Tag Archives: Power

Power for good or bad?

Exercising Wisdom

I have found much to my dismay that if I stop exercising my muscles I get weaker and less capable of doing the physical things I used to do.

The opportunity to do physical exercise outside of the time I spend swapping my time for money is getting greater and greater. There are no end of things being invented to make physical exercise more convenient, exciting and fun. With participation undoubtedly they would make me stronger, yet I am less physically fit than I have ever been.

In days gone by I worked on Farms, building, mowing lawns doing all manner of physical activity. I was fit, happy and healthy. I now work in an office in front of a computer getting fatter and less healthy.

My switch from physical work to more sedentary work shows me the value and need of practicing the physical.

I’ve been wondering if the same principle applies to Wisdom.

Are the systems we implement in business and society taking away the necessity to practice wisdom and thereby making us less wise?

Barry Schwartz gives a TED talk where he gives examples of systems creating barriers to the practice of Wisdom.

Perhaps we need to be designing systems which promote the practice of wisdom. With practice, perhaps we can turn the tide on what is seemingly a collective loss in this area.
Along side our fight against obesity, should we be fighting against this loss? If so, what are the new set of tools to help us with this fight. Kahatika?

Update: Barry has released a little more on the subject. Still no definitive answer to how to ensure more practical wisdom. He does touch on changing the system though.
This is what Kahatika does.

Essential Elements of Any Plan to Save the World.

  • Most importantly it must come from a position of Love.
  • Individuals must personally benefit from participation.
  • Groups must get a benefit through involvement.
  • Must produce more than it uses. (Adds Value)
  • Must be self-perpetuating, It must grow as a natural consequence of its structure.

Doesn’t add up?
Seems like perpetual motion to you?
Never-the-less I must include all these elements in my plan for it to succeed.

There are no such thing as “Rights”

You have no “rights”. Not even to eat, drink, breath or even to be born.

Everything we regard as rights has taken energy to give the appearance of being a right.

Institutions which consolidate that appearance require constant energy to maintain them.

Like the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics without energy to bring order from disorder a system will naturally tend to chaos.

Where does that energy come from?

I like to think the “Boundless energy of the Human Spirit”.

Destruction is therefore a waste of the efforts that came before us and shouldn’t be undertaken lightly.

Constant, never ending Improvement is a far more productive and is part of the solution to “Save the World”.