Tag Archives: chaos

The Will to Work is The Will to Live

September 14, 2014 The Extropist Leave a comment

Life is movement. It has momentum. It has a rhythm and when it stops – life stops. We have to keep playing the game of life otherwise we will fail to exist and this is core to every living thing in the Universe. Atoms have to keep vibrating. Photons have to keep pulsating. Trees have to keep breathing. Animals have to keep beating and humans have to keep creating.

This rhythm is true to everything in the Universe because its counter-point is entropy, which describes the inevitable decline of every system into chaos and disorder. This decline exists because no system is perfectly balanced and so there is always an energy leak. The leak is catered for by this rhythm of life that we all create. It is the desire to keep moving, to push forward. To do the work we have to, to give the system more energy, and even more energy than from where we started. We have to be inspired enough to take another step even when we have nothing left.

Power of Purpose

So often we hear of people who retire and live without passion, without purpose and then they very soon leave this world. Too often we hear about a person, who has fought the good fight and continued to live on only until they decide to rest. Studies have shown that people in there 80’s who had a daily practice of stagnant resting had close to a 50% mortality rate of surviving over a 6 month period, compared to people who actively engaged through a mindfulness practice that had nearly a 100% survival rate over the same period. What this tells us is that we have to continue to be present to our system, continue to work for our life and our lives.

Will is your Life Force

We turn work into energy that can then translate into many different areas of our lives. When we put work into our relationship, and think to bring gifts, provide help and show our appreciation for the loved ones in our lives – those relationships grow stronger. When we do nothing they wither and die. When we put work into our bodies through exercise, eating healthy, and maintaining a consciousness practice – we live longer. When we become lazy and indulgent with our bodies – we put needless stress and pressure on the system causing it to fail sooner. When we work for our job, go the extra mile, and help out our coworkers, letting them know that we are appreciative of them and respect their efforts – we excel at our jobs. Yet if we lounge around and create discord, we no longer progress and often lose our place.

Energetic Credits of Money

Interestingly much of this energy we put back into these systems of our lives – relationships, work, health – is facilitated by money. And what is money, but merely the easiest and most transferable form of energy. We turn work into energy, which we then can transfer through money. It allows us to buy and grow our lives through credits we have done for work. All this work that we do in our lives results in money and this money we can transfer into each system to help maintain the overall human system. So as you can see every system in your life requires work and energy to fight the natural tendency of life to break down. And while its hard it’s up to you to maintain these systems, to keep the plates spinning so they don’t fall, to keep the balls in the air so they don’t drop and break.

But know this: Your will to work starts with you. This work is for you, not for others. Work on yourself and others will reap the rewards. The will to live is generated from the work within and the will to work from you will only then extend beyond the current form. The exciting thing about this work is that it never stops. When we have mastered the current rhythm, we invite ever greater intricacies to the systemic patterns of our life in order that we can continue to expand our repertoire, increase the complexity or our life’s rhythms and grow the breadth of our consciousness to make us ever more creative and effective human systems for the world. So the next time you feel overwhelmed by the work you have to overcome know that you are growing the systems of your life to ever higher places with each and every step forward.

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I Love CHAOS! And YOU asked for it? (The Extropist Series – Part III)

October 18, 2013 The Extropist 1 Comment

I have often pondered over chaos and control. What is the point of chaos? Why do we have it in our lives? And how does it relate to being an Extropist? Then one day it came to me. It’s there because we ask for it to come into our lives. And when I understood this I realized that I love chaos. This new idea about chaos came when I learnt something about evolution. EVOLUTION REQUIRES CHAOS. When something in the environment is destroyed and removed from the eco-system it creates space for new beings in this system to come in and take advantage of the change. The new being evolves to then thrive in this new system structure and be more effective and powerful than before.

This is the same thing that happens in our own lives. Something comes along and throws the stability out of our world by changing the environment. It is then up to us to best develop and evolve ourselves in order to better handle the new environment. We are forced to reassess the structure and workings of our world, tear it down and rebuild it as a new and stronger, more effective system. So you might begin to see that chaos is a good thing, but people don’t see it that way.

The Problem of Chaos

Several things make chaos seem like a bad thing. Firstly, we are hesitant to break our world down as we have become comfortable in the world that we have created. Next, rebuilding the system of our world takes energy and work. Energy that we may not have or are reticent to spend on reconstructing our world to take into consideration the change in our environment. And finally, it is the resistance that we have to the chaos and change that limits our ability to properly function and motivate ourselves to use our energy in the most effective manner to make change.

Calling Chaos

The only difference to what we see in the larger phylogenic (or species) evolution is that people can consciously create change from an ontogenic (or individual) evolution that feeds the change for the species. What this means is that we call chaos into our lives so that we can evolve our individual system. That’s right! You literally ask for chaos to come in and mess up your world. WE CREATE CHAOS! Chaos is simply disordered energy. We need more energy to increase the size of our life and perpetuate our evolution. But this energy wont just come on a platter as a ready to plug-in battery pack. Sadly, that’s not how it works, nor would it be fun if we didn’t have to solve how to evolve.

When chaos enters into our lives, there is a greater overall amount of energy now in our lives. However this disorder is causing the current system to become inefficient, as it has not been calibrated to handle the new energy. This is why we often feel unstable and out of control with it’s introduction and so we often have to completely change the whole system in order to handle the new incoming energy. It is this reordering that causes the system to be more evolved as it has learnt how to better work with the new energy in the system. This can then have a trickle down effect for the whole species because then when another person sees how this new way of being is more advantageous they may choose to follow the new system. Then another. And another until critical mass is reached and there are more people using the more advanced system than the old. So you see that chaos might actually be a good thing for not only you, but everyone.

Karmic Chaos

But you may ask “how can we call chaos into our lives? And why would we?” Well, I’m certainly not advocating forcing chaos into your life by doing something dangerous such as jumping off a cliff, but rather begin to listen to the natural ebb and flow of life. Chaos is partially karmic, as it is a consequence that mirrors the amount of energy that you have put into your life. You are actually asking for the injection of new energy because you have used up all your energy in the system and now you are getting an equivalent amount of energy back to work with. Its kind of like pushing the pendulum. When you push it away from you, you get the fruits of the upswing, but slowly it reaches the top and eventually stops moving. So we need more energy to bring into the system to continue the growth and that comes back to us in the form of chaos. It is this energy from the back swing that you get to work with to evolve the system.

With each swing you get stronger and so you can push the pendulum farther. This in turn creates a greater experience and use of the energy in your life. A bigger swing also brings back more chaos into your life. You, however, are now stronger, wiser and more able to handle the introduction of greater chaos into your life. Some people resist and deny the chaos in their lives while others embrace it. There is a great saying, “Small life, small problems. Big life, big problems.” But know this: You can only bring into your life as much chaos as you are able to handle and never more. This is a very important point. This is because you can always handle the force of the return swing because you created the first amount of energy. Therefore the only time chaos can overwhelm you is if you feed into the old way of thinking and tell yourself that chaos is a bad thing due to one of the three points earlier. This will limit your ability to work with the new energy, to evolve the system and create a more amazing life.

So you can see that chaos is intrinsic to creating anything in our lives. Progress requires chaos. We must not be afraid of chaos, but understand it as a natural part of the growth process in life. When you feel the all too familiar feeling of change in the air, that something is happening that is out of your control, trust ultimately that you can handle it. You don’t need comfort and security all the time if you know things will turn out for the best. When you can trust in life and the process of it, you will be able to control the chaos. You can KNOW this because you called for chaos to come into your life. Instead of shying away from the small problems and living a small life, embrace the big problems when they come so that you can live the biggest life you can dream of.

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The Dynamic Systems of Extropy (The Extropist Series – Part II)

October 1, 2013 The Extropist Leave a comment

When we want to make a change in our lives, we know as extropists that we must create a system of structured energy in order to move into an experience that better serves us. This energy injection has many different names. In science it is called “work”. It is this work that we give to a situation that helps raise the integrity of the situation by overcoming conflict and creating resolve.

This work however requires a balance of energy within the system dynamics otherwise there can be a system failure because the system is being under or overwhelmed by the amount of energy inserted into it. Every part of our lives, whether it be relationships, career, health, or anything else, is impacted by system dynamics. However, it requires an awareness of the kinds of systems that you are working with rather than assuming that all systems operate under the same specifications. Do not assume, but get in tune.

It is important to go through how the systems in our lives can become imbalanced and what that can lead to. This allows us to be aware of each dynamic in order that you can then understand where you may need to tweak the energy in order to bring it back into balance.

Sometimes you can overwork the system by putting too much work into it. This may apply to relationships when one person is giving too much to the system and therefore expecting something more than the other person can give back in return. Consider these two people are two elements giving energy to create the “relationship” system. With an imbalance of energy, this could cause person A (the input) to blow a fuse from taking more energy that it can handle or cause person B (the contributor) to burn out from working too hard and not getting enough energy/ output back to continue with or validate their work.

To further explain this, imagine that person (B) likes person (A) a lot and this person (A) is hesitant to get too involved. They are limiting the flow of energy, whether it’s because they have restricted the flow of energy they allow into their experience from person (B) or because they have been hurt previously and they have a damaged emotional structure to process the attention and energy being given to them. This person (A) receiving the energy will be hesitant to take the energy, thus limit the flow and will only give back the energy they are willing to receive.

Otherwise, if person A, takes on more energy that they can handle it can also damage the system as they are taking in more energy than they are able to handle. This will cause person (A)’s fuse to blow and they may either derail in the relationship or elsewhere in their system (career, health) depending on how the composition of the overall structural integrity of their psyche is and where their weak points may be.

Additionally, the force of energy from person B could be so great that it begins to back up and cause A to not be able to take in any of the energy offered to them at all. This could frustrate and be very hurtful to person B, because B is trying to create a greater system by forcing energy into the new structure. Without reciprocation from person A, person B is doing a lot of work and not getting a reciprocal output. As B’s energy begins to deplete, due to the failure of the work to get the desired result, this may create feelings that invalidate person B as they are not able to maintain the system and again results in a system collapse.

These types of energy dynamics exist in any system whether it’s your work or your physical body. You can be overworked and become burnt out or you can try to give too much and destroy the connections that you have built by giving too much to the system. It is important to constantly evaluate the system be aware and give and take in order to work with what the system can handle. Often people create an ideal of what they think the system is and try to force the system into that place rather than allow the system to grow into that place. Be aware of what and who you are working with. Remain conscious and try not to force your beliefs and ideals on people through the energy and work that you give because this will cause your energy to be depleted and no work to get done. Change comes from the inside, and therefore we must allow people and ourselves the room to move and grow. Otherwise the system will collapse under the rigidity of the perceived ideal structure rather than allowing the actuality of the more fluid organic structures to work with what we hope to create. To create an ever better and evolved system.

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The Way of Extropy (The Extropist Series – Part I)

September 6, 2013 The Extropist Leave a comment

There is a road we all must walk. There is no denying it. We each step on it as we are born and we continue to be on it until the day we die. This road is the road of life and we can choose where it will take us or we can go along for the ride and let it take us there. That is up to us. Whether or not we end up where we wanted to or not comes down to choice. A choice of whether we are extropists or entropists.

Entropy comes from the second law of thermodynamics which states that all systems leak energy to spiral down to an inevitable state of chaos and disorder. This is the most common form of existence, as we find that more often than not the things we have created or try to create often end up in disrepair. Whether its relationships, our careers, physical and mental health, these are all systems that are ultimately overcome by the forces of entropy. An example of this may be we fall in love, we get married and then we begin to take our partner for granted. We have put in the amount of energy required to win their hearts and now things should just coast along. Right? Wrong. Entropy states that there will be a natural dissipation of energy that will ultimately cause the system of your relationship dynamic to begin to degrade, collapse and fall into chaos. So how can we stop this from happening? Extropy.

Extropy on the other hand is putting a stop to this energy leak caused from entropy by injecting more energy into the system than its losing which results in an evolved system dynamics of using this energy. Extropy may come in the form of a couple in a failing relationship putting the time and effort into build new communication channels which result in a clearer dialogue and a happier time between the couple. Or it may result in a person studying outside of their work in order to have a greater understanding of their job so that they can do their job better which results in a promotion. Extropy ultimately leads the actor towards a system of greater organized complexity, rather than greater disorder and chaos. Ordered complexity here might sound uncomfortable but what it is referring to is ever greater functionality offered to the system with the most effective and efficient use of energy. The system can constantly evolve. There is no limit.

The greatest from of energy that we can offer is love. Love comes in many different forms, shapes and colors. Two experiences of love to mention are gratitude and giving. They require the person to actively choose to involve themselves with good thoughts, good words and good deeds. Gratitude is the internal manifestation and experience of love and giving is the external manifestation and experience of love. These forms of love are a way in which to give energy to a entropic system in order to inspire change and elevate it to greater functionality and purpose.

Therefore we need to think about how and where we put our energy and use our time. When we operate unconsciously and automatically we give energy to our habits, which are behavior patterns we apply to try to use the least amount of energy. These autopilot holding patterns may keep us feeling like we are safe but very soon we will run out of fuel (energy) and will be forced to act very fast and put ourselves in very stressful situations. So take control of your destiny and use the free will that you have been granted in order to create the destination for your road rather than have it direct you to a failed destiny. Ensure that you strive to remain a conscious creator of your life in order that you are continuously giving more energy to a situation than letting what you have created leak entropically out into the Universe around. Instead, as an extropist you want to constantly address your life with love and ask how may you give to it in order that it may evolve into a space of ever-greater ordered complexity and profound purpose. Good luck on your Journey!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqZZvnb_B7w&w=420&h=315]

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Overcoming Obstacles – Strive to Surrender

July 9, 2013 The Extropist Leave a comment

We strive so hard to create something in this world that we can call our own, that we can be proud of. We come up with the idea, we go out and we work at it to make it happen. Sometimes we get there sometimes we don’t, but always we face one thing – A road that is filled with its ups, and most certainly, its downs. These downs are a trial by fire that has us look into the depths of ourselves. It questions whether we are deserving of this creation to become manifest and real or to fall into the lost shadows of things that could have been.

This decision is not made by a cosmological jury that rests high on some ideological mountain, nor is it a mythical being that weighs up all that you have done which validates your worthiness of birthing this creation. That which that decides is you. You are the person that needs to accept you. You are the person that needs to look deep into the person that you are and decide and define yourself as worthy of receiving.

So often when we attempt to create these dreams, obstacles come in our way, but why are they there? They are there to strengthen and stretch you. They are there to have you realize that you can do it. That you can say to yourself and the world… “Yes I can!” And that is the point of these troubles. That is the reason that YOU brought them into your life. You must grow into the bigger version of yourself in order to have the strength to handle the bigger version of your life. There is a great saying – “Small life, small problems. Big life, big problems.”

It is interesting to think that if you have asked for these things into your life, ultimately asking for these tests to present themselves, then what else can you ask for and how can you handle them? Do you fight against the fact that they have arrived? Do you try to wrestle them down to the earth and slay them like they are undeserving of existence? Maybe. Another way to handle these situations is with a word. A word that to many people seems like defeat but it’s a word based on faith and trust in the process. That word is… Surrender.

How, some may ask, can surrender result in a win? The answer is trust. When you try to create something, you set in motion a chain of events that results in your dream to be created. The chain of events are the never-ending and interconnected line of cause and effect that results in a continuous stream of action to occur, resulting in something momentous. The butterfly effect states that even from the smallest butterfly wing flap, a giant tsunami can form.

Our thoughts affect the world, not only through our action as an indirect consequence but also as a broadcasting station that reaches out past our bodies. The magnetic field from our heart has been recorded several feet from outside our bodies. Such thoughts and feelings affect the surrounding world and can result in a cascade of events that results in your test, your impasse, in which you struggle to get through.

It is however your resistance and fight that makes this transition a struggle. The same that if you try to stretch and move a tensed muscle, it is not very fluid, movable or mobile. However, when we surrender to the stretch, when we breathe into the experience, accepting it, we allow for movement and change. It is this trust that we have when we stretch and surrender to the movement and hurt, we will grow from it and ultimately be better and bigger by putting ourselves through the experience.

The same exists in our experience of life. We are stretching our consciousness. We are making ourselves bigger, because we asked for it. Because of what we are trying to create in the world, like with growing pains, as we grow we must surrender to the inevitable result of letting go of the past versions of ourselves and accepting the new bigger and better. Allow yourself to be your best, trust in the process and you will find yourself earning your rites of passage.

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Find Harmony in Discord with “Thanks”

June 6, 2013 The Extropist Leave a comment

We all have something in our life that irks us. Something that drives us mad, where we think if only this was not there, or this could be changed somehow. But no matter what we do it always stays the same. There is a solution and it is so simple. It will sound weird at first and it will be difficult, but it’s the simplest things that are often the most difficult. The best way to create a harmony when you find yourself in a discord with life, is to practice gratitude.

The process is simple. Everyday find something about that which upsets you and give thanks for 10 things about your discord. Everyday give thanks for the great things in your life. Write down 10 great things about your problem that you could be grateful for. When you write down the things you appreciate about a person you direct your attention to focus on those things to help make those things a reality. This occurs because you will act towards those things with a compassion and a genuine kindness. Even when they mistreat you, you will find a resilience and be able to see through those more difficult moments and see the beauty in them because that is where you have trained your focus. We each have a sinner and a saint on our shoulder. No-one is perfect. But by giving energy to our saint we are more likely to see the saint on somebody else’s shoulder.

We each live and look from the world from the one perspective, that perspective is from the place in which we stand. Each of us believe that our own view is the ultimate ‘Truth’, but we know from science that even the very fabric of the Universe is subjective. So do you really think that your view is the only right view when the space that we exist in is literally colored by our own thoughts. Realize this and use gratitude to look past your infinitesimal perspective of the Universe and instead open yourself up to the perspective of life through the simple act of saying “Thanks”. By allowing yourself to give thanks to someone you are opening yourself up to their perspective and thereby increasing your own ability to perceive the world more fully to have a richer experience of life. Just Say “Thanks!”

Now this isn’t the end of the practice. One you have written your 10 things about your discord. You will then write another 10 things about how you see your life working for you. Write it in detail. It can be the smallest thing, such as, I’m for the nice chat I have with my parents today or it can be I’m so grateful for the job promotion I get today. This is the same concept that works for gratitude of the past but it sets up a picture for you to focus on and work towards it. Remember where your attention goes reality grows. That means that with the positivity of gratitude, you will have more energy to work towards these outcomes that you are excited about and grateful for because you have already realized the joy that it will bring you. It’s kind of like knowing that your numbers are going to come up at the lottery. You will continue to give time and money to buying tickets because you know that you will eventually win. By continuously giving to your dream, in thought, word and deed, you will undoubtedly create that reality as your very own.

PRACTICE SUMMARY:
Think of that event, person or thing that you want to change in your life and instead give thanks for 10 things about it.
Then give thanks about 10 things that are going to change in your relationship to it.
Note: When you do this properly you will feel a surge of joy take over your body. You may feel like want to cry from happiness or you may feel tingles all over your body. This is more probable if you do more gratitude in a session. And remember it’s really important to believe!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04Lick3RIwU&w=560&h=315]
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As you can see here from Dr. Charney you can restructure your brain to more easily be able to handle stressful and depressing situations circumstances. Gratitude is one of those techniques and it ties directly in with mindfulness or being aware of your thoughts and restructuring them to better serve you.

Hope it helps

ELEVATE

Don’t try and change what exists. Instead create a new space for your dreams.

December 12, 2012 The Extropist 2 Comments

Each and every one of us has the option to live as an Extropist, someone who steps powerfully towards chaos and transforms the energy into a usable form. The Extropist often is working towards creating their purpose, as purpose is one of the greatest motivators that we can use to materialize our dreams. However, many of us have spent much time chasing dreams only to find that they constantly slip through our fingers. Why is it that our goals can be so slippery, and what can we do to help our chances in realizing these elusive manifestations in our life?

One thing that may help you along your path is the fact that everything that you see has already happened. That sounds a bit confusing, so let me further explain. The time it takes for light to bounce off an object to reach our eye and then be processed by our brain is milliseconds past the actual occurrence of the event itself.

This is important to note because what it means is that you will always be one step behind the event you are trying to change. This is why it can be so difficult to catch a rabbit with your hands, because the goal you are trying to reach has already moved. Therefore, don’t try to change what already exists. Instead create new conditions to move into.

The hunter knows not to chase after the rabbit but instead to create the right conditions in which the rabbit will come straight into his grasp. This is the same for catching your dreams. Know what things you need to do to have your dream come to you. If you are attracting a partner, don’t chase them around instead create the person that you need to be in which the partner will come to you. What type of person do you need to be to attract your dream partner into your life? If it’s a job, if you simply turn up to job interviews, chasing any open position, the job will already be gone by the time you arrive instead, what are the things you need to do to be an employ at your perfect job? What do the other employees of this job do? What is the company passionate about and how can your actions better create an inspiration of similar interests?

We can create changes in our lives to use our energy efficiently and effectively so that we can harness the chaos that surrounds us and use it to our advantage. This is further emphasized by the famous physicist Niels Bohr, who said, “Nature abhors a vacuum”. He meant that if there is a condition in the Universe where nothing exists, the Universe will work with great urgency to fill this space. This works all the way from quantum states and the zero-point field to more classical Newtonian states such as diffusion. What this means to our story, is that by setting up the right conditions, the Universe will actually push our dreams towards us in ways that not only seem improbable but actually impossible. But this is how some of the most amazing and magical loves have been ignited and baby businesses have boomed. It is all by setting up the right conditions within oneself and the entity than trying to chase down an elusive goal.

When you know what your dream is, instead of spending the time running around chasing it, spend some needed time to understand what conditions you need in yourself and the situation in which you can allow the dreams to come to you. Start with a piece of paper and write down exactly what your life will be like when you are living your dream. Then try and action as many of those conditions as possible so that you are beginning to create a space for your dreams that needs to be filled. In this way, Life will turn on its axis in the most unusual ways to have you realize your dreams in order that it will fill the space that you have created.

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Become a Creator and Thrive through the Hard Times

August 6, 2012 The Extropist Leave a comment

When someone speaks ill of you or about something you associate yourself with, they are taking from you. When someone takes something from you, like you dignity or feeling of self-worth, then you want to take back. Often we do this by finding ourselves in an argument or agreeing with them and feeling bad about ourselves. There are two ways in which to work under these conditions in which to grow the most from them. The first is to unidentify from who you think you are and instead realize that you are who you are at that moment. It then hurts because people are creating a split in what you think your reality is versus what they think what reality is and so because of that dissonance we fight to diminish their projected reality in order that we can hold our own as real. We can therefore give no credence to their words or we cannot be attached to our own.

While this can be effective in knowing about our fight for a stable reality, there is another way however that can be more effective and more easily understood and actioned. For this to work we first must consider the age-old law of the Newtonian Universe – every action has an opposite and equal reaction. In other words, by giving you shall receive. This means in these difficult situations in which people are taking from you, you can ensure within yourself that you are not taking but giving through an understanding that they know not what they are creating for themselves. These people will undoubtedly be taken from to balance out the Newtonian equation. It is not for you to be that person to try to rebalance it, but trust that in these actions, there are always consequences in order to rebalance the Universe. Therefore, you don’t always have to be the person that conveys the lesson in what they are doing wrong but show them through your positive way of being how the situation can be. They will experiences the consequences of their destructive behaviour and if you are the person who tries to show it to them it means that you may only be creating an even greater moment of destruction in your own life.

There is always an energy equation in everything that takes place in the Universe and thus will always need to be balanced. When a person expels negative energy out into the Universe this will undoubtedly be rebalanced by the person receiving this energy back. Therefore this provides an amazing opportunity for you to practice compassion Learn more in: Compassion is a Tool to Rule your Heart (http://bit.ly/N0XH6k). In compassion comes an immeasurable act of giving that will unequivocally give back to you ten fold if you can give back to a person that is trying to take from you. When you can transform a negative situation into a positive one, you become a creator. A creator is part of what it means to be an Extropist, a person that changes the spin of the chaotic cycle to one of harmony and greater sophistication. As a creator you work to lift the total energy of this world toward a positive balance. As history progresses we have become ever more complex, sophisticated and conscientious to the point where we will naturally turn the tides from a world that is framed with negative events to one that is ever more connected and harmonious.

So I offer that through these difficult times you find compassion for these types of people who know not what they are doing and find a sense of love for whom they are and the journey they have been on. When you watch a film about a person’s transformation from a bad to a good person, you always see that the hero has been through hell along their journey and so too will the person that is making you feel bad. They are typically fighting a very hard battle with themselves and it just so happens that they are releasing their negativity on you, the obliging person in front of them. So hold strong to the beautiful and powerful person that you are, and understand the consequences of their actions. Instead you can give openly to a person taking and that you can become a creator, who simply in this one act of compassion has helped change the world into a better place.

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Realizing how small you are in the Universe leaves you feeling BIG

July 30, 2012 The Extropist 3 Comments

In looking at the way of the world and how it works, we can consider a time gone by when the world was heavily influenced by God. God helped explain our actions and drove our choices. We needed God to help explain the mystery of life AND death. We needed God to explain why the world worked the way that it did, and we needed God to help us work out where we were headed as a world.

You see, we used religion and God to help explain the framework of how life operated, so that we could have a sense of control and a feeling of safety in this chaotic world. This, however, lead to some interesting and questionable choices by religion in order to protect the stability of its framework. Religion declared war on those around them that spoke of a different framework of life and thus, provided alternative arguments that may endanger the stability found in the current framework of life. Time and time again we read of people doing unthinkable and amoral actions in order to protect the mental framework that affords them so much security about the way life works.

As the world gained in its wealth of cumulative knowledge through the Gospel of Science, people found more concrete and reliable answers about the framework of life that appeared to supersede even God. Slowly but surely, as information became the ever-greater currency, God was no longer needed to help keep our reality concrete. With each passing generation humanity moved further and further away from looking to God and the dogma of religion for answers about how to be in this world.

Whilst people have found a great freedom in Science that allows them to let go of some of the antiquated rituals of the past, unfortunately many of those rituals included guides not only about the way things worked but about how people worked. Without many of these ideas from religion, we were never taught about life being so much bigger than who we are, about not taking things so personally, or about the fact that dreams are possible simply by will. Without the values of religion we were never taught about sanctities of friendship, about mutual respect, about living with appreciation and wonder. Without religion we were thrown into a world of chaos and isolation that left us no sense of continuity of life and death and life with other life.

When we left the education of our values to sensationalized and pop media, no wonder we are left to see children with guns and drugs, people with the full gamut of unseen and unknown mental illness as well as the shameless exploitation of the world we live in. When we did away with religion, we through the baby out with bath water and left no moral grounding for our highest values to grow from. In the modern world we may have gained a stronger framework for reality but lost the framework for being human.

Whilst the role of religion degraded and money pervaded, there had been a simultaneous new framework that grew out of the decline of the old religious dogma. The hippy movement, while too extreme for the times, began to trial ideas of high values taken from many of the great religions from around the globe. They synthesized these ideas into a place that required no regiment to control with, no positions of power to be abused and no codes to punish with. A sense of personal responsibility was incited and personal freedom was highlighted.

Unfortunately when you give a child matches when they have not properly learnt how to handle the responsibility of the power in their hands they will inevitably get burnt. However, slowly over time, the populous matures with more and more people learning about their own personal responsibility, their symbiotic connection to the world around them and the gift and majesty that life is. This new framework is one without dogma, a more free-flowing construct that embraces the highest ideals of who we are and who we can be for each other and the world. This new framework, we can call “Spirituality”. We can be religious and not spiritual, we can be both and we can be spiritual without religion.
I offer you these following elements as a place to begin opening yourself to your spirituality:

Everyday for the next two weeks, start your day by giving thanks for ten things in your life and end your day by giving thanks for the best thing that happened to you that day. This begins to open you up to the wonder of your life that you are so lucky to experience.

Meditate for ten minutes, by sitting comfortably, closing your eyes and focus on your in and out breath. When you lose your mind to turmoil, catch your thoughts and bring your mind back to your breath. By meditating, we create a space separate from the world, where we can see that there is a peace within us. We create a buffer from the chaos and randomness of life, and with patience learn to let it blow over us like a storm. We teach ourselves to slow down and simplify our lives, that all we need to feel good is to breathe.

Finally, walk in a park, go on a hike or walk in nature. Really pay attention to all that you are a part of. Notice that this is one moment, in one place, on a world that is filled with unimaginable amounts of such beauty and moments in a Universe that is infinitely larger than what we could even try to understand. Truly think about how big that actually is, and you can see within all of this exists that you are one moment in the mix of many. Whilst that may be overwhelming at first I offer that you can simply be glad to know that you have been given the opportunity to collaborate and contribute to the workings of the Universe, and know that you have the ability to leave this place better than when you found it simply by smiling at your neighbor, helping out a stranger, and hugging someone who you love.

ELEVATE

Your Expectations Color and Create Your Reality

July 16, 2012 The Extropist Leave a comment

If our experiences have asked us to look at the world as a sad and dangerous place, full of hate and malice, would we not perpetuate that and thus invite more of this chaos into our lives? It makes sense that it would. We so often learn by example. And then this would become the natural and automatic flow of your life. Action – Reaction. Thus chaos begets chaos and we head down the ever slippery slope towards an entropic resolve in which our lives cease to function in harmony.

This seems like the way that life actually operates, and more often than not it is. But thankfully there is also another process of life that exists that allows us to nullify the first. If you add more energy into the system, the system being the natural order of your life, you can actually change the downward direction of it and have it begin to swing in your favor. Instead of the natural and innate downward cycle that exists in life and the Universe, we can redeem ourselves and begin to build up again along the spiral staircase of self by giving more energy to that which serves and inspires us and makes us feel good about our lives.

This new perspective asks that the introduction of energy needed, that results in positive growth, requires you to focus on the good in the system of your life. By giving positive energy and believing in the best in people and those things surrounding you, you may actually create a different perspective and invite a different experience into your life. Actively give thanks for your surroundings and visualize the beautiful world that you want to experience and you will prep your day and life to notice those opportunities and subtleties that will make your dreams come true. In a single scene in your life you will see many things but you will miss many more. Just in that one scene more things than you will register in your entire life is occurring right in front of you but you will only focus on the things that you are expecting to see. Our minds do this so that we can actually give a good amount of cognitive energy to those things important to us otherwise we would be completely debilitated by the infinite stream of information that bombards our brains. Therefore, it is so important to prime your mind because what you expect to see your mind will already be looking for in your life’s scenes.

This has been shown time and time again that our mood and our expectations have us see our preconceived notions and typically miss out on many obvious things that are right there in front of our face. The truth of the matter still holds that we create our own reality, which is a blessing and a curse, because if you have always believed life to be bad, and therefore your next experience to be bad, then your brain is naturally looking to see those things that prove that it is bad. Instead, if you focus on the things that are beautiful and joyful that you are grateful for, your mind will naturally look to see those things and that is your blessing. Your expectations create your reality, however you have the option to change and recreate your reality simply by changing your feelings and thoughts about your life. Hence your experience of life will follow the expectations you set your mind to see. Please watch this video as a demonstration.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY&w=560&h=315]

The trick to this is not that you should ‘believe it when you see it’, but instead focus on the fact that you will ‘see it when you believe it’. The change in perspective comes from an active role taken to change, and not from the sitting around waiting for it to be shown to you. You have to go out and make the change. You have to be the change. You are a Human Being, not a Human Waiting. We must be active in our change otherwise we will fall down the natural slippery slope to chaos and despair.

So go out and smile with the world and the people around you. Think about all the wonderful things that surround you in life and you will set your expectations to see them. You will be happier and more joyful, when you see that you are surrounded by the things that make you grateful for your life. Even in the darkest moments if you focus on things that make you happy, your mind will more likely be able to see the brighter side of these typically unforgiving situations. Be vulnerable and know that you may get a bump or two, because if you are willing to learn, you will realize that these bumps are teaching you how to walk without hurting yourself. Then much more often than not the world will smile back at you and you will realize that there is a whole bounty of things and people waiting to show you that your life is a beautiful place indeed.

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