Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

August 16th, 2023

At the most fundamental level we exist in one entangled universe. The work of physicists like David Bohm describes one holistic interconnected universe at the quantum level, where all particles are interconnected — part of one single, undivided whole. In this sense there is no separation between you and me, in fact our existence depends on each other and everything in the universe.

If that is so, why do we feel so separated, isolated and divided?

The simple answer is that we have an experience of an independent self. I am me, in here, in my head, that’s me. Or as Rene Descartes said, cogito sum ergo (I think therefore I am). As I am the one having these thoughts and no one else can hear my thoughts or have the exact same thoughts I am having, then my thoughts indicate that I am a separate person. It’s both intuitive and rational.

Then when I look out into the world there are things that are desirable, ice cream, and things that are not, stinging nettles. It makes sense that I should move towards the desirable things and away from the undesirable things. If I look further out these things extend to things that will keep me safe and alive and those things that make me unsafe and vulnerable to death. One of the most dangerous things out there is other people. They can hurt me emotionally, my feelings and physically, my body. I should get very good at sorting people into the kind that are safe and the kind who are not safe. If I can stay with the safe people then I will live long and have good things. If I fall into the hands of the dangerous people then all of the good things will be taken from me and I will not survive.

From this perspective, modern tribalism makes sense. Each group has their own language and symbols so that they can identify each other. They also have other groups that they are opposed to, that do not hold their values and in most cases are a threat to those values. The tribe then takes on a collective self an “I” and works to increase internal social cohesion and fight, sometimes literally, to win against their enemies in the world.

We see countless examples of this in our modern political landscape. The attacks on the Woke or the MAGA and the evil things those groups are out to do, are perfectly understandable from within this worldview. As is the use of misinformation to further demonize one another. Politics is a very powerful tool when tribal survival equates with personal survival. Here political messages boil down to, if you don’t do as I tell you then the bad people will come and take all of the good things from you, they will kill you, your family and your friends.

Pulling the veil back on this should make you pause for a moment and question, Is this happening to me in my life, in my head? Without exception, everyone of us is hooked by some story or message out in the world. Often it is about a specific issue we care deeply about. I personally have a bunch of them: LGBTQ+ rights, racism, wealth, education and health care inequality, and the big one — the climate crisis. When I read a story that threatens one of these issues, I get upset, stressed and worried.

In those moments I use a very simple and powerful tool. I ask myself to switch my focus from what I am against to what I am for.

When I ask, what am I for this topic, it flips an internal switch from fighting to creating. What am I going to create or do about this thing that is important to me. The focus switches to something that I have agency in and with it comes hope for a better future.

Thus the answer to the question: Why do we feel so separated, isolated and divided? Is our concept of self. I am a separate self that fundamentally seeks pleasure and avoids pain on the personal and the tribal level. I think therefore I am. The paradox to the answer of identity being the cause of our separation is that I do think separate thoughts and I am. It is self-evident — that this is the way it is. It is then impossible to change.

Except that before Descartes’ cogito sum ergo, we did not have the idea that reality should be organized around the self. In Europe before Descartes published his Meditations on First Philosophy in 1641, life was organized around the church. God was the source of reality. When a 17th century person was asked why something was in the world, the most likely answer was, because God created it that way.

You can immediately distinguish the difference in world view before and after Descartes. Clearly the reorientation around the self being the source of verifiable reality did not instantly change the Christian worldview. In fact it’s not until 1882 that this transition was declared by Friedrich Nietzsche, who says in his work, The Gay Science, that God is Dead. What he means by this is that God is no longer the guiding force in society.

In The Madman, a parable in The Gay Science, Nietzsche tells the story of a madman who rushes into the marketplace, declaring that God is dead, but finds that the people there do not understand or care about his proclamation. The madman’s cry, and the public’s indifference to it, reflects the enormity of the cultural shift that was occurring.

This demonstrates that our way of conceiving the self and the world is not fixed.

Historically there have been many world view shifts. Strangely enough many of these world views continue to exist alongside more modern ones. Fundamentalism is a great example. There are those on the planet who still follow Hammurabi’s Code, notable for the phrase, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. Hammurabi was the sixth king of the First Babylonian Dynasty, reigned from approximately 1792 BCE to 1750 BCE. The code is considered to be a historic breakthrough for jurisprudence as it codified 282 laws, with scaled punishments, thus ending the subjective nature of punishments in law. It was a breakthrough 3773 years ago. Now, while historically important, it is considered harsh and somewhat barbaric. Yet still, there are fundamentalist societies which operate with this world view.

Thus one way out of our separation, isolation and divisiveness, is to change our world view. Fortunately there is a historical worldview that can help us, that of the Eastern philosophical traditions of Vedantic Hinduism and Buddhism. Before we dive in, I want to be clear that I am not advocating for us to adopt these religions or ancient cultures as our own. That would be as much folly as practicing Hammurabi’s Code, rather we are going look at the underlying philosophical distinction of duality and the concept of self and consciousness to see if we can gain some perspective on our current conditions.

One note on dualism. In the western philosophical tradition we have cartesian dualism again from Descartes which declares that the body is physical and the consciousness is non-physical (non-material). The non-material mind is something that is unique to each individual. This introduces the mind-body problem: How can this non-material thing, the mind, interact with the physical body? I’ll come back to this later to contrast this to the Buddhist conception of the mind.

The other form of dualism is the self and other dualism, an eastern philosophical worldview. Here it is seen as ignorance that there is a separation between self and other. While there can be an experience of self and other, it is an illusion — not real. Now at last we can connect quantum physics with a philosophical world view. We will do that cautiously, making sure to not equate one to the other. Bohm’s declaration that the universe is one entangled, undivided whole, notes that this goes against the initiative experience of the world which has many separate objects. This he says is an illusion.

The universe is one holistic entanglement including all apparent objects and all non-objects — everything that is and everything that isn’t. This means that there is no boundary between universe and non-universe, as anything that exists is entangled, everything that has existed is entangled and everything that will exist is entangled.

Heady stuff, take a moment to consider that — existence without bounds.

Let’s turn our attention to what life would look like if we lived with this unified world view. First let’s clear up one of the problems with Descartes’ the idea that thinking is proof of existence. The conceit here is that my thoughts are unique and that they are mine. Really? The study of semiotics and memetics as well as linguistics and history tells us that we think the thoughts that are thinkable given our culture, language and past experiences. All thoughts exist in what Jung called the collective unconsciousness, which in this time might be better called the collective mind(s), or collective worldview(s). As Werner Erhard said, “Are you having thoughts or are your thoughts having you.”

If my thoughts aren’t mine then what is? Surely my consciousness is mine. If that was so then we should be able to find the center of your consciousness in your brain. Christof Koch bet philosopher David Chalmers 25 years ago that we would find the neurological center of consciousness by now. Koch lost that bet. If it is not part of the brain then where is it? Now we are back to the mind-body problem of Descartes.

Buddhism has a very interesting solution to this problem. It holds that consciousness is one of the fundamental qualities of existence, of the universe. Thus consciousness is self-existing. It does not require us to exist. Our thoughts, from the darkest to the most loving, are all expressions of this self-existing consciousness. My thoughts come from the same place as your thoughts. Thinking, therefore, does not separate us from one another. All we are left holding onto is this idea that I am separate. This idea is what we refer to when we say your ego. I’ll say that again, the ego is an idea. It was proposed as a part of the structure of the mind by Sigmund Freud in the 1920’s. Like Descartes’ mind, an individual consciousness, the ego is an explanatory principle, not a material thing.

Now we have something we can work with:

My sense of separate self is an idea called the ego.

My ego is part of the way the world appears to me, my world view.

The best current description of reality is that we are all a part of a universal whole.

This leads to the question:

What does life look like if I am not separate?

If I am not separate, then the things that are pleasurable to me are pleasurable to others. We all want to be happy and free to live our best lives. The things that are not pleasurable to me are not pleasurable to others. If I hurt someone else it is exactly the same as me being hurt by them. It is not good for either of us. Our collective views and opinions stem from worldviews. Thus when there is a fight about “what is right” and “who is a threat” it’s the worldviews that are fighting and not me. Now there are worldviews that are harmful to our collective existence, for example the view that it is okay to go to war to expand territory, is a worldview to assign to the territory of history.

What is left once we stop being subjects and combatants for world views? A bunch of people who are fundamentally the same. Want the same things. Are afraid of the same things. We have children that we hope and dream for. We live our best lives as best we can.

Our being is entangled, as is everything in the universe — interbeing is reality.

We InterAre and I am so happy that we are in life together.

With great love.

In the meantime, we’ll be looking for PROOF of a thriving future for humanity.

The Generative Futurist
Editor PROOF

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Proof 60 – Quantum mechanics tells us we are all one, what if it’s true?

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

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Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

August 9th, 2023

A self induced near death experience without the threat of death.

I am hovering above my body lying on the side of the road. I look to the sky and see the most amazing blue color that I have ever experienced. It is so blue I can smell it and taste it. It penetrates to the core of my being, washing away everything that I ever was. I float upwards and begin to see a spot of brightness in the blue field. Light breaks through brightness as I float upwards. Soon I am engulfed in whiteness. Peacefulness. Then I hear a thought, “You are not yet done with this life.” And just like that I am back in my body starting up at the Earthly sky.

We have all heard stories of personal transformation that start off with a near death experience. Many people who have experienced near death experiences no longer fear death. They have a knowing that the death experience is nothing to be frightened of. This changes their appreciation of their life and their appreciation of friends, family, food, walks in nature, art and even mundane experiences in life. Everything becomes precious. The next thing that happens is they change their lives, often striking out in new and before unprecedented directions. Many become spiritual or religious feeling a connection with something greater than themselves in the universe.

As a child I was very fascinated by these stories. I wondered what lies beyond the white light? And why were these experiences so similar? Today I understand the phenomenon in a very different way. Whereas when I was a child I wanted to know what happened after death, as an adult I wondered how we might have the transformative effects of a near death experience without having to come near to death. In my early twenties I set out to discover how to how to do this.

I sought out experiences that brought one to or near to ego death: psychedelics, sweat lodges, fasting, meditating etc. Various psychedelics came close. LSD at high doses obliterated my inner voice, leaving me to walk amongst the clouds. I was transformed into a spiritual being. Yet when I came down off the substance I was still the same me — maybe more experienced but still me. I keenly felt that psychedelics could only approximate the experience I was seeking.

In 1995 and 1996 I worked on a video game project with Timothy Leary. At the time Tim had inoperable cancer. We knew that the game project would be released after he had passed. In the game Tim inhabited the bardo, the post death state, as a guide in the game. He thought it was fascinating to be able to talk to people from beyond the grave while digitally they traveled a landscape beyond the grave.

Tim argued that the ego death from LSD was a true ego death. And that although the ego came back, was resurrected, when the drug left the system, we still practiced the ultimate letting go of our death to come. He was very vocal about his excitement to get to know what happened after death. I hear that he was that way right up to the last moments of his life. If I could go beyond the veil, I might have a chance to ask him how it was on his last ego death journey. (Note, the game never came out, Phillips New Media shut its doors before we were able to complete the project).

From psychedelics my journey took two paths, study of ancient wisdom traditions and meditation. The history of religion is filled with stories of gods and men who return from the dead. In the 24th and 23rd century BCE (4700–4800 years ago) a story appeared in the Pyramid Texts in Egypt about Osiris’s rebirth. These texts are the oldest known religious texts in the world. In the story Osiris, who was the son of the sky goddess and earth god. He was the ruler of Egypt with his wife Isis at his side he ruled with justice bringing civilisation to the people of Egypt.

His brother Seth was jealous and tricked Osiris into lying in a coffee which Seth sealed and threw into the Nile. Isis found his lifeless body and hid it in the reeds by the shore while she went to get to help. Seth discovered the body and chopped it into fourteen pieces, scattering them across Egypt. Again Isis searched for her husband assembling all of the pieces and bringing him back to life. Together they conceived a son Horus, before Osiris was compelled to go to the underworld where he became the king. Life, death, resurrection, and again death, this is the near death experience played out on a divine stage.

This story of death and rebirth then becomes central to many ancient and modern religions. Dionysus, Ishtar, Baal, Tammuz, Krishna, Adonis, Baldr, Quetzalcoatl and Jesus Christ, all journey beyond the veil to return for some time to the land of the living. All of these stories share some common elements:

There is a journey through a dark place.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

There is an encounter with the divine

There is life after death.

And finally there is transformation.

The transformation in these religious stories has the reborn being gaining new insights, ability or taking on new roles in the cosmic order.

These steps are more or less the same for a near death experience, which begs the question if these stories are remnants from the near death experiences of individual people of these times or are they in some way a part of the collective unconscious of humanity.

The Tibetans seem to say that these stories and experiences faithfully recreate the post death state. If you recall, Timothy Leary in my game was speaking from the Bardo, the Tibentan name for the post-death state inhabited for the first 49 days after death. This is much like the underworld of the Egyptians. And like the Egyptians it has a very detailed description of the post death experience, The Tibetan Book of the Dead. After death, we first experience the consciousness separating from the body. Then we begin to have visions of peaceful and wrathful deities. If the deceased can recognize these as projections of the mind and practice, they can become free of their attachments and desires and ultimately from the cycle of death and rebirth. Finally if the deceased does not find liberation they enter the last state of the Bardo when they begin to be attracted to potential parents and thus they take a new birth starting the cycle again.

It’s worth noting that Richard Alpert, Ralf Metzner, and Timothy Leary’s 1964 book The Psychedelic Experience, a guide book for psychedelic journeys is patterned on the Tibetan book of the Dead, aiming at helping people experience ego death and rebirth.

The Tibetain Buhhdists teach us to meditate so that we can in this life separate out our mental projections from the self-existing consciousness that we have within. If we can do that in life, we will be practiced enough to do that in death when it is most easy to become liberated.

It is here that I have to stop the story of this journey. If you have made it this far, I am going to tell you the quickest way to have the profoundly transcendent effects of a near death experience without any threat to your life.

Separate your mental projections from your self-existing consciousness.

If you know how to do that and have practiced it for a lifetime we’re done here. For the rest of us we will have to continue along the journey to find our own kind of transcendence. To do this let’s break the process of a self induced near death experience without the threat of death into a few key concepts and steps.

1. Self existing consciousness or awareness is the source of all of your thoughts and being. It is the unobscured root. It is not a separate thing from who you are. And it does not rely on you for existence. It is self-existing, universal and fundamental. See my story on this idea in What Is Real? The Authentic Ontological Essence of Being.
2. A near death experience somehow switches off the constant flow of mental projections, thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and the named emotions which are different from the energy of the emotions.
3. This state is awe and wonder inspiring.
4. When you return from this state you are born anew. You can create anything you want for your life and your future.

There are two levers that we can pull to induce this kind of experience. One is meditation practice. The closer we are to a moment by moment experience of our natural state, self-existing consciousness, the easier it is to pop free of the obscured mind.

The second lever is pressure. As I discussed in Is Change Really Hard?, from time to time we experience crucible events where we are either transformed, as in a near death experience or in some cases we are broken.

A crucible is a place of great pressure.

How could we induce a crucible experience you are asking. Have you ever run a marathon? Or skied down a mountain at a high rate of speed? How about climbing a cliff face that is at the edge of your ability? Im thinking of Free Solo and Alex Honnold. Maybe you’ve negotiated a very challenging agreement where the focus of the work was otherworldly. These are all experiences that bring with them great pressure and thus great focus and performance.

The final ingredient to your self induced transcendence experience is motive or inspiration. If we are to practice enough to have the ability to experience pure consciousness. And if we are willing to put ourselves a the position or situation of great pressure. Then there has to be a reason that is powerful enough to propel you forward.

And here is the lesson I learned from this whole journey of discovery:

Where you are going, the transformation you seek, the future you wish to transcend the now for, that is what we have been longing for all along.

We wish to be free. We wish for someone or something to come along and change things. A so we wait for that to happen. If something like a near death experience or a crucible experience breaks us open, we are no longer capable of waiting for change to come. Rather we stand up and make the changes we always wanted and we move forward with our life renewed.

If you can imagine where you are going. If you can imagine the transformation you want. Get up right now and start walking in that direction. You don’t need a near death experience to get there.

You are an emanation of self-existing consciousness.

You are love.

You are compassion.

You are infinite and free.

In the meantime, we’ll be looking for PROOF of a thriving future for humanity.

The Generative Futurist
Editor PROOF

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Proof 59 – Near-Death Transformation: Unleashing the Journey to Coming Alive

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

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PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

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Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.org

The post Near-Death Transformation: Unleashing the Journey to Coming Alive appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

August 7th, 2023

What is your essence? What is our human essence? This is one of the fundamental questions that we can ask ourselves, one that has tormented philosophers and theologians throughout history. While there is no definitive answer, seeking one is still important. In this age many of us are resigned to a meaningless life, as it has been impressed upon us that there is no intrinsic meaning to life. Douglas Adams made this into the cornerstone joke of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, where Deep Thought, an incredibly intelligent super AI the size of a planet, spent 7.5 million years calculating the answer (to life, the universe and everything) which turned out as 42.

Nihilism is the philosophical perspective that holds that life has no intrinsic meaning. Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, is most often associated with nihilism although he actually warned against it rather than promoting it. It’s now some kind of dividing line in popular culture with traditionalists holding that there is a higher purpose fighting those who cynically point out how messed up and devoid of purpose our society seems to be. The cynics can at least laugh about their plight as they have their answer — 42.

The biggest problem with cynicism is that it most often comes with its low rent twin, resignation. Things suck and there’s nothing I can do about it. I might as well binge eight seasons of House for the third time. Combining resignation with nihilism, you get something along the lines of, nothing matters, so of course I can’t do anything about it.

Let’s do something about it by picking the intellectual lock of nihilism.

The lock pick we need is one simple word, intrinsic, inherent and fundamental. In this case life has no inherent and fundamental meaning. In plain speech, life doesn’t come with a built in meaning. From a creative point of view this is a point of celebration. If there is no inherent meaning to life then I am free to create all of the meaning that I want for myself in this life. This has a certain power to it. And it fits with the individualistic perspective of the west. I am me and I have the power to give things meaning in life.

While I wouldn’t argue against that, it comes with a whole world of context. First any meaning we give to life, likely comes from some already existing idea of what life means. We are then giving meaning to life amongst a selection of meanings. These meanings come in a few distinct flavors, traditional religious meanings, capitalist meanings, liberal democratic meanings, scientific meanings, conscious meanings, working class meanings, American meanings, European meanings, African meanings etc. Just like our genetic lineage we all come with a built in meaning lineage.

Beyond there being a background of already existing meanings for life, there is still something unsatisfying about meaning being so dependent on worldview.

I ache for meaning that transcends nihilism.

Looking back down my own lineage to India and Buddhism to Sunyata, emptiness. Here we find that all forms lack inerrant existence, reminiscent of nihilism’s lack of meaning, yet in emptiness there is a quality that is the awakened mind or buddha nature. More on that in a moment. Lacking inerrant existence is not the same as lacking meaning. That a form is empty of independent existence does not deny existence. This renders the idea of independent meaning moot. If there is any meaning at all, it must be meaning for everything at times.

If at this point your brain is a bit tied up in knots, its understandable. Let’s lay out the cruxes in the inquiry like this.

There is no inherent meaning in the universe.There is no inherent existence of forms (things including you or I).This means simultaneously that there is no reality and no lack of reality.In this emptiness there is a quality of the awakened mind.

In the Mahayana Buddhist conceptualization of realty, the awakened mind is the source of your consciousness, of your thoughts. This leads to a possibility that while there is no meaning to the universe, nor any independent existence, there is a quality of consciousness — the awakened mind. I have to stop here and note that this consciousness is not the small ego consciousness that Decartes spoke about in his cogito sum ergo, I think therefore I am. Rather there is no “I” in this equation — no independent existence. Side note, Descartes really dropped the ball when he was skeptical of everything but his own independent “I”.

The end of this line of reasoning is a universe that is indeed strange. It exists not in parts, nor in a separate whole. It has no meaning, no outcome or result indicated. And it has a quality of consciousness.

There it is, emptiness transcends nihilism. Ok philosopher, what do I do with that?

The answer is everything. We now have a thread to pull upon to create a new narrative of the universe. Let me lay that out for you by going back to the beginning or at least our conception of the beginning. 13.8 billion years ago, give or take a billion, existence as we know it started. It takes about 10 billion years for life to show up in our corner of the universe, Earth. Then most of the rest of the history of the universe to produce sentient beings, or roughly 2.5 million years ago.

Then about 165 years ago Darwin helped us become aware of evolution, and by extension our own evolution. As my friend Barbara Marx Hubbard would say with a sparkle in her eyes, “We are the first generation who are aware of our own evolution, that are aware that we are affecting our own evolution.”

This is a scintillating idea, evolution waking up to become aware of its own evolution.

Yet in light of Sunyata, empty of intrinsic existence it doesn’t really add up. You see something existing in time different from what existed before would have independent existence. If it exists now and did not exist before then it would have independent existence. There is a way out of this game of existential twister. There is no independent existence in time. No before and no after that exists independently. Now this one should be easy to get. If I never existed before then I cannot exist now. If I am not going to exist in the future, in any form including a corpse, then I cannot exist now.

Bravo if you are still with me because we have reached the end of this inquiry, all that is left to do is unwrap what we have uncovered.

All that exists is all that exists now and throughout all time. All that exists, exists without independence. Anything at all time is interdependent on every other thing at all time — they are all one without being one separate from anything that exists or does not exist. This is a continuity throughout all spacetime. And this continuous everything has the quality of the awakened mind.

Evolution does not have to become aware of evolution as it has always been and will always be. Consciousness did not appear in the universe as a force of evolution. It is the context of evolution from the first flaring forth to the last whisper of the aging universe.

While there is no intrinsic meaning to the universe, there is also no lack of meaning.

While there is no intrinsic existence in the universe, there is no lack of existence.

The context for all of this is the awakened mind, consciousness itself, with no beginning and no end. Bodhi Svaha, so it blessedly is.

In the meantime, we’ll be looking for PROOF of a thriving future for humanity.

The Generative Futurist
Editor PROOF

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Proof 58 – Discovering what is real, true and profoundly meaningful

Can Artificial Intelligence Make Us More Human? – Deepak Chopra

The whole thrust of the field of artificial intelligence (AI) is to make machines interact with us more like humans. In practical terms this involves building a computer or robotic device that can take over a human task and do it just as well or better. But how often do we ask the opposite question:…

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May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

• Facebook
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PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.org

The post Discovering what is real, true and profoundly meaningful appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

July 25th, 2023

A path winds its way out of the forest, through the hills and up to a high mountain vista overlooking a broad valley. As you approach the overlook, the scene is something out of a post-apocalyptic movie, the heat out of the shade of the trees is dangerously oppressive. You sense that you should get out of the direct sun as soon, but are compelled to the edge of the overlook. The valley below is filled with dense acrid smoke. Fire dances in spots across to the next ridgeline. On any other day, this outlook would draw hikers to take in the beautiful view. You are alone contemplating the disturbing sight below. After a few minutes you are forced to seek shelter in the shade. You turn and walk away, head hanging from the weight of the view..

Post apocalyptic future or Summer 2023?

Five major heat domes set record breaking high temperatures around the world — Iran airport hit 66.7C — 152F. Calling this the Inferno Summer might sound impressive if next summer wasn’t likely to be even hotter, and the summer after, and the summer after. The so-called “climate alarmists” can likewise now be renamed the “climate realists”.

I am a writer who brings you the good news about humanity’s future, week after week. Good news is good for people. Still, ignoring the new climate reality is just plain stupid. We are the frog in the water — getting hotter and hotter. There is a serious question whether or not we will climb out of the pot or boil ourselves alive.

We are standing on a precipice, and now is the time for extraordinary action.

This article is for those of you who say, “What can I do?” I’m about to pull the rug on your excuse. Let me run it down for you.

We have to reduce our carbon emissions. Beef and petroleum industries 35% of global carbon emissions (2021 data). Beef accounts for 35% of methane emissions which are even more potent greenhouse gasses than carbon dioxide.

The oil and gas industry made $4 Trillion USD in profit while consumers paid the highest home heating costs in history. Beef, while not nearly as profitable, did a trillion dollars of business.

We have made it wildly profitable to burn the world down.

Here’s where you come in. There are three things you can do to slow the climate crisis:

1. Reduce your consumption of petroleum. No matter how little you personally consume, you should seek to use less. Work from home. Move within walking, cycling or public transport distance from the places you normally drive.
2. Reduce your consumption of beef. Imagine that beef was priced to include its negative impacts on the environment and health. It would cost a few hundred dollars/euros a pound. That would make a Quarter-pounder cost $50. If beef were that price, you might still enjoy it a few times a year.
3. Pressure governments locally and globally to tax carbon producing industries heavily. We can’t do without petroleum entirely. And unless we nationalize the petroleum industries globally (yes I realize that sounds radical), it can be reasonably profitable.
4. Join in the creation of a new way of living sustainably on the planet.

That’s four steps.

The key to solving the crisis: Hold yourself accountable. Hold your friends and family accountable. Hold business accountable. And hold your governments accountable.

And do it now. The climate crisis is no longer a problem we will face in the future. It’s time for change.

Sorry for not being very entertaining today. I don’t want to waste too much of your time. There are things to be done and my deepest hope is that you do everything you can get out of the water before it boils.

In the meantime, we’ll be looking for PROOF of a thriving future for humanity.

The Generative Futurist
Editor PROOF

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Proof 57 – Transforming Tomorrow: Harness Your Potential to Ignite Lasting Change!

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

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PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.org

The post Transforming Tomorrow: Harness Your Potential to Ignite Lasting Change! appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

July 18th, 2023

Everyone gets stuck in life from time to time, and unfortunately in certain areas in life we are stuck almost all of the time. Maybe it’s fitness, or relationships or our jobs, or family. There are things that we just can’t seem to change — no matter how bad it is.

Neuroscience shines a light on why this is so:

We are habit forming beings. Our brains become more and more efficient at doing things automatically. This can make it very difficult to change because wanting change, or imagining change isn’t enough to overcome our habits. We actually have to practice change long enough to form a new habit, something that takes willpower and resilience.

Our brains prefer homeostasis, a predictable state. This is how we can do the same things over and over again without noticing time passing by. This is supported by our brain chemistry. Doing the predictable thing at the right time releases dopamine, the reward neurotransmitter, even if that thing is harmful like drug abuse. Conversely, change can be perceived as a threat in the brain provoking a fight, flight, freeze or appease response.

Our brains prioritize survival, avoiding new potentially dangerous behaviours. When change is perceived as a threat, our amygdala triggers a stress response making us resist change if it includes the unknown.

Change can also cause cognitive dissonance when our concept of self is called into question by new behaviours. We identify ourselves with the things we do over and over. Who are we if we suddenly start acting differently? For many people the discomfort of holding who they were with who they are becoming is too much and they retreat back to the familiar.

But still we know we can change. We have all changed things in our lives. And some of us have created extraordinary changes in our lives and in the lives of others. What is it that makes the difference between those who try but fail to change and those who reach escape velocity and seem to have some secret to have escaped those of us who are tethered to the Earth?

Many stories of radical change start with a near death experience. We often hear something like, “I was in a terrible auto accident and when I was in surgery I felt life going out of me. Then there was this question, am I finished here. I knew that I still had things I was meant to do with my life and I came back.” Then the story goes that after that the things that held them back from change were no longer a challenge. The moment that their life was a choice, everything changed.

These aren’t the only kinds of intense experiences that cause a radical shift in the way we see life and see ourselves. Warren Bennis PhD, who led the Marshall School of Business for many years, called these crucible experiences. A crucible is a container that can withstand very high temperatures and is used for melting, among other things, metal. In the context of leadership and personal development, a crucible refers to a transformative experience through which an individual comes to a new or an altered sense of the world and of identity. These experiences, often marked by hardship or some form of adversity, challenge and test a person’s mettle, but ultimately make them stronger and more resilient.

From the brain perspective this makes complete sense. If the brain resists change under normal circumstances to hold on to a comfortable, habitual state, then an event where that state no longer can be counted upon for survival, the brain suddenly wakes up and embraces anything that appears to insure survival. We’ve all experienced a nothing-left-to-lose burst of courage or inspiration.

If you are in the midst of a crucible event, or just recovering from a near death experience then the obvious thing to do is make all of the changes that you have wanted to make now. Go for it with no reservations.

If you are like the other 99.9% of people wanting to make change in a day to day normal life, I don’t usually recommend inducing a crucible or near death experience. I do recommend shaking things up by taking a year out to travel the world at some point in your life. But even this is impractical most of the time.

Where then do we look for a superpower for change?

The answer hides in plain sight in the near death and crucible stories, “a new or an altered sense of the world and of identity”. If we could somehow induce this alteration in the way we see the world and see ourselves then we stand a chance to gain this superpower.

For most of us the world is a fixed thing. It is some way. These people from here are this way and the ones from over there are another way. And we see ourselves as fixed things as well. I am like this and not like that. I like tea over coffee and I take mine strong with honey and milk. I’m an early riser. I’m allergic to exercise. I train daily to run marathons. This fundamental mindset has everything in the world being static and fixed. This is a perfect match for a brain that prefers homeostasis.

The idea that the world is fixed — that we are fixed — is just plain wrong.

Aristotle was definitive about this in his concept of time. Arguing with Zeno who said that at any given instant there was no change apparent, Aristotle argued that in time there was only change — instants connected together by a series of changes. Change, he argued, was the only constant in reality. At about the same time in India the Buddha taught that all of conditioned existence, without exception, is transient, evanescent, inconstant, or impermanent. There is no such thing as fixed or permanent in the universe.

Accepting change as a constant — no matter how uncomfortable that is — better aligns our world view with reality. If this is so, then the only sane thing to do is embrace change.

Next we can ask: If everything is changing, including myself, then what am I changing into?

Some change is physical, we consume food, release waste and who we are changes from day to day. That change continues from our first to our last breath in such a gradual manner that most of us hardly notice aging until illness or infirmity strike. Mental change is likewise constantly changing, one thought after another like a cricket and even though we may think the same thought over and over, that thought is always conditioned by the current circumstances. Emotions also come and go in an endless carousel.

All of this change, while constant, is still not the kind of change we are looking for. We want to be able to get up and exercise every day or overcome our fear of intimacy or start a new venture. We want extraordinary change.

To get there we are going to need an extraordinary tool, our imagination.

The imagination is the brain’s way to overcome our mental homeostasis. By imagining possible futures, we can try out different scenarios in a risk free environment. This helps us (and our brains) rehearse for change, making it easier to break free of habitual patterns.

Imagination also plays a key role in neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to create new connections and reorganize old ones. The brain does not need real experiences to grow and adapt. An imagined experience functions the same as reality when it comes to neuroplasticity.

Imagination can also help us with our stress response. We can imagine positive outcomes of change thus switching off the brain’s trigger for a survival level threat. This imagining of a positive future changes us now, not in the future, allowing us to reach for that future in a relaxed and confident mental space.

Finally, if we imagine ourselves in the future being different than today, and we can see ourselves being connected to who we are becoming, our brain includes this future self into our sense of a consistent self. And if who we are becoming is a part of who we are then we no longer feel cognitive dissonance.

If you want extraordinary change for yourself or for your community, your company, or even the whole world, start with imagining that future. Imagine what it would be like to have made the change in your past. How do things look? How do you feel? What are you doing in the future? Who is there with you?

Then with a vividly imagined future in hand, we can look back from the future and see the steps that we made, backcasting each milestone that we accomplished to reach our goal. If you can do this, imagine the future and generate the steps it takes to get there, then you can take that first step.

Taking the first step puts you on the path to your new future. And that is how we can gift ourselves the superpower of change.

Change, impermanence, becoming and evolution are our human birthrights.

It’s time to become a radical change agent.

In the meantime, we’ll be looking for PROOF of a thriving future for humanity.

The Generative Futurist
Editor PROOF

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Proof 56 – Change is our Superpower

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube

PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.org

The post Change is our Superpower appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

July 11th, 2023

We all know about the accelerating pace of change that we are going through. There are those who argue that this change has an exponential curve, that the rate of change is actually doubling in every unit of time. Logically that’s not accurate or provable but it’s a way for us to picture the fact that change is happening more and more quickly. One way this is happening is that fundamental changes in our world are multiplying, a breakthrough in materials science changes computing, a breakthrough in neuroscience leads to new approaches in mental health.

In no small way is PROOF a product of this era of rapid growth and change. We are out to help you understand how all of this change affects your life and more importantly our future together. Our particular concern is generating a positive future, a desirable and thriving future for humanity. My intention is that PROOF emails expose you to the positive future being generated, and how your contribution can help shape it into the kind of future we desire for ourselves and the world. By immersing ourselves in these innovations, you gain a clearer vision of the future and recognize the various ways you can actively participate in making it a reality.

Right now you may be thinking, what can I do about something as big as the future of the world? The answer is everything. Innovations in science, tech, art, education, media, communications, meditation, business, economics, physics, etc. come from the collective consciousness of any one of these areas. The history of simultaneous inventions is full of examples of two or more people inventing the same thing at the same time. For example:

Calculus — Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

Telephone — Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray applied for a patent on the same day in 1876.

Radio — Nikola Tesla, Guglielmo Marconi. Television — Philo Farnsworth and Vladimir Zworykin independently inventing the first electronic television.

Thermometer — Galileo Galilei and Santorio Santorio.

Light Bulb — Sir Hiram Maxim, Sir Joseph Swan, and Thomas Edison all developed versions of incandescent light bulbs around the same time.

Photography — Louis Daguerre and William Fox Talbot

You may wonder why? The explanation lies in one of humanity’s greatest superpowers, synthesis. Given an information rich environment we put two and two together and create something new, some new understanding or approach that both relies on the already present information and builds something completely new out of it.

The above inventions are all things that made a positive impact on the future of humanity. There are other terrible inventions that have had a devastating impact on humanity including:

The Atomic Bomb — During World War II, both the Allies and the Axis powers were working on developing nuclear weapons. The Allies’ Manhattan Project, however, succeeded first in 1945. The Soviet Union, working independently, developed their own atomic bomb by 1949.

Chemical Weapons — Germany, France, and Britain all began developing and using chemical warfare agents like chlorine and mustard gas around the same time.

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) — The United States and the Soviet Union were both working on ICBMs during the Cold War.

Biological Weapons — United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the Soviet Union.

Automatic Firearms — Maxim gun, Browning Automatic Rifle, and various models of machine guns.

History would argue that these inventions, just like the ones I mentioned earlier, were created in response to the collective conditions of their time. Yet the impact of these perfected killing technologies in terms of lives lost and their ability to harm life at scale, makes them things that we wish we had never invented.

Now back to you, and me and what we have to do with these kinds of inventions. As I talked about in You are what you attend to who we are is directly related to what we think about and give our attention to. This works on both the individual and the collective level. We are collectively what we attend to, as I am what I attend to.This has lead to some really bizarre inventions like Tik-Tok a place where people try and condense video based content into a very tiny container to atomize attention. It was hilarious watching my wife trying to follow a recipe for a tahini beet dressing from a 60 second video clip.

If you think about it for a moment, Tik Tok is a natural evolution of social media. And it has a direction towards more and more sensational, more and more shorter clips. It changes both the way we process information and the way that we create information. We are what we create. Or you might consider that we create our future selves by the things we fill our days with today. This is our contribution to evolution and many satirists have poked fun at the future of humanity where we are confined to floating chairs with a steady stream of meaningless content plugged into our brains.

Seriously, we are in charge of our own destiny as a species.

If we want a future that is desirable. If we want to evolve to be more ethical, loving and kind, we can do so. All that is required is that a sufficient number of us focus our attention, time and work on the steps that lead us there, while at the same time governing and prohibiting technologies and businesses that cause damage to people and the earth.

You can learn about the ideas that have us head us towards a thriving future in PROOF. You can consciously take ownership of your attention and focus on the things that elevate life, that inspire you towards positive action in the world.

My hope for you is that you discover your gifts, that you orientate yourself towards your purpose, and that you make a contribution to the world you want to live in.

If we all do this, then imagine all of the great things that will come about from our collective consciousness.

In the meantime, we’ll be looking for PROOF of a thriving future for humanity.

The Generative Futurist
Editor PROOF

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Proof 55 – Conscious Innovation Unleashed

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube

PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.org

The post Conscious Innovation Unleashed appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

July 4th, 2023

We are in the midst of a self discovery revolution driven by the confluence of precision definitions for neurodiversity, gender, sexual preference, race, genetic ancestry and epigenetic triggers with the keen awareness that seems to be ubiquitous for Gen Z. They have been bravely adopting new ways to self identify and bringing us all along for the ride — although there are more than a few who are going kicking and screaming.

Here at PROOF we believe in the dictum, “Know Thyself” that is carved above the entrance to the Apollo temple in Delphi. Know thyself as an absolute, as in: What I am made of? What am I like in different situations? And what can I be in the future? In this day and age that includes our bodies, our brains and our mental and emotional states. Even if that is confusing to you dear reader, it is a good thing that we know. From knowing comes growth and eventually evolution.

In terms of neurodivergence this dawning has been growing over the past 40 years. We have learned about the numerous types of dyslexia; phonological, visual, rapid automatic naming, double deficit, auditory processing disorder, and my brand — dysgraphia. Yes I am dyslexic, I can’t spell and can’t tell if words are missing in phrases.

When I was young we were “hyperactive” if we couldn’t pay attention (there is so much wrong with that phrase). Then in high school we moved up to ADD. And then eventually today’s ADHD. The spectrum of ADHD includes, inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive and combined — and ways that our brain process that have nothing to do with attention or hyperactivity, time blindness, hyperfocus, special interests and fixations. It turns out that although I remain undiagnosed that I am not inattentive, and am no longer hyperactive-impulsive. Looking back, it would have been so much easier on me, my teachers and my parents, especially in parent teacher conferences if everyone had had these distinctions.

Over the past 10 years we have seen a parallel deepening of the understanding of autism. The old Rain-Man stereotype of autism is a crude and unfair depiction of the uniqueness of each autistic brain. There are few models that help us understand the spectrum from Autism Spectrum Disorder. These models track between 5 and 12 areas. A simple one includes a measure of: executive function, sensory processing, repetitive behaviours, motor skills, perseverative thinking, social awareness, verbal & nonverbal communication and information processing.

The image doesn’t come with a guide to the experience of a divergent measure in any one of these areas. What is very important to know is that divergence in any one area means that normal everyday interactions are vastly more taxing on the ASD individual. Looking over these myself, I can clearly see areas where I am likely on the spectrum. In the coming months I am going to have a diagnostic evaluation done on ADHD and ASD to discover and learn more about how my brain functions. When I know more I’ll let you know.

At 57, you might wonder what good it would do to have this kind of diagnosis. Afterall I am a generative futurist, a highly successful entrepreneur, award winning film director and editor, a philosopher and a spiritual teacher — doesn’t that mean that even if I have these things it doesn’t matter. Ironically it may actually be that I have these things that I am successful the exact way that I am. Under the curtain of this success you will find that I didn’t do any of it conventionally. Without knowing exactly what we were doing, my wife and I built a life that works with neurodivergence. I always joked that it was a good thing I was an entrepreneur because I was basically unhirable by a corporation.

Ultimately I am doing the diagnosis so I can better know myself. And so my children can understand their genetic inheritance from my strange brain.

One thing is true about my life. I am fulfilled and happy with my life. I love the crazy directions it has turned and I am excited by my future. While this is affected by my neurodivergence, it is not the whole story. Our brains and our identity are not fixed. My ADHD symptoms started fading once I started meditation and martial arts. My social discomfort and awkwardness shifted when I started to see every social interaction as an opportunity to practice my purpose.

My purpose is to illuminate this human life, giving insights into our true nature, teaching people to freely give their gifts to bring about a thriving future for humanity.

My hyperfixation is now targeted at easing suffering and restoring joy to the center of people’s lives. I’ve put all of these divergent qualities, ones that have caused me pain in the past, to good use for good causes and that has made all of the difference. Yes I suffer just like everyone. I am confused from time to time, but the illumination of my own life and journey puts something wonderful in the center of any discomfort I may be asked to endure.

Getting really practical now, I want you to know how important it is to know yourself. To explore all of your parts and patterns. To understand the instrument that your brain and body are. To see your physical gifts and your limitations.

Then and only then can you truly begin to stretch your wings and learn to fly the self you inherited. You can optimize your life for your strengths and find work-arounds for things that don’t work so well. You can build a life for yourself that works. I know that it may seem hard at times but the edges do wear off and like the stone in the river you soften, round and polish.

Then once you have built a comfortable life you can consciously disrupt it and dare to create a new life for yourself. If you have great fortune, perseverance and heart you can begin to live life as a work of art, a dance in flow, a river rather than a stone. Your identity then softens and wears away like an old sweater, threadbare yet still loved. This I hope for you and I know you have it in you.

We are all different, gradations across many spectrums — no two alike.

We all suffer and have long dark nights of the soul.

There is also love, joy and being moved for no apparent reason.

When you walk through life, please know that for all your uniqueness, for all of your typical traits and your divergent traits, for all of your scars and your laurels, we are all human, worthy of love, compassion and all deserve a chance to have fulfillment and happiness in this life. This is a vision of what we can see when we come to know ourselves and come to know one another. Won’t you please imagine that with me.

And later today when you are feeling that you are not enough, wrap your own wings around yourself and say, “You belong. You are loved. You are love.” Or you see someone struggling, even if you don’t understand, why or what their experience in life is, please wrap your wings around them and say,

“You belong. You are loved. You are love.”

This one is dedicated to all my weird friends.

In the meantime, we’ll be looking for PROOF of a thriving future for humanity.

The Generative Futurist
Editor PROOF

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Proof 54 – The Incredible Kaleidoscopic Mind, Adventures in Neurodiversity

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube

PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.org

The post The Incredible Kaleidoscopic Mind, Adventures in Neurodiversity appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

June 27th, 2023

It’s late at night, past my bedtime and I am still up scrolling through the news. Next to me my wife Alex is watching food reels on Instagram, you know the ones that look so great but never get made by anyone anytime. The moments slip by and we slowly exchange a good night’s sleep for mental junk food. Smart phones were supposed to liberate us from our computers. Social media promised to connect us to old friends and family. We all know it didn’t work out that way. Rather we have invented and optimized an attention grabbing machine that gobbles up our time. But we all know that the Faustian bargain we signed was a bad deal.

Your attention is your most valuable possession.

We live our lives moment-by-moment. Each moment holds our entire existence. We have a past that is made up of your recollections, stories, and memories you can see in your mind, but you can’t touch them — they’re not real in this moment. The future is the same. You might have plans, expectations, visions and scheduled events, but none of that is real, in this moment. This moment is all we have and it is precious. The question is will we celebrate our moments or will we squander them away.

Imagine, if you will, a silver bowl of perfect pearls. These are the moments left in your life. Young or old there are a finite number of them. And every moment you take a pearl out of the bowl and do something with it. The bowl now has one less pearl as you take another one in your hand. Stop and contemplate the pearl in your hand. It is perfect, luminous, rare and so fragile it will be gone before the second hand can make its sweep of the clock. And now there is a new pearl to consider.

In this way your life is renewed, reborn every moment of your existence.

This might be a good time to stop reading this essay and go for a walk, tell someone you love them, or go smell the roses. If you journey forward with me a little further, I very much appreciate you investing your time in me and this conversation.

If you can get the immediacy of this one precious moment — the pearl that is your life, it’s easy to see why people would want to grab your attention and keep it for as many moments as they can. The combined market cap of Meta (Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram), Alphabet (Google and Youtube) and upcomer Tik Tok is nearly $3 trillion. That’s a 3 with 9 zeros. $3,000,000,000. That’s a lot of wealth being generated from your minutes.

So what do we do?

By now we all know that we should be “more present”, “be mindful”, “be here now”. But knowing this doesn’t magically make us more present or mindful. WHY NOT? It hardly seems fair. If we want to develop the ability to really savor our moments, we have to get to the bottom of this question.

First of all let’s face the facts, most of us are highly distracted. We spend large chunks of time down rabbit holes that leave us unable to explain “where the time has gone”. Worse yet we are like blackout drunks, unable to even recall exactly what we did last night. In the morning we might even say to ourselves, I’m not doing that again. But when the evening sets in our willpower is weak and we are back at whatever time wasting activity is calling us most loudly, binging a new series, infinite scrolling our social feeds, left/right swiping our desires or old school channel flipping (if you are old enough to have that time wasting pattern in your brain).

The reason why we do this is not very complicated. It goes like this: Life is not so easy. We get roughed up by the pressure of our jobs or school. We have challenging relationships with colleagues, lovers, friends and family. The background of our cultural life is filled with divisiveness and turmoil. Media pundits tell us that the sky is falling everyday. Civility is rare if you live in the states, traffic is ubiquitous. Even the weather cannot be counted upon any more due to climate change. It can seem like you are under assault all day everyday. It’s no wonder you want a break, or more accurately your brain want’s stimulation that distracts it from the onslaught. So we click that link when we should be working on a report. We leave our notices on and end up a million miles away in an instant.

From a psychological perspective these are coping mechanisms and they are not necessarily bad (addictions being the exception to this statement). They help us manage our emotional world. The problem is when we go from needing a coping mechanism a few times a month or a week, to needing a coping mechanism everyday and for some of us almost every minute of everyday.

Getting this illuminates why you can’t just be present. If you are triggered and a coping mechanism comes up, it’s unlikely, unless you practice, that you can say no to engaging in the coping mechanism.

Digging a little deeper we can see that the real lever here is stimulus that triggers us. If we can limit, slow down or disconnect from the onslaught, then we will begin to experience life when it is not an emergency. Then we can start doing things that are important to us rather than dealing with emergencies, including the urgent items we can handle and the urgent ones we practically have no say about like political drama.

It’s time for a digital/information detox.

The first step here is to find a way to limit your exposure to the drama machine that our media provides. This might include scheduled time away from your phone and computer every day. You might consider a media free vacation or staycation where you don’t touch a phone or a computer for a number of days. Or you could set aside a day that is device and media free.

Then, with nothing streaming in, it gets quiet in your brain. That alone might trigger you if there are underlying issues in your life like loneliness, depression or physical challenges. If you stay with it though, even those issues will begin to calm. After a number of days, hours for some of us, a kind of boredom will arise. This is when you can begin to focus on the things that bring joy to your life. I recommend reading, making a cup of tea or coffee and drinking it in silence — savoring the flavor, going on a long walk to nowhere for no reason, preparing a simple healthy meal, gardening, listening to some favorite music or simply being quiet for some time. These are all activities that have you be present with whatever is happening in the moment. This includes daydreaming, which can also be present in the moment. Make a list of these small quiet things that bring you joy, and calm your mind.

All of these activities are ones that foster mindfulness. You don’t have to have any special mediation practice, just the practice of doing the things that bring you simple joy.

If and when you are ready to take a step towards meditation, I recommend a simple breathing practice to my students. You can start with a box breath: Inhale fully for a slow count of four. Hold your breath in for a count of four. Slowly exhale for a count of four. Hold your breath out for a count of four. You can start with 5–10 breaths in the box and slowly extend that time to 10 minutes. I find that this breath pattern puts me into a deep reflective and relaxed state after only a few minutes of breathing. And if I am ever stressed or about to do something stressful, I take three box breaths as a grounding reset.

To live a life savoring our precious moments, we have to make space for us to be. This is swimming against the media current and is a challenge if you don’t have a habit of having media free time. Then the kind of media you put your attention on is important. You can seek out positive news like our PROOF magazine, or read curated news themes on Flipboard. If you feel the need to be social, phone calls with friends and family can be very sweet. Creating these new habits builds a mindful existence that leads to the presence of life that we have all been missing so much.

You can get started with this joyful project by scheduling a few hours of media/device free time today. It’s absolutely worth your time.

In the meantime, we’ll be looking for PROOF of a thriving future for humanity.

The Generative Futurist
Editor PROOF

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Proof 52 – The Key to Investing Your Attention Wisely

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube

PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.org

The post The Key to Investing Your Attention Wisely appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

June 1st, 2023

My journey down the Nile, into the heart the Egyptian soul.

I have just returned from leading and facilitating a life development and spiritual growth retreat in Egypt, visiting the pyramids of Giza and temples and tombs on the Nile between Luxor and Aswan where I had a startling insight about my work as a generative futurist.

Over the past eight years I have dedicated my life to the emerging movement to re-imagine, and re-create this world to be a place that works for everyone and everything. With my film WeRiseUP I documented how we can shift our global success models from consumption to contribution, from the me to the we. At Boldly YOU we have built courses and meditation programs to help people to discover their gifts and purpose and find ways to make a difference for their communities with big and small projects. I am honored to be a part of the impulse to build a better future for humanity and the planet.

Yet there has been one element of this work that has never felt right to me, which is that we have a tendency to want to fix the world and make a positive impact on issues that we care about.

The problem with fixing things is that our global systems are so complicated that fixing one thing can exacerbate a separate problem across the world. For example, using western style industrial agricultural production in Africa has produced an increase in crop yields providing increased food security for the hungry, yet it is causing great economic damage to the small farmer who could not afford the fertilize and till approach of big ag. A knock on effect was the loss of food diversity and nutrient content of the food produced.

Currently Germany is caught between two forces as they try to green their energy production. On one hand they want to transition away from petroleum based energy production towards sustainable energy. On the other, they are closing nuclear power plants across the country to protect the environment and safeguard against potential future nuclear meltdowns. As a result of these two competing solutions there is really nowhere to turn but to coal which accounts for 30% of their production. Coal is by far the dirtiest fossil fuel that they use to produce power. Two steps forward, five steps back.

We can’t apply linear solutions to complicated problems.

The second element of making the world a better place, is the notion of being or creating a positive impact on the world. At its root level, impact is a word that points to a collision between two objects. A car impacts a wall damaging both the car and the wall. A bomb creates an impact crater. Positive impact would be to use a collision which results in a better state or a better result. Again we are back to a linear approach to problem solving.

Complicated problems require complex solutions.

Complexity is found in nature. Living ecosystems are built of complex chains of symbiotic relationships, where the by-product of one species helps in some way the success of another species. Fixing the environment has often caused more damage than help. This has given rise to the rewilding approach of restoring the environment. Wilderness has its own intelligence. The question is how do we get the wilderness to return when it is wild by nature. The answer is to provide the conditions that allow for the regrowth of the wild.

Could we work to provide certain conditions for civilization that give rise to complex solutions?

The birth of ancient civilization took place in floodplains. The floodplains between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in Syria and Iraq, gave rise to Mesopotamia, “the land between the rivers.” The floodplains of the Indus River, in Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan, gave rise to the Harappan/Indus River Civilization. And the river with the world’s greatest delta, the Nile, produced the ancient Egyptian culture. The floods brought nutrient rich silt and sediment to the soil of the floodplain creating fertile soil for farming.

Human civilization was an emergent creation of the floodplain ecosystem.

Sometimes we forget that they are a part of the ecosystems that we live in. This forgetfulness leads to the simpleminded linear thinking that plagues our approach to making the world a better place.

The ancient Egyptians harbored no such foolishness over the course of their 4000 year time span. They celebrated and honored the fertility that the floods brought to the land. They worked both spiritually and physically to ensure that the floods would bring life and prosperity to the land and their people.

In 1902 modern civilization built the first of 14 dams on the Nile and brought about the end of the floodplain fertility. We conquered the wild unpredictability of the floods and achieved linearity. And lost biodiversity, like the blue lotus that previously had flourished on the Nile. We submerged ancient temples where the Egyptians had carved the blue lotus on the walls. And the Nubian people lost thousands of square kilometers of their homelands between Egypt and Sudan.

Walking through the ancient monuments that the Egyptians built and floating along the Nile, the story of fertility was deeply moving. We are beings that live by the cycles of day and night, flood and drought, life and death. Our place is not outside and above these cycles, like an all knowing deity, but rather inside the rhythm of life.

It’s time for us to set aside the notion that we are the masters of this planet and to return to the wild wisdom of the planet. From now on I am relinquishing my drive to make and impact. Rather I am going to dedicate my life into creating a fertile environment for complex life affirming growth to take the lead.

We can help to usher in a new age of fertility where everyone can contribute to the dance of leaving this planet more fertile for the next generation. And our descendants can do the same for their descendants, generation, after generation. We can gain wisdom on how to support the growth of complex systems solving complicated problems, but to do so we have to give up fixing, give up impact and ultimately give up on our entitlement as a species.

On our last day in Aswan we took a boat to the gate of the old Philae temple. Philae was a temple built for Isis the god of fertility. The temple had been flooded with the building of the Aswan Low Dam in 1906.

In 1971 the temple was moved 500 meters to higher ground and reconstructed block by block. The old gate was left to mark the spot where the temple had stood for 2300 years before the flood. I swam reverently through the gate and out into the open water thinking of the blue lotus that we went to visit earlier in the day.

Even though the temple had seen such dramatic changes, and although the blue lotus no longer grew wild on the Nile, I felt happy and hopeful for the future. I sensed Isis, the profound power of fertility, and I knew that the flood would come again, the cycle would be restored and civilization would be reborn on the banks of the Nile.

In the meantime, we’ll be looking for PROOF of a thriving future for humanity.

The Generative Futurist
Editor PROOF

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Proof 49 – Reimagining Making a Difference

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

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PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.org

The post Reimagining Making a Difference appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

May 15, 2023

“If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.”

Thus goes the famous Ram Dass quote.

It’s a funny — I so get it — statement. Who hasn’t been reduced to a squabbling teenager brought about by a trigger so old we had forgotten that it had ever existed? Unfortunately there is so much wrong with this statement, both for seeking illumination and for your family. If you are reading this, chances are you have thought about enlightenment or maybe even have journeyed down the path of enlightenment, regardless this quote gives us a chance to look deeply at enlightenment itself and look into what’s you, you.

What is enlightenment?

In the west enlightenment was used to describe the Age of Reason, in the 17th and 18th centuries. It marked a shift away from the authority of the church towards reason, investigation, critical thinking, empirical evidence, tolerance and personal responsibility. Emmanuel Kant first used the term in his paper, “What is Enlightenment?” Kant defined Enlightenment as “man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity” and advocated for the use of reason and rational thought to free people from ignorance and superstition.

In the Indian tradition of Vedanta Hinduism the term we translate to enlightenment is moksha, which represents the realization of the true nature of the self and its unity with Brahman (God)

In Buddhism the term is Nirvana, which also features the end the cycle of rebirth and an end of suffering, which is caused by attachment to our desires. The Buddhist finds the deep truth in that everything in the universe, including ourselves, is in a constant state of change and interdependence.

As there is always some confusion between the eastern and western usages of enlightenment, I prefer to speak about illumination as a state of greater understanding and awareness, where one becomes aware of their true nature, their values, and their place in the world.

Back to Ram Dass and what we can learn from his quote. The first part, “If you think you are enlightened…” is actually a teaching in and of itself. Let me break that down for you. If you -one who exists- are enlightened. In both Vedanta and Buddhist contexts you don’t really exist. In Vedanta, you are one with God. In the Buddhist context it is the belief that there is a separate self from the things outside of that is the root cause of our suffering and what keeps up from enlightenment. That leads me to remix the quote to be:

If you think you are enlightened, you are not. Or If you think you are enlightened, go back to your meditation cushion and try again.

That’s amusing and perhaps a little illuminating, but when we look at the second half of the quote we can really gain some insight into what it means to be a human being, and access to a way forward towards enlightenment. Ram Dass says, “…go spend a week with your family.” Let’s take this as a spiritual instruction and do as we asked, let’s go home and spend a week with our family. Doing so, the first thing we will likely notice is “the way that they are”, including everything that is endearing and everything that drives you crazy. The second thing that is bound to come for us is old ways of acting and feeling. Maybe your father was a bit critical and you are defensive or withdrawn. Maybe your mother was intrusive on your private space and you hold her at arm’s length. These patterns often feel weird, like you suddenly became a kid or a teenager again. Well that certainty does not feel enlightened.

Yet, the teaching is right there for us to witness. When we were children or teenagers there were certain patterns that were strongly present for us and for our parents. As we grow up, move away from our families and experience life new patterns emerge, ones that are often quite different from the patterns from our youth. We feel that we are different from who we once were, until we come home and the young patterns kick off again, for ourselves and our family, no matter what the dynamic is.

The key to unlocking the learning here is that we are made up of patterns, ever changing, yet interdependent. Our identity seems to be fixed — we are who we think we are. Yet at home we are suddenly who we once were. Perhaps you might be tempted to think that you are who you were and who you are at the same time. By extension that would mean that you are also who you will be. Extending that through all of the time of your life and there are tens of thousands of you — probably not a very good conception of self.

The answer right in front of you is that you are not who you were, and you are not who you think you are. What?

Try this on, at any moment you are a collection of patterns that arise in complex interdependent combinations.

This includes patterns that are more associated with times in the past than in times in the present. Recognizing this is the first step.

Once we can sense patterns arising in us we have what I call free won’t, which is like free will but comes after a pattern is triggered. Let’s say your father is critical of you while visiting home and your defensive pattern arises. With the pattern is a whole world of things to say back to him. You know the drill and you know what happens next on his end, and so on and so forth. Let’s say that you recognize the pattern and exercise free won’t and don’t follow the script. What then?

This past week my oldest friend came to stay for a week. And from time to time, patterns that I recognized from being 19 were triggered. My 19 year old patterns are insecure. It feels really weird to the patterns that I am at 56. My first reaction was discomfort and insecurity about my friendship, or about the security of that friendship. Now I am talking about my best man at my wedding, someone who has been there for me for nearly 40 years. The feelings were real and displaced in time. So I used a meditation technique I teach my students, a box breath where you inhale on a five count, hold your breath for a five count, exhale for a five count and hold empty for a five count. I did this silently, eyes open, at the dinner table, without anyone noticing (I think).

After a few cycles of the breathing the emotional intensity dropped leaving me face to face with the pattern. I looked back on my 19 year old self and felt deep compassion. The patterns of insecure attachment and abandonment were reinforced by some traumatic experiences. I sent those patterns to my love and care. Then I thought about my friend at 19 and all of the challenges he was going through. I felt deep compassion for him and sent out loving kindness to him. At that point I felt everything was whole. The pattern was still there but I was no longer the pattern. It was something I had but it did not have me. What was left was a space for me to have gratitude for the precious moments that he and I have together.

Following Ram Dass’s advice to “go spend a week with your family,” we have the possibility of illuminating old patterns and stepping clearly into a new appreciation for life. Spending time with these old patterns can help us loosen their effect on us and realize that the patterns are not fixed in place. We don’t even have to physically go home to do this world, we can simply meditate on our family and imagine the situations that trigger old patterns. Then, we can practice box breathing to calm our emotional reactions and create some space. We can also bring loving kindness to ourselves and our family.

However, if we uncover deep-seated trauma during this process, it is important to seek professional help to heal from the trauma. This work can be challenging to do on our own.

We are now ready to reinvent Ram Dass’ quote:

“If you think you are an unfixed, ever changing, independent set of patterns, go home and spend some time with your family releasing old patterns with loving kindness.”

It doesn’t have quite the catchiness of the old quote, but it is a step in the direction of enlightenment. And every step is a good one.

In the meantime, we’ll be looking for PROOF of a thriving future for humanity.

The Generative Futurist
Editor PROOF

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Proof 48 – New Frontiers Inside Out

PROOF in ACTION – A Seeker’s Guide to Going Home

How to turn a trip to see childhood friends and family can be a spiritual adventure.

In Thomas Wolfe’s novel, “You Can’t Go Home Again” we are introduced to George, a writer, who returns to his hometown to find that it has changed and he no longer fits in and no longer feels at home. George longs to reconnect with the past but finds that he too has changed. Such is the inevitability of personal change and spiritual growth. In the 1940’s George was an outlier, one of the few that ever left home.

Today most of us no longer grow up with the traditional sense of a place being home. Still we face challenges when we attempt to go home again. Some of these challenges are with memories not matching the current reality. Other challenges have more to do with the friends and family we go back and visit. Somehow we have changed but the relationships seem to be frozen in time. Our parents treat us like children and in return we act like children. If you are on a spiritual journey, this can be very confronting. How can we be evolving if a simple argument with mom, sends us into an epic temper tantrum or a victimized sulk?

The fact is that while we grow and evolve and perhaps even awaken to the true nature of ourselves and our ultimate nature, we still have all of the patterns that we are made up of inside our being. Yes this includes the sulky teenager. The first step to integrating this truth is accepting it. While we would like to be purified of all of our not so nice patterns of thinking, feeling and acting, a human life doesn’t work like that. Although we can take various measures to disentangle the conditions that give rise to these patterns in our lives, we can never completely free ourselves from them.. And nor would we want to be free of them, as almost every pattern also comes with a gift in the right circumstances. The hyper-vigilant protector pattern is useful in a dangerous situation. It is not useful in a situation where there is no danger. You get the point.

So how do we go home as a spiritual practice?

All of us “go home” with a different past and a different set of circumstances, so the first thing to do is recognize your past. I recommend doing this as a daily meditation for the week preceding your trip home (or as it may be your home/family coming to visit you). Sit in meditation and cast yourself back into the past. Journey past the standard set of memories, good and bad, to allow memories to arize of simple moments, ones that you may have forgotten before the meditation. Resist the temptation to explain what is happening or how it impacted you. Just observe. After the meditation, write down any new insights into your past. With each successive meditation allow yourself to go deeper in experiencing memories that are not normally present. Notice any feelings and acknowledge them.

If you have trauma in your past and/or encounter traumatic memories, it’s best to seek out the help of a professional that can help you to heal the trauma. If at any time in this meditation you don’t feel safe, please pull yourself out of the meditation and consider seeking help with the trauma that may be there.

Meditating on the past often reveals emotions and unresolved energies that operate at the subliminal levels of mind. These subliminal patterns with energy and emotion are in a ready state to be triggered in your journey home.

When you arrive at home the mix of feelings and energy will be high. The job of your inner contemplator is gently observing the patterns that arise. It is not to intervene and hold you back from the experience, this leads to the pitfall of spiritual bypass which is an instant off ramp to your growth and spiritual development.

When you recognize any past pattern that typically sends you down a path of acting and feeling that reminds you of how you behaved and responded to home in the past or not how you’ve generated yourself to be in the future, that is the moment to practice Free Won’t. Our patterns include feelings, thoughts and actions which arise together. The moment a pattern arises, you begin the associated pattern. Fortunately there is a gap in which you can interrupt the action.

To exercise your Free Won’t, start box breathing on a count of five; inhale, hold, exhale, hold. You can do this with your eyes open, staying present in the moment. It will take your concentration to keep the breathing cycle going. This interrupts the action of the pattern as it is impossible to take the action and keep up the breathing. Keep repeating the box until you can see the pattern as a pattern. With a little practice you can do this without anyone knowing that you are doing it.

At the point where you can see the pattern as a pattern, you can note it for further contemplation when you have a chance to be alone, or you can find a way to take a moment for yourself. A bathroom break is a great way to slip away for a short meditation.

The meditation practice to contemplate the triggered pattern, is to look inwards to see what the pattern is protecting. What is the feeling? What is the memory if there is one? What is the wound, big or small that is hurting? Take all of these things and send loving kindness to them, to your past self. Directly address the pattern and commit to a conscious way to insure that the hurt past self will be taken care of and protected.

Then turn your attention to the source of the trigger or the hurt. Look at the source with compassion, understanding that suffering causes suffering. While there is no justification for someone hurting another, there is suffering at the root of the hurtful action. If you can authentically do so, give loving kindness to the source of the hurt.

Finally ask your past hurt self, what it needs to feel safe. See your future self providing this to the hurt pattern. Acknowledge the pattern and the valuable service it brings to the collective you and let it know under which circumstances it is needed, and how you will take care of the circumstances that don’t rise to that level. For example if the pattern is to be suspicious and defensive, a circumstance where someone is harming you with their actions is a good time to be vigilant. A circumstance where you “read the signs” that someone might be capable of hurting you, is a better time for you to consciously address the situation rather than by a triggered pattern. You will need to explore this for yourself to discover what it takes to calm the triggered pattern.

This is what there is to do when old patterns come up when we go back home or when home comes to us. As you journey deeper into this you will begin to open up new spaces in your relationships with your family and friends.

While we can never go back home, and going home sometimes doesn’t bring out the best in us, we can consciously contemplate our past patterns and actively practice new patterns to have love, grace and ease when we are home.

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube

PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.org

The post New Frontiers Inside Out appeared first on PROOFZINE.