"Eyes Wide Shut"*

#24
More than not "for naught" I love the expression Peter Thiel uses "Zero to One" http://zerotoonebook.com/ which is a good reminder that Juan Imaz are at this given minute in California in Silicon Valley, where Peter Thiel resides - where they call it "pitching", whereas I call it bringing home the money for a greater vision - and a part of that vision should be hexagonal thinking. There will come at time when we will be frightened to take the next step, it is in these moments we come back to vision - "Eyes Closed Open". Reply

#23
Dear CityVP Manjit, honoured to be sharing the same plane as you! I have been struggling to write my article on synchronicity and in the meantime have taken different branches out from that topic . One of them has been "hexagons". You write, "The diversity of a hexagon is marvelous to me compared to the two traditions." This and your closing paragraph now enable me to bring a few thoughts together. Our exchange(s) are not "for naught", neither is how you incorporated your geometrical/metaphorical design of how you see things a coincidence. I also have a great title of an important section of the work, "The diversity of a hexagon..." Thank you for taking the effort and time to see this through. Thank you as well for your kind and generous words. Reply

#22
Sara what is the difference between a triangle and a hexagon? I would say six parts of difference where the triangle points to the center and not to a level. This takes me away from both levels by hierarchy, or levels by scale. Yes, the scale has defined our global system of justice, but that is because the scales of justice are based on measurement, here this is metaphorical weight. Each triangle points to a different rate of evolution, so think how I have been online for 17 years simply thinking my thoughts and still continue to do so - that brings a time value of 17x compared to maybe 2x or even less. Now when I compare your work reaching people with a continuous empathetic level there may be a time value of 40x - and even if you decided to cease evolving that way, it would take me until I am 95 to be where you are have so far arrived on this particular time value. The more evolved we get the more weightless we get - until we are free. The diversity of a hexagon is marvelous to me compared to the two traditions. The hexagon for me is the composite between the triangle and the circle - the two forms of organization and belief that today represent symbolic representations of the west and the east . Here at beBee you and I are forming the third way - and we find our diversity in the time value of the hexagon our respective lives represent. For sure we can hexagons together and form honeycombs of network intelligence - but it is what develops inside our respective metaphorical hexagons that matter. Anyone who talks Tayfun Demiroz in Australia will see this, for when he was leading the Istanbul Company of Friends, I was talking about hexagons back then. Little did I know that 15 years later I would arrive at a place called beBee. Reply

#20
Your response and expansion of ideas is truly remarkable (beside very touching!) CityVP Manjit. Like I said, you are truly at a different level than I. Reply

#19
Dear Sara, again it goes back to uniqueness and not comparison, I am looking at the ugliness in relationship to beautiful, but this is not the same thing as examining the relationship between ugliness and horror. A sensitive human being will by nature avert themselves from the truly horrific while acknowledging that the truly horrific exists, hence your statement QUOTE ["s hard as I try, I cannot shut out the images of 9/11. I have never written a political Buzz on beBee and I am not about to begin.] END QUOTE. I am looking at ugliness not in the context of 9/11 but as Stephen Bayley says in this architectural review article QUOTE: ["We all enjoy beauty. But an appreciation of ugliness is necessary to it. The beautiful and the ugly are not opposites, but aspects of the same thing. ] END QUOTE from https://www.architectural-review.com/archive/viewpoints/the-ugly-truth-the-beauty-of-ugliness/8641754.article My mother like you is an extremely intelligent woman; when there is an aspect of horror, she is intelligent enough to know the nature of the horrific, but will not go there, because it can only serve to damage her soul - that is a higher order of being and in that regard the level of sensitivity you possess is what should be admired. There is that immature neanderthal part of me that has not attained yet a higher level of consciousness - but I see people who have it, and it can be seen at the point where you don't want to entertain the cruelty of existence for it adds nothing to one's wisdom - and I consider that to be an evolved trait. That is what I am learning here when I read your thinking and Ali Anani's thinking. This is an evolved state rather than age or gender - and my mother is evolved in the same way, and if I were to evolve to the same depth of sensibility you or my mother possess, my mother would be the first to hug you and say "you have helped my son become a human being". I am getting there. Reply

#17
Dear CityVP Manjit. You are truly at a different level than I. I am not able to see the beauty in the ugliness.I have a long way to go. Reply

#16
Thank you for your kind and generous response David Grinberg. Reply

#9
Can I forget the ugliness because I want to focus on the beautiful? On focusing on the beautiful, the measure of beauty is the depth of ugliness that exists, this too is another paradox. There is ugly even in the beautiful, as there is the beautiful in the ugly. Reply

#13
Agreed Deb Helfrich! Reply

#11
CityVP Manjit, you write: "I see this as diversity and I welcome this variety of perspective." I "hear" this as "music to my ears." Thanks for taking the time to expand on your thoughts. Reply

#10
Dear Sara, I see this as diversity and I welcome this variety of perspective. I wake up to life is as fresh new day, a clean slate and then in my life it is memory that interrupts because I am a daydreamer. I know that memories are not permanent artifacts in our mind, that we constantly replenish the memory, and that act of replenishing if it changes a lot, we end up with a false memory, but this is what is important to me about memory - that memory is image. I don't want a relationship with that image, I choose my relationship as is. Just as problematic for me, at a personal level is future casting. This is projecting and dwelling on something that has not happened yet and whether it is living in the future or living in the past. I have reconsidered saying "why do people fear loneliness" and that is too much of black and white statement because relating that to heaven and hell leaves no room for nuance and it absolves myself of saying "why do I fear loneliness" It is of no value falling into a generalization such as "why do people", but it is valuable recognizing being alone is something I am personally comfortable with - but that does not mean that others are comfortable with it. Shelley White in a blog makes a distinction between loneliness and solitude http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/10/20/the-gift-of-spending-time-alone-the-difference-between-loneliness-solitude/ I don't make that distinction unless loneliness is viewed as a negative, which is how Shelley expresses it. That is who Shelley is, I accept her way of looking at this. There is a point where loneliness becomes a topic of religion rather than a way we individually come to the world, and that to me is problematic because that is no longer about who I am, but an exaltation of faith. Loneliness is a word packed with personal meaning, but the meaning I carry about loneliness is unique to me - in that the only argument is my conscious - and here my empathy is not drained. Reply

#8
Dear CityVP Manjit, you are a gifted writer and I understand what you are saying and appreciate how you say it, but I respectfully disagree. You write: "I am made of the same stuff of the universe, until memory tells me that I lack it and does not let me unshackle or free me so I become the substance of the universe again. Memories isolate us, but to be truly alone is a powerful re-connection that each of us is a world. Why do people fear loneliness unless memories have made of the universe that hell and not a heaven." From my perspective, memories are part of the same stuff as us and the universe. Memories don't tell me what I lack, memories are pieces of my process of becoming, coming to the now and moving me into the future. Memories don't isolate me, they connect me to time and space and the potential of relating to others. I am not shackled by memories, they free me to see, they give me perspective. I don't fear being alone and I try to be aware of when I experience loneliness; I work hard at knowing the difference. Memories don't make my universe a hell. I am responsible for my actions, thoughts and beliefs. If hell exists, it is external from me; I may not have control over the hell that exists, but I have control over how I choose to respond to the hell. I am the maker of my internal heaven when others have made an external hell. Finally, the hell that exists is like the evil minority you speak of. I try my best not to allow the small section of hell blind me to the vastness of heaven. Reply

#6
Another aspect Irene Hackett in this is that I think we grossly underestimate the goodness in this world and vastly overestimate the evil, for sure every act of evil registers into our soul, but in each forgotten day of our lives, such goodness prevailed that it is taken for granted It is the minority that then fill our attention, a minority who engage in evil, and then we feel separated or even torn asunder - but we also sever the silent majority of goodness because we make circumstance bigger and proportionality skewed by what we can remember, rather than this moment called now. This is why we then value togetherness because we are still apart, still separated by memories of our past - and not like lonely stars shining their light unto the universe, wanting nothing in return. I know you share Ali Anani and his view of togetherness but for me life is not about the value of togetherness, it is to be whole. With my wife already awake and downstairs I sit in my bedroom but am I alone? I am a child of the universe and the universe is alone and in this paradox of lonely stars we find the infinite points of togetherness, the eternity we came unfolded from and we unfold back to - because then we are fully present to the universe, rather than the imprinted memory of the past. Our insecurities, our fears, our scars that is what we hold onto - not the universe that originally made us and which we were never separate from. I am made of the same stuff of the universe, until memory tells me that I lack it and does not let me unshackle or free me so I become the substance of the universe again. Memories isolate us, but to be truly alone is a powerful re-connection that each of us is a world. Why do people fear loneliness unless memories have made of the universe that hell and not a heaven. Reply

#2
You never ask easy questions Ali Anani, but for sure important ones. I don't allow the past to keep me back from moving forward. The past is something I carry with me in order to make a difference in my present and future. Reply

#1
Message received CityVP Manjit; from heart to heart. Thank you. Reply

On 9/11 my business partner was to witness the best of the human spirit. On that day he was meant to travel on an assignment that was scheduled for the next day, and which was one in a million for us, to work with the then VP of Marketing at Starbucks in Seattle. Now we were faced with air restrictions and he had already arrived in Vancouver, intending to fly onto Seattle. As he faced the reality of no flights into Seattle, he took the liberty to suggest to his fellow travelers to organize a minbus and drive down to Seattle instead. On that day when everybody was on edge, where trust was at a low bar, these strangers helped each other with travel arrangements hastily arranged and worked as a team to meet a shared objective. When my partner had arrived at Starbucks he not only had a great story to share with the VP, but he was also relieved that he could meet her due to the trusting generosity of fellow passengers, at a time when distrust could easily have kept strangers apart. For all the tragedy that day represented, it also produced great stories of the human spirit - and that is what I focus on, that in times of trouble when our better angels come to the fore and serve to elevate the human spirit. Reply