dissonance', not to mention the anti-education system, and that prevents people from being able to ask all the right questions and make all the right demands, and thus they are more easily socially controlled. They have effectively been put in cages, and are only 'allowed out' every now and then (perhaps to prevent revolution etc., which only seems to happen when the people feel they have nothing left to lose). It's the state of dependency, an intrinsic part of gaslighting, which needs to be overcome. Also, there is clearly a difference between what an individual (or small group/community) can do, and what a people as a larger whole can do (Dunbar's number etc.), and without that much greater collective action, the bad guys win. If everyone understood this yearning, and that everyone else has it, then we come nearer to collective action.
Good stuff!
I especially appreciate the "yearning" bit, as an offering of insight through the verbal archeology of etymology.
Yes, we feel this, but how many will even nod when such sentiments are spoken aloud in another choking, stifling HR meeting? “It disempowers us, on every level, stifles and stunts us, forces us to repress our deepest feelings, intuitions and desires in order to fit into its gridwork of conformity and obedience.” We naturally gravitate towards freedom if there weren’t massive barriers and boulders blocking the way.
Great, a new book from you! :D
I have just posted a text-graphic piece I created some time ago to my substack, which includes a link (via bit.ly) to your ever-relevant piece on impact investment. It is here:
https://theylie.substack.com/p/it-is-crucial-to-understand-impact
Thank you for all your efforts, Paul!
Thank you.
Inspiring!! Thank you ever so much.
Thanks Paul - inspiring as always
"This IS the hour! WE are the ones we've been waiting for”
https://youtu.be/MJkJysq-ZNg
Far too many seem to have already lost this yearning. Perhaps the most urgent task of those who still have it is to reawaken it in others — which your essays do in a wonderful way. Thank you for that!
Yes, paying for food and lodging and some measure of comfort while not getting killed or imprisoned kind of gets in the way. There are all manner of barriers.