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Friday, April 27, 2007

The New World


It's a new world, and you can either get on the wagon or get kicked the fuck to the curb..........

Things are moving fast.

The computer and internet connection you're using to read this article will be "obselete" in a few years. Your favourite clothes will be "out of style". Your cell phone will be a "clunky piece of crap".

Just earlier this week European scientists discovered the most "Earth-like" planet in the known universe.

It's very possible that your future offspring might even live in a reality where this entire planet is "soooooo twenty first century".

We live in a time of massive uncertainty.

The world's sea levels may rise and put many of our greatest cities under water, displacing hundreds of millions of people. Three days ago my GF's cousin's neighbour had her house ripped out of the ground by a tornado -- the first of it's intensity in that area of the world.

We don't even know if cheap oil is still going to be available in another 10 years time -- and in case you haven't noticed, our economy relies on the CHEAP availability of oil.

I travelled to South America just recently and saw the consequences of a de-stabilized government.

Rather than sticking to the tourist areas I went exploring. I saw miles upon miles of burnt-out, post-apocalyptic looking buildings. Teen-aged kids walking the streets with machine-guns. Water sources that were so polluted that if you drank them you'd die within three hours.

One morning I woke up to my apartment spray-painted with "FUCK BUSH" all over it, and a crew of guys in ski-masks burning American flags for the press out front.

Apparently Hugo Chavez was in town... Haaa!!

Of course, I'm not trying to paint a bleak picture here.

There's also a lot of great things about the world, like when I look out the window of my beach-front apartment and see the ocean and lush green mountains, and over at my bed with my wonderful girlfriend fast asleep.

I've got my health. I'm born in a first world country where even with the obstacles I've encountered, the barriers to success are virtually nothing in comparison to what most of the other people in world have to deal with. I'm a happy guy.

What I want to point out here however, is that while most of us live in what appears to be a magic bubble of happiness (so utterly happy that we even become depressed as a way of reconnecting with ourselves), there's also an entire reality that exists beneath the surface that we're not immediately aware of.

A lot of this might sound obvious, but it's NOT.

Who are you??

What makes you the person you are??

What's lead to the conditions we see in the world today -- and more importantly, how is this system being sustained??

You could spend a lifetime unravelling all of this.

A great deal of what you believe to be true is NOT TRUE. You learn this on a daily basis, and yet, it's a lesson that we so often forget.

The person you are, or the person you THINK you are, is not only the sum of millions of years of biological evolution, but also of several thousands of years of CULTURAL evolution.

There are countless cultural/societal factors influencing you -- both your thoughts and behaviours -- at all times.

Factors that not only influence the happiness that you're getting out of life, but also the type of impact and meaning that your life is ultimately going to have after you're gone.

As the world becomes more and more confusing, the natural instinct is to look at this more deeply and get to the bottom of who it is that we really are.

I mean, this is both an external journey and an internal one.

Externally it's about seeing the world and finding out what the hell is going on.

Internally though, is even more complicated as it involves disconnecting from the implicit assumptions of your environment and travelling deeper and deeper into the depths of your mind.

At the core, our first challenge is that we grow up totally alienated and disconnected from the environment that supports us.

Sheltered away from nature in vast cities that we had no role in building, we have a different kind of appreciation for them than someone who was around back when they didn't exist.

Like rats in a maze without the perspective or vantage point to know of the bigger picture, we lack the ability to see all the interconnections that exist in the web.

The system...... The economy...... The government...... They're just THERE.

We don't question them. Why would we??

They've always been there and they always will be.

Or at least, it sure feels that way.........

In complacency we forget that it was only sixty years ago that the world powers fought in the most brutal war in the history of mankind.

SIXTY YEARS AGO!!

My grandfather and great-grandfather fought in that war, and my grandmother served as a nurse.

These are people I knew personally, and many of you reading this are in the same boat with your relatives as well.

There were warnings of that world-crisis, and as is so common in a time of complacency, the world plodded on with the obvious warning signs totally ignored.

Think of all the areas of your life that you know you should deal with but "put off" only to have to deal with them later. As a species, we tend to do the same thing only on a larger scale -- burying our heads in the sand and remaining oblivious to what's going on.

Why would a person who lives in, say, ORANGE COUNTY ever want to acknowledge it?? And even if they did, what could they possibly do about it??

Oftentimes the temptation is to seek comfort by looking backwards to the myths of an era when everything made sense -- where John Wayne was THE MAN and there was a good guy and a bad guy and an ending that reinforced the social norms.

The thing is, that day and age is GONE and it's never coming back.

Things were never even that simple to begin with, it's just that media and information was a lot harder to come by and the people were a lot more naive.

We're moving forward so blistering fast -- collectively barreling out of control towards a destination that's yet unknown.

Will it be any better than where we started?? Will it be a whole lot worse?? Will we come full circle??

We have no idea.......

It's at this time in the world's history that the art and science of SELF-ACTUALIZATION is more relevant than ever.

See, for me, no matter how screwed up things get I still keep a positive outlook towards it all.

I trust in myself. I trust in my ability to evolve. And I trust in your guys' ability to evolve as well.

As human beings, we are SO FUCKING ADAPTABLE.

The conditions that we're capable of persevering through -- that we HAVE persevered through up until now and the genetic heritage that's the ultimate fruit of our endeavours....... it's insane.

I see a human being, and I see not only the greed and propensity for violence, but also the GOOD and LIMITLESS POTENTIAL.

It's in everyone around me. I see it like how I imagine a sculpturer must see a big rock or a painter must see a blank canvas just waiting to be filled out.

The seed of potential is always there -- an unlimited source of energy that's just waiting to be tapped into.

YOU have it. We ALL have it, if only we choose to recognize it and give it the continual nurturing that it needs.

See, the mind, like the body, is always looking to be lazy and "gel" it's version of "reality" into a stagnant and deadlocked model -- so that it doesn't have to keep learning and re-learning how the world works.

It's tempting to follow this instinct, but the fact of the matter is -- IT'S JUST NOT REALISTIC ANYMORE AND PROBABLY NEVER WILL BE EVER AGAIN.

To me though, that's the beauty of all this.

In this day and age you're forced keep that old neuroplasticity up in your head moving and shaking.

We no longer have the luxury of getting old and senile.

That's definitely not going to be me -- and if I manage to make it that far I'm going to the sharpest old motherfucker on the block like WILLIAM SHATNER.

See, the mind is just like your muscles.

You might not like working it right away because you're still lacking in that initial momentum.

But once you've sparked momentum and you've cultivated the habit of THINKING and ADAPTING, it becomes more and more natural and your mind comes to HUNGER and CRAVE that new challenge and stimulation.

Synaptic pathways, just like muscle fibers, strengthen and thicken and WANT TO BE WORKED.

You wake up in the morning, and instead of thinking about how to "cop out" and do the least amount possible, you rise to the occassion (EVERY DAY is an occassion because it's a day of YOUR LIFE) and you're ready to step up to the plate.

This isn't about ego. This isn't about being "one-up". This is about TESTOSTERONE. This is about BEING A MAN.

What I'm talking about is, to me, the most FUN that you can possibly have.

As the world moves faster things become more and more interesting.

Take dating as an example.........

It's not about the dinner and a movie anymore. We know that.

Nowadays the whole dating thing has opened up into this totally fascinating new area -- a base of knowledge that might not have been uncovered if it weren't for the combination of modern cultural pressures combined with the communicative powers of the internet.

In the past five years we've learned more about what really causes attraction between men and women, and what makes YOU an attractive person in general than we've ever known before.

And you know the best part........??

The more we learn, the more we find that by GOING BACK to that old caveman mentality, we discover a part of ourselves that if tapped into, get's us more success than we could have imagined.

Rather than trying to be all "futuristic" about it, we find that by embracing a deeper part of our past that we come into better equilibrium with the world.

Full circle, so to speak.......

In the same way that the world can be lost, the world (and your place in it) can be "REFOUND".



Ultimately, the world can be a light, easy place for you....... or terribly heavy and incredibly hard.

It was Jeffy who recently said on RSD Nation....

"One thing I've learned is that the best times of our life, the times we really remember, are the times when we are CHALLENGING ourselves. NOT the times when we are watching a fucking "CSI: Miami" marathon on the idiot box."

All of us have the potential to live incredible, fulfilling lives and rise to the changes we see on the horizon.

The most important thing is to embrace them and use them as leverage to become better than we are........

.......and to evolve and meet our potential head on.

That's it!!


Tyler

34 comments:

Anonymous said...

fucking yes to jeffy's quote

Anonymous said...

I love it. Every god damn word.
Reading this shit is like a weekly motivational burst that just puts everything back into perspective. I can't believe it. Its so fucking sweet.

Anonymous said...

Dude,

here's a quote you might enjoy.

"The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know" Harry Truman.
you said something similar recently on the forum - (paraphrased) "i did invent that. is just that i realized later on that other people had invented it before i did"

Theodore Roosevelt articulated his philosophy of the "strenous life" very well too, - better than Kennedy did the same ideas. check out his speeches on the subject - you'll like them.
summary - these are difficult times - and thats great! its our good fortune to live in them, to work and make good against in the face of adversity.

hope you likes,
Sting

Anonymous said...

Hey dude,

Love the direction your blog has taken. I visit the RSD forum once in a while, and enjoy both because of their positivity. The thing is, most people wake up every morning with a pre- defined, unchanged image of themselves that tries to resist the changes of the new day, and only reacts to the most pressing sitations in conventional ways. Unlimited potential is unlocked when we observe every new day and situation, reflect upon it from our experience and identity and deal with life in a way uniquely suited to ourselves.

Keep writing Tyler!

Anonymous said...

This is why I love "OK Computer" by Radiohead so much.

Anonymous said...

Profound and thought provoking!

Anonymous said...

"I travelled to South America just recently and saw the consequences of a de-stabilized government...Apparently Hugo Chavez was in town..."

Tyler, do you still hold on to any political views? For many of us these are our biggest blindspots, making some commonly accepted concept a part of our identity.

Anonymous said...

It's cool you're mixing up pick up with the standpoint of the world.

This article gives you that "aahhh, fuck! why am I only putting x amount into what I want to do? lets have it 100%!... I'm going to use and respect my advantages that people across the world don't have"

I'm almost considering attending the Blueprint superconference, even though I'm broke, just going to take a loan, hehe..

CB said...

It's the colonisation of 'lifeworld' by 'system' in Habermas' sense.

"Habermas believes communicative competence has developed through the course of evolution, but in contemporary society it is often suppressed or weakened by the way in which major domains of social life, such as the market, the state, and organizations, have been given over to or taken over by strategic/instrumental rationality, so that the logic of the system supplants that of the lifeworld."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas

Anonymous said...

A woman I met on the internet once blogged about a number of deaths it would take to change the suicidal mentality of our world as a whole. She kept asking "give me a number" and a long diatribe on how we kill each other in the name of God and Money and country.

I simply stated that we will never learn until the death rate exceeds the birth rate. It is not an actual finite number but a rate because the the world is in Chaos and cant be easily quantified.

She didnt like my answer! I guess she thought the question was rhetorical. Damn feminist can't stand it when a guy is right.

Any way I like Everclear's song "Santa Monica" It says it all. Give it a listen and Eat drink and be merry. Go back to your primal roots when it comes to attraction. It's how Chaos made us.

Lucifer said...

this is an inspiring post! great read, thank you

Anonymous said...

Tyler your writing is amazing... you really do a great thing... i know it sounds corny but its the truth. It is big time motivation for me and everyone else who is lucky enough to read your stuff. Please keep it up

Anonymous said...

Tyler,

Please watch this and reply with your thoughts.

A very interesting topic for a new blog post.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UhXiHJ8vfuk

Trance.

Anonymous said...

Tyler, you get it. You really do GET IT. Thanks for this post. I'm on the same page with everything you have said.

Anonymous said...

THAT'S some fucking philosophy for ya. Amazing stuff. Very smart Tyler.

Anonymous said...

The first clip is of a movie Baraka. I HIGHLY recommend everyone checks it out, it's an insane movie.

Anonymous said...

Your writing is amazing man. I love it

Dirk said...

Haha.. nice, life is so incredible cool. A huge fucking adventure! It's a matter of 'breaking out'. Don't you have that feeling? That your limits and old beliefs start to let you go and that you become more and more free making just everything possible?

Kathexis said...

THANK YOU, SIR!

Anonymous said...

Tyler,
You had stated....

"See, for me, no matter how screwed up things get I still keep a positive outlook towards it all."

THATS WHATS UP....

You are a good guy Tyler.

-Matthew

TabooTruth said...

"Three million souls can be starved and murdered in the Congo, and our Argus-eyed media scarcely blink. When a princess dies in a car accident, however, a quarter of the earth’s population falls prostrate with grief. Perhaps we are unable to feel what we must feel in order to change the world.”

Interesting post, tyler. However, I think that the focus should be more towards making the world a better place as opposed to having an adventurous life.

Unknown said...

Chickens in factory farms...awful.

That's why I go Organic! It's the only way to eat...that or hot-off-the-farm.

On another note, this post reminded me of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator I studied in depth for about a year and a half. Your talk about questioning assumptions and the nerdy behavior you had before you started on this journey leads me to believe you're INTJ. Are you familiar with the MBTI? If there's anyone to read up on about MBTI, it's Lenore Thompson. Unlike others who seem to think personality is set in stone and easily catagorized, in her book "Personality Type: An Owner's Manual" I find profound insight into the nature of human development and being. She believes, as I do, that personality development is dynamic, and it seems you'd concur with that, too.

Anonymous said...

If you dont know about 911 being an inside job, and the whole military industrial complex, you will be more likely to be screwed than the people that understand these things and take proactive steps. TD is right, we had the worst war only 60 years ago, and we cant stick our heads in the sand. The people that engineered it are richer, more arrogant and even more tyrannical and ruthless. Go watch '911 mysteries' on google video and invest an hr in your freedom

AndyMcLeo said...

Tyler I love ur mindset. It is so open.

The stuff you talk about is exactly what I study at university, Geography. So many similar parallels.
I have one question for you, did traveling morph ur mindset into what you have now? like experiencing crazy things outside the north amercian bubble.

Bring more articles like this. love it. That was a sick vid as well

Anonymous said...

Compared to the stoneage the 20th century was relatively peaceful. Hunter-gatherers still have a 25%/male 5%/female deathrate through tribal wars today.

Anonymous said...

Tyler,

I love the stuff about neuroplasticity. People dont get the fact that neuronal structure growth is like a muscle resistance training.

Just finished bootcamp: im shaken up at the fact that there's no holding me back now, the last peices of the puzzle have been clicked into place.

Your work is inspirational, and ground breaking. A massive influence on my life.

Cheers bro,

alex treasure

Anonymous said...

David Icke on Bohemian Grove where 'groomed' presidents,
the worlds bankers etc, come together to plot our course
for us.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1U-Z-8mvJY

(I question why Icke hasn't been killed yet? )

"presidents are 'selected', not 'elected' " David Icke

The Illuminati and the New World Order

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m89SB59DT34&mode=related&search=

I will never have children.

Anonymous said...

wow...

i love the mix of profound euphoric depth and immature delightfull happyness that you seem to express in this blog... right now thier the only two emotions that i feel and its
GREAT!!!!

ALL COS OF YOU TYLER!!!

LOVE YOU BABES!!

flower

xxx

Anonymous said...

Tyler, big ups on an excellent blog entry.

I like the point you bring up about the journey of what one might term "enlightenment." I believe that a solid education and life-long learning is a necessity in today's world.

Regarding Latin America, it’s nice to see the continent finally moving in a direction of healing, after the wretched colonial legacy left to it by Spain, Britain, and the United States - among others. Besides the national division amongst the nations in South America, these imperial powers have also left a small wealthy elite juxtaposed next to a sea of poverty.

Luckily, Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia are now moving towards extricating themselves of IMF impositions. The new South American trading bloc, MERCOSUR, is also an encouraging development. Also encouraging is the recent political mobilization of the native population in Bolivia, and the subsequent election victory secured by them. The constituency wants autonomy over their resources, and many would like to see it left undeveloped - that is to say, leaving their petrol resources untapped, rather than serve the needs of gluttonous Americans, so they may sit in traffic jams in NYC, further choking the atmosphere with CO2 emissions.

There's a lot to say about this kind of stuff. But that's the thing; do people really know about the world they live in, or their place in it, or who they are?

Look at the last U.S. presidential election, for example: only a 55% voter turnout, with the winning candidate barely receiving half of those votes. Do the math. Bush really only received around a quarter of all possible votes. I think that voter apathy - or better, the democratic deficit in America and other affluent nations - is a symptom of larger problems; i.e., a lack of political organization and understanding about the world they live in (read: dare I say it, education).

It seems like we really don't care about the impact that our elected officials have on the rest of the planet: witness the Iraq war, or countless other military adventures (campaigns of terror) carried out by the United States in particular over the latter half the 20th century – most of which are virtually unknown by most Americans, and equally never reported on in the media; witness the 852 million people worldwide today that are malnourished, living in abject poverty (source: United Nations World Food Programme); witness the historically recent genocide in Rwanda, allowed to unfold in front of the international community, without intervention, despite the profound lessons learned from two world wars; witness conflicts in areas of the world like Darfur, Sudan, with most people rarely batting an eye; witness the Israeli-Arab dispute, now decades old, with most Americans unaware of their government’s complicit involvement, standing in the way of a just resolution, vetoing or abstaining from every constructive UN resolution along the way; witness the U.S. government's refusal to recognize the recently instituted World Court, or their failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to abate climate change.

I realize I’m mainly criticizing the U.S. here, but many of the same criticisms can just as well be leveled at all Western nations more generally – particularly when they align themselves with the position of the U.S. hegemon. Ultimately, it is a democratic nation's citizens who bare the moral responsibility for their country's actions. But do we really even care? Or is everyone caught up in our protective halcyon bubbles, comfortably numb, either unaware or caring less to be bothered; in a comforting stasis, if you will.

When you have half the population of the United States believing that the universe is less than 10 thousand years old, or significant portions believing in the literal existence of the devil and angels, you know you have issues. The level of scientific illiteracy is staggering. Don't even get me started on religious fundamentalism or the teaching of intelligent design in high school biology classes.

This fits nicely under the theme of "not knowing who we are, where we come from, and what the world/universe and everything in it is all about." The kinds of strides being made in evolutionary psychology, cognitive neuroscience, cosmology, particle physics - just to name a few areas - in helping to understand who we are and how this place came to be are mind boggling.

Anyways, there are enough ideas in this blog to comment on for hours, so I’ll just leave it at that. I like the direction RSD has decided to go in. Self-actualization is where it's at. Constantly evolving through experience and learning. Kudos.

P.S. This is a bit of a more personal question directed towards you, Tyler: I’m aware that you did your undergrad degree in Philosophy. Looking back in retrospect, do you think it’s helped you in your life?

Anonymous said...

First off, your blog is bitching... It really makes me think. Awesome.

Although each time I reach the end of an article, like this one, I'm all fired up and pissed off that I haven't yet left a mark in the world. And you never know when you might die.

Especially with the Werther effect plus Suing-Hui Cho.

Take care,

Ocean

Tyler-Real Social Dynamics said...

P.S. This is a bit of a more personal question directed towards you, Tyler: I’m aware that you did your undergrad degree in Philosophy. Looking back in retrospect, do you think it’s helped you in your life?

--

Hey man, yeah I'd say it was very useful.

College though was more about getting away from the old mindsets of high school and being around the right kind of people. I think the experience of "college" was even more valuable than the actual content that was studied.


Tyler

Anonymous said...

This is really well flowing and written. I feel all jittery and inspired

Unknown said...

something about this article that keeps me coming back to it over and over again. Every time i read it i draw something different from it depending on how I have grown...was this inspired by atlas shrugged??

Anonymous said...

I like CSI: miami