Examining The System ...

About This Group

RSS Feed

An Observation: The Most Successful and Accomplished People In The World Are Those Who Can Get Others To Move In The Same Direction In Which They Are Aiming To Go Themselves … And When This Direction Becomes Socially Organized They Are Also The Ones Who Contribute The Most To Others.

Few things seem so self evident as the...(more) idea that we are foremost and fundamentally social beings, designed and destined to communicate and connect with one another. The fabric of human experience therefore can be said to be woven in relation to and with others.

This space has been designed to create an opening to exploring how we create our shared realities and how we influence and are in turn influenced by others as we jointly move together through our lives. In addition the intention in exploring these ideas has a practical, applied orientation … becoming better at constructing futures that work.

Gaining and refining the skills of social interaction begins with the classic philosopher’s rant:

“Know Thy Self.”

Knowing ourselves always requires us knowing ourselves in context. Then once we’ve begun to know ourselves it becomes possible to recognize what is about ourselves and what is about others - and maybe even what is about both ourselves and others. Becoming self-aware includes becoming aware of the skills we currently possess and those skills we currently lack, and the possibility of building massive new skills of social influence …

Since the beginning of barter and trade, and the subsequent rise of a merchant class, the domain of business has come to the forefront of moving the human social experience forward. Now we are again on the edge of a new and emergent wave - a movement beyond the local orientation to a non-local orientation. We are beginning to see a movement away from self interest being replaced by a movement towards a larger, broader, more encompassing, more aware social interest … a larger, broader, more emcompassing, more aware and conscious approach to doing business.

A conscious approach is a non-local approach … a social approach … an approach that extends in space and time beyond the individual or simple individual interest. Taking a conscious approach opens the way for creating futures that work for everyone … and demands the skills of social influence to make them happen.

“Simply, we cannot avoid influencing and being influenced by others … the essence of human experience is social.”

About This Room

The way we organize ourselves seems to many to be largely made up ... invented ... constructed ... and we call these social structures and systems things like culture and/or society. This board is dedicated to examining our social structures...(more)

Room Activity

No Recent Activity

Group Grapevine

More...

Advertising keeps Gaia free! Interested in sponsoring us?

previous thread | next thread

Joseph said Jul 3, 2007, 7:49 AM:

Howdy,

I’ve been typing away all over the place, including my blog, cleverly called: Joseph’s Blog … here on *zaadz. What have I been furiously typing about? Well I bet you can guess … Social Systems!.

While it’s an old fascination for me, i.e.: How do people actually form, develop, sustain and extend their connections with others? and what for me has become an adjacent question, What really goes on inside of human interactions in relation to the human systems within which they occur? … I don’t know of many others who are walking around with the same level of fascination I’ve seemed to come up with.

My curiousity has gotten the better of me …

Do you think people watch other people incessently … and if so do you think they do it consciously and/or with intention?

I know that all kinds of things grab people’s attention and fancy. I’m just wondering how common this particular ‘shiny thingy’ of mine (paying attention to people and their patterns) may be with others.

Any thoughts???

Joseph

More ▼

previous thread | next thread

threaded | unthreaded | newest first

Examining The System ...

Gaia Community

Explore

Inspire

The Gaiam Network

Favorite Quotes