The Neurodivergent Professor (chris burcher)

Have you heard people say that you can't control what happens to you, but you CAN control how you react to what happens to you?

It's so true, but it isn't easy.

We all want some degree of control in our lives. Or wish for it. Long for it.

But control is an illusion. 

I'm not saying life is 100% chaotic and unpredictable, but being attached to controlling things really only wears you out.

I have learned that if I let go of (a little bit of) control my life is more comfortable. 

And increasing comfort (and calm, and peace) is my goal.

How, then, do we figure out how to live with less control?

One of the ways is simply called 'mindfulness'. And choosing a particular direction or frequency of your mind is called a 'mindset'. 

Choosing to be mindful in a particular mindset is how.

And, as you see on the internet, there are thousands of resources for being mindful or changing your mindset.

But what I have found is, you have to make a huge effort to direct your own path.

In other words, this is mostly a DIY project.

Yes, you need to learn what you want - and that's what we are doing now on KEW, applying the Are vs Should Problemand figuring out how to live more in our AREs and less in our SHOULDs.

So you really have to sit down and figure out what your values are, what your dreams are, what gets you out of bed in the morning, and what you WANT for your life.

But I'll tell you, being mindful - being aware, being able to direct your attention, being able to change your perspective from focusing solely on yourself to that of an observer and even other people - is key.

Mindfulness essentially means paying attention to your thoughts and checking them against your values.

Mindset, again, is a flavor of mindfulness. 

Growth mindsets choose to admit they don't know everything and are open to learning.

Abundance mindsets choose to believe the world has abundant resources for them.

A mindset of connectedness chooses to believe all people are connected and thus affect one another.

In other words, your mindset flavor is a choice. 

Do you choose to live a fulfilled life of joy and calm?

Or do you choose to focus on what you don't have?

What do you choose?

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Quick show of hands. Who among us has ever been told they should journal?

Even though this is a 'should' statement, people who say 'you should journal' mean well.

I'll say it, and I mean well.

But I'll say it without using the word 'should'.

You will benefit from journaling. 

If that sounds like a money-back guarantee, it's the closest thing you can get for free.

But also remember, free advice is worth what you pay for it.

Except that journaling is on, like, 100% of all the 'to-do' lists.

Therapists. Coaches. Teachers. Parents. Counselors. 

They all know about journaling. It is a powerful tool. 

But what is it?

It's LITERALLY just writing out your thoughts. Either on paper or on a computer or typewriter. 

Hell, my podcast is arguably an exercise in journaling and there's no writing involved.

Journaling is facilitating a flow of thoughts from your brain/mind to some neutral zone.

This facilitation process is fairly easy, but it does several things.

It alters HOW the thoughts move. 

In your brain or mind the thoughts are in a known space and will behave as they do in that space.

Often this behavior is insane, monkey-like, and we refer to it as the 'monkey-mind'. It seems out of control and fear inducing.

Other times thought behavior is more concise and cohesive. "Man, I'm really craving an IPA tonight."

Mostly, your mind is a bunch of background noise you don't pay attention to.

When you journal, you ARE PAYING ATTENTION.

You are also directing the behavior of the thoughts to wrangle them on to the paper. 

These processes create and require AWARENESS of the thoughts and that you pay ATTENTION to how they form, how you form them on the page.

Those processes, in and of themselves, will induce great effects. 

But I can't really tell you WHAT or HOW. That's up to your system. It's all about how it UNFOLDS. It will be unique to you.

So. For the low-low price of free I'll give you a money-back guarantee that journaling will benefit you but I can't tell you how, or what, or even when.

I know. It's the deal of the century.

But that's how personal growth works, isn't it?

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Analog nomads . . . . . 

When I decided to focus on the Are vs Should Problem, or the struggle between the person you ARE and the person you feel like you SHOULD BE, I was thinking mostly about the SHOULD part. 

To me, the issue isn't so much about figuring out who we ARE, it's more about telling the SHOULDs to be quiet. And figuring out how to do that. 

The AREs are things we want to be, know we are, and find comfort in. The SHOULDs tend to be things we don't necessarily want to do or be, but feel (for varying reasons) that we are supposed to do or be. 

In the AVS interview series, I've talked to people across the spectrum of ARE to SHOULD. Most people talked about their struggles with the SHOULDs, even if they were/are currently living mostly in their ARE. I think most of us would rather be seen as living in our AREs, but few of us are doing it well. I think you will agree that Pat exemplifies what it looks like when you are minimally influenced by the status quo.

Pat Schulte is someone I thought might not have much to say at all about the SHOULD, because it seems to me he, and his family, live primarily in their ARE.

I knew about Pat, his wife Ali, and their two kids, through their blog called Bumfuzzle. I am interested in sailing, and as you may know my wife and I plan to move on to a sailboat at some point in the not-too-distant future. So I discovered Bumfuzzle as I searched for role models who had done similar, seemingly crazy, things.

And if you didn't catch the word 'blog', let me mention that there are no videos nor audio on Bumfuzzle. It is a blog in the most classic, analog sense. Pat writes posts about their adventures. They are accompanied by excellent digital images, but that's as far as it goes with respect to the YouTube, Instagram world we live in. Nearly all of the other adventurer web pages feature video nowadays.

But that doesn't detract from the Bumfuzzle story - it accentuates the coolness of it. The adventureness of it. The ARE of it.

In short, Pat and Ali left the rat race as we know it in their late 20s and have not stopped in twenty years. Whether boat, car, motorhome, or camper trailer they have lived a nomadic lifestyle. They seem to go where they please, however they choose, at whatever pace they happen to take. It's the most carefree thing I can think of.

Yet Pat holds a job, albeit one that allows him to work remotely, and they are not independently wealthy. They also have two kids along for the adventure. Their lives are far from easy, but they seem simple. They figured out what they wanted and made it happen.

Which is why I like using the term analog to describe them - and Pat didn't seem to mind this term. They are like analog nomads. . . . 

Before KEW, reading their blog made me feel like I was watching Star Wars. It seemed like such a fantasy. But they are DOING IT. The live it. And they don't seem to be any worse for the wear. In fact, and you can see this in the interview, Pat seems so . . . . normal. So peaceful and calm. So centered. So wise. 

Maybe the AREness of their lifestyle isn't correlated to that vibe. But I'm going to argue it is.

I find Bumfuzzle inspring. It is so important to have a mirror to reflect back to you the life you want. I hope the Schulte's adventures do this for you as they do for me. I hope you are inspired to live more in your ARE, and to make the sacrifices to do so knowing there is value there. 

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You're probably like, 'mind control, what's this guy talking about?' Either he's going to tell us how we need to get in our heads and understand what's going on, or he's going to talk about how the algorithm has us under its spell.

It reminds me of this scene from Monsters, Inc (you'll have to go to www.chrisburcher.com to see the clip).

This week I'm taking about the first thing. Although I'm a huge an of getting out from under the algorithms, I think that comes about as an artifact of understanding yourself. So there's no need to do anything specifically to avoid that. Except what I talk about in this episode.

The mind control I'm concerned with is how we understand and relate to our minds. And, first things first, I use the term 'mind' to describe the emergent properties of our brains that make us, us. In other words:

Brain + You = Mind

And what makes you, you is up for debate. But I use other words like 'soul', and 'self, to describe it and you can see what I think about those in the respective Episodes. 

A critical first step in any type of personal growth, self reflection, or awareness includes a kind of 'looking inward' to see what's going on. This can be as rote as sitting down and thinking about or journaling about what you like to do for fun, or as complex as writing out your values. Ultimately, though, I think this type of self-reflection becomes a part of you. A habit, maybe.

And I keep coming back to meditation as a model. Not meditation, per se, but the idea that we can incorporate a similar awareness in our daily lives. And this behavior, or habit, or whatever you want to call it becomes a PART of you. I guess that is a habit.

But the road to this, Mind Control thing, becoming a habit can be long and twisted. The combination of Episodes 81-86 lay out the pieces, but the common thread is simply awareness.

What are you doing right now? What ELSE are you doing? What are you THINKING? What's GOING ON in your head? Who is doing the thinking or talking? Can you ask those voices to quiet down and look even deeper?

One thing I have learned to do is to change my SCOPE. It's like in the movies where the camera slowly, or in steps, draws back and creates depth. You may be looking at the main character, then the camera sweeps back and now you're looking at them at work. Then it steps back again and you see the whole town. Then again and you see the whole Earth. 

When you can learn to step back, which is an element (whether you realize it or not) that we do in meditation, journaling, even exercising, then you develop one of the muscles that allows us a degree of Mind Control. 

And, of course, by Mind Control I simply mean being aware of your thoughts - which allows you the capacity to CHOOSE where to direct your attention.

Hopefully this stuff is starting to make sense - or maybe it already does. But if you keep on practicing these things; awareness, attention, meditation, journaling. . . you WILL build the skills just like you build muscles when lifting weights.

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Not many people like talking about, much less admitting, what they are afraid of.

But I have found, in my work and over a decade meeting with therapists and coaches, that fear is a HUGE motivator.

It turns out that a lot of our behaviors and beliefs are rooted in fears.

In the Internal Family Systems model, we talk about 'parts' of ourselves that are born to reduce these fears. 

In other modalities we talk about wearing masks, or that other emotions sit on top of the fear - like anger.

For me, in my personal work, I have found that fear is nearly universal in motivating my old beliefs and the ways I talk to myself.

My monkey mind will beat me up for all sorts of short comings. And this results in anger, guilt, shame, irritation, frustration, and irritation. 

I get mad at myself when I feel like I have failed or come up short (or in 'second place'). 

If I can't get something perfect I often feel ashamed that I'm not good enough. 

If someone else is unhappy with me I can feel abandoned and worthless.

But underneath EACH one of those is the fear that I won't be loved.

The fear that I will be abandoned from my little village (family) and forced to fend for myself. The fear of ego-death, if you will, or simple separation from other people.

In my past work in endangered species management, I was the scientist at a table full of all sorts of other interested parties. There were lawyers, construction workers, developers, politicians, citizens, animal rights people, farmers, anglers - you name it. And each one of them had their own interests; their own wants and needs. And each one of them was passionate about their position.

And they were all DEFENSIVE.

What I saw in these meetings was fear. They were all afraid of losing their particular position and thus, their self interests.

They were all afraid of being hurt. 

But no one was willing to admit it. We couldn't talk about the fear. We were forced to talk about the superficial conflicts.

And you know what? We were never able to resolve anything nor compromise. In short, nothing was ever done. There was no growth. Neither politically or personally.

Talking about fear is a touchy thing. But it doesn't have to be. We just have to be vulnerable and trust each other.

I'll go first in this Episode.

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Do you struggle with relationships? 

I did for a long time. I went through a divorce in 2010 and that kickstarted an interesting adventure in dating and thinking about companionship in general.

Luckily, I met a wonderful woman and remarried. But the five years I spent uncoupled were hard, to say the least.

Antia Boyd helps women figure out why they struggle with relationships.

Whether you struggle with relationships or not, there is universal learning to be had this week. Antia teaches her clients things about being human. These are not lessons specifically relevant to relationships.

Far from it. Antia talks about integrating your life to live authentically. That's pretty much a requirement for any sort of personal growth. 

Antia also talks about personal responsibility and learning. If we don't learn, we don't change. And many of us are seeking change in our lives to improve how we deal with life unfolding.

So I think you will benefit from watching or listening to Antia Boyd as she shares her wisdom, and how she came out from the shadow of her narcissistic mother to understand herself. And this enables her to help others. You can find out more about her and what she does here: https://www.magnetizeyourman.com

It was truly my pleasure to talk with her, and we're lucky our paths crossed.

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Where do you stand on the whole 'personal responsibility' issue?

I always assumed that I had to take care of my own stuff. I made my choices and had to deal with them.

When I had kids, everyone kept telling me, 'it takes a village', and I honestly didn't understand what they were talking about.

I guess I've always been a lone wolf - but I don't necessarily like that about myself.

So there's like this continuum from 'I am an island' on one end, and 'I live in a global village where everyone helps each other' on the other.

I'd MUCH rather be on the global village end, but I find myself on the other.

But I'm learning. That, guess what, it takes a village.

I don't know why some of us choose to do everything ourselves. Part of it is we think we'll do it better than others. Part is we are introverted. It also has to do with self-confidence - who would WANT to help us?

I also hate to ask for help or put anyone out. I don't know why.

But asking for help (and giving help) is a critical element of the universe we live in.

It is part of millions of years of evolution.

We are COOPERATIVE by nature. 

And not helping each other forces COMPETITION (one of my least favorite things, see Episode 6: Competition). And, yes, I see the irony of me not asking for help but also despising competition.

So this week I hope to shed some light on the 'village' issue and help anyone struggling with 'lone wolf syndrome' to look outside themselves. 

Life is much easier when we do it as a team. Take it from someone who had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the other side.

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Do you ever think about trade-offs in your life? Something as simple as choosing to have the Doritos knowing they are bad for your body? Or driving over the speed limit knowing you could get a ticket. Or blowing your money on daily lattes knowing one day you may regret not saving more.

Trade-offs are a natural part of existence. I learned about them in an ecological or evolutionary sense. Natural selection favors some characteristics in some environments, but not other. Darwin's finches beak size changed to reduce competition, but smaller beaks could no longer eat larger seeds. The trade-off there is that you gain an advantage (lower competition for smaller seeds) but you lose the ability to eat the common resource (medium or large seeds). You trade being a generalist for being a specialist.

Life is full of these trade-offs. You can't be at two places at once. We make choices every day to do one thing instead of another. Sure, you can spend more time at work and increase your chances for a promotion, but you will sacrifice that time with your family and you might not get home until after your kids are asleep.

Trade-offs.

If we can't have it all, we are always choosing one thing over another. And the key is to accept that and move forward.

Regret is a terrible monster. We can choose to believe we make good choices, or we can regret the choices we didn't make. As part of making trade-offs we have to accept this or suffer the (rumination and anxiety) consequences.

In this episode I analyze trade-offs. What they mean in our lives and how we can deal with them without stress and anxiety.

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Have you experienced trauma? 

Have you overcome adversity?

Many, if not most, of us have not have perfect lives.

Candice Smiley is like us. Though we don't talk specifically about her past, you will be amazed to learn that this sophisticated, confident, and calm woman made it through her suffering.

In fact, you will be impressed at her candor and her, well, knowledge, experience, and wisdom. 

We are lucky that Candice is healing and taking the time to share what worked for her.

Because I think, in the end, to learn from or be healed by another person, you have to match up. You have to meld. 

You have to pick up what they are laying down.

So here is an opportunity for you. 

Watch our interview. Listen to what Candice Smiley has to say. See if it resonates with you.

Then go to her website, https://www.candicesmiley.com, and learn as much as you possibly can from her.

This interview Episode, like all the Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom episodes, is available via your favorite podcast app or on YouTube. You can subscribe to either or both to ensure you get updates.

Thank you.

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"Leaping into the Abyss Requires Faith, but Will Set You Free"

Have you ever had Analysis Paralysis, or been unable to make a decision? 

I'm sure you have - it happens all the time. Basically, we have two or more options, but we can't know for sure what the outcome of either decision will be. 

Carlos Castaneda, in the books about Don Juan and the Toltecs, described this as leaping into an Abyss.

When my wife and I were contemplating marriage, we viewed our individual and collective futures as a leap into an Abyss. Were we both willing to take the risk of how we will fall or land? The answer was yes, and we have been married for almost seven years.

The key to this leap is faith. Like the adage, 'a leap of faith', faith requires you to let go of the 'not knowing' in lieu of a belief that things will work out ok.

This faith is the other side of knowing. It's the opposite. The Yang to the Yin. The Darth Vader to the Luke Skywalker. It's how the universe is made. 

It's also an agreement to take the good with the bad. Take my marriage. Not everything is unicorns and rainbows. We made an agreement to deal with the good and the bad, the 'sickness and health', of it all. We did NOT assume things would always be one way or the other. Because they aren't. There is good and there is bad. 

Take the Grateful Dead. They asked their audience to leap in to an abyss. Some shows might be great, others might not be. But the agreement states that everyone would be together and love one another regardless of the outcome. The WHOLE THING was about the journey and not the result. 

This theme of focusing on the unfolding of life over the result or outcome is key here. It's the point I'm trying to make. 

If we surrender our need to KNOW the outcome, and focus on having FAITH that the outcome will be fine, or at least how it is meant to be, it frees us not only from worry but from not being able to enjoy the ride.

Like the Dead say, "I'm going to hell in a bucket, but at least I'm enjoying the ride".

I hope I, and all of us, can remember to enjoy the ride and break the agreements focusing on positive results. When we start to believe things will be ok, they are.

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Most of us are not perfect.

I certainly am not. In fact,lately I have been replaying several moments from my life where I behaved poorly. 

But when I do this nowadays, I don't beat myself up. I have learned to find self-compassion for the person I used to be and to recognize I am no longer him.

Integrity is the alignment of our values or beliefs with our actions or behavior. Even though I know I am human, I am still surprised when I catch myself behaving out of integrity or out of alignment.

When we do this, it is easy to beat ourselves up, but another option is to figure out what is going on.

In this Episode I share a few examples of my behavior not aligning with my beliefs, and how I chose to deal with these situations. 

The first step is to be able to see what is happening, and that, in itself, is a lot of work. Things like meditation, journaling, yoga, and exercise can help us find our way to these glimpses in time.

Once we can take the observer position and see things happening in our lives, we can make a choice to do some work, or to let it go, or to do whatever. The key is we can buy ourselves a choice to change. And grow. And learn.

I am amazed at how regularly I find myself looking at my behavior. I'm not saying I have figured everything out, but I am living proof that we can learn to overcome our issues and find more peace and calm in our lives. I hope this Episode sheds some light on how that happens.

I hope you will subscribe to the Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom podcast and/or YouTube channel, which will automatically upload new episodes for you, but you can also download these Episodes directly or view them in your browser via the links below.

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Has anyone ever told you to turn off your analytical mind?

Or to use your intuition?

I'm lucky to have a coach that constantly asks my analytical self to step aside. 

The space that remains, sans analysis, is incredibly interesting.

And I think it's where intuition lives. 

In fact, I'd say my idea of intuition was inaccurate. I guess I thought of it like a hunch. Or a tingly spidey sense. I'm not really sure what I thought intuition was.

I like the idea of 'trusting your gut' because it's not your brain.

All I can really say, having experienced intuition, is it is NOT my mind. 

NOT analytical. NOT intellectual.

For over a decade in therapy, I understood everything intellectually.

But nothing changed. My mind was unable to do anything about my beliefs. 

It wasn't until I connected with my body, through somatic meditation and Internal Family Systems work, that I was able to experience real change.

And you know what? I can't explain how it happened. All I can say is that I have changed.

Because it all happened somatically. Intuitively. In my gut. Well, in my BODY. My non-mind.

So this Episode is about that non-mind. Anti-analytical. Meta-physical. World.

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Have you ever been sucked into an internet thread and walked away feeling angry?

You know, like a political rant thread? Identity politics? Ad hominem attacks and name-calling?

Isn't that frustrating?

That sentiment or feeling that other people are just mean, or evil, is part of what motivates this week's Episode.

Many will argue that people are just 'bad', or even 'evil', and that's why we have bad things in the world. Like these internet haters. 

But I see it differently. 

I think we are all essentially good, and that the evil comes out as a result of some unmet need, struggle, or fear.

I think we have forgotten how to deal with these things, and so we end up spending a lot of time in the 'evil' space. And then this spills out into the world.

Argue with me all you want, and I will offer that arguing only illustrates my point. We argue when we feel attacked, or wronged, or threatened. Afraid.

I know it's hippy-dippy, utopian, and unicorn fart-y, but I honestly believe there is a scenario whereby the 'evils' of the world all but go away because of we have figured out how to focus on the good stuff.

Food for thought, anyway.

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Do you seek balance in your life, or do you go all-in on things you like?

I used to think everyone wanted balance, and had a moderate approach to all things in order to maintain that balance across their varied interests. Given that there are only so many hours in a day, it's hard to do all the things we love to do - or even the things we don't want to do!

But I have known folks who follow the, 'if it feels good, do it!' mantra and argue that moderation and/or balance is outright silly.

But if you look at biological systems, many of the biochemical processes necessary for life occur in very narrow bands or zones. 

For example, our blood pH (the measure of Hydrogen and Hydroxide ions in our blood) needs to be maintained between about 7.35 and 7.45 pH units. It's confusing, but the pH range is from 0-14, so 0.1 units is a VERY NARROW band within.

A more somatic example is temperature. Humans are really comfortable between like 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit, but Earth temperatures range between -126 and 136 degrees F. That's a 10 degree band across a range of over 250 degrees. 

There are even coarser examples like, if you don't eat enough your hungry but if you eat too much you're stuffed.

It's sort of 'Goldiloxian', where many biological things fall into a 'just right' zone, outside of which bad things can happen.

Here I go beyond those examples to discuss things like climate change and personal growth through the lens of homeostasis.

Spoiler alert, I still believe in balance.

Please note, I apologize to the video fans, I was unsuccessful at getting the video from this episode, so the YouTube video is audio-only. 

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Do you enjoy friendly competition?

Many of us do. Some say it brings out the best in us. Some thrive in an environment where other people push us to perform at higher and higher levels.

I can appreciate friendly competition like this. But I rarely see it.

And sometimes even friendly competition turns sour. Feelings get hurt. Tempers flare. The high level of energy surrounding competitive exchanges can often spill over into anger.

In Economics we talk about competition in markets, and often talk about 'pure competition' vs other types. In pure competition the conditions are perfect and the playing field is perfectly fair for all parties.

This rarely happens. This fairness.

It's hard to separate our emotions from competitive interactions, and thus the 'pureness' falls short. 

These are the types of competitions I have been privy to most often.

Most of the competition I have seen involves hurt feelings, anger, and even violence. That doesn't sound very pure or perfect to me.

In my ecological endeavors I learned a lot about competition in nature and how the avoidance of competition leads to speciation. This is an amazing artifact of evolution and, in essence, controls biodiversity. The better we are at avoiding competition, the more species there will be. The more species there are, the more redundant and adaptive our species is. This ensures our persistence and stability in the face of an ever changing environment.

AVOIDANCE of competition. In fact, competition in nature is rare, despite what you might see on the National Geographic channel. 

There are lots of other types of biological interactions that prevail. Like cooperation. Symbiosis. Even parasitism is more common than competition in nature.

Because competition only happens when resources are limiting.

Or in arenas, race tracks, and soccer fields across the world. 

Think about how we interact. Think about how it makes you feel. Beyond a friendly game, what does competition really do for us?

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You know you do it. You think you are right about something, only to find out you were incredibly, undeniably, 180 degrees wrong.

It happens. To all of us. To all of us humans, anyway.

We all think we're right. If we didn't, we wouldn't have conviction. We'd be open. We'd be undecided.

Once we have made a decision, well, that decision is correct, correct? I mean, right?

But not always.

Many of us are plagued by self-doubt. And this might be a healthy thing in this context. We should carry with us a humble sense of openness to being wrong. Sure, we can feel right. We probably *should* believe in ourselves and in our unique right-ness. But even in our most confident I think it's important, even critical, to leave the door open - even slightly ajar - for being wrong.

So 'right' is kind of like 'truth'. They may or may not exist, but it doesn't matter because we'll never be or find either one. The key is to get close. 

To approach being 'right' with just enough humility that allows us to also be wrong.

Because we always need a direction - something to work toward. A HYPOTHESIS, if you will.

And a hypothesis is just a fancy way of saying an idea that we think and/or feel fairly sure is real. Something we figure makes sense. Helps us answer a question, or achieve a goal, or make a decision that is important. We need to move through our days, after all.

But every hypothesis NECESSARILY and BY DEFINITION has a companion with it - the 'null' hypothesis.

The null hypothesis is that door you left open, even just a little bit. The null hypothesis basically says, 'well, my hypothesis MAY not be truer after all'. Or, in other words, 'I could be wrong'. 

So every guess, decision, idea, direction, feeling, surety, or move forward we have MUST always be accompanied by an opposing force that allows for all of those things to be inaccurate. Incorrect. Wrong.

That's how science is set up and we can equivalently set up our every day thinking to mimic this . . . . modesty.

So we always have an option of being incorrect. Which directs us toward the next question of interest. 

Well, that didn't pan out, how about this?

The secret is not go get bogged down. To move forward. To let the water roll off your back as if you were a duck.

This behavior is healthy. And it has the added benefit of helping you appear less arrogant and more likable:)

So the Type II and Type I error are basically which hypothesis you choose. This system allows for mistakes. Sometimes you think you're wrong but you aren't. Other times you think you're right but you're wrong. 

So not only do we leave the door open about being wrong, we leave a couple more doors open that allow for similar errors.

Makes you wonder how we could possibly move through life thinking we are always right.

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Do you put on your oxygen mask first?

Then what?

We help our kids, our partners, the people sitting next to us.

But we don't think too much about what to do next. We are sort of obsessed with taking care of ourselves.

And some of us suck at it. If you, like me, struggle with codependency, people pleasing, and conflict avoidance you may actually struggle with putting your needs first.

Getting your needs met is THE FIRST STEP toward a better life.

Unless you're incredibly selfish, then you need to practice empathy.

But for those of us who are defining our values, working on ourselves, and trying to make the world a better place, it is IMPERATIVE we figure out how to take care of ourselves.

Not just because we owe it to ourselves, but we owe it to EACH OTHER.

To change the world we have to change ourselves.

We have no hope. Literally NO HOPE in changing the world if we can't get our own selves straight.

But we can! And we must.

But . . . . the next steps. The HOW do we fix the world once we have our own oxygen mask on?

It may seem hard. It may seem overwhelming.

But I actually believe it will be easy. It's the first step that is the hard part.

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Are you familiar with the 'bell curve'? It's also called a 'normal curve', or a Gaussian distribution because it describes what statisticians call a 'normal distribution'. Here's the wikipedia definition:

a probability distribution that is symmetric about the mean, showing that data near the mean are more frequent in occurrence than data far from the mean

And here's a video link if you want a more detailed explanation. 

Essentially, this picture is a visual image of how 'typical' things sort of fall out in the world. 

Like size of largemouth bass. If you could remove every single bass from a lake, measure them all, and enter the number of each fish in each size class it would *theoretically* look like this.

If you could measure the height of every person on earth it drew vertical lines for the number of individuals in each size class (by total inches, for example) it would also *theoretically* look like this.

And the same goes for just about anything on earth you can measure. Theoretically.

I add the theoretical part because, for lots of reasons - mainly reality, things don't always follow a normal distribution. Sexual selection, for example, may skew the human height graph one way or the other depending on mate preference for taller or shorter partners.

But so what, anyway? Well, the normal curve shows the probability of finding an example for a given characteristic. Like, how likely is it to find a man that is 4' tall? This would fall in the very left hand tail of the bell curve representing a very low probability. Finding a 5'7" person would be relatively easy, as it falls in the middle part of the 'bell'. 

So the cool thing about normal curves is that they visually illustrate some parameters. I like the say that statistics helps us understand how likely something is to happen. I talk about this in many Episodes including Fear and Analysis Paralysis. We often over or underestimate the likelihood of things happening to us, and normal curves are a way of illustrating reality.

For example, a lot of people have a fear of flying because they are afraid of a plane crash. If we could actually see the normal curve for flying success, or the probability of a crash or problem we might feel more at ease. Especially if we were to compare this figure to one that shows the probability of crashing in a car. Being able to visualize the relative sizes of probability, or chance, can help immensely.

Once you learn how to read a normal curve, you can understand quite a bit about the data. Normal curves show all kinds of statistics like the average, variance, range, maximum, and minimum values. These can also help you see the pattern, get a better idea of probability or likelihood, and feel better about your decision making.

As I say in the video below, averages are incredibly misleading estimates. We use them all the time to talk about things we might not really understand. Being able to more accurately interpret what is going on is a skill we can all develop to live better lives.

I have lots of exciting things coming up and share more in the full video and podcast. I will be starting a book and blogging about it starting with Episode 101. I am also releasing a new YouTube only project called 'Being Better Being' with my good friend Paul Gadola, you know him from multiple interviews on KEW.

So please follow, share, subscribe, and tell your friends so we can enjoy the future together.

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I kind of can't believe the title of Episode 99, but this is the culmination of the previous KEW Episodes and Interviews. Hopefully this body of work, thus far, has given me a bit of credibility. Coupled with my PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and over a decade in multiple modalities of therapy, counseling, and coaching, I think I have some room to 'weigh in' on some of the big questions.

One of the emergent themes from the Are vs Should Problem investigation, which includes a 50-Episode arc and interviews with 13 unique individuals (links to all here) is the Uniqueness Imperative.

I honestly believe we are supposed to REALIZE our uniqueness. Instead, we are taught to depress our individuality and conform to societal norms, laws, and culture. Don Miguel Ruiz calls this a 'dream' of 'domestication' where we are essentially trained to conform to our local rules. Our families, churches, schools, and villages encourage us to 'be like them' in an effort to teach us how to live.

While this indoctrination is well-intentioned, it has devastating effects on our identities. 

And all around you are examples of this devastation. Hunger. War. Anxiety. Suicide. People are struggling.

And, don't get me wrong, I am not looking for some utopian existence, I believe there will always be a baseline amount of struggle and suffering - in a very Buddhist sense - but this is extreme. 

Hopefully we can agree that these examples suggest we are doing something wrong. And this is the problem I aim to address. 

And one of the solutions, is to ask the question: "Rather than suppress our individuality and conform to societal norms, what if we encouraged each other to develop our quirks and realize our uniqueness". How would this look in the world? What would be different? Would things look better or worse?

This Episode is the end of the first part of the KEW experience. In Episode 100, I will introduce the other half of this experiment, and in Episode 101 begin the next phase.

From Episode 101 on, I will be writing a book in real time focusing on the Uniqueness Imperative and the material from Episode 100. I hope you will join me. Please subscribe to my blog here, to the podcast and/or the YouTube channel to make sure you don't miss out. 

And, as always, I encourage you to comment so that we have a true discourse rather than just me talking.

Episode 99 will automatically populate your podcast app or your YouTube feed if you subscribe.

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Everything about our 'biological-ness' is really about change. The developmental stages are all change. We all grow bigger through life. We go through a brief period of fast growth, then switch over to a period of reproduction. These things are true for all life forms.

We share, with ALL biology, this unanimous and ubiquitous feature. We change. 

The universe also changes. The laws of thermodynamics essentially describe these changes. Physics studies the how's and what's about these changes. We take what we learn and flip it over in time to try and predict how things will change in the future.

If there's one thing you can count on in life (biology), it is that things will change.

If you don't like the weather, wait a big. It will change.

When I googled quotes about change I was surprised to find out there hasn't been more said about this phenomenon. This truism. This, dare I say, FACT. 

There really aren't many. . . maybe NO other things we can be as sure about that things are going to change in the world. On a regular and recurring basis.

In fact, there might not be much more to really know or understand.

Yet, and here's the PARADOX, our lives today are very much obsessed with NOT changing. With ending change. With forcing a stop to a process that is as real and universal as life itself. 

Talk about a cognitive dissonance.

Or banging your head against the wall.

With the introduction of the Evolution Paradox, I merely point out this extreme irony. That life is entirely about change, and dealing with change, yet today's societies around the globe are obsessed with trying to avoid change.

I can't think of a worse situation to be in. It's like being a fish that's allergic to water.

There is no winning in this race. The universe is going to win. 

There is no energy strong enough to overcome this power. 

It is useless to resist.

And, what you resist, persists.

Until we can wrap our head around and EMBRACE change, we are doomed. 

And not in a dystopian way, simply in a severe amount of suffering way. 

Me? I'd rather accept a minimal level of suffering, allow life to unfold and change any way it wants, and learn to roll with it, baby.

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It's been six months. Though I wasn't sure what would happen with KEW, I knew I would be back. 

After 100 Episodes and over 30 interviews, I am inspired to work on new material here on Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom. I'm ready to get back on track releasing new Episodes weekly in podcast and YouTube video formats.

Follow here, at Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom on your favorite podcast host, or on the YouTube channel (links to this episode below). 

In the last six months I have been working on another project with my buddy Paul Gadola. You can find interviews with him in the Links tab on the KEW homepage. He and I are doing a YouTube channel called Being Better Being and we are already 20 Episodes in! On BBB, we discuss Paul's new book called, "Integrity and Peace: Loving Your Neighbor and the Path of Truth" which you can get directly (email kpluseiswise@gmail.com) or on amazon.com. If you like KEW, you'll probably enjoy our discussions on BBB.

Otherwise, I have been doing a lot of personal work and learning at a rate higher than I can remember. I turned 50. My second daughter went to college. We started homeschooling my youngest. Lots of changes but lots of the same, too.

This Welcome Back Episode offers a preview of what's to come in the next one to 100 Episodes on KEW. In short, I am going to more thoroughly investigate how we can use nature to help us answer the biggest questions of human kind. 

Why are we here?

What is the meaning of life?

What is my purpose? 

If you are familiar with the 'Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests', you will LOVE where I am headed. Hope you enjoy the Episode and will stick around (and share with your friends!!) for the future of KEW.

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I apologize that it has been nearly a month since my re-introduction post and Episode 101. I have been overwhelmed with thoughts, ideas, tangents, trailheads, and rabbit holes regarding this new direction for my blog/podcast/and YouTube channel. In this Episode, and over the next 4-5 I will start to unravel this rats' nest into what I hope to be an interesting adventure.

An acid test is a generic or colloquial term to refer to an assessment of value. Often, it is referencing something like a pH indicator test, where an acidic substance will turn color when the indicator is added, and an alkaline substance will not.

Many may also know of the "Electric KoolAid Acid Test", a book by Ken Kesey that describes the adventures of the Merry Pranksters when the new drug LSD leaked out of the controlled labs and spilled out into the streets of San Francisco. In the last Episode I talked a bit about this and got a few things wrong that I correct this week.

My point in using the term Acid Test is not to take LSD (though I am curious about having a new psychedelic experience) but to reference another acid: Deoxyribonucleic acid, to be specific. Or DNA.

I intend to use DNA as a proxy representative measure of Nature and pose the question of whether Nature can inform us about life's Big Questions. Specifically, I wonder if we can use Nature to inform 

The meaning of life

Why we are here

What our purpose is

And as a measure of how well we are doing as a species on planet Earth.

It will take me 4-5 Episodes to unload, but I hope you will come along with me on the journey. 

You can subscribe to my podcast on all the big podcasts hosts and the YouTube channel, of course. Search for Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom. 

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As we conduct the great KEW acid tests I have to establish a baseline. In this episode I want to touch on a few elements of the 'human personality' and our 'global value system' that I think we can improve on. I think humans are great, but there are a few key items I want to mention:

One of the big issues is that we think linearly. We tend to look at things as either improving or getting worse - over time. For something to be 'good' or 'successful', it has to 'get better' through time. If things get worse over time, it is bad. This is rarely true as things are constantly changing. Getting better, getting worse, in a dynamic motion through time. Really, it depends on how much time, or how long, you are looking at a thing. 

This is part of dogmatic thinking. Regardless of discipline, our doctors, scientists, philosophers, plumbers, electricians, and fast food workers suffer from the indoctrination of their bosses, managers, leaders, and careers. For whatever reasons, we identify with what we do, and seem to accept that to belong we must allow indoctrination. Or maybe it's subconscious. I don't know. I just know that many of the people I see doing jobs not only identify with and follow whatever rules necessary to define what they do.

Along with the dogmatic and linear modes of thinking comes a certain arrogance that we are right. As individuals and as groups. I don't know if this is an artifact of the 'career identify' or the divisive nature of separateness, but there's a certain amount of undeserved surety that goes along with identifying with a group. That group must be right, right? Becuase I am right to be a member of that group, right?

The most obvious expression of these traits is the idea that humans are the 'best' or 'most' evolved species. If you consider evolution a linear process, we are the most recent primate to evolve. Primates are the most evolved mammals. In other words, it all ends in us. So we must be the 'best', right? 

All of this combines to produce this incredible arrogance that whatever humans do is great. Technological advances are the best example here. Obviously, dictators and racists are evidence AGAINST this theory, but we somehow blame those on other issues and this blame shifting allows us to maintain a righteous position at the top. 

Yes, we have cured some diseases. We live longer. We produce more food. But if you really look at the whole system involved in these advances, there are far more consequences than the ones we consider. In short, it is also possible that our technological advances have not been 'worth it'. 

This of course, comes down to what 'worth it' means. What is 'good'? What is 'the best'? What is 'success'? These definitions have to do with our individual values and can be subjective.

However, I will argue that there is also a 'global value system' that is suggested or indicated by nature herself. I think there are fundamental and underlying rules about what is 'good' in the world based on millions of years of evolution. This will be part of the acid tests. 

In short, what does nature suggest about how humans can live instead of or in addition to the ways we are currently living? Let's for a moment consider that we might not be 'perfect' or even 'good', and look to the natural world to shed some light on the conversation that follows.

More next week. Thank you for your attention. Please comment and subscribe to join the discourse!

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One of the greatest mistakes made in science, by amateurs and professionals alike, is not knowing what the question is.
What is the question!!!????
Say you are studying the effectiveness of a vaccine against some pathogen. What is the question? Too many times we get wrapped up in the specifics. The details. The minutia. We forget WHY we are doing this in the first place. In this case, I would say the question is, does this vaccine help reduce the problems associated with said pathogen?
Maybe you're interested in climate change. So you gather a bunch of data on historic carbon dioxide concentrations in Earth's atmosphere. The numbers change in the past 75 years. What does that mean?
Well, what was your question???!?!! Was it, how much do humans suck? Or, how bad is the coal industry? Or were you simply asking whether or not the carbon dioxide concentrations have changed through time?

The question frames the conclusions of our investigations. Whether they are scientific in nature or otherwise. The conclusions need to be based on those questions. Making leaps outside the realm of your question is not allowed. For example, maybe the vaccine sort of works in reducing pathogen numbers, but not enough to reduce the number of people getting sick. Can you say it doesn't work, or simply that it might not work for a particular application? Or maybe CO2 concentrations have increased a little, but can you say anything about whether or not this is a good or bad thing? NO.
That's part of why science sucks. It's slow. 
Good thing we have other ways of knowing. Observation. Intuition. Even religious investigations can produce meaningful knowledge. Science isn't the only way to ask or answer questions. But it is one of the best.
A major point of the Great KEW Acid Tests is to employ a different way of thinking and asking questions. I'll call it a noveau-scientific method. It's equal parts creativity, inspiration, and science-like process. I'll follow rules similar to science to reduce bias, but allow myself to draw upon the knowledge I've been inspired by, and assisted by a level of creativity that a jazz musician would bring.

In fact, jazz is a great analogy here. I have put in the hard work to learn the 'music', or the science and knowledge in this case, but I am allowing myself to play outside the notes. I'm allowing myself to be inspired by what I've learned from others, and to use the basic structure of the chords and octaves, but to also nurture my unique creativity to bring a fresh perspective.

Because if there's one thing lacking from our traditional ways of thinking it is fresh perspectives. 

So, first difference: inspired and creative thinking

The first thing I'll do, which is also much different from traditional ways of thinking, is to throw everything I know onto the 'board'. 

Most people begin a project simply spring boarding off of a previous study or another person's ideas. I'm not going to punch down on this approach, it is incredibly viable. But it means the needle moves in tiny increments. And it is also necessitated by the constraints of traditional thinking which include funding, employment, and corporate rules and restrictions.

Because I am a free-agent with zero ties (except to my family), I can safely ignore these constraints and do whatever the hell I damned-well please. So the first thing I will do is throw complexity to the wind and populate my questions with every single variable I can imagine.

So, the second difference is, there are no rules

In this case, the problems are obvious to me: 

War, Famine, Social Justice Issues, Anxiety, Depression, Suicide, Income inequality, General dissatisfaction with 'the way things are'. And the question is, can nature provide insight into how we might improve these problems? I'll talk more specifically about these

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The KEW Acid Tests ask how Nature can inform the big questions humans ask. "Why are we here?", "Who am I?", and "What is our purpose" have puzzled humans for years - perhaps millennia. In the past 4,000 years or so, we have employed philosophy, religion, and science as mechanisms to ask and answer these big questions. While we certainly have learned a lot, the questions are too big to have definitive answers. I don't think they're the kind of questions that require answers. The joy is in the asking. It's not the destination, it's the journey.

My background in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, as integrated with my spiritual journey, experience with therapy and coaching, interactions with psychedelics, and general curiosity have led me to a new model. This model is a combination of all the experiences and disciplines, the authors and speakers, and the intentional and random interactions in the world around me. The title of this article is an attempt to describe the method, but I don't know if it is accurate. This is just the way I think. And I don't see a lot of other people employing a similar approach.

The key difference, I think, in how I approach the big questions is that I am more concerned with the passion, enthusiasm, spirit, and flow elements of the process. I am not 'hung up' following some prescribed method or standard nor am I restricted by obeying laws or norms. I simply follow my curiosity to fill in as many of the holes as I can using whatever resources are available. 

The danger in this type of approach is for it to resemble a 'pulling it out of my ass' approach where I basically just make up whatever sounds good. This is not that. I am influenced by the rigorous scientific training I have been fortunate to experience. I can't help but follow a system that attempts to reduce bias and employ sophisticated analyses to AVOID overlaying my beliefs or opinions. I respect that and necessarily include it in my approach. I believe in accountability.

I also believe in thinking outside the box, for lack of a better term. I don't answer to anyone but myself. I don't have an agenda. I don't want your money. I want to understand more and believe in asking questions in different ways to do so. 

I hope you share your thoughts with me, and subscribe to either the Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom podcast or YouTube channel.

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Before embarking on an investigation any researcher worth their salt will state their assumptions. This lays the groundwork for what is to come and allows the reader to contextualize the investigation. In regular science, this is often ignored. It's a shame we seem to be losing this important piece of the discourse puzzle.

Anyway, when it comes to the Acid Tests, most of my assumptions are 'what we already know' kinds of things. 

-DNA is the building block of life

-The Big Bang probably happened mostly like we think it did

-The laws of thermodynamics are real-ish

-Humans have been around for maybe 200,000 years; hominids for maybe a million

-Lots of things changed in the lives of Homo sapiens around 12,000 years ago

-The historical record started around 5,000 years ago

-The past 500 years have shown massively disproportional changes to human culture

-All of biology is built upon an abiotic template that includes physics, geology, climate, etc.

So the basis for the DNA Acid Tests it to take what we (think we) know about the world and apply it to more metaphysical questions like

-Who Am I?

-What is My Purpose?

-Are Humans Living Well?

Many will argue that what we (think we) know is beyond questioning or absolute. I disagree. What we (think we) know is simply where we are right now. Remember, before Einstein we believed Newton was correct about how gravity worked.

This episode builds on similar themes from earlier episodes including;

-Episode 1: Facts

-Episode 78: Assumptions and Core Principles

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Who Am I?

Why Are We Here?

What is My Purpose?

Are We Living 'Right'? 

Questions like this - the 'big questions' have been around since antiquity. It's fun to think about when our brains reached a point in evolution where we started having luxury time.

Because it's a luxury to think. To ask these kinds of questions means we've already met our basic needs. At some point, we could sit down and take a breath. And then our brains started flowing.

We figured out how to not be hungry.

We figured out how to not be cold.

We figured out how to not be harmed.

Then the real human stuff started. The stuff that separated us from the other primates. We started gazing at our navels. We wondered what the stars were. We noticed patterns in things like seasons and animal behavior. 

Scientists will try and tell us when this happened, but I think all we can really say is that it was probably sometime between 200,000 and 15,000 years ago. That doesn't really matter, because we still do it today.

And the whole reason for doing the Acid Tests is because we STILL haven't found a satisfying answer. Or, there are still ways we can inform our question. 

Religion tried to give us a story(s) to explain it away.

Philosophy tried to logic us into an acceptable reason.

All the sciences tried to 'truth' or 'proof' these questions out of our system.

But we still wonder. We are still curious.

And I don't think most of us really want an answer. Or, if we do, we are going to be severely disappointed.

Because I don't think there is a single answer. The fun is in the journey. Thinking about what these questions mean and of all the possible outcomes is what makes life interesting. 

It truly is the journey and not the destination. So the purpose of the Acid Tests is simply to see if Nature and Natural Systems provide any new information. And, of course, they do.

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It's a good question. Why? Maybe we should always be asking why. When we don't know why we're doing something, what's the point? Whether it's for money. Or for power. Or to get something. Or maybe it's a more altruistic reason. The 'why' we do things is critical and isn't it crazy to think we might not know it?

It seems to me the tools we have traditionally used to answer these questions, like Religion, Philosophy, and many of the Sciences, have come up short. Otherwise, would we still be asking these questions?

It's funny, because I don't know how many people ARE still asking these questions. But I am. And I know there are others. 

This is the main reason I do this blog and podcast. I am curious about whether we are doing things wrong. 

And the best evidence I have that we ARE doing things 'wrong' are our values. We seem to value extrinsic, human-created concepts like money, power, and status over more 'touchy-feely', experimental things like love, relationships, and contentment. Of course, this is entirely subjective, but I also believe there is something like 'global values' that are dictated by our Natural selves and our presence in the middle of Nature. This is what the Acid Tests are - an investigation of what Nature can tell us about our human purpose. 

I guess I just wish we were more vulnerable in our quest. Less individualistic and more communal. More willing to admit we don't know. More willing to share our thoughts and feelings. I think things like money, power, and status reduce relationships and focus too much on the individual.

This, again, is why I am taking a more indigenous 'neo philosophical' approach to asking these questions. 

What if I can maximize my naivety and vulnerability to ask whether Nature has any insight? What if I ask these questions simply because I want to know? What if, rather than resisting the change that is happening - the Natural condition - we ACCEPTED that change is going to happen?

It is the Evolution Paradox revisited. 

Natural systems change. When we pretend change doesn't happen we get into trouble. When we forget we are part of a Natural System, we mess things up. 

But change is hard. Even if we stop resisting, how do WE change?

I don't know, but it is fundamental and we need to stop resisting it. I guess I believe that if we stop resisting it, it will happen on its own.

What we resist, persists.

So not only are the traditional ways of answering these questions NOT providing answers, they are leading us in the opposite direction! We are avoiding, rather than embracing change. 

Some people think we can tech our way out of our problems. This kind of the opposite school of thought. I think we have chosen technology as our savior. Unfortunately, technology's main goal is to avoid change or to artificially reduce the consequences. They don't go away. We just make more shit and burn more oil. We remain in the same place. We don't have satisfactory answers to our most basic questions, but we have all this amazing crap. It's like the late E.O. Wilson said, 

“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.” 

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I really dislike Competition. And it is a touchy subject. In an article I published on Medium, I received several hateful comments defending the importance of competition in business and sports. In KEW Episode 95 I discuss Rugged Individualism vs. Unified Connection to make the point that competition focuses on isolation rather than community. I talk about this topic a lot.

And it is important for me to revisit this in the spirit of the Acid Tests, because Competition is a Natural process. Competition DOES exist in nature and it is critically important. In this episode I share with you research I did during my Master's Thesis which focused on the role of Competition in a small blackwater stream.

In short, competition creates biodiversity. But this doesn't happen the way we typically think of competition. We generally view competition as being a 'fight' or battle between two teams or two individuals. Or armies. Or whatever. Something is fighting something else to 'win' a victory. And the victory means money or power or status or land or some . . . gain. And with that gain - that WIN - there is a loss. A big 'L'. 

Yeah, that isn't how it really works out there in nature. At least not for the billions of years that preceded us getting together in giant stadiums wearing one or the other color jersey.

I'm not sure what caused the shift, but at some point we changed what we thought competition is, and my interest in the subject is to remind us.

Competition in nature is most often avoided. 

Sure, there is the image of the silverback gorilla beating up all the other males to gain and maintain his victory. But that's so atypical it's not even funny. It amazes me how we choose these non-representative examples and believe they are always true. I do it myself, of course. We are only human.

But mostly, in nature, when two individuals or species compete it is because a resource is limiting. 

BUT . . . and this is a really big BUT

Rather than compete, these individuals and species most often AVOID competing. They 'learn' to use another resource. And this learning creates a fitness differential that becomes available to natural selection. And if it's strong enough, over multiple generations the species can become two. This is the primary mechanism by which natural selection creates diversity.

And it's beautiful.

And it should be worshipped. Or maybe just appreciated.

And when I see people instead worship competition it makes my blood boil. Hopefully this episode will explain why.

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Like Competition, the concept of Enough is something I think about a lot. How much is enough?

I think about it often in the context of an annual income. How much money does it take to
be happy? Or satisfied. Or not upset. Or make ends meet plus a have a little fun. How much money do we really need?

And then I think about how some people, maybe not many, but some, make WAY more than enough.

And, of course, how many people make far less.

But the concept of enough has Natural implications beyond money. In fact, money is a very recent human creation and of little relevance in the 'grand scheme of things'.

How much was enough food? Or carbon? How much was enough oxygen? How many caves do we need to house all the humans who lived 50,000 years ago? Or wood for huts?

How much time do we need to live a good life? Do we need medical breakthroughs to allow us to live to be 100? 150? Forever?

Is forever enough?

I get a lot of insight from Nate Hagen's work on his project, The Great Simplification. I highly recommend his podcast: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com

Much of this episode, and future episodes, are inspired by The Great Simplification and the concept of 'Energy Blindness'.

I am also reading Morgan Housels' book, 'The Psychology of Money', https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Money-Timeless-lessons-happiness/dp/0857197681

I mention these guys, as well as an older KEW episode, in this Episode.

https://chrisburcher.com/2022/05/16/kew-episode-20-enough/

Here I argue that nature provides enough. Probably the concept of enough doesn't exist in nature because it almost always exists. Hoarding and gluttony don't seem to be common practices in other species, or in any part of Nature. If we look to Nature, vis a vis the Acid Tests, to inform us about enough i would say this is an entirely human construct.

Kind of like Money. Or Status. Or Power. Funny how the concept of enough might be a human-centric idea and only inasmuch as it relates to something also created by humans.

This Episode seems to have spawned a lot of ideas I will develop in the next few Episodes. I hope you enjoy it.

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I have been thinking a lot about the popular images of aggressive male competitors. Silverback gorillas. Wrestlemania or UFC fighters. These popular ideas feature 'Alpha males' bullying and pushing around 'weaker' males in order to get mates, habitat, or food. These toxic stereotypes probably spill over into popular culture and contribute to the issues we have among genders today.

My question is, how common are these 'alpha males'? How 'fit' were these gender differences across all the sexually reproducing species that ever lived? Because if natural selection had chosen this to be 'fit', wouldn't we have evolved more slowly? And why the huge leap from aggressive male dominant primates to whatever we are as humans? 

In other words, are male humans supposed to club females over the head and drag them back to our caves?

And I wonder what changed from primates to humans? Our brain size, for sure. The complexity of our nervous systems. The evolution of the MIND as an emergent thing, rather than just a brain and nerves. We became conscious.

So I just can't help but believe, whether or not male aggression was selected for at some point, that it no longer is. I think humans are more vulnerable. I think, rather than exploit each others' vulnerability and take advantage of it, we empathize with it.

This is the gist of my competition episodes. I just don't think competition leads to as much diversity as cooperation. I don't think the solutions to our problems will arise from competition, either. I believe that cooperation is the 'human' thing to do. Whether or not it was good for primates.

If we embrace each others' vulnerabilities and try to understand them we can do far more. The solutions to the Acid Test problems (war, depression, anxiety, fear, climate change, inequality, etc.) can only be solved through cooperative efforts that demand we be vulnerable with each other. We need to let down our guard - we have too much guard.

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I recently came upon a podcast by a fella named Nate Hagens. The podcast, and Nate's piece de resistance is called The Great Simplification and his ideas center around the future of humans on Earth. The idea behind The Great Simplification is that humans will soon run out of energy to power or current levels of consumption and have to drastically simplify our lives to compensate for that loss.

Nate also talks about the concept of Energy Blindness, which is the idea that most humans don't account for the energetic requirements of our lifestyle. This ranges from all the fuel costs of moving goods around to the pathways of fossil fuel consumption that lead to us living in temperature-controlled buildings. Most economic methods ignore the energetic costs, which is an immense error in our thinking.

Nates podcast is worth more than the time you will invest listening. It has simply blown my mind. He and his guests have filled in so many gaps in my thinking that my ecological training missed. There is so much knowledge and so many unique perspectives that you will surely enjoy it.

Most relevant to KEW and the Acid Tests, however, are Nate's guests. In particular, his recent guest Patrick Ophuls who has written books for 50 years under the pseudonym William Ophuls. Dr. Ophuls pretty much beat me to every punch I've pulled on KEW and summarizes incredibly eloquently a lot of what has been rolling around in my head regarding the Acid Tests.

It amazes me that Pat Ophuls is not a household name, and at the same time it makes perfect sense. Ophuls has summarized why humans are poor stewards of the Earth, explained 50 years ago where we would be today, and provides extensive guidance about how we could live better.

I suppose we don't care to listen. But folks like Nate and I are trying to share the knowledge that, for whatever reason, remains hidden.

In this episode, I share many of my key influences that convinced me that a more indigenous, more natural, and more ecological approach to human cooperation is necessary to improve individual human lives and the existence of the human species. The answers are in our past, inherent to our distant ancestry, and likely contained within our DNA. 

I cite Carlos Castaneda and his books about the Toltec warrior, Don Juan Matus. The first book is hard to read but the second, A Separate Reality, and the third, A Journey to Ixtlan will open you up.

I also mention Carl Jung, whose pioneering psychology and philosophy seems to rise to the top for most of my influences and his work makes the most sense to me.

I mention Buddhism and meditation, which should be no surprise to return listeners.

Finally, I conclude that future episodes will likely build on what I am learning from Ophuls and Hagens as I read through their own influences and stand on the shoulders of giants.

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Are you a technologist? Do you think tech is going to solve all of our human problems? Do you see science, health advances, nuclear tech or some other human invention as being our salvation?

Maybe you don't even see problems around us. I find it hard to believe that everyone, in some way, doesn't wonder where we are headed. 

As any follower on KEW will know by now, I think we need to take a few steps backward toward our 'older' and more indigenous nature. I like science and technology, but I think we've gotten ahead of ourselves.

There are so many good things we've figured out - especially in the last couple of hundred years.

-Clean water

-Better health care

-Vaccines

Yes, I like it that I don't have to hunt for my food. Grocery stores are cool.

But do we need 100 kinds of cereal?

For every technological step forward, we take at least one step back. It's a break-even, at best. At the worst, we are destroying the planet. 

Besides, humans are SUPPOSED to suffer. That shit doesn't always work out is a given. It just doesn't. And, like Paul Gadola said, you don't really want a Heaven because we'd all be bored silly. Suffering is good for us. It keeps things in perspective.

Also, how much does tech really cost? We don't SEE the real price. We see that a tech exists because some corporation can sell it for more than it costs THEM to make it, but the actual costs are much, much greater.

This has been called Energy Blindness, and you can learn more about it here. 

As we've 'advanced' forward with all this tech, it has taken a huge toll on our planet, our communities, and our spirit. 

That's a lot of additional suffering.

If you ask me, and this is what most of this episode is about, we have paid too much for the tech we have. As such, I think we need to:

-slow down

-look back at what we USED to do (like, 10,000 years ago)

-appreciate the steps forward that tech has provided us

-relearn how to be connected, despite the disconnect that technology creates.

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I continue to be inspired by the interviews on The Great Simplification Podcast, by the host Nate Havens, and by his guests. It is rewarding to find support for ideas I thought were my own. So many thoughts have been swirling around in my head, and this podcast/blog/video channel is my attempt to integrate them. It is happening. Slowly, but surely. And the process has been expedited lately.

The Acid Test idea; that nature and her patterns can inform the big questions about humans and our purpose, is not new. I am truly inspired by curiosity and wonder about where humans are in the evolutionary cycle and how we relate to each other and our universe. At the root, this is philosophy, I guess. But it is also critical that we become aware of ourselves and that we ask these questions. Our future depends on it. 

Yesterday I began the process of 'standing on the shoulders of giants' and I started reading the works that inspired the authors I have recently discovered. I picked up "Consilience" by the great Ed (E.O.) Wilson. In about five pages I realize I have yet another tome that integrates what I have been thinking.

Validation is an incredibly important part of human life. To be seen by others for who you are, and to realize that you are seen, is a great step forward in personal evolution. Or, more accurately, the LACK of validation or of being seen is a huge detriment to living a full life. In these authors I feel seen. Maybe for the first time in my life.

So this is the pro-social element, which I learned from an interview with David Sloan Wilson on The Great Simplification Podcast. Release any pre-conceived ideas about the form of government known as socialism, and think for a minute about what it means to be social - and whether or not being social is a critical element of being human. Spoiler alert: it is. And the lack of social interactions is likely a major cause of the human suffering we see increasingly today.

Much of my work on KEW has revolved around this idea, and the idea that we have neglected the communal aspects of being human and have focused too much on being 'rugged individuals'. Both are important and, in one of life's great paradoxes, we are probably better off nurturing both our individual needs (e.g., the Uniqueness Paradox) AND our communal connections. Well, duh.

Finally, and the most epiphinal thing that has happened to me lately which I share in this Episode and in the next, I have started to experience a somatic feeling associated with this paradoxical simultaneous individuality and communal-ness. Love.

As cheesy as it sounds, my experience of validation and of deepening my understanding of what others' have to say about humans, I have increasing experiences of what I can only call Love.

It is a feeling in my heart and upper abdomen. An experience of energy and light. And it comes in moments of flow, clarity, and enhanced awareness. Through meditation, my IFS work, and everyday mindfulness. I 'get it', that humans are connected by a feeling of attraction and, well, Love for each other.

Most importantly, I realize that this feeling, when absent, leads humans to repel one another. Hear me out.

When we interact with another human, we are looking for a glimpse of acceptance - an element of Love that lets us know the other person is on the same page. I think this actualization was around for

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My most pedantic episode ever. While I am a pretty touchy-feely hippie kind of guy, I shy away from the overly emotional and more 'woo-woo' concepts. I don't believe in the 'secret' (though I do think a positive attitude attracts positive things) and I don't like gratuitous cheesiness. But I have had multiple experiences that lead me toward Love.

I have had somatic experiences I can't explain other than to say I felt an internal Love permeating toward all things external.

I used to think love was some magical Disney power that you either found or didn't. Fortunately, life experiences changed my mind. I now understand what various types of human love look like in different relationships. Spousal love. Parental love. Sibling love. Friendship. 

I had preconceived notions about what I 'thought' love was. And I was wrong. I think many of us do this. We learn about love from books and TV. Or I guess TikTok and Instagram today. Hopefully, we are lucky enough to have these ideals tested and realize the inaccuracy of popular thought.

All of these lines of evidence suggest to me that love is an internal sensation. Almost like a sixths sense, Love seems to originate from somewhere in the region of my heart and upper abdomen. It feels related to sunlight, but that may just be a correlation to the sensation. 

The key is that love emanates OUTWARD, not the other direction. Most of us think love is something 'out there' that may or may not enter our bodies, minds, and hearts. 

Love is a choice. You have to open yourself to the opportunity of feeling it. Then you can direct it. And then you can receive it. I think that's how it works.

Love is in each of us. We are all equally able to feel, direct, and receive love. But we first have to stop expecting it.

Love is the ultimate non-doing. If you're looking for love, you aren't going to find it. You have to relax back into it.

I truly think you have to feel it first, to understand.

Feeling love can be learned by:

-experiencing nature

-meditating

-psychedelic experiences

-music

and probably in many other ways. 

In short, I think all the poets and songwriters are correct. Love is all you need. Love is all there is. These things are true, just in a different way than you think.

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What's the point? Of any of it?

For me, it is the unrest that comes from acknowledging what is wrong in the world.

Poverty. War. Violent crime. Social justice issues. Inequality. Racism.

Choose your weapon. It isn't hard to see problems in the world.

My point is not to point them out, but to try and posit solutions. Or pathways to solutions.

Because I'm sick and tired of armchair, short-term, quick-fix 'solutions' sold by various snake-oil salesmen dressed as therapists, coaches, doctors, and insurance brokers. There is no shortage of ways to solve your problems that don't work.

What do all of those things have in common? They address symptoms and not solutions. They're a band-aid you give the rambunctious kid who just needs to learn to calm the hell down.

And like that kid, there are almost always - no, there are ALWAYS other issues working upstream of whatever symptoms we try to alleviate.

I just read a post on Medium that suggests that underneath of, or upstream of, nearly all of our wants and needs is the simple need to be seen for who we are. To be validated and understood. 

I can vouch for that because I just had that experience in therapy. Having someone repeat back to me in their own words what I have shared with them is a good feeling.

It's like Paul Gadola says, everything is either an act of or a cry for love.

In this episode, I talk about reductionism, the enlightenment, and the scientific revolution as having run their course. I think we need the pendulum to swing back to the center where we can examine simultaneously the parts AND the system within which these parts connect.

I use climate change as an example to illustrate these endpoints.

I suggest a systems approach to looking at everything and point to reductionism as being a real problem making us increasingly myopic. 

I make the connection that to solve the problems above, we need to work at the local, reductionist level like we are. 

But, more importantly, we need to consider all the parts and their interactions. And learn how to make changes far upstream and TRUST they will affect the parts.

We don't do that anymore. We are so hyper-focused on the trees we can't see the forest anymore.

I also suggest that, as we learn to look upstream, we reconsider our global values - the beliefs that we share at these most upstream locations. 

Currently these values appear to be wealth, power, and status. 

I think they should be more like love, connectivity, and cooperation.

Like many others, I am calling for a shift from the selfish individual to the shared collective. 

But we can exist simultaneously to meet our individual needs while also living according to communal values.

All we have to do is remember how we used to live.

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Sex.

We're obsessed with it. And for good reason. Sexual reproduction is the mechanism that perpetuates life. We can't live forever, but we can become essentially immortal by passing on our genes to the next generation.

Humans, and other life forms, don't live forever. But one can argue that our DNA does. 

And it's not all sex, but it's more fun to talk about sex. We used to get along great without sex. All organisms reproduced asexually at first. No boys. No girls. No gender at all. Just a bunch of clones. 

I'll even argue that, before sex, there were no species. I mean, there were different kinds of organisms, but the concept of not being able to reproduce with other species was non-existent. Because we only reproduced with ourselves.

In this first installment in a trilogy of sex episodes, I describe the differences between asexual and sexual reproduction. If you haven't thought about this before it's a little mind-blowing. And the onset of sexual reproduction sets the stage for the next KEW arc which explains why Love evolved and why it is so important to feel connected. Or why we are 'driven' to be connected. 

Sex is natural. Sex is fun.

Sex explains everything.

Why not obsess about another aspect of sex, which is why it evolved in the first place?

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In part 1 of this series, I introduced the difference between asexual reproduction and sexual reproduction. 

Asexual reproduction is basically mitosis or simple cell division. This leaves little room for variation. Evolution and change are slow, and your kids are basically clones of you.

With the onset and ultimate domination of sexual reproduction, much more change becomes possible. New concepts like gender and parenting evolve. Evolution, itself becomes THE way organisms can adjust to changing environmental conditions. Biodiversity explodes.

The ecological assumption is that reproduction is the loophole that facilitates immortality. All life dies, but through DNA life can perpetuate indefinitely.

It's the most elegant solution to the irony that life is made to die. It isn't, really, Individuals die. Species can persist.

But, to me, the COOLEST thought experiment related to sexual reproduction is all the other 'stuff' that evolved to support this strategy.

In this episode, I'll explore the concepts of diversity, variation, community, communication, gender, sexual dimorphism, parental care, and even Love. 

Yes, the idea here is that our ability to love evolved as a supporting strategy for sexual reproduction and the perpetuation of species.

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This is really the third in a series about the evolutionary significance of sex. I recorded this Episode first, then forgot about it and recorded the previous two episodes (117 and 118). Funny that this was all on my mind to the point where I forgot talking about it.

But that's how important this is. I can't stress it enough and so give it three Episodes.

The evolution of sexual selection as the way to perpetuate biology near infinitely toward immortality is pretty cool. 

The big downside of biology and life is that it ends.

Or does it?

If we look at life through the lens of DNA, maybe it doesn't end. Maybe DNA just changes vehicles. And the best (as in 'most fit') way to do this is to facilitate variation - or responses to environmental change.

Because that pesky environment keeps changing.

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I say it all the time. The three most powerful words in the English language are, "I Don't Know'. 

When I worked at a pet store, the boss publicly humiliated me for not being able to say, "I Don't Know'. I learned quickly that it is not only ok, it is not only a good idea, it is not only TRUE, but it is very freeing to say, "I Don't Know".

If you're close to my age you might remember the television show called "You Can't Do That on Television". It was awesome and here's a link to an episode:

The whole Nickelodeon slime thing came from this show. 

You see, when someone said, "I Don't Know", they were slimed.

So even in a show that is super funny and made for kids, they shamed people for saying it.

So it is. We have all grown up thinking it is wrong, bad, stupid, dumb, inferior, sissy, or whatever to say anything related to, "I Don't Know". 

In fact, we will go OUT OF OUR WAY to coerce someone to believe that we, in fact, know.

We want to be smart. To be cool. To be not ashamed. To be tough. 

We roll a lot of our identity into knowing things.

But the truth is? We don't know things.

Like Jon Snow, we often know nothing.

And I'll be the first to tell you. Once you can release your attachment to being wrong, admitting you don't know stuff feels really, really, really good. 

It really is freeing to not be afraid of not knowing. 

In this Episode I talk all about not knowing. What we do know. What we can know. And things we (say it isn't so!) will NEVER know.

Humans are great, but we ain't all that.

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I'm revisiting some of my favorite concepts in this episode. Awareness. Intent. Attention. Consciousness. Will. And how these things work together and facilitate growth. Being human. 

Underneath all of this, I believe that growing to be a 'better' human is a critical requirement of being alive. 
Or, if it is not a requirement, it is a meaningful element whose absence is a shame if not a failure.

We are all humans, subject to the distractions of life. We can become addicted. Be assholes. Make terrible decisions that hurt people. But we can also help. Connect. And grow.

It is easy to blame our shortcomings on 'the human condition'. And it is even excusable. Because we are nowhere near perfect, whatever that even means. And we WILL fail. We will make mistakes. We will accidentally hurt people. We will hurt each other on purpose. 

We will fail to help when the opportunity arises. We will have regrets. 

But we can also choose to rise above the human condition. And isn't being better a worthwhile goal? Not perfection, by any means. No one should hold themselves accountable for the impossible. Given our machinery and evolution we will not be perfect by any definition. But intent matters. 

And I talk about intent, in this Episode, as an intentional direction of attention. 

We are blessed with an awareness. An artifact of our nervous system and 'millions of years of evolution'. Humans seem to have more of this than other animals, but perhaps it is universal. 

We can become aware of our awareness, and this becomes consciousness.

We can then make a choice about how we direct that consciousness. For good or evil. We can remain victims of our other evolutionary machinery, or we can filter this consciousness through some meaningful values or goals. 

Being kind. Being helpful. Being calm. 

Being self centered. Being rude. Being violent.

Our privilege and opportunities (or lack thereof) in many ways guide these choices. But they are still choices.

Learning to direct our attention with intent and will is difficult. 

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While this is not a definitive treatise on Systems Thinking, I wanted to talk a bit about this topic as it is relevant to many of my posts.

People tell me that out-of-the-box thinking is atypical. Most people seem to think of the world in simplified, or at least minimized relationships. For example, you might think your job sucks. When thinking about how to change that or do something about it, you might think about why your job sucks. Many will simply decide that they are unlucky, or a victim. That's a simple model that has two variables. Your job and your victimhood. The energy flows from one to the other or even between them.

In reality, your job probably sucks for many reasons and not the least of which is your attitude. I have personal experience with this as I had a job I hated and decided sucked. Once I finally quit, another person took the job. This person appears to be very happy and content with the job. Does the job still suck? What changed?

Of course, the flip side of the simplified model or approach to life is an overly complex one. Neither approach is appealing because it is either too simple and thus inaccurate, or too complex and thus overwhelming.

As usual the Goldilocks approach prevails where we understand enough about our world and whatever topic is of interest (e.g., your job) to be comfortable in the world. 

To me, a model with a handful of critical variables is often 'enough' to understand the world and make good decisions. Overly complicated models are for engineers and academics, having little value to regular people.

Systems thinking is just an idea that says we can look at our world as having a handful-to-many interacting parts. At the very least systems thinking suggests that things are usually not as simple as we tend to make them, but things are also not as complicated. 

For those of you more interested in Systems Thinking, here is a link to the definitive starter book. 

For a brief introduction and my thoughts about transitioning from an overly simplified approach to decision-making and understanding to a more resolute and informed method, please watch or listen!

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For the past twenty-some Episodes, I have been trying to figure out how to formulate my current question of interest.

Generally, I am trying to make the case that Nature provides a wealth of information. Further, I am pleading with humankind to CONSULT nature when making decisions. Especially decisions that affect our species' or planets' health.

I have used evolution and natural selection (with DNA being the mechanism) as filters, of sorts, that approve or disprove of various biological elements.

If something persists in nature through time, we can draw a safe conclusion that this has passed some sort of test.

If a biological feature exists, and persists, we may conclude that this feature is important.

These features, and the mere existence of biological elements, are evidence of their value.

That forms the basis of evolutionary biology, ecology, and arguably multiple religious and/or spiritual systems of thinking.

The leap I am trying to make here, and over much of KEW, is that this part of Nature, this WEALTH OF INFORMATION, might be used as a reference for human decision-making.

Stand on the shoulders of giants. 

Why not consult the natural world when we are asking new questions, addressing old problems, or considering which path to take to the future?

Can we not SEE that nature has been down these roads before?

I argue here that part of our problem is the idea of duality. 

Humans often, and increasingly so, see ourselves as being SEPARATE FROM Nature. 

We are one of many, many biological elements.

Further, as I will discuss in Episode 124, we see ourselves as separate from ONE ANOTHER.

I hope this Episode better explains my thinking and that you might join the conversation.

You can do this by following, subscribing, commenting, and sharing.

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The words 'leader' and 'narcissist' bug me.

I think these two words are overused. I also don't think we really know what they mean anymore. Maybe we never did.

Maybe the words have been usurped by the very people defined by them.

Let's start with leadership. What is this, exactly?

If you look on LinkedIn (which I did, then I quit) you will see 'leadership' as being a top-tier achievement. The word is thrown around to mean everything that's great about the world. Everything that's great about an INDIVIDUAL can somehow be summed up by leadership. The closer you are to being a leader, the better person you are, the more money you can make, and the greater follower count you are sure to acquire.

In other words, leadership seems to be a word that quantifies or categorizes status. 

And if you've been around here very long you know how I feel about status. 

If leaders are defined by status, how do they get it? Is it taken or bestowed? Are leaders elected, chosen, appointed? What makes a good leader?

Certainly leaders must be confident. And strong? Convincing? Manipulative? It's a slippery slope, isn't it?

Eventually, the characteristics that describe leaders merge on another one of my least favorite words: narcissism.

Who is a narcissist? Everyone? It sure seems that way. The common knee-jerk explanation for anyone who is deemed 'bad' in any way is that they are a narcissist. Kind of like one of the best things a person can be is a 'natural leader'. 

I think we have come to mistake confidence for leadership and narcissism.

The difference between narcissism and confidence is empathy.

Leadership without empathy is fascist. 

I hope you enjoy the episode and the rest of my foray into this mess.

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Divorce taught me that I had been very codependent in my first marriage. Many would argue that my ex-wife was narcissistic. As KEW readers and listeners know, I don't like either of those words but I think they describe some very human attributes.

Some people are very confident and others are not so much. The extreme ends of this continuum result in things like narcissism and codependency. 

I have a whole episode about this dynamic:

https://chrisburcher.com/2021/01/01/kew-episode-36-narcissism-codependency/

But what those very human traits or characteristics really represent is a dichotomy of self-awareness and fear.

Extremely (and often unjustifiably) confident people can easily become narcissistic. Please see this episode for more about that:

https://chrisburcher.com/2023/05/11/are-all-leaders-narcissists-kew-episode-124/

Similarly, underconfident people can often look to others to take responsibility when they question their own worth.

One side is characterized by an unnatural LACK of fear, and the other a healthy or perhaps unhealthy ABUNDANCE of fear.

Or maybe both sides are about fear.

In this Episode, I explore the interaction between more narcissistic people and more codependent people. More importantly, I investigate human relationships and how they often contain attributes of this continuum.

I argue that self-awareness creates a responsibility to bravely face our fears. And perhaps the lack of del-awareness perpetuates an unnatural avoidance of this investigation.

I am starting to think that everything is either a retreat from or a call toward fear.

And that the opposite of fear is not only bravery but love. More on that next week.

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I spent most of my pre-teen and teenage years terrified of people. I was very shy. I stayed at home on Friday and Saturday nights while I was in high school.

And don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my time. I played a lot of video games on my Commodore 64 computer. I learned to play guitar. I read cool books like the Carlos Castaneda series. I enjoyed my life.

But I didn’t interact with people a lot because it made me uncomfortable. This is where I learned about the ‘comfort zone’.

Later in life, I would have to face a terrible fear of public speaking and learn to teach college courses. It wasn’t easy, but I learned to love being in front of people. During the process, I became distinctly aware of the concept of a ‘comfort zone’.

I now see human discomfort as a sign. It is a signal that we are up against the unfamiliar. When we experience new things, we interpret the tingly, activated sensations as fear. It can also be seen as excitement. It’s hard to tell the difference. But when we feel afraid, we often retreat.

So the comfort zone is the edge of your familiarity with the world. And as you approach it, it lets you know by making you feel afraid.

The secret to moving forward, to human growth, to learning, and maturing . . . is to keep going anyway, despite the discomfort.

Going outside your comfort zone will make you uncomfortable, but doing so can also bring the greatest of life’s rewards.

To face your fears is brave. To be afraid but move forward anyway, is bravery. That’s what this week’s episode is about.

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While I don’t want to perpetuate the ‘capitalism sucks’ argument, I want to spend some time on degrowth.

Pretty funny that the spell checkers keep correcting ‘degrowth’ to ‘regrowth’. See? This idea is manifested in everything.

Because of capitalism, humans have become obsessed with growth. Mostly in the financial sense.

The way our global economy is set up, growth is an essential requirement. Maybe THE MOST essential requirement.

When we create money we create debt. The debt is the growth. If a bank prints $100, they charge you $105 and have thus created both debt and new money. The problem is, this kicks the can down the road infinitely.

And infinity is something we can’t really grasp. And the problem is, we still OWE the debt and can be called on it at any time. In effect, infinity does not really exist. Otherwise, we could postpone it, well, infinitely.

And maybe we can, but there are no examples of this happening in nature. Which causes me concern.

If you listened to or watched any of my ‘Acid Test’ episodes, you’ll know that I am fairly obsessed with looking to nature to help us answer questions. In this case, we looked AWAY from nature.

The only example I can think of in nature where growth can be seemingly infinite is CANCER. And I’m fairly certain we can all agree that is a bad thing.

So our economy, in essence, is unnatural. Growth for growth’s sake, or any system requiring near-infinite growth does not agree with anything nature has ever accomplished nor tried to.

It ain’t right.

So the concept of degrowth was introduced in the past 50 years to suggest an alternative. And the problem is, no one wants to give up their stuff.

And the crazy thing?

The only reason we came to love that stuff is because we have been brainwashed that growth is essential. We HAVE to buy more stuff to ‘keep the economy going’.

Enjoy, listen, watch, and share. Thanks.

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If you listened to (or watched) KEW Episode 15 about the Rat Race, you’ll know my feelings on jobs. And consumerism. And keeping up with the Joneses.

I think most human problems stem from our relationship with money. And possessions. And ownership. 

Many smart people will say that this mess all started when the first (fat, white, male) humans decided they could own land. Prior to that, it never occurred to indigenous peoples that a human could claim ownership over anything except themselves. 

I’m not trying to paint a picture of our ancestors as being perfect human beings, but we might need to reconsider some of the ‘advances’ we’ve made in the not-too-distant past.

 — Inequality is a huge barrier to peace.

 — Money doesn’t buy happiness.

 — All work and no play make Jack a dull boy (or Jane or any part of the gender continuum).

Of course, the biggest challenge to me is that we can’t just bail on the whole system.

Though I did know people in college who were trying to live without money — outside the consumer society. I suppose that is possible.

But I’m searching — and a huge part of KEW is this search — for a DIFFERENT WAY TO LIVE. One that is ‘fairer’. More equanimous. 

 — More balanced

 — Less abusive

 — Less wasteful

More. . . . . .

 — Sensible

I’m not sure what that is, yet, but I’m not going to stop. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts. 

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Knowing yourself is an important part of being a complete human. Maybe this is just my opinion based on my own values, but it seems to be a theme. Throughout history there have been thinkers proclaiming the importance of knowing oneself.

To justify this conclusion we can look at the opposite side of the coin. 

What is NOT knowing yourself like? 

To me, not knowing yourself leads to lots of misbehaviors. Breaking societal norms (which arguable can be a good thing), committing crimes and not obeying laws, or just being an asshole. I think of 'bad' human behaviors as being associated with people to are clueless. Who lack self-awareness. Who don't know themselves.

Because why would anyone do the wrong thing if they know they are doing the wrong thing? Out of desperation, probably. I understand that a starving person would steal bread. I don't get why someone would commit hate crimes against outgroups. I assume that is, at least in part, a result of being clueless.

Anyway, this Episode is about knowing yourself. And I think to know ourselves we have to examine our choices. Especially the choices we didn't know we were making. 

As kids, we learned a lot of stuff. How to use a toilet. How to walk and talk. Hopefully, to be kind to people. This type of cultural conditioning and learning is important to a 'good' society. 

We also learned about religion, history, and politics. 

These subconscious and non-consensual teachings can become part of us. And I think it is a critical part of being human to become aware of what we chose and what we did not choose.

For example, some people believe in a Christian God who says being homosexual is wrong and punishable by being sent to hell. I wonder how many of these folks have ever really explored that belief. Taken it apart and thought about where it came from and what it actually means. I think much of this was non-consensual.

And so it's important to take a personal inventory of what and why you believe what you do. This is a critical first step toward deconstructing and knowing yourself.

So Radical Acceptance is an interesting topic that follows from deciding to know yourself. Once you decide who you are and what you believe, you need to accept it. Of course, you are a dynamic individual who will change and grow, but you can monitor these changes and modify if necessary. 

Accepting yourself AS YOU ARE, after you inventory and re-decide your beliefs, is one of the keys to personal growth.

Once you question your beliefs you create dissonance. Between the person you ARE and the person you WERE (or felt you 'should be'). Because these disagreements can be polarizing and confusing, you must ACCEPT and KNOW yourself so you can remember the difference.

Old beliefs are so strong they will pull at you and try to convince you to come back. This ain't easy.

Radical acceptance helps you remember yourself. And love who you are.

Remember you are ok.

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If I’ve said it once by now, I’ve said it a thousand times:

It blows my mind that any two people can have a conversation and walk away feeling understood AND having understood the other person with any degree of accuracy.

In other words, our communication sucks. 

We often hear something other than the other person’s intent.

And how often have you had a conversation and then have to have the same one AGAIN because the person thought you meant something else?

And, if you think about it, given the complexity of communication beyond simple language, why SHOULD we understand each other?

Hell, most of the time we don’t even understand OURSELVES, much less be able to explain it to someone else.

Communication is hard.

And my therapist recently introduced me to a psychologist named Marshall Rosenberg and his ‘nonviolent communication’. In this video, I introduce his way of talking to each other which makes so much sense.

SO MUCH SENSE. In fact, I kind of feel like I have fallen all the way back to square one in my personal growth. It turns out I really don’t even understand my own feelings.

Nonviolent communication consists of 4 basic parts:

 — Observing instead of evaluating. What is going on?

 — Identifying the emotion we are feeling.

 — Identifying the basic need underneath that feeling that isn’t being met.

 — Making a request of the other person.

This simple process is so far from easy. It’s a lot of work. Just getting past the first two steps is nearly impossible. 

Listen to this episode, check out Dr. Rosenberg’s YouTube videos and/or books, and see how much you don’t know about yourself.

I am amazed at how much I don’t know. But excited to learn!!

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This episode is inspired by the idea that the USA has the world's most expensive yet least h care. At least this has been the type of conclusion drawn from many analyses that compare things like GDP, cost of health care, and individual health. The idea is that we have come a long way, but we don’t necessarily have a lot to show for it.

Or, maybe it’s about making all of this so-called ‘progress’, yet having a lot of co-occurring problems.

Yes, we have lower infant mortality. We were living longer for a while (yet now at least U.S. life expectancy is going down). We have more ‘stuff’ (but is that a good thing?). Many people claim we are ‘better off’ than we were in the past. But is that accurate?

Here are a few things we have improved upon:

 — We stopped polluting with DDT and the bald eagles came back.

 — The hole in the ozone layer seems to have disappeared (or at least the media isn’t talking about it being deadly any longer).

 — Surgeons wash their hands before digging around in our bodies so fewer of us die from bacterial infections.

 — Many diseases have disappeared or nearly so.

 —We have medicine to extend our lives (but see above).

But what about the bad things? The downfall? 

What is the COST of all of this progress? I really don’t even want to list these things but how about three:

 — Water scarcity and flooding. Too much or not enough water globally.

 — Air, water, and land pollution. We are drowning in our own filth.

 — Income inequality.

I could go on but I don’t want to focus on the immensity of the problems. Let’s just say I believe we have more ‘problems’ in the world today than we ever have. And I think you could adjust this for the population increase and compare today to any other point in human history. 

All of our ‘progress’ has had a terrible cost. Yet, for some reason, we EXCUSE the costs because . . . ummm. I guess we feel so strongly about all the ‘progress’?

The past 50 years have been fairly good to many (white people) global citizens. But the price of that ‘progress’ is millions of years of fossil sunlight that was burned through in a FRACTION of the time required to replenish it. 

In other words, we have spent nearly ALL of the fossil fuels on this tiny period of ‘progress’. 

Progress, I argue, is not even close to being a ‘good value’ in terms of the number of ‘progress items’ compared to the amount of resources required to build them.

Do you see what I mean? We spent nearly ALL our inheritance in less than 50 years. Though we gained some very important and valuable things, I think we created more problems than we had to begin with.

The next challenge, if we choose to accept it, is to acknowledge this terrible deal and abandon the ways and means that allow us to get into the mess in the first place. 

And it ain’t gonna be easy. We are going to have to make massive sacrifices. To start over. To RETHINK all of it. From what we value to how we measure it to how we interact with one another. 

Or, we can double and triple down and ride it out. Personally, I’d rather admit I have a problem and try to get ahead of it. 

Next week I’ll suggest a few things that I, and others, think we can do to get ahead.

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I used to own a brewery. In our rural location and with our small customer pool, we struggled to be profitable. 

My partners and I disagreed about how to best approach profitability. One had an MBA and swore by the neo-capitalist, Econ 101 approach to maximizing revenues. Following this popular approach, we were unable to generate returns on the money we threw at advertising, marketing, and solicitation.

Though I was the introverted partner, I eventually mustered the courage to try my own approach to breaking even. I guess I finally got sick of being on yet another sinking ship. Instead of following some scripted approach to capitalism, I did what made sense to me.

I figured there were two basic elements to business: revenues and expenses. As we were throwing money away trying to increase our revenues, I started to examine the expenses column.

In short, over a period of just a few months, I was able to decrease our monthly spending from about $50k to $15k. And guess what? A big chunk of that difference was profit. 

In short, I helped us grow smaller.

Of course, my partners couldn’t process what I had done. They also couldn’t let go of their attachment to ‘traditional’ economics. The business continued to spend money that would never generate a return. 

Luckily, this impasse facilitated my exit from the partnership. And from the mountain of debt. 

Oh well, I tried.

More importantly, I learned something.

As I look around the globe I see partnerships very similar to my brewery experience. Everywhere folks are throwing money at maximizing profits, believing there will be more coming in than going out.

Even in our household budgets. The literal ‘home’ implied by the prefix ‘eco’. Many of us struggle to keep the expenses column shorter than the revenue. And though it sounds simple to do, it is surely not easy.

I remain convinced, however, that growing smaller is an approachable solution to many individual, family, and business problems we face today. 

Stop obsessing over the expenses column. You really can’t control it. 

Kind of like how you can control how you react to things but not to other people’s reactions. 

A long hard look at expenses can reveal the difference between wants and needs. I think all of us could decrease what we spend. And simplify our lives.

I hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks for reading, listening, or watching.

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The fourth of July makes me ashamed.

I’m ashamed of myself because I can’t seem to match the patriotism that surrounds me. In the USA, people get almost spiritual about their fireworks, hot dogs, and freedom worship. Behind all of this, for me, is a whole lot of weirdness.

The whole Independence thing is fine. We fled a plutocratic government to have the ‘freedom’ to worship any god we wanted only to find ourselves in a similarly autocratic system with exceptionally narrow-minded tolerance of ‘others’. What the actual f%^k is up with that?

I’m also ashamed of my country. How can we celebrate such a thing? Beyond the obvious hypocrisy, of course, is the genocide. How are Americans always so blind to the cost of things? Coupled together I end up feeling a whole lotta cognitive dissonance around July 4.

One of these things is not like the other.

Outsider.

Stranger in a strange land.

It’s a common theme I’m sure you can relate to in some way. Maybe not about the fourth, but there must be some situation in your life where you just don’t get what’s going on with everyone else.

For me, that is surrounding the concept of freedom. How can everyone else get this so wrong? (from my perspective)

To me, freedom is the capacity to choose our reaction to any situation we encounter. In a Buddhist, Taoist, or Viktor Frankl kind of way. To be able to understand that I am not a victim of my situation. To have the peace of mind to pause when we encounter an uncomfortable situation. And to remember that this, too, shall pass. And that we cannot control our environment or what happens to us, but we can control our reaction to it.

How can freedom be anything else?

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Here is Part 1 of this two-part series. In it, I focus mostly on the Growth part of the equation

In Part 2, I want to focus on the Smaller portion.

As I said, I used to be an entrepreneur. In my small town, I struggled to generate enough traffic to amount to any significant income. Believing I couldn’t manipulate revenue, I instead focused very carefully on the expense side of the balance sheet. 

Later I would see the Netflix shows by the ‘Minimalists’ who described using things and loving people. They were effectively doing the same thing: putting energy into regulating the ‘expenses’, whether actual dollars or energy.

In this Episode, I summarize many of the different expenses we have. I talk about how easy it is to reduce a lot of these. I think many of us suffer from the whole, ‘well, I work hard so I DESERVE this’ kind of thing. According to this excuse, we make ourselves believe that spending more money is going to make us happier.

I know of very few people that illustrate this relationship. Mostly, everyone I KNOW is at least a little less happy than they think they could be. 

I believe there is some magic income required to create the luxury of this line of thinking. If you can’t make ends meet, you aren’t going to have the energy to ponder where you might be able to budget more effectively. Many have said this income, for a small family living in the USA, is around $75k annually. It’s probably somewhere between $50k and $100k for most people.

However, there may be a lot of assumptions in this estimate that aren’t true. How would you ever know until you do your personal budget and take a good long look at your needs vs. wants?

Most of us just assume if we have something, we need it. I don’t think this is true nearly as often as we think.

I call this the personal inventory. It is CRITICAL, if we want to live better, to inventory EVERYTHING in our life — at least everything you spend money on in the case of growing smaller. And I’ll bet you $100 you can cut some spending. Probably a lot more than you think.

And for those living below the $50k threshold, I have a lot of ideas. I’m working on it.

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There was a time when my relationship with my father was pretty good. But during my teenage years I pretty much avoided him. During that period he gave me a lot of advice I didn’t want nor listen to. One of the things he told me was that I needed to ‘Walk the Talk’.

The essence of this advice is that we need to live a life of integrity. After living half my life on this planet I see the wisdom in his words. Humans truly need to align their values with their actions. This alignment, or integrity, leads toward the good things in life and away from the bad. 

I get it now.

But as a teenager this advice just made me angry. 

Who wants to worry about the agreement between what we do and what we say, or believe in? Seems like a waste of time, right? 

But NOT making an effort to live in integrity, where your values match your actions is a huge disagreement. And disagreements can lead to conflict. This can easily become a sense of cognitive dissonance.

In music, dissonance is when something doesn’t feel right. Notes and tones of music occur that cause aural and even bodily discomfort. We don’t like it. It is harmful.

Sometimes dissonance works and is useful, but the execution requires mastery. 

I find this to be similar in life.

Making the music of our lives sound and feel ‘right’ requires awareness, attention, and observation. It takes work.

Walking is work. It requires effort to move in a direction we want to move in.

Talking is also work, because it requires a knowing. 

There is no more humbling nor important task than to identify and understand one’s motivations, beliefs, and values. 

This is your talk.

The rest is simply filtering your actions through these lenses.

This is your walk.

Alignment of the two is integrity.

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Do you remember common sense? That people just kinda know stuff. What’s right and what’s wrong.

Do you remember Common Sense? The document by Thomas Paine that was a precursor to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution? 

The first thing is something we think everybody we agree with has, and everybody we disagree with doesn’t have.

The second thing basically said government is a necessary evil.

This episode is about the first thing, and inspired by an exchange I had with a much younger person at the Tractor Supply.

We were talking about how common property is often left in disarray or even damaged. I made a comment about trying to leave common property the way I found it so that the next person found it the same way I did. The kid replied that it was just common sense to do so. 

Common Sense.

Common. Meaning both frequent and public. 

Sense. To perceive through the human body and mind.

This all makes me wonder where such a thing exists at all. Or whether it exists everywhere.

Perceptions of reality that everyone shares.

Certainly such a thing exists. 

It’s just that we’ve lost it. 

We all sense things. But our nervous systems are very different. We each put our unique ‘spin’ on our observations and call them truth.

Isn’t this what’s happening in politics? Isn’t this how we got to where we are.

What happened to the common part. Why don’t we share things anymore?

Shouldn’t we be trying to rediscover the common sense. The universal values. The shared part of the world.

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Do you ever think about your comfort zone?

You know, the thing that keeps you doing the same things over and over. And helps you stay calm, minimize anxiety, and do the things you need to do. 

I think of the comfort zone as being like a cocoon that surrounds our bodies. When we get into situations where we are uncomfortable, scared, or unfamiliar we start to experience negative emotions. Sometimes we’re afraid. Other times we get angry. We experience shifts in our baseline emotional state. 

Rather than focusing on the discomfort that comes when we push up against our comfort zones, I see these states as opportunities. If we can be courageous and push passed these discomforts we can experience growth.

The opposite is also true. If we continuously retreat from discomfort and interpret it only as danger, we miss out on opportunities for growth. While this kind of living can promote safety, it also promotes uniformity. 

If an unexamined life is not worth living, we should probably be looking at discomfort as an opportunity instead of a warning. 

In this episode, I argue that being uncomfortable promotes personal growth and that we can learn to welcome discomfort as a guide.

I hope you’ll check out this episode, and search the other 150+ episodes on the Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom podcast or YouTube channel. www.chrisburcher.com

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One of the most influential papers from my former career described the ‘River Continuum Concept’. Though quite basic, this paper revolutionized how we thought about streams and rivers. Specifically how freshwater systems changed from their springs where they began to the oceans into which they drained.

This paper introduced me to systems thinking and changed how I think about the world and nearly everything in it. 

Generally, systems are comprised of individual elements and the interactions among the elements. The shift for me and many others is to expand the focus from myopic consideration of single parts to the interactions of all the parts critical to the item(s) of interest.

This shift in thinking depends on our understanding of scope.

Often we use the word scale or perspective when we really mean scope. Scope refers to the grain size of our focus (e.g., a salamander, a pixel, or a race car) and the extent of the area around that grain (e.g., a stream, a monitor, and a race track). 

For every item we are interested,there is a relevant and appropriate environment or system (extent) to consider. Thus we define not just the target of interest but the relevant system and parts we must also consider to truly understand anything about our target.

Continuing the stream system analogy, we can consider many systems fairly linear in complexity. Truly, many systems are likely to be more three-dimensional and diffuse, but those are more difficult to study. The stream metaphor is a good intermediate step between target-based, grain-focused thinking and truly expansive and complex systems.

Typically, when we focus on a problem or target of interest, we think about only the immediate context. When faced with an unproductive employee, for example, a manager might refer to the employee handbook, monitor performance metrics, or even adjust the location of the employee's office in order to adjust or improve performance. 

Using the stream metaphor, these solutions would all be located in the same area of the stream very ‘nearby’ the employee's location. These solutions might have short-term effects but will not truly change things in the long run. This is because the causes are proximal and not ultimate. 

Yes, relocating an employee away from other staff who might converse too much may have a short-term effect on productivity. But if the true cause of the employee's poor performance is outside the workplace then the true cause is not removed. 

Using the stream metaphor, I learned that it is critical to move upstream if the target of interest is in order to consider higher-order influences and causes of distress or change. 

Each section of a stream from the headwaters to the mouth has differing characteristics. But the general rule of thumb is that only upstream areas influence downstream because of flow. Stream flow occurs in the downstream direction thus we must look upstream or laterally for influential causes of in-stream phenomena. 

I don’t want to give away the whole story. Please listen to the podcast and/or watch the videos below for the full story. And please check out the other 150+ episodes of Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom. www.chrisburcher.com

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We can’t live without water. It comprises most of our bodies and planet. Water does so many cool things. Water is pretty weird.

Even though particle physics tells us we are mostly space, we seem to be mostly water. We can’t live very long without it and it surrounds us and all we do.

We live on a planet that has tons of water. Literally. As ice, and liquid water, and water vapor.

Water travels around our planet in predictive ways we call the hydrologic cycle. 

Water creates currents because it holds heat differently than other compounds.

Water has chemistry unlike any other molecules. 

Water is weird. And critical. Vital. To life.

To understand our planet we must understand water. Why it’s weird and what that strangeness means for all life. 

If you listen to this episode it will refresh your memory about why water is so cool and explan why I’m bothering to share this information. It will help you understand climate change and our connection to the Earth and each other.

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Much of our lives seem haphazard and disorganized. Sometimes doing our best simply means being able to get out of bed and go through the motions. As we gain awareness we learn how to better navigate life's obstacles. We learn to see the obstacles as the way. It is possible - I am living proof.

As my journey - specifically the work I am doing here on my podcast - evolves I go back and forth between thinking I have no idea what's going on and an integrated theme.

Does that sound familiar? Sometimes everything makes sense. Most of the time it doesn't. But I live for that sense of flow. 

This episode is a few steps toward integrating the first 139 episodes of KEW. And nearly 15 years of reading, listening, thinking, and learning. 

I used to say the big questions I was pursuing were things like 'Why am I here?', 'Who am I?', and 'What is the purpose of life?' But lately, I think the real questions are more like 'How are we doing?', 'What is good and what is bad?', 'Is there a better way for humans to live?'.

My reason for pursuing these things is twofold. I want to live a 'better life' (whatever that means) and I want humans to 'better evolve'. 

I don't think anyone will disagree with me that humans are plagued with problems. Sure, we learned how to make water safe to drink, reduce infant mortality, live longer and healthier lives, and move food around the planet. But what have we lost? 

I look around and see problems. Problems that plague us as individuals like anxiety, depression, and suicide. And problems that plague our societies like war, hunger, income inequality, and racism. 

These indicators of human well-being suggest that we could do better.

And that's what I'm looking for. What is it that we could do better? What things should we stop doing? What are the relationships between the things we do, have, and want and how we experience life?

In this episode, I outline the basic components of healthy living as individuals and as groups. I firmly believe that we have to figure our own shit out fairly well before we can have the conversations that will change the world. 

Using personal growth as a model I think we can apply the same tools that heal us as individuals to groups. Families, communities, societies, and civilizations can grow as individuals grow. We don't need to reinvent the wheel.

More soon.

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Would our ancestors be proud of us?

When I think of the problems humans face today: suffering, anxiety, inequality, social justice issues, war, pollution . . . I try to put things in an evolutionary context. 

On the one hand, we have come so far. We have created many wonderful ‘science’, ‘technology’, and ‘engineering’ elements that benefit individuals and society. Clean water. Sanitation. Medicine. 

On the other hand, it hasn’t all been rainbows and unicorns. We can’t seem to shake our violent and gluttonous nature. We kill each other and other organisms. We soil the water that gives us life. 

Individuals will fall along some continuum from ‘all humans suck and we should just die’ to ‘we are so amazing because we can hoard billions of dollars’. Most of us are in the Gaussian middle.

Many of us can agree that there is some bad shit going on that we could change. More would probably agree that our ancestors would NOT be proud of how we treat our home. 

Technophiles and scientists would argue against this view that humans are more cooperative and argue that competition is more our nature. 

I find it hard to not see the problems we have created (pollution, climate change, war, famine, inequality, depression) as not being — at least in part — caused by our incessant need for growth. More money. More power. More tech.

I started my brief professional career by asking big questions. I studied how atoms travel around the entire earth in biogeochemical cycles. I asked broad-scale questions that required a LOT of data. Mostly because so many variables are interacting at these scales. As opposed to bench-top laboratory science where researchers can control for most variables and isolate one or two. 

Ecology is an extremely broad-scale and multivariate science. So much so that traditional scientific methods, designed for the bench top, are often criticized for being inappropriate and inefficient. In short, the more variables you add, the more wrong you can be.

The problem is, that the world is exceptionally multivariate. The interconnected nature of, well, everything means we have to consider as many variables as possible to truly understand things.

Because of my ecological training, I used to think I was a big-picture person. Since I have freed myself from calling myself a scientist (by retiring), I realize how wrong I have been.

Yes, ecology and some other hard sciences are extremely ‘big picture’ and are considered the most complex of any discipline. But we are still far from holistic.

I realize now that to truly understand these broad scale issues of human importance we have to think even BIGGER.

The episode is a beginning. This is the start of broadening Ecology to include elements of psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and sociology to forge a more complete picture of interactions. These interactions are critical to understanding the problems plaguing humanity today.

We CANNOT move forward until we broaden our scope. Work together. Cooperate. 

And before we can do that, we have to work on ourselves.

I am building a path to demonstrate HOW to learn to communicate with each other to solve the biggest problems. I introduce five parts to this process:

1. Measures of individual and group human fitness that will be or are being selected for evolutionarily
2. Personal inventory of values, ethics, morals, feelings, and needs. This is practice, includes things like meditation, exercise, healthy eating, and self-awareness
3. Social structure including government, societies, and civilization
4. Resource allocation and equitability
5. Adaptive management and dynamic assessment

In future episodes I will develop these and describe steps toward solutions.

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I’ll just come out and say it.

I’m sick of academic arrogance. Academic. Scientific. Intelligence mafia. 

I don’t know why authority seems to be the foodstuffs of ego. But it sure seems like it is.

I am so tired of being talked down to — as a society member — by those who are supposedly smarter than me.

And it isn’t just the false dualism of ‘I’m smart and you’re not’. Or even that other people might know more about things than I do. 

I TOTALLY GET THAT.

No, it’s an attitude. A TONE, if you will. A tone of voice. 

And I certainly could be reading into this. I’ll admit this could be, at least in part, about my personal past trauma. I used to be an academic, after all.

I quit being a ‘practicing scientist’ for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which is that I don’t want to be around arrogant people. And I do believe the scientific community selects for arrogance. 

It’s kind of how politics seems to select for assholes.

Surgery seems to select for Gods.

All that to say, I don’t like arrogant bullies who are so attached to their own beliefs that they place themselves higher than others and close their minds to alternatives.

And I say that knowing full well I may be doing that exact thing right now. I sincerely hope I am not.

This is critical because arrogance can bully people into believing. And that ain’t how science is supposed to work.

Science is not the truth. Science generates evidence.

Evidence creates belief.

Beliefs change.

Truth, like God, is absolute. 

Absolutes are outside human understanding. 

Truth, proof, God, perfection . . . . why bother with such things?

I believe we cannot know them, yet we believe we can. Why not admit we cannot? Why accept that we are limited?

We can get close! Our estimates and models can be very useful in understanding how things work.

But we must — with as much universality as possible — leave the door open for new knowledge. For change.

Because that is the only thing we can really know that approaches the truth.

Things change.

All that and more in this episode. Podcast and video formats below:

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Lately, I’ve been wondering about capitalism and competition. As I have mentioned in other episodes (links below), competition only occurs when resources are limited. Also, capitalism requires competition to protect consumers from monopolies. While I argue in older episodes that this protective feature often doesn’t work, the fact remains that capitalism requires competition.

That competition is a requirement of capitalism is critical BECAUSE competition only occurs when resources are limited. 

When there are plenty of resources, there is no reason to compete. Evolution works the same way. Organisms will opt to avoid competition at all costs, at least at the species level, and will only compete if there are no other options. In fact, speciation results from niche diversification associated with this avoidance.

In other words, when two species share a similar niche and require similar resources, they will not compete until those resources are limited (i.e., not enough to meet the demands of both species). When resources become limited, the species will look for other resources. As a result, their niches will change and one or two new species can form. This is how evolution works. It is natural law.

When thinking about natural law and capitalism, then, I can’t help but wonder why humans would design such a system. Why would capitalism require resources to be limited? Or, asked a different way, what is the result of this requirement if, perhaps, it was not understood a priori? It’s more probably an oversight than an evil plan.

When resources are required to remain limited, inequality happens. There will be haves and have-nots. I wonder if this is what led to things like the caste system, kings and paupers, masters and slaves, and the rulers and peasants. These systems are common to nearly all, if not all, modern human societies.

In this episode, I ponder what would happen if we altered capitalism to be more egalitarian. This is the beginning of a developing idea so please forgive the incompleteness of my ramblings. 

Links to older episodes about similar issues:

KEW Episode 39: The Growth Fallacy - Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom
With respect to economics, people often say that you have to grow to stay in business. I heard this a lot when I tried…chrisburcher.com

KEW Episode 44: Unnatural Selection - Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom
I am currently working on a larger project that will connect my background in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with…chrisburcher.com

"Rugged Individualism or Unified Connection?" KEW Episode 95: Cooperation vs Competition …
Do you enjoy friendly competition? Many of us do. Some say it brings out the best in us. Some thrive in an environment…chrisburcher.com

Episodes 117–119 are all about why sexual selection evolved to replace asexual selection (cell division) and can be found on this page of my website. 

Nature Knows Best (Episode 123) - Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom
For the past twenty-some Episodes, I have been trying to figure out how to formulate my current question of interest…chrisburcher.com

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Are humans inherently evil? 

There’s a popular hypothesis that says we are. It’s a great excuse for bad behavior. But believing we can’t help ourselves has never set well with me. Kind of like when some guys use ‘millions of years of evolution’ as an excuse to not be monogamous.

My hypothesis is that humans aren’t inherently evil, and I’m going to tell you why.

In Rutger Bregman’s ‘Humankind: A Hopeful History’, he makes a convincing case for why he doesn’t think humans are evil. He cites another book, William Golding’s ‘The Lord of the Flies” as a popular example arguing against his thesis. He explains that “Lord” is a popular book based on no evidence. In fact, Bregman further describes, the only evidence we know of refutes the premise that humans would behave like they did in Golding’s story.

I think being evil and doing evil are different things. Kind of like how shame is about being bad and guilt is about doingbad. I don’t think people are inherently evil. I believe we are born good. And always have been.

Before I share my thoughts on why I think people are not inherently evil, please allow me to share a story.

My brother is a bicycle rider. He has been my whole life. Sometimes he has to share the road with cars. Thirty years ago he told me he was literally run off the road by an intolerant (evil?) driver. For years I used this story as an example to illustrate that things were getting better. I thought those days were behind us.

Just a few days ago my bro shared more recent anecdotes about having a dirty diaper and a bottle of human urine dumped on him by drivers while riding his bike. WTF is wrong with people?

Were these people evil, or were they just doing bad things?

I refuse to believe people are evil because I don’t think natural selection would have favored it. I think the social nature of homo sapiens depends on lots of positive interactions. I think ‘good’ is considered evolutionarily fit, and thus selected for whereas evil is not. 

So, why, then do people do bad things?

I believe people do bad things because of trauma. Acting out distracts people from their pain and provides an escape. A hit of dopamine or oxytocin to cover up their wounds. Probably because other people did bad things to them. Other people who had their own trauma. Who also were not evil.

These people, traumatized people, don’t need our hate. They need our love. https://www.buzzsprout.com/530563/12353141

In order to send love to and empathize with people who do bad things, we have to do our own work. This begins with us, as individuals. 

Next, we can learn to extend love outward toward people in need. We can demonstrate tolerance and empathy.

Self-awareness is contagious, but it is a luxury. Those of us who have it need to share it. This is the beginning of how we get to where we need to go.

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You're probably not old enough to remember, but a commercial in the 70s reminds me of this episode. In the commercial, a woman who represented Earth informed the viewer, 

"'It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDkiq5jD5Hc

I don't know if this ad made an impression on me, but my adult self agrees with it.

I don't think we consult Mother Nature often enough. It might be my Evolutionary Ecology background showing, but I tend to think of things in terms of evolutionary history. In many ways, I use Nature as a reference in most of my life.

I have done several episodes honoring the beauty of evolution.

Episode 44, 'Unnatural Selection' suggests that humans have altered the typical course of evolution using things like technology and machines.

https://chrisburcher.com/2021/03/26/kew-episode-44-unnatural-selection/

In my 100th episode, 'The Evolution Paradox' I discuss how strange it seems that humans resist change despite being entirely driven by adaptation to a changing environment. Quite literally, the only thing we can depend on is that things change.

https://chrisburcher.com/2022/06/03/life-is-supposed-to-change-its-up-to-you-kew-episode-100-the-evolution-paradox/

Truly, most of my thinking assumes that the evolutionary model and history tells us a lot about success.

Fitness, according to Darwin, is essentially biological success. The things that persist on Earth are 'fit' for the environment. Fitness is good. Extinction is bad. 

Here I am going a step further to suggest that we treat Mother Nature as our ally. Our therapist. Our counselor. Why would we not consult this wisdom when making decisions about our future?

This consultation is toward what I am calling 'Natural Law', though this term has been used before and isn't quite suitable here.

I'm simply suggesting that we look to history to think about the future. 

Kind of like how meteorology and predicting weather is more 'hindcasting', or looking to the past, than it is 'forecasting'. 

Instead, humans often assume we know better than Mother Nature because we are so evolved and intelligent. We create technology that helps our bodies live longer while our minds rot. We burn fossil fuels that help us fly around the planet while we destroy the systems the planet relies on for life. We're good, but we're not that smart. 

This sort of unnatural selection is dangerously arrogant and, arguably, is leading to our demise. 

The most obvious example of this erroneous and arrogant thinking is Capitalism, and I discuss this in detail in Episode 37, 'The Currency of Life'. 

https://chrisburcher.com/2021/01/08/kew-episode-37-currency-of-life/

Humans think we can do better than Mother Nature. And maybe we can, but we certainly shouldn't implement these strategies without consulting her first. 

Our ancestors knew this. We just forgot.

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What matters to you? What is important? What do you value (Episode 46 Values)? We say things matter to us when we put energy into developing, protecting, and thinking about them.

Our families matter. Our relationships matter.

Things that matter have meaning to us. What is meaningful to me might not be meaningful to you.

But as I have said before, I think there are some things that have universal meaning. They matter to us all.

Life. Peace. Calm. Justice. Love. Integrity.

Many would argue these things matter.

But how about power, wealth, or truth? Do these things matter?

Probably there are some fairly universal things or concepts that matter to us all. Whether we realize this, of course, is open to debate.

What really matters, then, depends on awareness. About trying. About making an effort to do the things I talk about in other Episodes like 136 Human Values are Common Sense, 133 What Freedom Means to Me, and 123 Nature Knows Best, 121 Awareness. Cultivation and Growth, 82 What Do You Need?. We have to care about ourselves and each other. 

I also think that defining what matters can be incredibly helpful to us as individuals and to our society. I may even argue that it is essential to define what matters if only to reduce the things we spend time worrying about.

For those of us who are anxious, letting go of things that DON'T matter, or that matter less, can be freeing. We could all benefit from a personal inventory to help eliminate things we worry about but that probably don't matter.

Many of us probably waste time on things that don't matter. 

Many of us also probably never thought about it.

I invite you to take an inventory (Episode 51 Personal Inventory) of your life and ask yourself, 'Does this matter?'

If it doesn't, let it go. 

If it does, hold it close and protect it.

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If you’re familiar with me or craft beer (or maybe both?) you may be familiar with the phrase, “The brewing industry is 99% asshole free”. This quote became famous when Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery published his book “Brewing Up a Business”. This book was an inspiration to my brewery and a big part of the craft beer explosion.

The quote suggests that the beer business is more cooperative than competitive. It turns out this is not true. Like any business, breweries compete with each other. And as the number of breweries increased, so did the number of assholes. In the end, Sam’s quote is not true, and there are as many assholes in the craft brewing business as there are anywhere.

Surely you have assholes in your life. Maybe a boss or coworker. Maybe a family member. Maybe your president. What’s crazy is that these jerks seemed to be more loved than hated a lot of times. How did they get to be the boss in the first place?

In fact, in our white patriarchal plutocratic world being an asshole seems like a requirement. Many people in power are admired for their assholery. 

This makes me wonder how much we are all complicit in these assholes' success because we enable it.

Now, I get it. Many people are not in the position to refuse an asshole. When they are in positions of power over us, there is little we can do that doesn’t harm ourselves. We lose jobs, relationships, and money if we rebel against their poor behavior.

But enablers and complicit behavior don’t help drive assholes extinct. 

Have you ever thought about a time when there were no assholes? I often think (perhaps naively) that we didn’t have a lot of assholes until we had social hierarchies. Depending on when that began (and we’ll never know), there may have been a time when social groups had mechanisms to PREVENT assholes from gaining power rather than ENABLING them. 

In fact, I will suggest here that shame was one of these mechanisms. Shame is a terrible thing, and I have shared about this here and here. But shame evolved for some reason. I think groups of humans, and maybe other primates, used shame to call out and DISABLE poor behavior. So when our ancestors acted like assholes, they got kicked out of the tribe. The asshole genes were selected against, in an evolutionary sense.

As our societies modernized and became more numerous the asshole reduction behaviors have been forgotten. Most assholes needed to get punched in the mouth or otherwise publicly shamed but were not. I think some elements of modernity, including social hierarchies, power, land ownership, and money, created artificial evolutionary selection pressures FOR assholery.

In this episode I talk more about why it is critical we reverse this trend and rid ourselves of the assholes in our lives.

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you remember the term ‘coping mechanisms’? We used to hear this phrase often, usually when people were referring to our bad habits. 

Like, smoking is a coping mechanism for stress. Avoiding conflict is a coping mechanism for people who don’t want to get involved. Denial is a popular coping mechanism for avoiding hurtful truths.

Though the term ‘coping mechanism’ has sort of gone out of style, we still talk about the same phenomenon. 

We talk about people wearing masks and changing our personalities depending on who we talk to.

We talk about limiting beliefs affecting how we navigate our lives.

All of these terms describe how we can respond to life in ways that aren’t necessarily how we would choose to act. It’s like our reaction to things depends on the situation. In different situations, we employ different reactions or strategies.

This is most obvious to me when I take psychological tests or quizzes. I had to do this recently with my therapist. I found myself thinking ‘it depends’ in answering many of the questions.

For example, a classic Meyers-Briggs personality question is about introversion vs. extroversion. A question might be something like,

• Do you enjoy being in a crowd of people?

Well, yes and no. It depends! Or sometimes we think, “I don’t know”.

Another example is related to autism. 

• Do you find it difficult to make eye contact with others?

Again, it depends!

In this case, I do find it difficult BUT I have learned to make an effort to have eye contact because I understand it improves communication.

So, which is it? 

This got me thinking about coping mechanisms, limiting beliefs, masks, and how we alter our behavior in different situations.

Most importantly, it made me wonder who I am and where is my Self.

In Internal Family Systems Therapy, Richard Schwartz describes how personality is comprised of multiple parts. These parts perfectly address these coping mechanisms.

Dr. Schwartz describes how trauma, or uncomfortable situations, can lead us to create masks or sub-Selves that help us navigate our lives. We learn to alter our behavior to protect ourselves.

Thus, there are many attempts to understand how and why we wear masks in our lives to cope with stress.

In the end, I think it comes down to this:

• If we aren’t getting our needs met, we implement strategies we learned as children 
• Many of these strategies no longer work for us as adults
• If we can figure out how to meet the unmet needs we no longer need the mask

Life, then, becomes about finding our Self and discarding the masks we wear.

I hope this episode will help you on your journey of self discovery.

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Do you ever feel like what you want to do goes against what society ‘wants’ you to do? 

Like, maybe you want to be a painter, but your parents and your school tell you that you’ll never make any money.

Maybe you want to take a gap year after high school but your parents fear you’ll never go to college and, thus, never ‘amount to anything’. 

Maybe you are attracted to people of your same sex but your religion tells you that’s wrong.

I think you get what I’m saying. It’s kind of like my ‘Are vs Should Problem’ and the many episodes I dedicated to figuring out who you ARE and who it is you feel like society, your parents, and your religion tell you you SHOULD BE.

So this episode is about that, but it’s also about a more general, yet pervasive, set of ‘rules’. 

For me, this started very young, maybe six years old. I realized that, in order to live my life, I was going to have to spend that life working. I was surrounded by people who didn’t seem to like their jobs, so I also learned that working pretty much sucked.

Even at this early age, I realized life was about things I didn’t want to do. 

I also realized that ‘society’, whatever that was, regulated the things I could and could not do. It was as if I had to get permission to be myself. Surely, many people can relate to this feeling.

The most basic form of permission is working to earn money to pay for your life. 

How awful is that?

I’m not sure what initiated this feeling that I needed permission, but it is a fairly pervasive element in this life we live. If we are privileged enough to have a choice. 

But we don’t need permission to live. The fact that we are lucky enough to be born is all the evidence we really need. I talk about this in Episode 99: The Uniqueness Imperative. But we miss that. Society, religion, family, work, and culture beg to differ. They want us to EARN our way, and I just can’t get behind that.

We don’t need permission to live.

If only it were that simple. I can tell you all day long that you don’t need permission to follow your dreams, date who you want, or wear whatever clothes you want — as long as you obey the Golden Rule and harm no one in the process. But it won’t do any good. The brainwashing, the INDOCTRINATION that you experienced is just too strong.

We really need to get away from the idea that earning money permits us to fulfill ourselves. 

We deserve to get our needs met, as long as doing so doesn’t harm others. Though we don’t all have equal access to pursuing our dreams and needs, those of us that do owe it to everyone to try.

We owe it to our ancestors who suffered for our success. Whose traits were selected for and persist in us. Expressing these traits is the highest of achievements. 

Yet, that’s not how we measure achievement. 

We measure ‘success’ in the form of money. How effed up is that?

Money is just something we made up. Your DNA is what makes you you and links you to everyone else.

But you don’t have to play this game. You can do what you want. You can follow your own path. Listen to the beat of your own drummer. Listen to your heart. Whatever it means to you to be yourself. The person you ARE.

You have my permission. Not that you needed it. www.chrisburcher.com

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Do you ever think about what life was like for early humans once we had our basic needs met? You know, once we figured out how to procure victuals and maintain a shelter. What was life like? 

Experts including historians, anthropologists, and scientists seem to disagree. Some say we were ignorant savages (I’m looking at you, director of Pocahontas) whereas others claim we actually didn’t work that much but spent a lot of time playing. 

I like to think we were pretty smart. I think we fairly quickly met our basic needs and spent a lot of time enjoying ourselves. Painting caves. Making babies (though we may not have known that’s what we were doing). Learning to communicate, tell stories, and document history.

It’s certainly fun to think about. And I can’t help but think what I wrote in the title above:

Life wants to live. 

Doesn’t it?

And, evolutionarily, wouldn’t natural selection sort it out this way? As in, individuals who had a proclivity or interest in life — living life — would be more likely to procreate and perpetuate their genes into the future. 

I’m making a few assumptions here. Mostly that Nature Knows Best and that the Meaning of Life is to express our individual genome. In essence, to live out our nature. Refer to those episodes for more details.

I think we humans are at a point in our evolution where we are sorting out the recent past. The past 5,000 years or so of recorded history are all we know about ourselves, and that is a tiny fraction of the time we have existed. 

Our ancestors have been around maybe 200–300,000 years. What was going on before, say, Egypt?

Many think our ‘highly evolved brains’ make us ‘better’ than our ancestors. Certainly our non-human ancestors. Modern times have been dominated by decisions and choices that utilize our ‘advanced brains’. This is unique.

During most of our history natural selection was mostly external. As our brains became more complex (and more complicated) humans started to impose selection pressures on ourselves. That’s where things get interesting.

As I mark 150 episodes and over three years of this podcast, I am being pulled in this direction. Along with many other thinkers and creators, I feel a collective emergence of questions. Many people are questioning our human decisions. We are wondering about the direction of evolution. We might be creating more problems than we are doing good. Our capacity to override Nature might be taking us away from where we need to be.

We are in an age where we, and our technology, can act as new selection pressures and literally alter the course of evolution.

Is this good? I argue it is not. 

This episode introduces many ideas that I will explore in the next arc of Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom. I hope you enjoy the summary and will stick around for the future. 

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Have you ever felt like scientists were assholes? Or at least super arrogant? 

I often hear scientists sound this way. And when I was in academia it seemed they surrounded me. Being an academic seemed synonymous with being so arrogant that you turned people off.

I think many of us have experienced this and it does academia and science a disservice.

It’s like a medical doctor with no bedside manner. If you can’t communicate with ‘normal people’, whatever level of intelligence or value you offer society can be ineffective.

In other words, if you can’t talk to people in a way that doesn’t turn them off they won’t hear what you have to say.

Think about that.

If we can’t communicate well we run the risk of losing our meaning. Our value to society can be severely diminished.

That’s why I have podcasted here and here and even here about the importance of being human — being NON-SCIENTIFIC. Being humble. 

When I say Science is Not the Truth, I mean it. When you hear scientists claiming they (and usually only they) know the truth or have some special access to reality, you should believe them less.

When I say “I Don’t Know” are the most powerful words in the English language, I mean that, too. If you hear someone sound so confident that they stop questioning their brilliance, you should believe them much less. If at all. 

I talk about the truth and facts and science and arrogance a lot. Hell, my very first Episode was about this. 

I talk about this so much because it matters. It is important for us to act as informed consumers. Of goods and services but also of information. It is up to us as a society to reach a consensus via a science-informed discourse. 

Unfortunately, what happens nowadays is that we treat scientists as either Gods or pariahs. Neither moniker is fair or accurate. This is a dangerous practice. 

It’s obvious to me that not everything can be effectively studied using science. Science requires measurements and numbers. 

At the most basic level, all science does is convert reality to numbers and then use math to answer questions.

If you accept that explanation (and I get it if you don’t, because, well, this article and every link in it) then you can entertain the idea that the ‘goodness’ of science is dependent on the ability of the measures to be measured effectively and accurately.

In other words, for things that can’t be effectively measured AND replicated (i.e., measured many times or have many different units to measure) then science just won’t work.

And I am VERY guilty of this because as a scientist I studied streams. Each stream is unique. Every part of every stream is unique. As Hericlitus is supposed to have said, 

No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he is not the same man

His lack of gender appreciation notwithstanding, this is essentially accurate.

Despite my inability to replicate streams I still used math to assess my data. In reality, this makes my science weak, at best. 

Psychological science suffers from a similar shortcoming. It’s hard to measure human intelligence, the brain, or our emotions. But we use scientific methods anyway.

There are many who would thus consider ecology and psychology to be ‘soft’ sciences o

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Have you ever thought about how complex our brains are? Or about how little we seem to really know about the way we think?

Like, how can we simultaneously love our family but also they annoy us to no end? 

I think this dissonance, this capacity to hold to two seemingly oppositional thoughts at the same time is just something we are able to do. What’s weird it that we try to not do this. When we have two opposing thoughts we say we’re ‘confused’, or ‘demented’, or ‘senile’. We have all sorts of negative terminology to describe what I think is a perfectly normal condition.

I think this all stems from our sadistic love of conformity. 

If you’ve seen any of my work you know I’m not a fan of conformity. Rather, I believe in diversity and variation. Maybe it’s my background in Evolutionary Biology. Maybe it’s that I’ve always felt different, maybe it just makes sense. 

I present both The Evolution Paradox and The Uniqueness Imperative to explain how our genetic makeup, via Natural Selection, creates diversity. Change is the way of the world, not conformity. By definition, conformity goes against the very literal basis of our being.

For more background, I discuss in ‘Let’s Talk About Sex Part 1’ why sexual reproduction is so important and how this facilitates diversity. 

Our biological nature creates diversity and has led to our splendid minds. But what is a mind, exactly? A mind comes from our neurology and our brain but is something different. You can’t measure a mind. It us ‘us’, our individual Self, our Soul. It makes each one of us unique.

And this is where it gets tricky.

Inasmuch as we are a unique member of Homo sapiens, we are also a PART of the collective human race. We are one with the Earth. There is not actual, individual Self. And there is.

This is another thing humans aren’t very good at: holding two seemingly opposing ideas simultaneously. 

But not only is that possible, it is just a feature of life.

The difference, nay, the problem in all this is that has led us, humans, to feel separate, and to promote conformity while shunning diversity.

Think about it. That’s what we do. And it’s wrong.

This episode is chock full of other ditties about evolution, conformity, and neurodivergence. I am on a new path and much of the meat of future discussions are introduced and rehashed here. Please feel free to drop ideas, thoughts, comments, and corrections.

Your mind is a splendid thing. I hope you use it to promote the very diversity that makes you unique.

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If you are in therapy or considering psychoanalysis this episode is for you. This episode is also for you if you have been wondering about neurodivergence, autism, or ADHD. This is the beginning of what I think will be a long quest and potentially a new direction for this podcast and blog.

In this episode, I lay out my experience with psychoanalysis and my recent foray into learning about ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and neurodivergence. Several episodes will follow with increasing levels of detail and both specificity about me and generality that may apply more broadly.

There is a companion blog post linked here that inspired this episode and is worth reading if you’re into this sort of thing.

I don’t know why humans ponder our existence. I don’t know what motivates one person to pursue personal growth and another to dismiss it entirely. My work is directed at those of us who want to live a ‘fulfilled life’, who are ‘pursuing happiness’, ‘seek healing’, or want to flourish. We want to live our best lives while here on Earth.

This is not to say any of us are miserable. Some of us are, of course. Sometimes growth is motivated by severe trauma. Others are simply curious. I think curiosity is very human and is enough of an excuse to gaze at our navel should we choose to do so.

For me, my pursuit of these things came about because I have always felt DIFFERENT. I didn’t have a better word to describe this feeling, and I’m not sure there is a better word. I have just always felt a little awkward, or atypical, or unusual. I never really felt like I ‘fit in’. If you have read this far, I’m sure you can relate.

This feeling led me to several experiences with counseling, therapy, and coaching in my youth, teenage years, and adulthood. After I had kids, and again after my divorce, I sort of ratcheted down on trying to understand myself and to heal. 

I have lots of experience with therapies of all types. And I can’t say that any of it healed me. Certainly, much of it was HEALING, but I never felt a Eureka or ‘a-ha’ moment that made me feel better.

Mostly, therapy made me feel like something was wrong with me that I could learn to ‘fix’. 

But I never felt ‘fixed’. 

Not feeling ‘fixed’ made me feel even worse. I felt shame at not being good enough to heal. 

I went into therapy feeling ‘not good enough’ because I was different, and implementing the therapy training led me to feel even more ‘not good enough’ because I couldn’t make the techniques work. 

It wasn’t until recently, when a therapist suggested I do some neurodivergence tests, that I was able to open up to Autism. Nearly all of the tests suggest that I have a high propensity for being Autistic. While I didn’t score ‘off the charts’ in the ‘super obvious’ range, I was way above neurotypical or allistic (non-ASD). 

What surprised me about ASD is how well it seemed to explain the entirety of my experience. I found videos, podcasts, and interviews of people saying the same things I had said all my life. Things like:

• I always felt different
• I feel like other people had a handbook of life that I didn’t get
• The world doesn’t make sense
• I love myself, but I fall apart when I interact with the rest of the world
• I have mysophonia, or sensitivity to some sounds
• I am an empathic, introverted, highly sensitive, INFJ

That last one pretty much screams Autistic as far as I am concerned.

I have also found a lot of support within the neurodivergent community. My few posts and episodes about self-diagnosing have been well-received and supported. I find myself identifying strongly with other neurodivergents.

More than anything, if ASD does accurately describe me — and I

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Have you ever felt like the only person who didn’t receive a ‘How to Live Life’ handbook? Did you think everyone else understood what was going on except you? I’ve felt like that my whole life. 

And it isn’t that I don’t like myself. I love myself. Everything breaks down when I move from my ‘inner world’ to the ‘outer world’. I struggle to understand human interactions. I always feel like I’m different.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking to be ‘happy’, whatever that means. I’m just trying to reduce my suffering. I believe in human flourishing and I’m trying to learn how to address the aspects of my life that reduce that. And to help others learn how to do it, too.

My first foray into healing was seeking the help of counselors, therapists, and coaches. Near uniformly, they told me that everyone feels different. I internalized that to mean, if everyone feels different then we are all the same. More importantly, we are all wrong. I am wrong. 

But I already knew I was wrong. Feeling wrong or different was the whole point of me seeking therapy. Being told that I was wrong for feeling different not only didn’t help, it made me feel ashamed. A lot of therapy was like the shift from guilt (something is wrong and I can change it) to shame (something is wrong because I am wrong).

Does that make sense?

I was a weird kid. An odd teenager. And an awkward adult.

The first time I vomited I thought I was dying and I developed emetophobia — the fear of vomiting. It has been crippling.

I had a lot of weird friends growing up. This made me feel superior until I realized that parents lumped weird kids with other weird kids, so what did this say about me?

The first time a girl expressed interest in me I built up a wall so tall no physical interaction could ever happen. Despite my curiosity, I was just too overwhelmed to do anything about it.

My interest in breakdancing and skateboarding got me beat up. My weird clothes induced ridicule.

Eventually, I learned how to mask or act like I knew what I was doing. I had various degrees of success holding jobs, passing tests, driving a car, and even making physical contact with the opposite sex. 

I also learned that smoking weed helped. But there was a lot of collateral damage there. Eventually, I discovered alcohol and had similarly polarized results.

Now, more sober and with highly developed coping mechanisms or masks (see Episode 148), no one would ever suspect I was autistic.

And maybe I’m not. Except in the neurodivergent community, I have found clarity. The shift from therapy (there’s something wrong with you, and you need to fix it) to autism (you’re just different, and that’s ok) has been overwhelmingly relieving. 

A few months ago, I allowed the idea that I might be autistic — or neurodivergent to some degree — to penetrate my psyche. After taking tons of online tests and always scoring in the ‘likely autistic’ category, I accepted that this might be an explanation for things I had learned about in therapy. 

What a difference perspective can make.

To me, autism posits a theory that suggests humans may be neurologically variable. I don’t really care for the DSM definitions, this one makes sense to me. Sure, I may lack psychological training but I have a curious mind and a shit ton of degrees. It makes sense to me that, like most anything related to biology, our ‘neurology’ will vary around a mean to some degree.

What I have learned about biological organisms is that we receive information through our nervous systems. This includes nerve cells, brains, spinal cords, and all the connections within this system. Humans have five subsystems that allow us to receive information from our environments. These include the senses of sigh

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Are you a religious person? An atheist? Agnostic?

I consider myself to be agnostic. Mostly because I Don’t Know. 

If I had to choose any belief system to attach to, I would be a Darwinist. By this, I mean that I believe that Natural Selection is a meaningful explanation of life. When I think about ‘why we are here’, I can’t help but recognize how life persists through time.

In short, I believe Darwin best explained what I think the purpose of life is. Life begets immortal individuals that can reproduce and perpetuate. Life dies, but life persists. The chief mechanisms in this dance are DNA, sexual reproduction, and Natural Selection. I capture this argument in episodes about Sexual Selection and Love, Let’s Talk About Sex 1 and 2, the Uniqueness Imperative, and the Evolution Paradox. 

In short, the purpose of life is to perpetuate diversity to ensure we persist through environmental changes. The creation of diversity maximizes the probability for survival where ‘fitness’ results when biological characteristics work out when things change.

The purpose of this episode, and the future direction for my work, is how this applies to neurodiversity.

 Sexual reproduction creates new individuals that are different from their parents. These individuals express those differences during their lives. Individuals deemed ‘fit’ for their environments will reproduce and continue the process.

Of course, this applies to our nervous systems. I define neurodiversity as genotypic (in an individual’s DNA) and phenotypic (the physical expression of DNA) variation. To me, the nervous system is the interacting parts that facilitate our sensory interpretation of the environment. 

When we talk about neurodivergence in the form of autism, ADHD, OCD, and many other conditions we are referring to the different ways our nervous systems work. Briefly, our brain, spinal cord, and other nervous cells and tissues coordinate with our sense organs to interpret our external environments

It should come as no surprise that a diversity of neurotypes is beneficial to survival. We’re supposed to be different in every way. To represent a continuum — a spectrum, if you will. It is true for height as well as sight. Diversity is key to survival. Not for individuals, but for species.

The bothersome thing is that as critical as diversity is, modern humans try very hard to be the same. 

Being forced into conformity is what’s wrong, not neurodivergence

Why would we all ‘work’ the same way? We are unique individuals. We are products of sexual reproduction, which ensures that we are similar, yet differ, from our parents.

We used to be cool with this variation. We understood the value of diversity. We might not have known why, but we supported instead of rejected our differences. At least I like to believe that to be true.

The more we seek conformity, the more we notice neurodivergence. This matters. This needs to stop. My goal is to help change this BACK to how I think it used to be.

Accept that different is good. Stop trying to reduce it.

Neurotypes have different capacities for interacting with the world. Phenotypes. External stimuli are differentially intercepted and interpreted. Each one of us has a unique way of navigating the world. We can all benefit fr

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Have you ever felt like everyone understands the rules except for you? Me, too. And I’ve spent over a decade in therapy trying to figure it out.

The main reason I sought help from therapists, counselors, and coaches is because I have always felt different. Like everyone else got the ‘Manual to Human Life’ except for me. As a result, I have always felt like an outsider. I think feeling different also motivates rebellion. Growing up in the 80s, we called this non-conformity. If you’re younger than me, this means your interests fall outside the ‘normal crowd’. 

As I discover more about my neurodivergence and Autism, I realize that neurodivergence is the antithesis of conformity. This fits well with the ideas I outline in my podcast episodes 99 and 100. In short, the world is supposed to be diverse. 

Make room for people different from you. Don’t be an asshole. 

This episode and the future direction of my podcast (which I have rebranded from Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom to The Neurodivergent Professor) is to be the person I needed when I was 15. I’m here for 1 me and the other people who need to hear what I have to say. I’m thankful to discover where I fit.

My mission is to be additive to the body of the work that helps normalize diversity. I think this is self-actualization, as described here. I’m old enough to have figured some stuff out (see all 157+ episodes of my podcast and Medium articles for more) and need to share it in case folks are looking for it — like I have been. 

My growth now depends on giving back. 

Growth perpetuates life but requires resources. All living things get a fair share of communal resources to grow, reproduce, and die. Other forms of growth that consume too many of the limited communal resources are bad. Bad growth is limitless; the only biological example I can think of is cancer. Limitless growth is also one of the central tenets of capitalism, which has never made sense to me. Limitless growth disagrees with Darwin as I discuss in episode 156. It isn’t considered fitness in an evolutionary sense. 

I think part of our duty is to grow, to address our issues, so we can give more back. Commensurate with our privilege, or course. Of course, it’s your right NOT to, but . . . . then you’re an asshole.

I want humans to FLOURISH, and to assist others in flourishing. I seek to make humans better as obnoxious as that sounds. Personal growth. Self-improvement. I believe in these things.

Suffering exists and is going to exist. It is part of being human. But we can learn to minimize suffering and maximize flourishing. We can learn to thrive rather than merely survive. 

I want to honor our ancestors who got us here. Here is where we are. My ‘here’ is giving back to the future for me. Suffer less. Flourish more. We all have different paths. Different traumas. But we all have trauma. Healing is part of flourishing. Not healing maximizes suffering. I think that the purpose of growth is to minimize suffering, maximize flourishing, and help everyone else do those things. HOW to do this effectively is the direction of my podcast and writing. Whether you identify as neurodivergent or not, please subscribe to The Neurodivergent Professor on YouTube, podcast, my website, or Medium.

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Do you love yourself?

I know, it’s an extremely personal question. When a counselor first asked me this question I was taken aback. It’s offensive and puts one in a defensive position. And who likes feeling defensive?
But therapy is about healing and I answered as best I could. Again, and again. I’m fairly certain every counselor, therapist, and coach I have worked with has asked me some form of this question.
When my new therapist heard my answer to this question she heard something the others did not. When I described my inner and outer worlds and my troubles blending the two, she suggested I might explore some autism self-diagnostic quizzes. Long story short, I tested very likely to be autistic. So here we are.
What fascinates me is what I have learned from the neurodiversity community in just a few months. Whereas therapy made me feel like something was wrong with me, neurodiversity suggests that there is not. 
Being different isn’t wrong.

In therapy, I was taught that many of my beliefs were incorrect and could be changed. The problem was me, the solution was easy, and it was simply a matter of me implementing the solution. 

Therapy suggests my feelings are irrational and that I need to change. Therapy made me feel broken and prescribed various quick fixes. Most of these solutions came in the form of simply changing the way I think — the way my brain works. However, after over a decade in various therapies with nearly a dozen different practitioners, I was unable.
My beliefs . . . my brain . . . my neurology proved impossible to alter.
My inability to fix myself led me down a shame spiral.
I don’t blame therapy or the therapists. I learned a lot intellectually. I came to understand the popular psychotherapeutic approaches and concepts. I also learned a lot about my childhood and my trauma. I did a lot of healing over the years. Yet, the same problems plagued me.
When I considered that there was nothing wrong with me things started to loosen up. Therapy reinforced my feelings of being different but left me feeling wrong. Thinking I might be neurodivergent made me feel okay about being different. And this lines up with my understanding of evolution and ecology. Of course, we are different. That’s the point.

Being autistic suggests that these feelings are rational and there is no need to change. My shame is unfounded. There is nothing wrong with my brain. The solution is to recognize how and why the world seeks conformity and that this is irrational — not me.
Autism is teaching me that I don’t need to change myself, but that there are things I can do to help integrate my inner and outer worlds. 
Though prejudice and stigma try to hide neurodiversity in the shadows, it is time we figure out how to be present. Expressing our diversity is imperative to solve our problems. We are not all alike. Trying to alter this natural law is killing us. My writing, podcasts, and videos are a small part of making this change.
Together we can find the courage to change the world.
Help us stay connected by subscribing to my Medium page, podcast, YouTube channel, or webpage.
I’m currently reading “The Healthy Deviant. A Rule-Breakers Guide to Being Healthy in an Unhealthy World” by Pilar Gerasimo. You can find her work and the book here.

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What is your experience with therapy? Have you tried it? Wanted to try it? Hesitant to try it? Overwhelmed? Did you have a bad experience?

 I have noticed some neurodivergent people have had negative experiences with therapy. Here I want to clarify my own story about how both therapy and neurodivergence are helping me heal and become the person I want to be.

Briefly, I have been in therapy, counseling, or coaching (I use the general term therapy to describe all of these forms of help) for thirteen years. I began my healing journey after a divorce and retiring from my career to be a stay-at-home dad. I have seen over a dozen specialists over those years and continue to see a therapist today. 

Recently, my current therapist suggested I complete several autism and general neurodivergence self-assessments. I was surprised to discover I scored quite high as autistic. This began a new type of healing for me where I considered for the first time that, perhaps, there was nothing wrong with me that required fixing. 

But I also realized that my psychoanalytic journey is also extremely helpful. Just not in the way I thought it would be.

Therapy helped me build a practice

My practice grew out of therapy, although I didn’t realize I was building it. Over the years, I tried all of the things that were supposed to help. Journalling, meditating, exercising, and a healthy diet were all components supposed to make me feel better. More generally and ambiguously, having a good mindset and being mindful were also supposed to help. 

I realize now that my problems stemmed from expecting immediate and specific results. Despite having convinced myself I was being patient, I wasn’t. But I practiced enough of these techniques regularly enough (ish) that I started to see changes.

I didn’t associate changes in my moods and beliefs with anything I was practicing 

Getting out of my head and into my body changed everything

Somewhere along the line, I realized I understood everything intellectually but that I wasn’t seeing any real change in myself. I eventually stopped trying to intellectualize the lessons and started experiencing them somatically and emotionally in my body. This is when things started to shift. When I started learning about neurodivergence things took off.

Less intellectual, more somatic

My practice now consists of several elements. Here’s a list of things I do daily-ish (I included links to older episodes on some topics):

• Meditation 
• Awareness
• Mindfulness
• Exercise
• Mindful eating
• Journalling.  I developed this habit before meditation and it is probably one of the most critical elements in understanding my emotions and values.

These are things that work for me, and they can work for you, but you must develop your own, personal practice. A good therapist, counselor, or coach can introduce you to the tools and help you design a practice that works. I’m sure there are other ways, but these tools are readily available and have worked for lots of people. 

Therapy taught me how to build my practice to build a new life for myself. Therapy might be able to do the same for you. I’m sure there are other ways. I think the most important things I have learned are that:

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I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues. Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

Do you have an opinion about climate change? How about abortion? Or universal basic income?

We all have our concerns and our hills that we’ll die on. This week I will use climate change as an example of a polarizing issue and make an argument about how neurodiversity may provide a model for solutions.

Human beings argue about many polarizing issues, but we often agree about solutions. Most of the solutions involve top-down strategies like voting. We have to change the ‘machinery’ at the top, regardless of the change we seek. 

 Want to make groceries more affordable? We have to change the major food companies. Want to reduce discrimination? Vote in better politicians. Want to ban sensitive books? Elect new state government officials.

Voting, you will find, is a common solution to many human problems. How’s that working out for you? Remember Ronald Reagan’s ‘trickle-down economics’? Yeah, that didn’t work.

Even science has lost the ability to solve our problems. Truly, science has sort of joined the club in trying to regulate our beliefs in a top-down direction. We don’t need to understand our problems any better. We need solutions.

Top-down approaches don’t work. I think it is time for a bottom-up approach.

My work often suggests that we need new solutions to our problems. Currently, humans are plagued by intrinsic problems like anxiety, depression, and suicide. We also suffer from extrinsic problems like health care, equality, and racism. 

Most solutions follow a top-down approach where we believe in following the rules to change the system within the constraints provided. Increasingly we are losing faith in these systems and more people believe the systems were designed to keep us stuck.

Education, government, and economics rely on students, citizens, and consumers who behave predictably. Predictability works best when people are similar. Thus, systems favor sameness and conformity as a means to an end. 

The argument I continue to make, however, is that this approach disagrees with the basis of biological life on Earth.

The problem, then, stems from a dissonance between how we live our lives and the machinery that provides us with life.

Briefly, our DNA has evolved to create diversity, yet we increasingly depend on conformity. Species persistence depends on expressing this DNA as diversity. Our problems stem from our refusal to do this. Rather than embrace diversity, we reject it. 

Why humans would ever design systems that blatantly disagree with basic biological principles is beyond me. Life is diverse. Diversity ensures persistence. End of story. 

I fundamentally believe that most, if not all, of our problems stem from this mismatch.

Unfortunately, top-level systems like science, democracy, and capitalism are too difficult to change. Or, if we did implement changes, they would be too radical and uncomfortable and cause new, unforeseen problems. This is why we can’t just stop using fossil fuels tomorrow and switch to electric vehicles.

All solutions to human problems start with individuals. 

It’s time to try a bottom-up approach. I think we are converging on this realization. To change the world we have to change ourselves. Many of us are doing this work now, and I believe my work contributes to this larger effort. 

Ne

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How do you feel about terms like people pleaser, codependent, inauthentic, or chameleon?

We use these terms to describe when we are not ‘being ourselves’ in the presence of other people.

I think this probably has some evolutionary significance in ensuring we remain members of a group. We are being polite and trying not to hurt feelings or cause conflict. We want to be liked.
The neurodivergent community uses terms like ‘masking’ or ‘camouflaging’ to describe this behavior. Autistic people mask to hide behaviors that may identify them as autistic. Similarly, allistic or neurotypical people mask when they try to avoid conflict or blend in. 

My experience with masking began in therapy where I was identified as codependent. According to psychoanalysis, I mask all the time so that people will like me and to avoid conflict. I was given tools to help change my mind and beliefs, but I couldn’t let go of my desire to keep the peace.

Later I would experience Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy where I learned I had ‘parts’ who protected me. One, or more, of these parts were related to my need to avoid conflict and blend in. I learned at a young age that ‘being myself’ often invited ridicule from my peers and made me feel unsafe. I learned to mask to feel safe in the world.

Unfortunately, we humans tend to repeat what works and I became a master masker. I learned that my brain works like this. If I feel unsafe I will perform a behavior or role that worked in the past to make me feel safe. Reducing my personality, or masking, and blending in more with the person with whom I was interacting or was afraid, accomplished this need for safety. 

I think the IFS model makes a lot of sense and I have met many of the parts that help protect me. The problem is, that these masking behaviors also reduce our growth. Especially when we become adults and can protect ourselves in other ways or when the bullies of our youth are gone. 

It is easy to overdevelop masking tendencies. Like a muscle, the more we use them the stronger and more pervasive they become. The more we mask the less comfortable we are being ourselves. We start to become the masks we wear. Eventually, it is easy to lose track of who is you and who is a mask. 

I believe a lot of us suffer from this identity crisis. We forget who we are because we spend so much time being someone else. Where do we draw the line?

Masking is protective, of that, there is no doubt. Personally masking probably saved me from getting beat up more than once. It also enabled me to learn critical life skills like public speaking, interviewing for jobs, and maintaining relationships.

But somewhere along the line, I lost myself. I realized I had done so when therapists would ask me what I wanted or what I needed. I honestly didn’t know. I didn’t know what I wanted or needed because I didn’t know who I was. 

As sad or weird as that may sound I think it is incredibly common. I think we learn to rely on our masks to get through our days. In doing so, we strengthen them and rely on them. It becomes subconscious. We are not aware of what we are doing. 

In the background of our lives, beneath the level of our awareness, our masks become stronger. As they do, our ‘selves’ become weaker. We become more afraid of revealing who we are and more convinced that doing so would cause trouble. 

The key, then, is to moderate our use of masks. To do this we must first be aware that we are masking. I have learned to do this through a meditation practice. There are probably other ways, but I will focus future articles and episodes on how a practice is essential; especially for neurodivergent people.

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Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong anywhere? Do you have a ‘sacred space’ where you do feel like you have membership?

For many of us, we have our family. Whether or not we truly feel comfortable in that space, there is a membership based on genetics or time spent together.

It is a difficult thing to simultaneously exist as separate and together. 

We are individuals. Our skin is a boundary separating us from each other.

Yet we are also connected to each other in a very obligate way.

Here I want to point out that neurodivergence provides an excellent model or example to understand this seeming dichotomy.

One of my central tenets is that we are biological organisms defined by natural selection. Our genetic composition combines with interactions with our world and each other to help us change through time. We evolve. Our success through evolution, or our fitness, defines our value. We made it!

However, layered on top of that fundamental scenario is the very human insistence on conformity and normalcy. In the face of continuous natural change we resist. I call this the Evolution Paradox.

Similarly, our success along this evolutionary path is in expressing our diversity. Our uniqueness is ‘meant to be’ and flying our freak flags is critical to this phenomenon. I call this the Uniqueness Imperative. 

Together, these ideas summarize my platform. That human problems arise from the dissonance between our nature and our arrogance. For some reason, we think we are better than evolution. We resist the very forces that create and perpetuate us. We don’t want to change, yet change is the very foundation of our humanity.

That neurodivergence — or any type of diversity — exists is brilliant. Diversity is the key to our success. In a universe that is always changing, multi-generational, mortal beings must change with it. Or go extinct.

Pretending that neurodivergent people are somehow unimportant, ‘less-than’, or have no value is insolent. For whatever reason, humans have shifted from recognizing and embracing diversity, to trying to minimize it at all costs.

Just look around. Choose any conflict. 

Anxiety? A result of trying to be someone you are not. Fitting in is stressful.

War? I want you to be like me. You aren’t. Let’s fight. 

Inequality? You are different from me. I must abolish you.

It may be oversimplifying, but I believe most of our problems come down to the dissonance that arises from resisting our nature. Of trying to conform in a world that values non-conformity.

And I get it. Conformity is protective. Showing others your ‘true self’ is scary. Masking, or blending in to social groups, is self preservation. And we’ve done this for so long, maybe thousands of years, that we have forgotten how to be ourselves. To just be. 

The lack of safety and fear of being cast out of the village has led us to try and be alike. And this is damaging our fitness, in the Darwinian sense.

I argue here, and throughout my writing and podcasting, that we have to stop this. Somehow we have to find the strength to be ourselves. And to embrace each other. And to be ourselves in a world that seems to want us to be each other.

It’s time to shift the power from being normal, average, or conforming to being authentic. The time for human arrogance is over. The stakes are too high. The persistence of our species is literally at risk. 

Diversity is the way. 

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Are you familiar with Jon Kabat-Zinn? In short, he’s one of the people who has made meditation mainstream. While I generally don’t like words like ‘mainstream’ and ‘conformity’, anything that makes helpful tools more accessible to the masses is good in my book.

Known as one of the creators of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Kabat-Zinn has written a bunch of books and helped teach meditation to all sorts of regular people. This article is inspired by Kabat-Zinn’s book, “Coming to Our Senses”.

This talent of being able to teach complex and often polarizing subjects to ‘regular people’ is the type of thing we need right now. 

This is one of the reasons I left academia. Scientists are really bad and explaining their findings to regular people. When I was a scientist and polled my colleagues, they nearly unanimously agreed that this type of dissemination — the sharing of complex knowledge with regular people — was NOT a scientist’s job. I suppose journalists and writers are ‘supposed’ to do these things?

I tried to explain this in my fourth episode, “Quiet vs Distraction”. But this is an issue that continues to be central to my work. 

Anyway, Kabat-Zinns uses the term ‘mindfulness’ to describe a meditation-like state we can maintain for most of our lives. More importantly, his writings and teachings help regular people learn how to do this.

Mindfulness practice is about focusing our awareness to pay better attention to our individual and communal lives. Paying attention, I argue, is the key to human success — and the answer to all of our problems.

I truly believe this. Until we figure out how to pay attention we are not going to progress as a species. 

I also believe that most, if not all, human problems are related to our lack of awareness.

This includes collective problems like: 

Disease. War. Income inequality. Racism. Prejudice.

As well as individual problems including:

Anxiety. Suicide. Relationship issues. General dissatisfaction with life.

In this episode, I argue that we cannot move forward as humans until we learn to be mindful. I think the solution to all human problems starts with self-awareness, moves on to awareness of our connectivity, and finally permits real progress. 

That’s a massive oversimplification if ever there was one, but it also perfectly describes my work and where I am headed. 

Until we learn to care for ourselves, we cannot possibly hope to protect our planet.

Until we can identify what we are feeling. . . what we value. . . what we truly need . . . we can’t possibly solve problems of modernity.

I think mindfulness is a way of reconnecting with ourselves and each other. The problem is one of marketing. How do we introduce mindfulness and ‘awareness management’ to people across cultures without scaring people away? 

If you are picking up what I’m laying down please let me know. This community is growing and we need to know each other.

You can follow my writing here on Medium or at www.chrisburcher.com. Subscribe and follow my podcast or YouTube channel if you prefer oral and written formats. 

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Have you ever thought about your boundaries? Maybe a therapist told you your boundaries were weak. Or maybe you read something about relationships and how some people might not respect your boundaries. 

I learned early on that my boundaries are weak. 

I tend to pay attention to other people’s needs more than my own. Some people in the world will take advantage of this. Many of us struggle to simultaneously love other people while protecting our own needs.

As I learn about neurodiversity, I have been thinking a lot about how boundaries relate to masking. Masking describes how we alter our behavior to reduce conflict. Masking often requires us to soften our boundaries to appease other people. The problem is, when we loosen our boundaries we open ourselves to more suffering.

Boundaries ensure that we know when we are approaching discomfort. They are warning systems that tell us we are wandering into situations where we have felt unsafe in the past. Sometimes it is important to push our boundaries for personal growth, but mostly they are important to maintain our mental and emotional balance.

I, like many neurodivergent people, struggle with hypersensitivity. 

My awareness is super responsive to environmental stimuli, and I am often overloaded with information. In some ways, this is a superpower that protects us but in others, it is paralyzing. Too much information isn’t always a good thing, and it is easy to become paralyzed and overwhelmed.

Boundaries help hypersensitive people from becoming overwhelmed. It can reduce analysis paralysis and help maintain awareness of our needs. If we don’t have awareness of boundaries, we can’t possibly expect to process all the information coming in. Lack of boundaries is simply overwhelming.

Boundaries allow us to discriminate among competing information and match up our needs with possibility. This is critical for interacting with other people, but also in understanding what is going on with us inside.

A lack of boundary awareness almost ensures that our sensory systems will be hijacked rendering us nearly helpless in our environments. I honestly think this is the cause of MANY of our problems. 

You gotta stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.

Boundaries protect our needs but require awareness of them. The first step to identifying and forming healthy boundaries is awareness. Hell, what is awareness NOT the first step toward? Whether you need boundaries or not, awareness is the key to any type of personal growth. 

I think the most important point in all of this is that having poor boundaries can lead to a loss of awareness and self. Loss of, or lack of, self-awareness is a problem. Without self-awareness, we are victims of our reactions. As victims of our reactions, we become passive participants in our lives.

But what do we do, Chris? What’s the point of all this boundary and awareness mumbo-jumbo?

Look I get it. We all want solutions. Unfortunately, the solution to these problems is the same as all problems. Or at least a core part of the solution to any problem. 

The shortest pathway to self-awareness is meditation and mindfulness.

In this episode, many of my past episodes, and certainly in future episodes I campaign for mindfulness. If you like this kind of thing please let me know in whatever way suits your style. You can find me here on Medium, at www.chrisburcher.com, on most of the podcast platforms, and YouTube.

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This week I’ll skip right to the punchline. 

The ability to see beyond the mainstream and to understand the continuum of whatever feature it is in the world is a special gift. 

This is enhanced awareness. I wonder if being neurodiverse or atypical or having a sensitive or different nervous system, sort of gives us this ability. 

In an evolutionary context, I can see how this ability would have been selected for. Hypervigilance enabled some of us to ‘scout’ out our environments and look for threats, which was protective of the village. I think neurodivergence is an artifact of that.

In this way, we can look at neurodivergence, ASD, OCD, and other forms of neurodiversity as superpowers rather than disorders. There is a lot of chatter for and against this perspective, but I guess I’m more of an optimist.

I have always been different. A non-conformist. Outside the mainstream. I think many neurodivergent people are similar. In an evolutionary sense, we need all of us to participate so we have as many options as possible to adapt.

I have shared my thoughts about expressing our genotypes, flying our freak flags, and not trying to conform. Two episodes, The Uniqueness Imperative and The Evolution Paradox go into great detail about why it is our human responsibility to ‘be ourselves’ rather than conform to the mainstream.

Why are neurodivergent people outside the mainstream?

It’s complicated. But it’s also just like anything else. Why do some people have blue eyes? Or blonde hair? Or olive skin? Why are some people more nurturing than others? How come my brother is better at math?

Biology perpetuates diversity (see the linked episodes above). To try and force everyone into normalcy goes against that basic natural law. We must express our differences — in every way — to enhance human evolution. And even to prevent extinction.

Unfortunately, things like music, books, and religion select for sameness, normalcy, and mainstream. The more mass appeal something has, the more people will buy it. At least that seems to be the logic. So we end up with an unnatural amount of similarity.

In other words, unlike natural selection which chooses what is fit, unnatural or non-natural selection forces things to be more similar. Humans are the only species I know of that can do this. We are essentially going against nature.

Nature wants diversity because it enhances evolutionary success. Humans seem to be undoing that system by reducing diversity in favor of conformity. The more similar we are, the lower the probability that we will be able to survive environmental change.

Being ND isn’t easy. But in the context of human evolution, we are important. There is nothing wrong with conformity. The problem is going against our nature. When we conform because we need to feel safe there is a problem. When we don’t feel free to express our differences and ‘fly our freak flags’ there is a problem. When a species loses its diversity there is a problem. 

So maybe this will help us understand that being different is a special gift. Maybe these words, and the growing support of other weirdos and freaks, will enable us to show the world who we are. Maybe one day we won’t need to wear masks because our brothers and sisters welcome our quirks and appreciate the differences we bring to the world.

Join me by sharing yourself with my writing, podcasting, and vlogging. You can find me on Medium, YouTube, your favorite podcast app, and my website.

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Do ever joke that we’re living in the Matrix? 

I often refer to the movie when talking about the problems of the world. Sometimes it does seem like we’re living in a computer simulation. Or does it? 

Anyway, I was inspired to do this episode by the idea that the future might be predetermined. Or, more to the point, that we can do anything about the future. 

Many of us seem to think we can. A common psychological error many of us commit is future prediction. Mind reading, catastrophic thinking, and worst-case-scenario thinking are common versions of this fallacy. 

I learned that my anxiety was directly related to this erroneous belief. 

Check this out. I actually thought that my worrying could control the outcome of my future. Seriously. I believed that if I worried hard enough I could create a positive outcome down the road.

Many of us do this and with good reason. We are protecting ourselves from future suffering by trying to understand the possible future scenarios. The worst-case-scenario thing comes up because we believe if we prepare ourselves for the worst we can handle anything. 

Our worry about the future is likely adaptive. 

It probably helped us evolve by being hyper-aware of the potential outcomes. We were likely able to avoid danger and learn from the past. No one is arguing that this is helpful. Except when we create problems now that induce more suffering than any future scenario could.

And maybe it does, but the problem is we spend too much time worrying and being anxious. This is entirely human. It’s something we do. It is automatic. It requires a lot of work to NOT do it.

How do we beat our central nervous system?

The first step is admitting you have a problem. To do this requires self-awareness. Even with self-awareness, the fear doesn’t go away. So we need courage. Identifying and reconsidering our beliefs and values also helps. Often, it is easy to see the error of our ways. Sometimes, it isn’t so simple. 

There are many techniques to help with this. The entire self-help industry exists in support of changing our behaviors and beliefs. The problem thus becomes knowing how to differentiate between the people who can actually help and the snake oil. Again, self-awareness is the first step. Often, getting help is the second.

There has to be a better way. 

Acceptance. Letting go of the need for control. Making room for change. And the unknown. Therapy modalities that help identify and change old and limiting beliefs. Wu-Wei. Being ok with sitting with ourselves in quiet. 

This may be harder for neurodivergent people because our coping mechanisms are often stronger. The stakes are higher for people who are truly afraid of being abandoned or cast out of their family or community.  

Remember, you can NOT predict the future. So why bother trying? More details in this episode.

YouTube version: 
https://youtu.be/Zkx5CdHHeTc

https://chrisburcher.com/science-is-not-the-truth/

https://chrisburcher.com/episode-4-quiet-vs-distraction/

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Are you aware of the stress in your life?  Can you FEEL it when stressors are building up and you think you may pop? Do you ever feel like you’re right on the verge of a meltdown?

I think most of us are familiar with these scenarios. We can only take so much stress.

When I was an ecologist, I had a vision for my life’s work. I planned on studying how aquatic ecosystems resist or integrate stressors before they break down. Some streams were beautiful. Full of a diversity of life, clean water, and complex habitat. Other systems were homogenous. Devoid of most life. Ugly and plain. 

The difference, I hypothesized, was stress. 

I wanted to test the hypothesis that ecosystems integrated stressors, meaning they didn’t change, up to a point beyond which everything changed. In other words, a natural system would resist change until it experienced too much stress. After that point, or threshold, the ecosystem would change entirely and likely never return to the previous condition.

I call this the Cumulate Stress Hypothesis and, though I retired from being an ecologist, I now apply the same model to human systems. Individuals and communities. 

The Cumulative Stress Hypothesis suggests that a human system, individual or collective, will resist a shift from homeostasis by integrating stress. However, beyond some threshold of accumulated stress drastic and irreversible changes to the system will occur that are deleterious. 

In a community, peace becomes war, cooperation becomes competition, and life becomes death.

We all experience stress in various forms. 

To effectively integrate small stressors without inducing dramatic shifts to our livelihoods we need to be healthy. Essentially, being healthy is maintaining a state of minimal stress BELOW some threshold. Small stressors like job changes, mild sickness, or even moving to a new city don’t cause much harm because our healthy state facilitates the absorption of these changes.

The problems arise when a small stressor pushes us over the threshold. 

Many of us, and most communities, are operating just below the threshold. This is too close for comfort. When the accumulation of background stressors is very close to the threshold we run the risk of drastic change. The closer we get the more risky a blowup gets. 

I argue that the maintenance of individual and communal human health requires us to stay well below our Cumulative Stress Threshold. 

Doing so requires an effort or practice.

For individuals, this is a combination of a healthy diet, exercise, mental health management including meditation and mindfulness, maintenance of relationships, and general awareness of all of these things.

For communities, this means having some form of healthy government, affordable amenities, good infrastructure, and balanced economies.

A healthy practice helps us minimize the accumulation of stress. 

In essence, this is how we maintain health, happiness, and contentment. It is also how we minimize suffering. I can imagine a world where many more humans can do this. Once we change ourselves, we can change our systems. Changing our systems is how we change the world.

Other science episodes:

Facts

Science Is Not the Truth

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I couldn’t care less about that.

How many times have you said that?

We use this phrase as a euphemism to mean we completely don’t like, disagree with, or are opposed to whatever is being discussed. 

There are things in life we don’t care about, and some things we care a lot about. We pay attention to and direct our energy toward the things we care about.  My argument here is caring about things is energetically expensive and we need to be careful.

Caring requires attention.

We use the phrase ‘pay attention’ because our attention is limited. When things are bothersome or stressful, paying attention can be painful.

Some things are important. Life or death. We need to care about eating, staying hydrated, and sleeping. Other things are not very important. We don’t need to care about which celebrity won an academy award, who is sleeping together at work, or what other people think about us.

Our bodies, however, don’t know the difference. We experience stress based on how we pay attention to the things we care about. 

Knowing what is important matters.

We need to ask ourselves whether or not things are important. If something isn’t worth worrying about, we can give ourselves permission to not worry about it. Imagine a life where you knew what was important and only worried about those things. Imagine being bothered, worried, or stressed about fewer things. 

Who doesn’t want that?

A therapist once told me that my worrying about my familial reputation ‘wasn’t mine’. What he meant was I had learned to spend my energy manipulating how my family viewed my behavior as a means of being loved. He was telling me that this was something I developed as a defense mechanism to feel safe. This wasn’t mine because it was caused by other people’s inability to love me the way I needed to be loved. It wasn’t mine.

Figuring out what’s yours is up to you. But I guarantee you it will help reduce the things that you care about. Taking this inventory of your life can help you care less about things that don’t matter. 

What would life be like if you couldn’t care less about things?

Our energy, as awareness and attention, are spent on a lot of dumb shit. We worry about what other people think. We worry about exercising enough. We worry about how we look. We worry about how much money we make. Most of these things are out of control. Our worrying about them is of no consequence. Well, the only consequence is causing stress to ourselves.

What would life be like if we could reclaim this wasted energy? Imagine what we could do with ourselves if we spent less time caring about things we don’t really need to care about?

You can learn how to care less, but you need to practice.

In my writing and podcasting I talk a lot about having a practice. A practice is a set of routines we do that have long-term effects on our awareness. My practice includes journalling, meditation, mindfulness, yoga, exercise, and eating an ok diet. Your practice may differ. 

My practice has taught me how to take an observer’s perspecitve. As an unintended consequence of my practice, I have built-in the ability to pause. To take a deep breath. To see myself preparing to behave automatically. I can now choose how I react a lot of the time. It has been life changing.

Other relevant Episodes:

Trying to Change the Future Is Like Living in The Matrix

The Cumulative Stress Hypothesis

Unlearning

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What IS the matter?

Matter is an interesting word. It’s a noun and a verb. The noun means something of substance and can be physical or metaphysical. The verb means for something to be important. There’s matter, and there is the matter. I like words like that, but the complication of communication and understanding.

The idea of something mattering, as a verb, has been on my mind lately. The last two episodes (here and here) have focused on the relationship between our experiences and our stress. What matters directly affects our bodies, our minds, and our well-being.

Everything can’t matter

Many of us don’t discriminate among the barrage of experiences we face. Our inability to rank things in our lives means that everything matters. If everything matters, we’re exhausted. We can’t pay attention to all the things.

And why would we? So many things don’t matter. So much of our lives are inconsequential. I would go so far as to say MOST of the things we worry about don’t ever amount to anything. 

Awareness, inventory, and ranking are required

The first step is self-aware. Truly, I think this is the ultimate cause of human suffering. Lack of self-awareness leads us to two ways of being. Either we are completely unaware and hedonistic, or we are hyper-aware and overcome with worry. 

I talk a lot about self-awareness and I don’t know how to create it where it doesn’t exist. I do know that things like journaling, meditation, mindfulness, and healthy living help nurture a state of awareness. 

Once we are aware, we can inventory the things that we experience in our lives. We wake up. Have coffee. Maybe we give care to the family. Maybe we go to work. We drive a car. All of the things we do have the potential to matter — but not all of them!

An inventory of our life things and experiences, the physical and metaphysical, facilitates ranking and prioritizing. This process is similar to and often benefits from following a personal values assessment. We identify what matters, and then rank these things are high or low. 

High-ranking values demand our attention and energy. The low-ranking stuff? Not so much. This immediately frees up a lot of worry, reduces stress, and helps us maximize the things that DO matter.

Our minds dream up the story

No one can tell you what matters. Though I do believe there are universal values that are critical to all forms of life, our inventories will differ. The important part — the part that matters — is the process of figuring this out for ourselves. It is dynamic and requires frequent reassessment.

This process of continually identifying what matters is our dream of life. This is the story we tell ourselves and others. To some degree, we have control over this story and we get to choose whether it is a horror film or a fairy tale. Some things we cannot change and our privilege, or lack thereof, certainly comes into play. 

Can nature advise us?

Can we let evolution provide a lens to consider what matters? In nature, the things that matter are selected for while the less important stuff tends to go away. Traits or conditions that benefit a species start showing up with greater frequency whereas less beneficial features might decrease. 

So, what matters to you? What matters to all of us?

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Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me

Do you remember this nursery rhyme? 

When I was younger, I believed it. I thought I would rather be yelled at than physically harmed. While I feel lucky to have received more verbal bullying than actual butt-kickings, I’m not so sure the damage was less harmful.

As an adult, I realize words have real power and do a lot of harm on their own. Sometimes I wonder if words hurt worse than beatings. Certainly, words don’t ‘never hurt me’. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words can break everything else. Including our hearts.

Words are hard, and communication is even harder. I often say it’s remarkable any two people can have a conversation where each person simultaneously feels understood and that they truly understand the other person. 

Poor communication can be traumatic

My experience in therapy, particularly using the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, taught me that I had unmet needs as a kid. For whatever reason, I needed more information than was made available. I quickly learned that the people in my life, including my parents and teachers, didn’t want to communicate the way I needed to communicate.

Differences in communication styles can lead to incomplete understanding. Again, it’s a wonder we ever have an effective conversation given the communication challenges. We define words differently, we use slang terms, and there is often non-verbal communication occurring. 

Communication is more than just trading words

In addition to the obvious back-and-forth word exchange, other elements complication our conversations. Our posture, body language, and gestures can modify the words we use. 

How we talk can be just as important as what we say. Effective communication requires multiple levels of interpretation. 

How do we ever know if we get it right? 

Lack of effective communication can make us feel unsafe

My childhood trauma centers around not understanding what was going on or what was going to happen. I felt out of control in my home environment because I didn’t comprehend the rules and norms. People didn’t talk very much, and what they did say often disagreed with what they did. 

The lack of knowing and being out of control made me feel unsafe. This, of course, led me to need to understand even more but also to develop strategies to cope with the unsafe feelings.

I learned, or created Parts in the IFS sense, to protect me from feeling unsafe. When I didn’t have the information necessary, I made up stories. When the words didn’t come, I posited explanations for other people’s behavior that made sense in the context of what they were doing. I told myself comforting stories about my family, my school, and myself so I could get through the day. 

This ability helped me survive childhood but has been maladaptive in adulthood. I have spent most of the past decade trying to unlearn these techniques. It turns out, my stories were inaccurate (surprise). No one can read other people’s minds. 

Relationship quality depends on effective communication

People who suffer from poor communication often make up stories to feel safe. Many of our maladaptive childhood schemas stem from this storytelling. If we are lucky, we realize this before it’s too late. Like many of us, I am working hard as an adult to learn how to better communicate and make sure I get my needs met.

If a conversation occurs in the woods, but neither party is listening, does anyone get their needs met?

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Ok, I know, it sounds weird but hear me out. 

Humans are freaked out by death. I’m not saying I’m any different, just drawing attention to this in hopes of reducing our suffering. Today I’m wondering what life would be like if we could change our relationship with death.

The Toltec civilization of Central America considered death an advisor like a friend who gives advice. In this way, Toltecs navigated their lives knowing they were temporary. It is a way to try and make the most of the time we have. 

Some modern cultures ask how you would live life differently if you knew you only had 6 months to live. I’m sure you’ve heard this approach at some point in your life. It’s an interesting question.

How would you live differently?

My ecological background treats death as a normal part of life. Death is kind of the same as birth. It is a necessary occurrence for all living things. Things change through time, and part of that is death. Humans forget this. We don’t talk about it. We pretend it isn’t true. We try to use technology to make it false.

Isn’t that weird? At least in an ecological sense? 

What did our other animals do? What did our ancestors do? I love that question. I think as our minds and nervous systems became more sophisticated we developed a lot of emotions around death. Sadness. Grief. Regret. 

I think that our hardware evolved faster than our software. 

In other words, our awareness of our emotions lags behind our capacity to have them. Let’s face it. Death is overwhelming.

But can’t we learn to incorporate death into our lives? Talk about it. Recognize it. Not overdramatize it so much. Can’t we use death as a reminder to live our lives? If we can embrace our mortality, we may discover ways of dealing with our loved ones’ deaths. 

Recognizing and talking about our mortality is a start. Ecology understands that all things are part of a larger system. Within this system, energy flows and nutrients cycle. Life and death are natural parts of that cycle. You can start at birth:

birth->life->growth->reproduction->death->decomposition->nutrient recycling->repeat

Death is a part of a natural cycle. 

One we can’t change. Isolation and alteration of any part of the system can upset everything. Modifying death can destroy the homeostasis within the biosphere. 

What would it be like with less fear and guilt and shame and drama? Would we be more connected and less separate? Can we take back all the energy we spend avoiding death and pretending it away? To do otherwise seems profane. 

I wish we talked more about death. 

I don’t want to take away the grief and sadness. But maybe we could learn to reduce the guilt and regret. Maybe it would help to ask ourselves how we would live differently if we understood our time here is limited. 

The Neurodivergent Professor is a weekly podcast and video project that examines what is like to be different.

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What went right?

Do you ever wonder how we got here? Do you ever think about what has changed over hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution?

The past few decades have seen exponential growth in technology. Smartphones. Passenger trips to space. Electric vehicles. Lots of crazy new tech. In most of our lifetimes, technological advances have dominated the changes we experience.

Science changed the world. Medical advances like germ theory and surgical techniques have arguably improved our lives. 

Fossil fuel use has underwritten most of our ‘advances’ in making things easier to do. Imagine having to walk to the store to get groceries.

What went wrong?

Despite all of these increases in knowledge and efficiency, we are surrounded by problems associated with these advances. We are addicted to our smartphones. We drive too much. The speed with which we live our lives has become dangerously fast. We struggle with anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. Wars are fought over the increasing limitations in the fossil fuels that provided all of these comforts.

It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature

I can’t help but think about the lack of systems thinking that got us here. Arguably, the ‘advanced thinking’ that got us to the point where we have ‘godlike technology’ has caused at least as many problems as it has solved. 

“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”

― Edward O. Wilson

Our creative abilities have outpaced our nature. We abandoned the understanding that all things are interconnected, depend on each other, and work together in a natural system. We thought we could out-do evolution.

Natural selection wins

Despite our ability to outpace selection, the natural world will select the traits that work. I can’t see how arrogance and competition are going to ‘win’ over empathy and cooperation. If we consult the natural world, we will see how this plays out.

Yes, competition exists and even regulates some animals in some populations. Sure, being aggressive, mean, and arrogant has led to world domination by some cultures. Yes, if we allow and tolerate excessive inequality it will persist.

But does that make it right? In a world that is intimately interconnected and interdependent, do we think that is going to work in the long run?

The oversimplification of the world will be our demise

Until we accept that Natural Law governs all things, including arrogant humans, our extinction will continue. I firmly believe Homo sapiens is being selected against. Our inability to consider the long-term consequences of our short-term gains, our insistence on ‘privatizing the gains and socializing the losses’, and our valuation of competition over cooperation are driving nails in our collective coffin.

I say this not as a doomer. I have faith that humans will, eventually, see the errors of our ways. I think I am a small part of a growing movement that is ‘coming to Jesus’ about where we goofed up. I am confident we will get it right. I’m just getting impatient and it is hard to watch.

More like this on Medium, and The Neurodivergent Professor podcast.

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“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”

― Charles Bukowski

Do you ever think about this? Can you think of an example from your life?

Sometimes, it seems we’re surrounded by idiots. 

And they’re loud.  We worship confidence, arrogance, and status. Why are we surprised when the greedy become gluttonous?

Why do we not honor traits like kindness, empathy, and connection? A lot of this is fear. We worry about what might happen if we interrupt, disagree, or speak our minds. 

The system is oppressive

 The system requires non-leaders to be complicit, to elect these leaders, and to value the characteristics that make them so bad at leading. These power differential relationships are not only common, but they also dominate. In one way, we are simply playing our role in the governance systems of human society. From another viewpoint, if we do not reject the undeservedly arrogant, we are complicit in their remaining in power. The good news is, that these authoritarians have no power if we can stop enabling.

Taking the bone away from the pit bull

It makes perfect sense that the oppressors are drunk with power. We expect our oppressors to oppress. This power is just too much. Like heroin or iPhones, it is impossible to resist once you’ve had a taste. Once a person who values power, status, and money gains access to these things, it becomes a runaway train. The first step is taking away their power. But how do we do that?

What are the alternatives?

Our current societies are governed by the wrong values. We admire those who seek and master power, status, and money.  It is time we choose a more cooperative and less competitive approach. There are too few winners under our current competition models. What is voting if not a competition? A solution I propose frequently is simply not to elect anyone who wants to be in government.  To change anything, we must first take the bone away from the pit bull. Power is addictive and no one who has it is going to give it up willingly. Unfortunately, the system makes it nearly impossible for us enablers to do anything about it because we have no power. It isn’t easy to leave an abusive relationship. It’s a trap.  But we must take the power away. Ending the enabling slays the dragon. 

Help ourselves, help each other

The first step is for those of us more fortunate to help ourselves. I preach about a practice that facilitates healing and includes journaling, therapy, meditation, mindfulness, and healthy living. These journeys are unique to each of us and, in my opinion, our responsibility. The next step is for those more able to help those less able. Some of us suffer less from oppression. The global north, for example, has gained all the benefits of using fossil fuels. This leg up can be used to help leverage smaller countries to build the necessary infrastructure to be able to care about things like government. Those of us not in abusive relationships can connect with centers designed to help abused spouses leave unhealthy relationships. We can help adults learn to read.  We help ourselves, then we can help each other. This nurtures connectivity and cooperation. It forms the foundation of a bottom-up takeover and redistribution of power.

In my perfect world, all voices will be heard with equanimity. 

The one-dimensional, self-serving, obnoxious voices will be ignored by most rather than supported. We can get there by cooperating.

It’s the hardest thing we do because it is overthrowing the system designed to keep us complicit. 

This ain’t gonna be easy.

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Have you ever wondered how any two people can have a conversation and walk away feeling both like they were heard and believing they heard the other person?

It blows my mind how limiting conversation can be. As magical as language is, it leaves so much room for error. Words mean different things to different people. We hear one thing when they mean another. Context matters. We have different life experiences. There are so many layers that make it easy to misunderstand.

Language, like any technology, is wrought with at least as many restrictions as benefits. Yes, we can be more complex in our descriptions and needs. But that same level of complexity increases the potential for error!

Being a good communicator is incredibly difficult. 

But it is also a luxury because it takes time, skill, and most of all, awareness. Self-awareness is a huge luxury. Not everyone can afford to pay attention. We are all at a different place evolutionarily and these different perspectives further complicate communication.

Despite the incredible variation that occurs between any two communicators, I think all conversations can be described as having fairly discrete outcomes. Either two people (or more, this is a simplification) agree, or they disagree. We can behave as isolated individuals or as part of a connected partnership. When two people disagree, the results are therefore limited:

Result 1) Person A gets their needs met, and Person B does not. The outcome is A, BResult 2) Person B gets their needs met, and Person A does not. The outcome is B, A. The same result reversedResult 3) Person B and Person A both compromise to reveal a third outcome of C, C

How many conversations have you been in that have the above result?

The first two outcomes require concession by one party. This concession is often characterized as ‘giving in’, ‘people pleasing’, or having ‘weak boundaries’. Not advocating for your needs is considered unhealthy.

Of course, the ‘winning’ party in the first two scenarios is often described as being ‘assertive’, ‘confident’, or ‘narcissistic’. 

The most interesting outcome is the last one which represents a compromise or partnership. When both parties alter their needs to allow for the other we approach an equitable condition. This, I argue, is more evolutionarily ‘fit’ in the long run.

Compromise, of course, requires good communication. Which we suck at. The pathway to compromise and partnership — to truly realize that we are all connected — is the practice. The practice helps us take an observer’s perspective, witness nonduality, and make peace with the dissonance.

This is how we change the world.

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Do other people ever make you angry?

I’d be worried about you if you said no. Or assume you are the Dalai Lama. 

Many of us struggle to find connections to people we disagree with. Or people who act out, are annoying, or mean.

I preach a lot about how we are all connected, and how we need to love one another and participate in our communities. But it is so very hard, sometimes, to love everyone or to want to connect.

If you struggle with truly feeling connected to people, this article is for you.

Have you ever considered reincarnation? 

I never used to think about it. I don’t know why. It just wasn’t a concept I considered. Recently, however, I had an epiphany. I struggle to tolerate people and am often annoyed by human behavior. While considering a particularly annoying person in a loud truck I thought about reincarnation.

What if we were all at very different stages of some much longer lifespan? What if our Consciousness, Self, or Spirit gets multiple ‘laps’, or chances to live a good life? 

What if reincarnation is a thing?

This explanation made me feel much closer to my fellow humans — even the ones that annoy the crap out of me. 

Somehow, believing we are all at different stages — perhaps vastly disparate stages — made it easier for me to find tolerance for others. 

This sudden thought of having multiple lives led me where other ideas could not. If reincarnation is ‘real’ I can understand how people can be so incredibly different. It explains a level of diversity that goes beyond a human lifetime. 

What if our Consciousness, Self, or Spirit lives longer than a human lifespan? 

What if we ‘come back’ to Earth and continue to live somehow? What if part of life is about the growth we can accomplish over multiple lifespans?

This idea shifts my focus from personal growth from a single life to a much longer period. Rather than spending thirty or forty years trying to be a ‘better person’, ‘reaching enlightenment’, or ‘growing up’ what if we have hundreds or thousands of years to accomplish these goals?

I know, I know. This is crazy talk. And maybe it is. But I can’t deny how much this has opened me up.

Considering that reincarnation is real made me more tolerant. 

When I consider that another person might only be on lap two or three it makes it easier for me to find compassion for their journey. At the same time, I do not consider myself ‘advanced’ or ‘better’ than them for potentially being on a higher lap. Rather, I see that I was them and they will be me. The idea that we all might be blessed with multiple lives fills me with joy.

Reincarnation checks all the boxes.

If you have seen my work you will know that I preach diversity in all things. Reincarnation extends our capacity for diversity by extending the growth period. I have spent almost fifteen years learning to live better and frustrated by the slow pace. Sometimes it feels like I haven’t made much progress. But if we get more chances to grow I am somehow less frustrated. 

Similarly, the idea of reincarnation makes it easier for me to tolerate others’ behavior. When I am frustrated by another person’s behavior I can remember that I was once where they are. I am them and they are me. That we are on different levels of the same playing field connects us. 

Any idea that makes it easier to feel connected is ok in my book. 

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Do you ever think about your comfort zone? I’m sure most people are at least aware of the concept.

To me, our comfort zone is like an invisible egg that surrounds our physical body. Near the center, we are, well, comfortable. As we near the edges we become less comfortable. 

Our comfort zone is like a sixth sense. It is more a bodily feeling or awareness than an identifiable sensation. Approaching our comfort zone is unlike hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, or seeing.

Why do we experience these comfort zone sensations?

The purpose of our comfort zone is to alert us when our environment changes. Likely, there are several evolutionary adaptations for being aware of these changes. When our comfort zone is triggered, we become alerted. Sometimes the changes are mild, irritating, or uncomfortable. Other signals may protect us from real danger.

Our mortality depends on a degree of comfort and a lack of danger. The fortunate and privileged among us spend more time in comfort, and less in danger. Our environmental, emotional, and physical needs are met and we have nothing to be concerned with. Our lives are not threatened and we are, well, comfortable. As situations change, our “spidey senses” begin to tingle. We may become aware that something has shifted, but we do not always know what the danger is. 

One of the key protections of our comfort zone is for us to avoid real danger. Some call this intuition, a sixth sense, or ‘spidey senses’. These are critical but not what I am writing about here. The function of our comfort zone I am writing about here is more ambiguous.

Most often, our comfort zones act as a simple signal that we are encountering non-routine experiences. 

To know about our comfort zone we have to be self-aware.

I know I sound like a broken record, but everything begins with self-awareness because without it we have no agency. Once we are self-aware, we can direct our attention with intent toward our comfort zone. In this way, we are paying attention. I believe that self-awareness is selected for in evolution and will talk about this in an upcoming episode. 

Once self-aware, we can learn to discriminate among the various signals provided by our comfort zone. These signals can be benign and boring, moderate, or warnings about danger. For growth, we are interested in moderate information. The goldiloxian feelings are not too intense nor too uninteresting. 

Signals from our comfort zones are growth opportunities. By paying attention to our sixth sense, we can identify our fears. With practice and courage, we can push beyond our comfort to better understand the source of these fears. 

The era of maximizing comfort is over.

 Human persistence (non-extinction) requires discomfort. 

Growth. Risk. Bravery.

The industrial revolution and capitalism introduced an unprecedented degree of human comfort. While many of these comforts have been incredible, there are downsides. Privileged humans have become complacent, lulled to a waking sleep by immense comfort. 

In a world that constantly changes, however, complacency is maladaptive. To continue our evolutionary path our comfort zones need to be confronted. We need to get comfortable with discomfort again. To move forward we have to take a few steps back. It’s time to trade in our privilege for the next frontier. 

Links:

YouTube video: 
https://youtu.be/JvGkio3Zt8z

Ryan Holiday’s “The Obstacle is the Way”

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Does science play a role in your life? 

Do you value hard data and evidence? Do you think humans are good at proving things? Or maybe you defer to religion or culture to decide what is real?

I talk a lot about how science is over or undervalued. Some folks think science proves reality. Others think scientists are full of crap.

Regardless of how you feel about science, the scientific method is regarded as one of the best tools we have to help us answer questions. One of my favorite questions is,

“Is there a better way to live?”

My work focuses on understanding how humans can suffer less. 

Most of my interest lies somewhere in this personal and communal growth space, and much of my research falls outside the realm of hard science as we know it. But what if we took a more organized approach? What are we really trying to understand?

Briefly, science is a way to formalize how we ask questions and how we interpret the answers. We conduct experiments that convert the real world into numerical data, analyze the data using low-bias mathematical techniques, then convert the numerical results back into real-world terms. We ask a question, form a hypothesis, conduct experiments, and interpret results. 

So, is there a better way to live?

Let’s convert that to a hypothesis:

Ha: If we nurture our individual and collective self-awareness, then this will trickle up to solve the world’s problems because self-awareness, or lack thereof, is the cause of human suffering.

Ho: If we nurture our individual and collective self-awareness, there will be no effect on human suffering because the two are unrelated.

Basically, do the ‘data’ we observe in the real world support or refute the idea that there might be a better way to live?

My work suggests that self-awareness as an upstream cause of human suffering. 

Mostly, when we experience suffering we look nearby for causes and solutions. If we bleed we get a band-aid. But often the ultimate causes of our discomfort are farther away and more upstream.

For example, if we are always anxious in social situations, maybe we need to understand the trauma we experienced in childhood.

Personally, as I have pieced together my anxiety, I see that the causes are much more upstream than I ever imagined. Real solutions are often much farther away from the problem than we think. Scientific investigation is a tool designed to help clarify these relationships.

Moving forward, I can look for evidence that supports or refutes my hypothesis. 

Eventually, I will have ‘enough’ evidence to either abandon the idea (fail to reject my null hypothesis) or continue to pursue this line of reasoning.

The beauty of science is not that it proves anything. Rather, science helps us understand our realities by guiding us toward more likely causes. These relationships, in turn, help us understand ourselves and each other. 

The more we understand the links between self-awareness, attention, mindfulness, and connectedness the more likely we are to reduce personal and collective suffering. 

Our ancestors paved the way for our amazing individual lives. The least we can do is make the most of it. Do wars, anxiety, and suicide sound like making the most of it to you? 

There is a better way. Together, we are learning what it is. 

For more about what science really is see here, and here, and here. 

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Do you suffer?

Humans have problems. It’s hard to deny. 

Despite many pleas for ‘looking on the bright side of life’, we live in a world full of suffering. For whatever reason, I think about these problems, the causes, and potential solutions. 

While it is difficult to maintain a positive mental attitude and growth mindset, I strive for a balance. I consider how we might improve humanity while not getting bogged down in depression.

I think existence consists of two main branches. These are the biological or physical, and the spiritual or metaphysical. You probably have different names for these things, but hopefully, you get what I’m saying. 

As an ecologist, I see the biological side being defined by growth, maturity, and reproduction. The biological purpose of life is to find group immortality, despite individual mortality. Species seek to persist. Life goes on. 

Biological organisms persist through time because DNA facilitates adjustments, acclimations, and adaptation. 

One purpose of life is to participate in the cosmic dance of natural selection, genetic expression of traits, and a changing universe. You might even say this is a universal biological value.

This article, however, is about the metaphysical aspects of evolution. For more about the purpose of evolution and human life, see The Evolution Paradox and The Uniqueness Imperative. 

Humans also have metaphysical human needs. 

While we have a sound understanding of the biological and physical elements of life, there is less consensus about our spiritual or metaphysical purpose. 

If the biological purpose of life is to reproduce and persist, what is our metaphysical purpose? Why are we here?

The ecological realm of existence is examined by science, but the less measurable elements are left to spiritual leaders, philosophers, and thinkers. 

How we define the purpose of life is highly varied.

There are many schools of thought about our metaphysical purpose, but they all begin by understanding our non-biological needs and values. What ARE our needs and values? Are their universal values?

Whereas the biological explanation of life is hedged somewhat in the realm of science, these metaphysical questions are more subjective. I suggest one way to approach this type of investigation is to ask which values are adaptive and which are maladaptive.

What values might be maladaptive?

 As in, what are humans doing now that may be causing our extinction? 

What are we doing wrong? 

What do we currently believe in? And how’s that working out?

I suggest that our current human values are focused on money, status, and power. Focusing on these values may be helpful in the short term, but it is not adaptive in an evolutionary sense.

Values like money, power, and status may be maladaptive. 

In other words, these could be among the problems that contribute to human suffering.

What values might be adaptive?

What other values might help us avoid extinction? This is the question that drives me to share my thoughts. What can we do to change direction? What are we doing wrong? 

These are questions for today’s thinkers. The most important questions we can ask.

What would life be like if we prioritized the values of kindness, cooperation, and love?

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The unexamined life is not worth living — Socrates

It seems natural, even innate, to want to make the most of one’s life. To have a good life seems to require examination. Examining one’s life, growing, and continuing to be aware is part of our purpose.

The purpose of life has two branches. The first is the ecological purpose and the second is more metaphysical.

The ecological purpose of life is to reproduce to alleviate mortality. In other words, because all life dies, life reproduces itself. In this way, collective life persists despite the individual being terminal.

Evolution and natural selection, especially of the central nervous system, have facilitated communication, social interaction, and parental care. Humans still struggle with how to manage this complexity.

What is less derived is our metaphysical or non-scientific understanding of being human or of making a good life. Sure, we figured out how to keep the water (fairly) clean, eat, and build shelter, but how do we deal with our free time? What do we do with all the gains from understanding our physical needs?

Once our basic needs are met, what do we do? First, we evolve a complex neurology that facilitates taking in more information from our environment. To process all this new information we also evolve a central processing unit. Combined, we developed unprecedented ways to interact with our environment, each other, and ourselves. 

At the intersection of the metaphysical and physical elements of human purpose is socialization. Sophisticated communication and interactions led to cooperation, community, and enhanced parental care. Ultimately, love evolved to enhance our connections to each other and our ecosystem. 

Neural complexity also led to art, medicine, science, and other technological derivations. Along the way, of course, less desirable states or conditions arose including violence, competition, and selfishness. These elements, ideally, will be selected out of our population (see here for more).

The future of humankind depends on these metaphysical elements. Prioritizing values like love, connection, and kindness over money, power, and status is critical to our healthy future.

The privileged and fortunate among us are self-aware. Self-awareness facilitates an examined life. An examined life will grow toward an enhanced and necessary value system understood through our neural gifts.

Self-awareness permits the unlearning process. Don Miguel Ruiz, of “The Four Agreements” fame, and other Toltecs refer to domestication as the mechanism for our initial learnings. As children, we learn to walk, talk, sit, and stay according to the rules of our families, villages, and cultures. Few of us even realize this has happened. None of us consented.

Once aware our life examination begins, and the first step is to realize we don’t know why we believe what we believe. We must audit our thoughts, ideas, and values to determine whether they belong to us. This is the first step.

Self-awareness begets the undoing of domestication. Defining personal values and understanding one’s ecological and metaphysical needs defines a life. The next step is realizing we are interconnected to balance our individuality with our community. Finally, we figure out how to nudge our fellow humans in a similar direction.

Understanding and meeting our own needs helps us as much as each other. This is the pathway toward a good life. We make it by doing the work, being ourselves, and nurturing awareness. 

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Have you seen (or read) “2001: A Space Odyssey”?

The story opens at the time of early humans. Folks are going about their business when a ginormous monolith appears. Everyone freaks out at first, but then some develop the ability to use bones as tools. 

At first, I didn’t understand that the monolith represented punctuated equilibrium. This is a phrase used by evolutionary biologists to describe a quick shift in the fossil record representing a significant change. Compare this to gradualism, characterized by the slow accumulation of small changes. 

As an impatient person, I prefer punctuated equilibrium. Rather than waiting around and remaining comfortable, I’ve always been (generally) ok with quick changes toward a new condition. I don’t mind changing jobs (I’ve one it 32 times in 39 years) or homes (ten houses in 17 years). Some things, of course, I want to remain consistent, but I don’t fear change like a lot of people.

I would go so far as to say I sometimes yearn for quick change, because most changes are painfully slow. And life is short.

Mostly, though, changes happen slowly and punctuated equilibria are few and far between. 

The world is in dire need of change. Do we have the time to wait around for it to happen gradually? 

Can it happen gradually? 

This is the question that drives me, and this article.

A built-in persistence mechanism

Not changing is good for a system to persist. We have become experts in the bait-and-switch technique where we create fraudulent mechanisms for change that don’t result in actual change but make us believe they do.

How long do we throw good money after bad, making minute alterations to existing systems in hopes that something changes? How many rounds of negative feedback evidence do we need to acquire before we stop? 

Something like UBI, for example, could be a monolithic mechanism to change the global economy. But, 

The risks of Punctuated Equilibrium are high

Mention to any neoclassical economist that capitalism is broken and prepare yourself for a tongue-lashing. Tell any politician that the government needs an overhaul and you may have your citizenship revoked. Tell a high-school principal that students should be learning about meditation and, well, you get the point.

People don’t like change. 

Most of us fear the enemy we don’t know much more than the one we do. This explains why we stay in bad relationships, cruddy jobs, and unsuitable cities. Change is scary. But as I have mentioned in many an article, change is the underlying machinery of life. It is our DNA. That we fear change is not an excuse to avoid it. 

Look, I get it, leaping into the unknown abyss is scary. But sometimes it is the only option. 

Gradualism is ineffective, especially during stress

If a lion were chasing you, would you run or take some time to think about which direction to run? If you had to think about it, you’re dead.

Sometimes gradual change takes too long. Though that sounds like something Yogi Berra might have said, it’s true. Sometimes we need a change. Mostly this is because we tolerated non-change for too long.

Gradualism is about not changing. Not changing is resistance. What we resist, persists. Instead of protecting ourselves, we are going against the basic principles of biology. The universe changes. We must change with it. 

If we want to change something, gradualism is not likely to work. Our problems require faster and more severe solutions. If we can’t get comfortable with discomfort we will continue to gaslight ourselves into thinking things will be ok.

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