Ultimate Harmony

The ultimate purpose and measure of mental, emotional, and spiritual health is a Harmonious Self, where each Part relates constructively to the Other.

The ultimate purpose and measure of political, economic, and cultural health is a similarly Harmonious Society.

The ultimate purpose and measure of parenting, education and religion is our ability to become Harmonious Selves who co-construct more Harmonious Societies. Read the rest of this entry »

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THS-4H: Systemic Virtue

America is facing a long-overdue reckoning with issues related to racism and inequity. Again. In fact, this seems to happen every fifty years or so:

  • The American Revolution
  • Jacksonian Democracy
  • The American Civil War
  • Women’s Suffrage
  • Civil Rights
  • #BlackLivesMatter

While there has certainly been progress, I have this ugly suspicion that the way we solved each crisis led directly to the next one. While numerous individual benefited from each of those reforms, there is a nagging sense that whole populations are still as disenfranchised as ever.

Can we do better? I believe so — but it won’t be easy. We remain trapped by the codependency between 18th-century ideologies, currently represented by capitalist conservatism and Marxist liberalism. We need a breakthrough vision of what a good society could be in order to guide our efforts in a more constructive direction.

Below is my first draft of such a vision, building on my earlier THS-IPA: A Game-Theoretic Model of Transformation. I welcome your feedback!

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Six Ways to Out-Think the Future

Pre-paying the “Crisis Mode Cost”

To prepare for times of danger, uncertainty, or extraordinary opportunity, we must cultivate these six habits of mind in order to win the future (#WTF) by bridging the gap between Snow’s two cultures.

Mnemonic: CriSys MoDe CoSt

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Introducing the Generalized Kegan Maturity Model (GKMM)

My whole understanding of discipleship, transformation, and myself was completely transformed by learning about Kegan’s Theory of Adult Development. It gave me a unified framework for thinking about personal, spiritual, and relational growth.

The core premise is that a) we define our identity by distinguishing what we “are” from what we “have”, and b) maturing is redefining something we “were” into something we merely “have.”

However, as I have been applying the theory to my self, parenting, and coaching practice, I realized that I might be able to extend it to be both simpler and more comprehensive.  In particular, by marrying it with General Systems Theory (plus a dash of General Relativity, with a hint of Internal Family Systems), I find it useful for analyzing not just human, but also natural and computational systems!

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