Going With The Flow ...

Good Morning Joseph,
Very interesting reading.  Actually I didn't even know that there was a thing called Social Ontology.  I am just a lay person with a burning desire to know my fellow man.  I have that undeveloped passion to understand how social groups work, and most importantly, what key components are missing today that seems to be driving us all mad in this country.  I have a goal, like most of us here.  Mine is to help to create the first co-housing effort planned and supported by mentors and homeless or disassociated youth.  It is an independent effort from all social service organizations, self propelled through various means like a rocket ship through space or a rocking chair on the porch.  It is built around personal visions and supported by each other in every way.  Every life domain is explored and watered like a flower by each house member with duties, work and housekeeping the same.  A real social organization, a family and a vision quest all in one that exists within the  very community that has ostracized them., co mingling with the nay says.   In the end, it is a short stay (one year or so) in a cocoon of the best of the human spirit.  What will emerge will hopefully be the butterfly of our near future. 
I encourage all positive forms of social reinvention/evolution.revolution.  The intentional Community effort with a big dose of earthy reality sans the exclusivism is an exciting thing to think about for me.  But then there is room in our world for even the tight ass, ever green, run of the mill, I know all the answers for the healing of earth kind of community too. 
It's just that we have people to heal as well.  And I tend to think that in order to heal the earth, the people that live on it have to be in a place where they can tend to that.  Or even get outside their own emergency ridden lives to think about it.  The the new chicken or the egg  connundrum (sp?). 
I have no idea what number I am.  I am poor and don't care.  I have no need for fame.  I do have a need to be a part of the effort and the results.  And I do my best to walk my talk.  I don't waste a lot of time trying to memorize  quotes from some book by a guy who made a good point.  I do listen to total strangers on the street who need a place to live.
Have a great day and keep fighting the good fight,
Lynda
Lynda

Hello Joseph

I have just returned and thought whilst I had a coffee and a bit of time I would wander around your blog, and perhaps later the other pods.

I should be fully occupied with logical tasks in the run up to the launch of the first product I have developed that is due out within weeks. Especially as I have no income at present nor had for four months now. However, from a very grounded and result oriented background (I had a construction company amongst other things - there's a bit more  about my background on my profile) I have come to learn that logic plays a quite different and less dominant role in my achieving personal success and in being a facilitator of that in others than it did a few years ago. So I have not gone off in task oriented style and prefer to spend time here where I know and sense there is greater value.

As I wander around the various discussions I tend to pay attention to what attracts my attention so excuse me if I simply find myself picking out certain phrases that then cause me to start a few comments around that stimulus. Usually I find the context of what arises is relevant even if at first it appears to somewhere off at a tangent - but we will see.  

“this is a critical component as far as I'm concerned, finding yourself okay with being largely aligned in terms of values - without having to agree with everything 100%).”

Being largely aligned with values is, I believe critical, as is the necessity to disagree. I am of the view that a major catalyst for dramatic, positive, social developement  is in understanding of the value and purpose of disagreement, and that a lack of such understanding is the cause of social breakdown. We fail to see the obvious, simply because, in my case at least, no-one ever explained to me  how nature works in relation to the human psyche.

By the way, I am not an academic, but rather a faily simple bloke who has spent the last ten years committed to finding new and alternative ways of working in order to be able at least offer my kids some other options in the way corporate communities operate.  I am very much commited to social development which I perceive (perhaps wrongly) will be driven by many elements but two key ones of which will be the way organisations are run and secondly by the Feminine Revolution (“feminine” not female - the distinction is important otherwise with four women in this house I would already be hung, drawn and quartered! Mind you sometimes it does feel a bit like that).

My inclination is to just throw out a few comments and see what takes your fancy to return to - otherwise I could go on for days and bore you to tears!

 

I have yet to read all you have written and to get to know about Dr. Graves and his thinking so I guess it would be an idea to do so. However, that would be too logical …. so what draws my attention in your comments above is:

to create a filter set for recognizing the range of values held by various people

Why and for what purpose would we want to begin to categorise in this manner? is it purely an academic exercise, would it be for individual definition of one's own reality and if so any categorisation would or could only be unique to that individual - so from a practical point of view of what benefit would it be toa community? Values and self awareness is as much a part of psychological context (which can only ever be personal), just as much as it is affected by physical context. As you say we create the context that contain us.

At the same time the context is created by inherited, spiritual, psychological and genetic factors over which we had no influence and THAT is the marvel of nature in action - we start with something we did not choose and the interesting bit is that we then have the opportunity to re-design and define what we keep or create. How and whether society develops is dependent upon whether we individually and collectively recognise that we can, through observation of the impact of those inherited factors, then make conscious choices to change all three elements (the spiritual, psychological and physical). For example, we can and do alter the way in which our genes switch certain funtions on and off.

I had to go check the meaning of “Ontology” :-) and find it is a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being. Of course - a fascination of mine. From my experiences in the last ten years there appears to be a definate structure that is consistent in the world as we experience it, and in the universe as I intuitively sense it. This structure is itself facinating and aptly reflected in the following saying:

What is natural is close to the source of creation
Natural Law is so general, it covers every possible event. It is so specific it applies to every instance of every event.

So no-one can decide for me what applies in any given situation - it is up to me what story I choose to tell myself!

“My story” is that underlying everything including community lies a Holographic Triune, in which Natural Paradox plays an ever present part and conscious awareness and self observation are two key functions.