I'm literally blown away right now. My brain constructs holistic images that recursively and fractally reconstruct. I constantly repeat myself though the iterations of these pictures slightly and granularly tweak. My brain is on this spiral journey where I go back to the center but the center moves.
I described it as if my brain is walking around this moving center but I'm basically walking in this circular path, even though the center of the circle is moving.
Oh my god. I'm freaking out right now. I thought it was my Russian I used to know. My adoptive mother told me I think in some circularity with the center moving upwards and she thinks it comes from the Russian I used to speak.
I’m so glad you can have more clarity on what’s happening internally. And I totally get the spiral thing. It’s a spiral and a fractal, because every turn of the spiral is the next level complexity of the pattern, which is fractally organized, but the spiralling happens “in time” as I perceive it.
Chris, this resonates. Right from the start, with the complaint about just finding more boxes with more labels. But I'm with you -- I think asking people experiencing this what words they use is interesting. Mine is not far from your galaxy brain -- "constellation minds." :)
I also came to basically the same conclusion you did: if coherence-generators perceive the pattern of a shift earlier, we are the ones who do the most to create conditions for what wants to emerge from the breakdown.
I'm sure that's at least partially a story I'm telling myself to feel better, but then, that's basically what stories are for: orienting us in the chaos. And these weird pattern-matching genes *did* stick around in the gene pool. It seems nature has decided we have a job to play.
Thank you for this wonderful rich reflection. I love the name “constellation minds”! I remember reading that from some of your work and thinking like “wow that’s even more descriptive than mine” Why I keep coming back to coherence generator, is it orients what we “do” as a function, which implies the story. Even though the term coherence is not nearly as universal, and is sort of a tautology (you know it only if you know it)
And it’s interesting the knife edge that I walk daily between “is it really happening” and “is this just a story I’m telling myself to deal with reality?” And what resolves it at least temporarily is like what you said - thinking of story from a functional perspective. Even if it’s “just” a story, story is the substrate from which civilization emerges (one reason I love the book Sapiens). So, if enough of us can agree on some collective story that’s for the betterment of all beings, and we start acting as if it’s true, what’s the difference?
Really good post, Chris. "Are they crazy or am I crazy" is a refrain I'm hearing from your past as you were figuring things out/collecting experiential evidence. And of course it would make logical sense to lean towards yourself being crazy ("all these people can't be wrong."). What helped me was realizing that, in an insane world, the sane person is insane. Follow the money and everything makes sense, but you're told to ignore the money...by the people with the money.
Just like how the brain is the most important organ...but which organ is saying that?
Theres also something to collecting experiential evidence I mentioned. I think there is a combination of sheer age (volume of experience) and observation (the quality of experience). You can't stop aging, so you move in that direction no matter what. But the quality of your observation can change the quality of the evidence. You can find things that wouldn't be apparent at a glance. The complexity increases as you get closer.
You can have older people who still think and act like teenagers. You can have mature, precocious children. I think the former have a lot of experience, barely examined, from one angle ("How does this affect ME?"). The latter have less experience, but have made the experience multidimensional through careful observation from different angles, and consideration ("What is THEIR epistemology?").
I think some people have brain wiring that automatically aides in this careful observation; or at least grants more capacity. Another thing that can masquerade as careful observation is trauma responses. Hyper-vigilance. Self-observance as a protective mechanism ("what do I have to do to keep mom from getting upset? What triggers her; what are her patterns? My life depends on the answer").
Like if you saw a flashy martial arts master movie star ("cool!") then learned they were mercilessly, brutally beaten by their sensei their entire childhood ("Uhhh..."). Is it a gift? Would you want that same gift if you had to pay that price? Michael Jackson comes to mind.
But just like any tool, its not inherently a good or bad process. Its the person who wields it. Hyper-vigilance, though bourne of trauma, can still be a gift with the proper perspective. Whether someones brain just had a great capacity to do this, or if its a trauma response...does the origin matter (See: Life of Pi)? Maybe, maybe not. Its what you do with it. Your relationship to it.
Thanks for sharing Chris. Felt the similarities the moment I found you on here.
“Coherence” was the word that came to me earlier this year. That I was meant to create within myself, so that I could be a beacon of that for the collective. I didn’t have the “generator” language, but otherwise bang on!
There is some beauty in the tragedy that all of us coherence generators felt so alone/different/misunderstood for so long… and are now realizing that not only are we not alone, but we are exactly what the world needs in this moment and will steward this transition we’re in. (Poetic in a way we can totally appreciate.)
I thought your concluding paragraph summed it up beautifully:
Ben! Always good to hear from you. “Coherence” emerged in my consciousness maybe 2 years ago. But wayyyy before that was the word “Beacon” And I’m not sure it’s true for all of us - but definitely for both of us - it sounds like the work is about emanating a frequency over any specific action. And I think that makes sense, because part of the paradigm we’re moving away from is “fixing” things. Instead, for me it’s about recognizing wholeness, and then letting that ripple out. Even in the midst of so many things that seem to be needing to be fixed.
And yes it is poetic, in a way that lights my mythology loving brain on fire. I wonder if feeling isolated was kind of a necessary forging process, that I know for me allowed me to feel massive empathy. Probably would have been a pretty shit human if I succeeded too soon.
Couldn’t agree more! Moving away from “fixing” things was the gamechanging part of the shift for me. It liberated my consciousness and soul. I now see this as one of the biggest issues in the “make the world a better place” space. The way it came to me was that you can put your energy into Reforming or Rebuilding, and shifting to the latter opens up all possibilities — which you talk about at length.
Fun fact: I co-founded a donut company years ago called Beacon Doughnuts. The context was different but the word has clearly been in my consciousness for some time! Overall, love the language overlaps.
“We’re stewards of the coherence that’s alive right now. Our job isn’t to know what comes next. It’s to perceive what wants to be born in the present and organize around that - in the domains where we have leverage. To create conditions through our perception, our integration, our contribution.”
I'm literally blown away right now. My brain constructs holistic images that recursively and fractally reconstruct. I constantly repeat myself though the iterations of these pictures slightly and granularly tweak. My brain is on this spiral journey where I go back to the center but the center moves.
I described it as if my brain is walking around this moving center but I'm basically walking in this circular path, even though the center of the circle is moving.
Oh my god. I'm freaking out right now. I thought it was my Russian I used to know. My adoptive mother told me I think in some circularity with the center moving upwards and she thinks it comes from the Russian I used to speak.
I’m so glad you can have more clarity on what’s happening internally. And I totally get the spiral thing. It’s a spiral and a fractal, because every turn of the spiral is the next level complexity of the pattern, which is fractally organized, but the spiralling happens “in time” as I perceive it.
yes. As I upwardly move in this circular vector, more granulated imaginaries emerge.
Chris, this resonates. Right from the start, with the complaint about just finding more boxes with more labels. But I'm with you -- I think asking people experiencing this what words they use is interesting. Mine is not far from your galaxy brain -- "constellation minds." :)
I also came to basically the same conclusion you did: if coherence-generators perceive the pattern of a shift earlier, we are the ones who do the most to create conditions for what wants to emerge from the breakdown.
I'm sure that's at least partially a story I'm telling myself to feel better, but then, that's basically what stories are for: orienting us in the chaos. And these weird pattern-matching genes *did* stick around in the gene pool. It seems nature has decided we have a job to play.
Thank you for this wonderful rich reflection. I love the name “constellation minds”! I remember reading that from some of your work and thinking like “wow that’s even more descriptive than mine” Why I keep coming back to coherence generator, is it orients what we “do” as a function, which implies the story. Even though the term coherence is not nearly as universal, and is sort of a tautology (you know it only if you know it)
And it’s interesting the knife edge that I walk daily between “is it really happening” and “is this just a story I’m telling myself to deal with reality?” And what resolves it at least temporarily is like what you said - thinking of story from a functional perspective. Even if it’s “just” a story, story is the substrate from which civilization emerges (one reason I love the book Sapiens). So, if enough of us can agree on some collective story that’s for the betterment of all beings, and we start acting as if it’s true, what’s the difference?
Really good post, Chris. "Are they crazy or am I crazy" is a refrain I'm hearing from your past as you were figuring things out/collecting experiential evidence. And of course it would make logical sense to lean towards yourself being crazy ("all these people can't be wrong."). What helped me was realizing that, in an insane world, the sane person is insane. Follow the money and everything makes sense, but you're told to ignore the money...by the people with the money.
Just like how the brain is the most important organ...but which organ is saying that?
Theres also something to collecting experiential evidence I mentioned. I think there is a combination of sheer age (volume of experience) and observation (the quality of experience). You can't stop aging, so you move in that direction no matter what. But the quality of your observation can change the quality of the evidence. You can find things that wouldn't be apparent at a glance. The complexity increases as you get closer.
You can have older people who still think and act like teenagers. You can have mature, precocious children. I think the former have a lot of experience, barely examined, from one angle ("How does this affect ME?"). The latter have less experience, but have made the experience multidimensional through careful observation from different angles, and consideration ("What is THEIR epistemology?").
I think some people have brain wiring that automatically aides in this careful observation; or at least grants more capacity. Another thing that can masquerade as careful observation is trauma responses. Hyper-vigilance. Self-observance as a protective mechanism ("what do I have to do to keep mom from getting upset? What triggers her; what are her patterns? My life depends on the answer").
Like if you saw a flashy martial arts master movie star ("cool!") then learned they were mercilessly, brutally beaten by their sensei their entire childhood ("Uhhh..."). Is it a gift? Would you want that same gift if you had to pay that price? Michael Jackson comes to mind.
But just like any tool, its not inherently a good or bad process. Its the person who wields it. Hyper-vigilance, though bourne of trauma, can still be a gift with the proper perspective. Whether someones brain just had a great capacity to do this, or if its a trauma response...does the origin matter (See: Life of Pi)? Maybe, maybe not. Its what you do with it. Your relationship to it.
Thanks for sharing Chris. Felt the similarities the moment I found you on here.
“Coherence” was the word that came to me earlier this year. That I was meant to create within myself, so that I could be a beacon of that for the collective. I didn’t have the “generator” language, but otherwise bang on!
There is some beauty in the tragedy that all of us coherence generators felt so alone/different/misunderstood for so long… and are now realizing that not only are we not alone, but we are exactly what the world needs in this moment and will steward this transition we’re in. (Poetic in a way we can totally appreciate.)
I thought your concluding paragraph summed it up beautifully:
Ben! Always good to hear from you. “Coherence” emerged in my consciousness maybe 2 years ago. But wayyyy before that was the word “Beacon” And I’m not sure it’s true for all of us - but definitely for both of us - it sounds like the work is about emanating a frequency over any specific action. And I think that makes sense, because part of the paradigm we’re moving away from is “fixing” things. Instead, for me it’s about recognizing wholeness, and then letting that ripple out. Even in the midst of so many things that seem to be needing to be fixed.
And yes it is poetic, in a way that lights my mythology loving brain on fire. I wonder if feeling isolated was kind of a necessary forging process, that I know for me allowed me to feel massive empathy. Probably would have been a pretty shit human if I succeeded too soon.
Couldn’t agree more! Moving away from “fixing” things was the gamechanging part of the shift for me. It liberated my consciousness and soul. I now see this as one of the biggest issues in the “make the world a better place” space. The way it came to me was that you can put your energy into Reforming or Rebuilding, and shifting to the latter opens up all possibilities — which you talk about at length.
Fun fact: I co-founded a donut company years ago called Beacon Doughnuts. The context was different but the word has clearly been in my consciousness for some time! Overall, love the language overlaps.
“We’re stewards of the coherence that’s alive right now. Our job isn’t to know what comes next. It’s to perceive what wants to be born in the present and organize around that - in the domains where we have leverage. To create conditions through our perception, our integration, our contribution.”