Syntropic World

One of the simultaneously beautiful and frustrating aspects of surfing is we are beholden to the elements. When there is no swell, there are no waves. You can’t manufacture waves at will. I love this about Nature. She breaks the fallacy of man’s dominion over nature every time. I have been writing about and considering the human impulse for superiority and domination for a while now. Goodness knows I have been very skilled at practising my superior card over the course of my life. I reflect upon this: where does this impulse to project superiority over others come from? As a child, I was a bookish nerd. I was also the kid who put her hand up anytime the teacher asked a question because I did have an answer. My cognitive intelligence - the type of intelligence that makes you good at academic things like maths and science but not necessarily intelligent about social or life skills - was sharp. Yet it was my cognitive intelligence strength that made me fragile. Any time I felt out of my depth from a cognitively intelligent point of view, I felt small and inferior. Any time I felt I was across the subject matter, my superiority aspect became evident. I wanted to be noticed. I wanted to be special. I wanted these things because I didn’t yet have enoughness in my being. I still held fragments of not good enough. On occasion to this day, my ‘superiority’ aspect rears her head. Like Nature and the waves, more often than not, I trip, stumble, or get caught out almost simultaneously to this aspect of self emerging. I end up with metaphorical egg on my face. This is a good thing. Universe whiplashes me back to humility. During this time in Sri Lanka, I have been confronted with many people who walk the earth as if they are the chosen people, superior to everyone else and all things. It has been hard to be present to. Yet, as I know Nature and her laws, there will be a whiplash of humility. Not on my timeline, not as I may like to see it, but as it will be—the wheels of time, Karma, and justice at play. We are all brought to our knees so we can know the true meaning of the gift of life. I am grateful for this lesson. https://lnkd.in/gfp-b3UB #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #beautyofbeginnings

We can almost always do with more context. Our perspective is always partial. After my challenging morning in the surf yesterday, I did my usual trick. It was all me and my lack of skill. Yet, as my surf coach Tony pointed out, the waves have changed. The swell was different. The ones I had been catching had become dumpy. They required a different approach. It wasn’t all me, or my skill. The context had changed. Ah, this lesson. We need to get it again and again. It is the principle of Synergy - the behaviour of the whole cannot be determined by an examination of the parts separately. I cannot know until I know the whole. I cannot look at any situation occurring currently on our planet and know it unless I know the whole. The whole includes the rigorous truth of history. The context. The underlying forces and incentives. This applies to wars, poverty, power and business and individual success. Until I commit to this, my opinion will remain partial and more biased. To be an expert on anything is to know the whole. We might learn to set a context for our tightly held opinions. It is more honest to say I have an opinion, but I haven’t really studied the whole context enough to actually know, than to take a stand of righteous superiority about an issue. I return to the surf, and the lesson continues. https://lnkd.in/gNnM-aDV #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #beautyofbeginnings

To know humility is to be powerful We came to Sri Lanka for adventure and to spend two weeks in one place surfing. Today I had a case of the yips. Fear ruled my head. Tony, my partner and amazing surf coach, reassured me that the waves are different today, requiring a different approach to what I had grown accustomed to. Yet that little voice of fear and doubt ruled. Ah, life lessons through surfing. Roiling from determination to wanting to quit. To get back out and start again. To humility. Again. To know humility is to be powerful. To know vulnerability is to be powerful. In my vulnerability, I become invulnerable. When I have nothing to hide, no place to feel shame, I cannot be attacked. When my knees hit the dirt, the humus, the composting, bacteria infested soil, I finally experience the essence of my being. From where I came and to where I will return. The same for every single life, no matter their claim to riches, power or glory. To dirt we return. I watch a beautiful neurodivergent young man weep publicly with love for his father. For those who ridicule this spontaneously human act, I feel sorrow for your soul, for the cruelty that has occupied the empty caverns of your being. I want to see men, neurodiverse or not, be free to be fully human - and seen for their humanity, not to be packaged into some stereotype of how men should behave. Give me tears, vulnerability, and fiercely protective and infinitely respectful. I love women who embrace their sexuality. Not as a weapon to dominate, or as a front to hide deep insecurity. But are an embrace of their being. A gorgeous flower does not hide its beauty. I love men who know their own strength enough to stand beside powerful women, where the two together are better in each other’s light and shadow. I am lucky to have a man like this in my life. Who, rather than take me further down into my doubts and fears with surfing, lifts me to another perspective, giving me both hope and the opportunity to keep learning. Later today, I will go out again to be in a conversation with the water and waves. Every moment we get to begin again. https://lnkd.in/gFzkd9Ti #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #beautyofbeginnings

One person up against corruption and injustice will find it harder than when a whole community gets together and works toward the same goal. The rugged individual is a myth of the modern day. You cannot even open a can of tomatoes without thousands of hands involved in the can’s creation. This is the importance of community, unions, mass protests, and revolution. Together, we can change things, move what feels impossible, and enable a more equal playing field. Collective intelligence occurs when we have ecologies of synergy. My brilliance, added to yours, is exponentially greater than when we work in isolation. The issue of collective intelligence and collective action that is rarely considered is the terms of collaboration. Who benefits from the collaboration? Who participates, and how is the participation recognised? Who creates the value? Those who invest money, those who do the collective intelligence, or both? The people and organisations currently profiting from the status quo are happy to let the terms of collaboration go unquestioned. Squeeze the brilliance out of people, and then extract all the value, leaving those who generated the brilliance scraps. All the while pointing to the risks they made to do so. Or the risks the investor took to do so. These same people are terrified of collective action, for they know its power to turn the tables of accumulation. People, we can do better. We can end the extraction and exploitation of our current innovative laboratories. We can stand against the ever-greater divide between those who have and those who do not. There can be shared risk, shared responsibility and shared reward. Synergy, collective intelligence, and collaborative action are required if we want a world that works for Earth and all its creatures. But we must also get the terms and agreements in place. In Syntropic World, we have two powerful tools to do exactly this. The Synergistic Audit enables a whole-system account of inputs and outputs by all participants, never allowing one domain, like money, to dominate another domain, like creativity. The Syntropic Trust Manifesto sets the terms and agreements, enabling ecologies of trust and synergistic collaboration. Both the Synergistic Audit and the Trust Manifesto are the containers that enable brilliant, thriving synergy, ensuring our purpose for being together collectively holds its shape and integrity, against all odds. If this is the world you want to create, with others, I invite you to consider joining us for the next Syntropic Foundations Masterclass. https://lnkd.in/fBMNcd6 https://lnkd.in/g8nqaKjn #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #beautyofbeginnings

Yesterday we visited an archaeological site that was also a Buddhist temple. I was required to cover myself completely while Tony walked in shorts and a T-shirt. As I understand Buddhism at its Source, it is not gendered at all. I did a little research and found that quite a few scholars have addressed the issue of the infection of Buddhism by patriarchy. Androcentrism is a male-centred consciousness. Texts are written by men, placing the world in the image of the male gaze. Almost every body of research until recent times about endurance athletes has been done on men, yet applied to women. As Dr Stacey Sims says, women are not small men. The world cannot progress while the androcentric view remains. I can respect tradition when I am in a country as a guest. Yet it will not stop me from challenging the sacred cows preventing the world from becoming more humane to all. Western philosophy is almost entirely androcentric, which makes it seriously deficient and, as such, not to be trusted at all. Our voices, writings, philosophy, politics, spiritual practices and moral codes are seeking androgyny. There is no moral, religious, or spiritual freedom until the full spectrum of humanity is represented. https://lnkd.in/gE7cDcA2 #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #beautyofbeginnings

This is Karma To take, just because. To take clean air from another because you want to smoke. To take a wave without consideration of anyone else. To take charge by whistling for service, as if you are the king of the Universe and the service staff are there at your beck and call as a priority over everyone else who are also customers. To take the land of others. Because of some belief it is your right. To take the dignity of a human through rape. I love that I am in a Buddhist country where karma is the ground of belief. Taking without giving tips the scales of karmic justice far into the pits of imbalance. The surprise of being in Sri Lanka is being surrounded by people - guests in this land - who take and take and take. Their arrogance walks into any space before them. They bristle with defensiveness the moment anyone questions them. There is no humanity, dignity, or life with takers. In the end, everyone loses, even the takers. I like to believe that the takers are like hungry ghosts, the emptiness inside is a cavern. Those they take from usually have more dignity, humanity and compassion, and as such, even as their exterior lives have been hollowed out by the tackers, they find happiness. This is Karma. The justice of time and Universe notices everything. https://lnkd.in/gQ7RnseU #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #beautyofbeginnings

Swirling reflections while in Sri Lanka How to get over an aging face. Get two massive black eyes and be shocked every time you look in the mirror. Not recommended, but certainly has one get over thinner lips and a falling-down face. The rubbish and litter everywhere. It is heartbreaking. No matter where you drive, there it is. Plastic water bottles are the consequence of water not being safe to drink. The situation is not as bad as in places like Bali, but you do have to watch what and how you eat and drink. The rare sound of an Aussie accent. Being surrounded by people from Israel. I wonder, with great curiosity, how people from Israel can go on a holiday and be so carefree, while their country is enacting genocide. I try to think - if I were Israeli and I opposed the war, could I take a holiday? What would I do? How would I respond? I think as well how I can take a holiday and be so carefree while the tragedy is unfolding in Palestine and Ukraine. Can I hold the tension between these two polarities? Yesterday, my wonderful tuk-tuk driver—my love Tony—and I went for a drive and encountered wild elephants, many peacocks, crocodiles, buffalo on the road, two different types of monkeys, plus goats and cows. What a delight. Sri Lankan dogs are everywhere. The government cares for them to ensure rabies is not a problem. Some serious desexing would be helpful, as the females have borne many litters. They are skinny but seem to be fed. They own the roads and hardly break a breath when people or tuk-tuks go by, centimetres from their flesh. They are sweet creatures and appear to have adopted places and corners as their regular patch. They can be found on the floors of shops and restaurants, staking claim to their regular resting ground. My surf this morning was free of the fear that gripped me yesterday after my face smash. I was very proud of myself. I am pretty scary, though, to look at. It might work in my favour in busy surf. Another day is in front of us. I did not expect this to be a super healthy holiday. Fabulous food, hours and hours of exercise. Almost no alcohol, and the honest exhaustion that comes with being outdoors and surfing for hours on end. Today is a public holiday, as is every full moon day. Poya Day is part of Buddhist practice—a day of cleansing. I like that. A celebration and cleansing built around the full moon. https://lnkd.in/gnZNjsbA #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #beautyofbeginnings

Just after first light we enter the surf. The routine now four days and steady. My first wave. Not fully present. Too rushed. Still dark. I get ahead of myself. I get ahead of the wave. Over the falls I go. My board flips back and hits me hard on the bridge of my nose. Hard. Eyes water from the pain. Rattled. Some minor blood. Back on the horse, so to speak. But nervous. We stay in the surf for two hours. A few hours later, two massive black eyes. Fortunately no pain. Just a very swollen face. I recall a few days earlier writing about confidence and pacing. Did I write this for myself? The gods are laughing. I send an image of my face - it is pretty bad - to my daughter. She says I am accident-prone. Perhaps. Or perhaps it is because at my age I insist on remaining active, participating in sports like surfing that are dangerous. Heck, going up and down stairs can be dangerous. I want to live. Not stay safe. I did also write about Tom Cruise doing a stunt at the Olympics. My vintage. I am not foolish. I do mitigate risk. But I refuse to go gently into that good night. https://lnkd.in/g-d4WWkT #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #beautyofbeginnings

It is rare to see women working in the front of house in hospitality in Sri Lanka. Even where we are staying, the men do the room cleaning, cooking and service. You occasionally see younger woman working behind the counter. In the traditional space, women are the ones who do the washing and are apparently also in the fields working in the hot sun. Largely hidden from view. Our driver for the long trip from Colombo to Aragum Bay has three daughters, and all of them are highly educated in IT and medicine. One aims to go to London to complete her studies. This is the contrast. Women around the world, even in the richest country on the planet, are fighting for an equal seat at the table and insisting on the right to agency over their bodies. When I look at a company's website now, I immediately go to the ‘about’ page. If I am confronted with a sea of white male faces, with an occasional ‘assistant to the CEO’ woman, this company is already lost to me. It matters not their size, success, or quality of work. They tell a story about who they are in how they are represented. The future of humanity is on the line. It will not be the same people who brought us to this point who will create the solutions for a better future for all of life. https://lnkd.in/grTjXPW4 #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #beautyofbeginnings

All learning is a progression. Children stay the path, focused on where they are. Adults often expect to be further along the path and get frustrated when they are not. Patience plus commitment are key. When it is time to learn the next step, it will reveal itself. Pushing past the next step is to dishonour the process. Attunement to timing, progression and the delicacy of the next step is a rare skill. We might do better to invest in learning the skill of deep listening to the step to be taken next. https://lnkd.in/gTPRkdPX #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #beautyofbeginnings