Gaia Community: Luisatman's Blog

Happiness according to Plotinus

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:01:38 GMT

For Plotinus "Authentic human happiness is the utilization of the most authentically human capacity of contemplation" "...a flight from this world's ways and things." (Theat 176AB) and a focus on the highest."

What is the highest for you? For me, the highest has to do with evolution. Being in touch with the One implies a high responsibility: Our evolution and the evolution of the things and beings that surrounds us.

Integrally speaking, evolution can take place from all the perspectives that this Kosmos has created: The Good, The Beautiful and the Truth.

Let us evolve together.

Leave a comment.

Tags: Happiness

Influence of inter-objective exteriors on sexual orientations

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:38:10 GMT

In his book, Integral Vision, Wilber explains that every "I" is in relation with other "We's". This implies that every "I" is a member of numerous "Us". These "Us" not only represent a subjective individual conscience, but also an inter-subjective one. (Wilber, 2007, p. 73) This inter-subjective conscience is a representation of the interiors of this space of "ours". These interiors are known as the cultural aspects, which are the values and feelings shared by a collective community. We just reviewed how interiors are interpreted and investigated through hermeneutics, and what their role can be in the conjugation of a couple's sexual orientation and styles. Now, the external representation of the cultural space, that is, how a culture looks from its exteriors, is what Wilber called Inter-objectivity. Like subjectivity, objectivity and inter-subjectivity, a culture's exterior aspects-or in other words, social systems-evolve towards more complex forms as a result of the expansion of the awareness of elements in the four quadrants. This evolution in the quadrant of inter-objectivity of human reality, takes place when for example, tribal groups evolve toward nations and even global systems. The techno-economic ways of production of a certain group, are a reflex of the exteriors of the culture. An investigation of these modes of production and its ties to sexuality, might give us a track of the reason why non-traditional sexual orientations are more popular in some social contexts than in others. In fact, a simple glance to the evolution of the different social systems that have emerged across the history of humanity can allow us to understand how these modes of production have influenced in the configuration of the role of sexuality and the differences of genre. For example, in the modes of agrarian production, the fact that the women could not use certain types of tool gave place to the transition between the matriarchy and the patriarchy. (Wilber, 1996, p. 78) The emergence of the corporate states was one of the factors that allowed the economic growth of the working feminine class, which also modified certain norms of behavior in couple relationships. Another example is the association Ince points out between social systems and sexuality: "...the more powerful our sexual fears, the more likely we will favor hierarchic relationships in our family, religion or government." (Ince, 2003, p. 13)

Therefore, the social systems are networks of exterior aspects that a culture shares. If Mark lives in Ireland and his friend Peggy lives two blocks from his house, both of them can share the same exterior in regards to geographic location. However, Peggy is a devoted catholic and believes that monogamy is the only valid way to have a love relationship. We already know what Mark thinks about it. In this case, even though Peggy and Mark share inter-objective exteriors (they live in the same neighborhood, which is an exterior social structure) their inter-subjective spaces are different when it refers to coupling relationships. According to Wilber, this happens because the internal phenomenological spaces do not follow physic, sense or movement, exterior or geographic space laws. (Wilber, 2003) Mark and Peggy are members of the same social ecosystem, but not of the same cultural form in which sexuality is interpreted and acted upon.

Tags: integral sexology. Wilber, Sex, Hermeneutics, Monogamy

Cultural Resonance and sexual orientations Part II

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:34:16 GMT

The hermeneutic circle for Mark and Ana's sexual practices has their correlations in the inter-objective world (external exchanges in a specific ecosystem). A swinger community on the internet or an open relationship couples' festival in the Netherlands work as a platform for the hermeneutic circle of swinger sexual practices to spread and consolidate. The inter-subjective agreement that takes place among multiple couples and individuals in an event of this type can nurture Mark and Ana's motivation and sensation about what's appropriate in their sexual practice and give them energy to create a swinger community in their own town.

A healthy interpretation of the mutual resonance experiences among traditional and non-traditional couples would be one that takes into account not only that pleasant sensation that others share interiors-whether to perpetuate the prevailing sexual nexus or to transcend it-but also to consider that there are other psychological, social and physiological aspects that play in the sea of possibilities that bring about a specific sexual behavior among human beings. The fact that other couples-whether monogamous or polygamous-understand each other perfectly in terms of their interior and shared feelings regarding a healthy sexuality, it does not mean that the rest of sexual orientations are bad, immoral, or the result of any type of repression, alienation or dissociation that takes place in any of the dimensions of reality.

This integral vision about the factors that tetra-interact to configure the individuals' sexual behavior is key for the variety of healthy erotic practices that are welcomed and tolerated. In this way, their healthy development will be possible, in a pleasant path towards integral evolution of human sexuality that allows for the discovery of a new horizon that transcend but yet include previous erotic experiences, leaving open spaces for the inclusion of a range of possibilities to fully enjoy our sexual and romantic strength in this earthly life.

Tags: integral sexology. Wilber, Sex, Hermeneutics, Monogamy

Cultural resonance and sexual orientation in couples

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:30:59 GMT

Continued from last post...

If subjectivity has an internal aspect to it, -Mark's interpretation of the present moment-, inter-subjectivity also has an internal aspect that is not tangible. An example of this is when at a specific moment in a conversation with a friend; suddenly we look at each other's eyes and feel that we understand each other perfectly. We feel that at that precise moment we share the same emotion, a similar experience, a pleasant sympathy. That feeling of resonance is the internal part of a cultural space. That internal resonance-or dissonance-is what allows me to understand or interpret, within a collective space between two or more people, another person's internal spaces. The discipline that deals with how I can understand and interpret someone is hermeneutics, "which is the art and science of interpretation." (Wilber, 2007, p. 156)

Hermeneutics plays a very relevant role in the dynamics of sexual orientation in couples. Going back to Mark's case, if he wishes to have an open relationship due to the way in which his inner and outer circumstances interacted, it can be that he will get in trouble if his cultural space is not in line with his values and his wish to form a relationship of that type. This can lead Mark to feeling culturally isolated in his sexual expectations, and his fragmented interpretation of this isolation can lead him to break several relationships due to his feeling of being unsatisfied with them.

Clearly we were able to see in the part about subjective intentionality, how the way Mark internalized and incorporated family experiences to his inner world contributed to the construction of his Ego structure and sexual preferences. The dynamics of how these interpretations and internal feelings overlap with the rest of members of his culture and his family corresponds to the cultural dimension of reality. In this case, communities of people that share a swinger life style have shared interiors regarding that specific topic.

The authentic application of hermeneutics tries to understand the interiors of another sentient being. According to Wilber, hermeneutics as mode of inquiry can only comprehend the cultural space in a group of people in terms of their past (Wilber, 2003). Through dialog, a couple can discover which aspects of their cultural and personal past led them to having a specific preference for traditional marriage or an open marriage. If they discover that both have a predisposition to an open marriage, both will be in the same dominant Sexual Nexus. Let us remember that a Nexus is a "...space in which two holons touch in any fashion." The Nexus will run the interactions these individuals have, and therefore will make them more prone to getting together as a couple and seek other relations whose interactions are influenced by that space.

At this moment we are focusing exclusively on internal features of collective spaces shared by couples open to non-traditional practices. These cultural networks can be called inter-subjective; they have latent or manifest aspects, conscious or unconscious, and here is where the importance of hermeneutics comes in for the discovery of this type of dynamics. If Mark and Ana go to a resort exclusive for open couples and start to talk with Nancy and George-another couple staying at the hotel-at the time they start to communicate, Nancy and George will no longer be strangers for Mark and Ana, and they will start to exist as "others" in both of their internal subjective spaces. This incorporation of Nancy and George into Mark and Ana's internal space is what will allow them to get close as potential companions in an open relationship that comes about as a result of a mutual resonance of such internal spaces. The key question here is which are the common experiences these two couples can have so as to allow them to have this mutual resonance.

Many swinger couples, for instance, justify their behavior and perpetuate their practice on the basis of this shared subjectivity that they feel when interacting with other couples with similar interiors. Although often times this type of open relationships base their practice on biological and scientific grounds-like the influence of sexual hormones in the search for a variety of erotic experiences-, many more have actually built a world, a reality based on symbols and experiences and mutual interpretations of these sexual experiences. These experiences get imbedded in the cultural environments and can be accessed through some type of inter-subjectivity. Mark and Ana can exchange with George and Nancy on the multiple occasions in which their previous partners were unfaithful to them, how religion retrenched their sexual potential, or how the sexual flaccidity of their sexual relations with other people moved them to have a more open sexual life style. George and Nancy look at each other in excitement and show with enthusiasm how similar experiences led them to choose a swinger life style. This means that both couples interpreted these experiences in similar ways, which generates an authentic resonance among the 4 of them. This resonance will give certain foundation to such interpretations, "...hermeneutic validity claims can be redeemed in the circle of inter-subjective solidarity." (Wilber, 2003) This is what Wilber calls inter-subjective justness or appropriateness and what represents the axis of validity in hermeneutics.

Tags: Sexual Diversity, Integral Sexology, Swinger, Sexual Orientations, Hermeneutics, Wilber

The psychology of sexual orientations Part II

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:16:34 GMT

Continued from last post...

We could start getting clues as to whether it is possible to positively integrate both worlds: sexual variety and harmonic family stability.

We could conclude that a person who has managed to cope with his shadow -"denial of my own feelings, impulses, thoughts and desires"- (Wilber, 2007, p. 124) and who has managed to figure out the lies they tell themselves about his sexual orientation, has reached a level of awareness that will perhaps allow them to understand if that sexual openness is the result of a evolving envelopment, or a psychogenous pathology.

From this point of view, what is important for a thorough investigation of the psycho-sexual subjective dimension to unveil, would be to understand to what extent the subject is aware of the aspects of his determinism (Kosmic Karma ) that define his preference for monogamy or polygamy-or any sexual orientation that is not accepted by the prevailing nexus- and which are guided by his ability to free will or his contact with his true Self. This means that the emergence of sexual conducts is in general always guided by the karmic past of the individual, but also that this karmic past combines with free unfolding of our creative novelty. Wilber explores this topic in the second part of Excerpt C as follows: "This intentionality or agency is freely emerging or unfolding in each moment, and enfolding or enveloping its previous moment (free will plus determinism, creativity plus karma)" (Wilber, 2003)

The key question here is which of these patterns rising from this combination of karmic past with creative novelty are healthy and which are not. The answer, undoubtedly, will depend on what perspective it springs from. Different forms of acting and figuring out reality will bring different answers. At first sight, you could say that what is healthy or unhealthy has equivalence in each dimension of reality. In the subjective dimension, what's healthy will be determined by the game of association/dissociation, alienation/integration, denial/transcendence of the internal aspects of the psyche. But also an individual who has discovered that his alternative sexual orientation is healthy, could have a clash with his cultural and social prevailing nexus, which might have a totally different notion of what is sexually healthy, according to the socio-graph that has built that notion. In the same way, the objective-empirical dimension of reality will present several challenges to healthy practice of non-traditional ways of sexual bonds. A mistake could lead participants to get a sexually transmitted disease that could end with their life. Without mentioning other aspects that are not to be separated from the perspectives of what is healthy in a specific sexual behavior, such as lines of development (multiple intelligences), typology (e.g., male or female) or the level of awareness (altitude) from those who build such perspectives.

Going back to phenomenological and structural subjectivity of non-traditional sexual behaviors, what these ways of approaching reality cannot discover, are the cultural, physiological and social aspects that determine a couple's tolerance to having alternative sexual practices. Just like Freudian psychosexual development cannot determine the dynamics of the human being just based on interpretation, reflection or introspection of an individual's childhood experiences, the way people get together as couples does not only respond to the psychological factors of those who make up the relationship, but also are linked to aspects of the other horizons of reality.

Let us explore now the cultural horizons and how their intersections influence the construction of our sexual behavior within non-traditional couple relationships. In regards to subjectivity aspects seen from outside, it is still pending, amongst other things, to go into the different forms of sexual orientations that might rise at different altitude levels , depending on the level of awareness of those individuals who act it, as well as all the vicissitudes related to the verticality of sexual behaviors.

Tags: Sexual Diversity, Integral Sexology, Swinger, Sexual Orientations

The psychology of sexual orientations

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:53:55 GMT

continued from last post...

Intervention by this psychotherapist could help Mark gain awareness of the internal aspects of his psyche that make him have a disposition to exchange his female partner for another man’s woman in order to have a particular sexual encounter. This discovery taken from the unconscious to the conscious can help him understand the psychological origin of his sexual preferences and thus contrast them more assertively with the cultural and social preferences of his environment. This is what Wilber describes as psycho-dynamic phenomenology and deals basically with feelings and resistance to these feelings. (Wilber, 2007, p. 124)

In the same way, Mark could do his own internal phenomenological research (observing what he is thinking, feeling, and experimenting). Through introspection, he can have access to external objects that have been internalized in his psyche and determine how these objects, that have become internal, participate in the articulation of his sexual preferences and practices.

However, Mark’s reflexive introspection has its limits. Through it, Mark will not be able to understand how other elements from other dimensions foreign to his subjective space participate in the creation of his outlook on life. For this he will have to study, whether by himself or with a therapist, his experiences in the first-person but seen from outside, and use a scientific frame of reference of how these experiences, as seen from outside, are correlated with that that he alone can apprehend from his own internal experience .

Let us continue to exemplify. After having an intense group sex session where three other people aside from Mark participated: Ana-his girlfriend-, Joseph and Sandra-a swinger couple from Minneapolis-, Mark goes to his apartment and, while he smokes a marihuana cigarette, starts to introspect about why he likes partner exchanging. His thoughts take him back to his childhood and to a golden time when he firmly admired his father, who was a minister at a Pentecostal church. Mark remembered how he helped his father devotedly in religious and operational aspects of the church. Up until one day when he found him on the roof of the building having sex with the Youth Director of the congregation. Mark’s world crumbled down. Everything his father and mother had taught him about respect, faithfulness and love fell to the ground. Since then, he rebelled against marriage and its social and religious rules. His internal anger released a cynicism regarding sexuality that made him stop to believe in monogamy.

In terms of the nature of non-traditional and traditional orientations, whether they are healthy or unhealthy within a sexual and romantic context of a couple, quoting Fritz Perls, Wilber mentions that not all that lies inside the “I” should be there “The psyche has the equivalent of invading parasites (such as false identifications, introjections, and fixated/repressed elements that have not been properly assimilated.)” (Wilber, 2003) Thus, a thorough investigation using phenomenological and structural methodology (it being that both correspond to the internal aspects of any occasion) could allow us to understand better whether an individual practices or wishes to practice alternative sexual relations as a result of parasites in the psyche that have not been properly assimilated, or rather, if traditional orientations, such as monogamy, are the result of an individual’s fixations or suppressed elements that are tetra-enacting with the many occasions in multiple aspects of reality and that have become imbedded in the plural and single dimensions of the human being as habits which origin lies in these suppressions. On the other hand, to avoid setting things to black and white, and setting as example traditionally oppose orientations such as the modern forms of monogamy and polygamy , this hypothetical investigation could help us understand which parasites of the psyche cause harmful forms both of monogamy as well as polygamous open relationships; starting from the theory that both ways of shaping relationships have healthy and pathological variations. We could answer questions such as if the unhealthy variations of monogamy are denying their natural inclination for sexual variety, or if unhealthy variations of open couples are denying emotional stability and control over sexual impulses, making them jump belligerently at excessive sexual promiscuity.

Tags: Sexual Diversity, Integral Sexology, Swinger, Sexual Orientations

The inside and the outside of sexual orientations

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:51:16 GMT

What is the way a person observes and feels external objects and events from their own inner space and how do these events shape their disposition to break the mould and have an alternate sexual life style? What happens when, seen from outside, other people seems to have common levels of conscience and development structures, in relation to this life style?

To try to answer these questions I shall use an example: Mark is a person who has practiced couple exchange (swinger lifestyle) for some years. He recently made a decision to see a psychoanalyst because he is feeling guilty of contradicting the values of his cultural center of gravity. The therapeutic process performed by the psychoanalyst consists of analyzing his experiences from childhood and of trying to understand how Mark internalized these experiences so as to figure out how they are associated with his patient's sexual behavior-they would be third-person interpretations (psychotherapist) of first-person's realities (Mark)-

Thus the therapist will be able to do an interpretation as to how Mark assimilated these experiences and help him to understand which are the subconscious processes that rule his sexual behavior, or which feelings or impulses he might be denying, dissociating o turning into aspects that are external to his own reality. The theories that he will build together with his psychologist will correspond to a co-production of inner perspectives (how Mark interprets the present) and outer ones (how his life history can be seen in third-person), of the inner aspects of the individual. In other words, an integration of the insights caused by introspection, with descriptions of structural formulations of a first person (Mark) from a third-person's perspective (his therapist). According to Wilber, "both looks-from inside and from outside-need to be kept in mind for an integral approach," (Wilber, 2007, p. 125) and that is why I'm integrating them in this exploration.

Tags: Sexual Diversity, Integral Sexology, Swinger

Introduction to Integral Sexual Diversity

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:56:33 GMT

Each and every one may have his own conception of what is traditional and non-traditional whenever we refer to sexual orientations. The simplest way to have a clear reference for explicative effects is to start from what is traditional or non-traditional for a specific culture and society. Each set of interactions in a culture has a dominant nexus , which is filtered to the different disciplines and worldviews of a person or group of people. The same way, this culture has predominantly accepted sexual orientations. Any sort of affective or sexual bond that is left out from that dominant Sexual Nexus will be seen as non-traditional. What is interesting here is how through an integral vision that honors a variety of perspectives we can understand which are the criteria for a sexual orientation to be defined as traditional, non-traditional, healthy, unhealthy, conventional, pre-conventional or post-conventional by a specific group of people. According to Wilber, "Many of those cultural codes (or patterns of inter-subjectivity) . . . are unconscious to those individuals whose intersections are molded by those networks." (Wilber, 2003) The unconscious character of these cultural codes prompts a construction of a biased, distorted, fragmented and absolutist vision in regards to the sexual orientations. Thus, societies that build up exclusive concepts, try to expel with violence those orientations which are considered to be outside their nexus, confusing those which can be truly healthy with pathological ones (Liszt, 1997). This phenomenon is pretending to reveal the social cohesion as its own. Wilber, quoting Peter Berger defines cohesion as the phenomenon where "a group of individual "I's" recognize themselves as a "we," then to just that extent they defend the boundary of that "we" against both inside and outside disruptions." (Wilber, 2003)

I relate this protection of the social boundary against disruptive agents to what journalist John Ince calls erothofobia. According to him, erothofobia is caused by "powerful irrational fears" towards non-traditional sexual orientations or behaviors. (Ince, 2003, p. 7)

Being so, any sexual or romantic orientation that is recognized by a group of people within a cultural or social space as different or that infringes its cultural codes will be catalogued as non-traditional. In such context I will use that term in this work.

Sexual orientations that are usually considered non-traditional (some more than others up to the point where they may be penalized through the law) in the occidental culture and influenced by mythical-conformist structures may be: the exchange of love partners or open partners, poly-amory, lesbianism, gay relationships, transsexualism, among others. As we will see later on, the low tolerance to the diversity in the conjugation of sexual orientations -erothofobia- may create an unbalance in the different dimensions of an individual holon and therefore damage the constitution of the Self. From there comes the importance of having an integral vision that may repair and conciliate the different positions on such a complex subject.

Tags: Sexual Diversity, Integral Sexology, Swinger

I am God

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:13:06 GMT

"The apprentiz, admired by his master's teachings came to him and asked: Are you God? The master, looked at his aprentiz' eyes and answered:

- Yes! I am God

But you are God as well. The only difference between you and me is that I know it and you don't"

We are all a piece of God. The revolution has started, we accepted him, we embraced God, , we misunderstood him, we have forgotten him, we have denied him. Now we have realized that we are part of him.

Tags: God

A realistic approach to altruism

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:13:06 GMT

Isn't it truth that to change the world you need to start to think more in other people besides you and your family? Have you thought that most of the zaadz family members are acquainted with the Integral approach popularized with Ken Wilber?

Thinking of this I found myself dreaming of a world full of Second Tier citizens. First tier humans were only a minority. I came to believe that the cure to the world suffering was a gradual conversion of the global population from ethnocentric thinking to a worldcentric way of life.

I was wrong. Evidently I was thinking from my 1st tier paradigms. My eyes were opened by a couple of paragraphs from integral Vision:

"...But for every person that moves into integral or higher, dozens are born into the archaic. The spiral of existence is a great unending flow...with millions upon millions constantly flowing through that great river from source to ocean. No society will ever simply be at an integral level, because the flow in unceasing..."

So, what Wilber proposes is that rather than trying to get everybody to the integral wave or higher, we should arrange the health of the overall spiral as billions of humans continue to pass through it.

He continues:

"...The Major reforms do not involve how to get a handful of boomers into second tier, but how to feed the starving millions at the most basic waves. An integral vision is one of the least pressing issues on the face of the planet."

We Zaadzters don't unavoidably require Integral Vision to change the world, nor to be part of a learned virtual community. We need to help the homeless, the hopeless, the sick. It is a tough, rude and inescapably reality. But at least, it fills me with hope.

Luisatman

Tags: Integral Vision, altruism, ethnocentrism, philanthropist, inequities, Ken Wilber

Your experience cannot fulfill you

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:59:13 GMT

Changing the world is another experience you're looking to hold on to? Just to fulfill your grasping desires that come wired in your being?

David Deida says that "Live lived for the sake of experience is a half life, tense, insecure, lonely and unfulfilled... Your experience cannot fulfill you because as soon as it comes it is already gone."

This is an even more compelling reason for willing to change the world. Because when you realize that the tasks you accomplish to achieve that overarching goal are just one experience after another, a real sense of purpose arises, your grasp starts to transform into a real worldcentric willingness to serve this universal consciousness that is our common craddle.

Leave a comment...

Tags: Change the world, grasp, purpose

Changing you to change the world

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 04:54:04 GMT

I was listening to Success Mastery Academy from Brian Tracy. Remarkable material.

In the second part of the Audiobook he came up with an interesting question:

"What would you do if you had $10 million dollars in your bank account? Write down the first three things that you would accomplish if you achieved financial independence."

Silence

He continued:

"It is probable that most of you wrote down in the first bullet: Quit my job"

If that was the case you have the wrong job and therefore you're not realizing your full potential. You're not exploiting your creative power. Fear has trapped you, and your true purpose in this life is getting wasted.

According to Tracy, 80% of the obstacles you find to achieve your most valuable goals are internal. Illusions created by you.

One good way to change the world would be to change yourself by realizing your full potential without waiting to have some millions in your bank account.

It requires courage. Would you dare?

Namaste

Tags: Change the world, Potential, Financial Independence

Bill Gates' Commencement Address at Harvard

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 16:25:05 GMT

This is Bill Gates' speech at Harvard graduation in June...It was very inspiring to me and wanted to share it with all of Zaadzters community since it is a true example of the levels of awareness we need to start changing the world. ...hope you enjoy it....

June 7, 2007

President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming President Faust,
members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members
of the faculty, parents, and especially, the graduates:

I've been waiting more than 30 years to say this: "Dad, I always told
you I'd come back and get my degree."

I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I'll be changing my job
next year . and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume.

I applaud the graduates
today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part,
I'm just happy that the Crimson has called me "Harvard's most
successful dropout." I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own
special class . I did the best of everyone who failed.

But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to
drop out of business school. I'm a bad influence. That's why I was
invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your
orientation, fewer of you might be here today.

Harvard was just a phenomenal experience for me. Academic life was
fascinating. I used to sit in on lots of classes I hadn't even signed
up for. And dorm life was terrific. I lived up at Radcliffe, in Currier House.
There were always lots of people in
my dorm room late at night discussing things, because everyone knew I
didn't worry about getting up in the morning. That's how I came to be
the leader of the anti-social group. We clung to each other as a way of
validating our rejection of all those social people.

Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up there,
and most of the guys were science-math types. That combination offered
me the best odds, if you know what I mean. This is where I learned the
sad lesson that improving your odds doesn't guarantee success.

One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975, when I made
a call from Currier House to a company in Albuquerque that had begun
making the world's first personal computers. I offered to sell them software.

I worried that they would realize I was just a student in a dorm and
hang up on me. Instead they said: "We're not quite ready, come see us
in a month,"
which was a good thing, because we hadn't written the software yet.
From that moment, I worked day and night on this little extra credit
project that marked the end of my college education and the beginning
of a remarkable journey with Microsoft.

What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of so
much energy and intelligence. It could be exhilarating, intimidating,
sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging. It was an amazing
privilege - and though I left early, I was transformed by my years at
Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on.

But taking a serious look back . I do have one big regret.

I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the
world
-- the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity
that condemn millions of people to lives of despair.

I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics.
I
got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences.

But humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries - but in
how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through
democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad
economic opportunity - reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.

I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated
out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew
nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and
disease in developing countries.

It took me decades to find out.

You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know more about
the world's inequities than the classes that came before. In your years
here, I hope you've had a chance to think about how - in this age of
accelerating technology - we can finally take on these inequities, and
we can solve them.

Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a
week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause - and you wanted to
spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in
saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it?

For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the
most good for the greatest number with the resources we have.

During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article
about the millions of children who were dying every year in poor
countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this
country. Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever. One
disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a
million kids each year - none of them in the United States.

We were shocked. We had just assumed that if millions of children were
dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to
discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For
under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that
just weren't being delivered.

If you believe that every life has equal value, it's revolting to learn
that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to
ourselves: "This can't be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be
the priority of our giving."

So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked:
"How could the world let these children die?"

The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the
lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the
children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in
the market and no voice in the system.

But you and I have both.

We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a
more creative capitalism - if we can stretch the reach of market forces
so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living,
serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities. We also can
press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that
better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes.

If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that
generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have
found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world.

This task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious
effort to answer this challenge will change the world.

I am optimistic that we can do this, but I talk to skeptics who claim
there is no hope. They say: "Inequity has been with us since the
beginning, and will be with us till the end - because people just . don't . care."

I completely disagree.

I believe we have more caring than we know what to do with.

All of us here in this Yard, at one time or another, have seen human
tragedies that broke our hearts, and yet we did nothing -- not because
we didn't care, but because we didn't know what to do. If we had known
how to help, we would have acted.

The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.

To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution,
and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps.

Even with the advent of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is still a
complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problems. When an
airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference. They
promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar
crashes in the future.

But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say: "Of all the
people in the world who died today from preventable causes, one half of
one percent of them were on this plane. We're determined to do
everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of the one
half of one percent."

The bigger problem is not the plane crash, but the millions of
preventable deaths.

We don't read much about these deaths. The media covers what's new -
and millions of people dying is nothing new. So it stays in the
background, where it's easier to ignore. But even when we do see it or
read about it, it's difficult to keep our eyes on the problem. It's
hard to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we don't know how to help.
And
so we look away.

If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the
second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution.

Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring.
If
we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization or individual
asks "How can I help?," then we can get action - and we can make sure
that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But complexity makes it
hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares - and that makes
it hard for their caring to matter.

Cutting
through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages:
determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the
ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the
smartest application of the technology that you already have - whether
it's something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a
bednet.

The AIDS epidemic offers an example. The broad goal, of course, is to
end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention. The ideal
technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with a
single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund
vaccine research.
But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the
meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand - and the best
prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky
behavior.

Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again. This is the pattern.
The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working - and never do
what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century - which
is to surrender to complexity and quit.

The final step - after seeing the problem and finding an approach - is
to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and
failures so that others learn from your efforts.

You have to have the statistics, of course. You have to be able to show
that a program is vaccinating millions more children. You have to be
able to show a decline in the number of children dying from these
diseases. This is essential not just to improve the program, but also
to help draw more investment from business and government.

But if you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show more
than numbers; you have to convey the human impact of the work - so
people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected.

I remember going to Davos some years back and sitting on a global
health panel that was discussing ways to save millions of lives.
Millions! Think of the thrill of saving just one person's life - then
multiply that by millions. . Yet this was the most boring panel I've
ever been on - ever. So boring even I couldn't bear it.

What made that experience especially striking was that I had just come
from an event where we were introducing version 13 of some piece of
software, and we had people jumping and shouting with excitement. I
love getting people excited about software - but why can't we generate
even more excitement for saving lives?

You can't get people excited unless you can help them see and feel the
impact. And how you do that - is a complex question.

Still, I'm optimistic. Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but the
new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us
forever. They are new - they can help us make the most of our caring -
and that's why the future can be different from the past.

The defining and ongoing innovations of this age - biotechnology, the
computer, the Internet - give us a chance we've never had before to end
extreme poverty and end death from preventable disease.

Sixty years ago, George Marshall came to this commencement and
announced a plan to assist the nations of post-war Europe. He said: "I
think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous
complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press
and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to
reach a clear appraisement of the situation. It is virtually impossible
at this distance to grasp at all the real significance of the situation."

Thirty years after Marshall made his address, as my class graduated
without me, technology was emerging that would make the world smaller,
more open, more visible, less distant.

The emergence of low-cost personal computers gave rise to a powerful
network that has transformed opportunities for learning and
communicating.

The magical thing about this network is not just that it collapses
distance and makes everyone your neighbor. It also dramatically
increases the number of brilliant minds we can have working together on
the same problem - and that scales up the rate of innovation to a
staggering degree.

At the same time, for every person in the world who has access to this
technology, five people don't. That means many creative minds are left
out of this discussion -- smart people with practical intelligence and
relevant experience who don't have the technology to hone their talents
or contribute their ideas to the world.

We need as many people as possible to have access to this technology,
because these advances are triggering a revolution in what human beings
can do for one another. They are making it possible not just for
national governments, but for universities, corporations, smaller
organizations, and even individuals to see problems, see approaches,
and measure the impact of their efforts to address the hunger, poverty,
and desperation George Marshall spoke of 60 years ago.

Members of the Harvard Family: Here in the Yard is one of the great
collections of intellectual talent in the world.

What for?

There is no question that the faculty, the alumni, the students, and
the benefactors of Harvard have used their power to improve the lives
of people here and around the world. But can we do more? Can Harvard
dedicate its intellect to improving the lives of people who will never
even hear its name?

Let me make a request of the deans and the professors - the
intellectual leaders here at Harvard: As you hire new faculty, award
tenure, review curriculum, and determine degree requirements, please
ask yourselves:

Should our best minds be dedicated to solving our biggest problems?

Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world's worst
inequities? Should Harvard students learn about the depth of global
poverty . the prevalence of world hunger . the scarcity of clean water
.the girls kept out of school . the children who die from diseases we can cure?

Should the world's most privileged people learn about the lives of the
world's least privileged?

These are not rhetorical questions - you will answer with your policies.

My mother, who was filled with pride the day I was admitted here -
never stopped pressing me to do more for others. A few days before my
wedding, she hosted a bridal event, at which she read aloud a letter
about marriage that she had written to Melinda. My mother was very ill
with cancer at the time, but she saw one more opportunity to deliver
her message, and at the close of the letter she said: "From those to
whom much is given, much is expected."

When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given -
in talent, privilege, and opportunity - there is almost no limit to
what the world has a right to expect from us.

In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the
graduates here to take on an issue - a complex problem, a deep
inequity, and become a specialist on it. If you make it the focus of
your career, that would be phenomenal. But you don't have to do that to
make an impact. For a few hours every week, you can use the growing
power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same
interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them.

Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big
inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.

You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time. As you leave
Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had. You
have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have. And with that
awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will
torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change
with very little effort.

You have more than we had; you must start sooner, and carry on longer.

Knowing what you know, how could you not?

And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and
reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope
you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments
alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world's deepest
inequities . on how well you treated people a world away who have
nothing in common with you but their humanity.

Good luck.

Tags: Change the world, Bill Gates, inequities, philanthropist

I Have Learned something about Superiority

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 03:52:55 GMT

The superiority complex

I have learned that people builds its illusion of superiority upon the fake belief that the way in which we see things is unique. We think of ourselves as bearers of the absolute truth that embraces all beings. I have learned that compassion is based in the understanding that, either in our own history of life, or through the impregnation of arquetypes in our conscience, each one of us has passed through a similar level of understanding and achievement to that of the person that we are despising .

North Shore, Lake Superior by Lawren Harris

The superiority complex is solidified thanks to people's personal amnesia, which prevents us to clearly see that in a given moment of our lives, either as individuals, or as part of the indivisible universal conscience we all form, depending upon the circumstances in which we have lived, we are capable to think and act as the human being that we are judging as inferior .

Tags: I have learned, superiority, compassion

21 Solutions to Save the World: Solution #2

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Mon, 28 May 2007 00:30:10 GMT

In the last issue of Foreign Policy magazine, the main story features 21 solutions to save the world, proposed by 21 leading thinkers. I will make an abstract of every solution and suggest ways in which Zaadz citizens can act themselves to participate in these ideas.

2. The Problem: Climate change. The

Global-warming

Solution: 450 ways to Stop Global warming. Scholar Bill McKibben is definitive in his statement: "There's no denying the Earth is getting hotter. Now we just have to draw a line in the sand." Is it necessary for the world population to cross that line to start taking really seriously the global warming issue? How are you contributing to increase the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide? What's out limit?

As human civilization has developed, it has started to burn coal, gas, and oil. The extra carbon dioxide that combustion produced began to accumulate in the atmosphere, and now has reached 380 parts per million. In recent years, scientist had tended to put the red line right around 450 parts per million which is where the melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets would become rapid and irrevocable. According to McKibben, "the ice above Greenland alone contains about 23 feet of sea level rise, which is more than enough to alter the Earth almost beyond recognition."

Ways in which Zaadzters can participate of this solution:

Start by reducing your own Ecological Footprint at your house. You can measure the size of your footprint by taking this test.
After the test you can make an exercise that provides guidance in how to reduce your footprint. Take action now!
Teach your kids and family relatives about the importance of changing their lifestyle to protect our planet.
If you want to be more literate in the subject check this sourcebook.

Tags: Change the world, Global Warming, Ecology, Ecological Footprint

21 Solutions to Save the World: Solution #1

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Sat, 12 May 2007 18:00:44 GMT

Illustration by Nenad Jakesevic for FP

1. The problem: Dictators. The Solution: A Global Magna Carta: Gary Kasparov, chairman of the United Civil Front, and world chess champion for more than 20 years stands that when democracies make nice with dictators, the world's worst regimes get away with murder. According to him, a new framework is required to replace old structures and agreements that dictate global diplomacy. To solve this, he proposes a new organization based on a Global Magna Carta that must be defended as if it were borders. "Our war today is a hot one, and it is not about territory, ideology, or commerce. It is about the value of human life."

Right now the worst sin of western democracies is that they make dirty little secret deals with strategic allies who have no use of democratic value. Moreover, Nations that value democracy and human life now control the greater part of the world's resources as well as its military power. They have a lot of potential to make a united front against terror and dictatorships.

Ways in which Zaadzters can participate of this solution:

Use your voting power to elect political leaders that put democracy and human rights as a priority, rather than weak regimes that prefer to subordinate to selfish, commercial fashions and addictions.
Support Non-Profit organizations that defend human rights. You can search these kind of NGOs in Changing the Present website.
Teach your kids and family relatives about the importance of human rights and to use their voting power to elect conscious leaders.

Tags: Change the world, politics, Human Rights

Integral Culture in an ethnocentric country: Year 2025

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 03:24:21 GMT

A pessimistic/ironic approach of what would happen if the integral ideas popularized by Ken Wilber are misinterpreted by a culture that lives with ethnocentrism* as its core value system (same thing that happened with Jesus' teachings?).

1. Everyone must have a blog in Zaadz.
2. The Integral Life and Practice Kit will be mandatory at schools and will be taught as the ultimate truth.
3. You cannot apply for a job if your aren't "integrally informed".
4. You must have at least 1000 hours of meditation practice to have the right to vote for a presidential candidate.
5. Insurance corporations will not cover your medical expenditures if you don't practice acupuncture.
6. People coming from ethnocentric geographical areas must go to a special purification program at the Wilber Center for Ethnocentric purification.
7. Every company should be Flow certified to go public in Wall Street.
8. You are ignorant if you don't know who Ken Wilber is.
9. Andrew Cohen is the actual president of the United States.
10. You cannot have an MBA if you don't pass the Metamanagement test approved by the government.

* For an explanation of what ethnocentrism is go to this link and click on the red wave.

Tags:

Stress

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:55:08 GMT

Stress

I have learned that life is a conflict, and that God has provided us with intelligence to solve it. Not being aware of this is what makes our lives more stressful.

Luis Alejandro

Tags: I have learned, stress

What is one movie that has changed your life? How?

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 15:18:16 GMT

Being John Malkovich

This wonderful movie portraits a puppeteer that gives up his dream to be a famous artist because of constant disappointments.

He recovers his inner desire to become a puppeteer by using the popularity of famous actor John Malkovich in whom he can transform by using a magical artifact.

The movie remembered me of how our low self-esteem can become a huge obstacle to develop our highest potential.

Tags: QAR, movies, life, lessons, films

Escaping from our passion

http://luisatman.gaia.com — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 14:48:44 GMT

Artwork: Marlene Dumas' Passion

I have learned that people escapes from their dreams because of their attachment to their old habits. Thus, we waste most of our potential because we want to avoid sacrifice...

I wanted to include a quote that brought my attention and is related to this topic:

Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.

-Sydney J. Harris

I have to confront sacrifice if I want to change the world

Tags: I have learned, passion, freedom, dreams, sacrifice