It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it. ~Joseph Joubert

An idea is where it all begins, then comes the opinion, then the choice and finally the action: this is the process of life.

Debate is “how” Adam and Eve ate the apple, the choice is the “why” the did it, the opinion is the flirting with the snake and the Idea is God…

The Idea

An Idea is at first shapeless, its a patch of light floating true thin air. Our thoughts try to sculpt it and define it but most of the time, specially for the important ones, the process never ends.

What is tricky about an Idea is that as any form of creation can carry different meanings, different messages, different perspectives according to the way it is perceived.

This is the hardest part: in order to understand an idea we should give up the notion that understanding it is possible at all. Let me elaborate: an Idea is a perpetual living organism and can only be caught in the moments that surrounds the perception of it, therefore it changes according to time, place, surroundings and most importantly the “thoughts of the beholders”.

So just in order to have some sort of security, we tend to transform Idea’s into “knowledge”, knowledge though by nature is such an insecure entity that immediately sets deep roots settling itself to becoming “Prejudice” and the Idea dies.

The only way to keep an Idea alive is to perpetually reshape it with debate and discourse.

The Opinion

Its comes very natural to any human being to form an opinion. Its a chemical process very similar to connecting dots. You would be surprised though to see how many unique shapes could be formed connecting the same dots…

The trouble is that in many cases we jump immediately into connecting the dots, without first understanding where they are coming from, what they represent, what is their context. This is why many times we express opinions based on Ideas that are quite different from the ones we have at hand.

Taking the time to understand first what is it that needs so desperately to be “opinionized” is crucial if any kind of progress in understanding [the moment] is the desired outcome.

So now that we have our shaped opinion in our hands we need to play with it. To play with it we put it into a battle field and let it run amok other opinions, sometimes teaming up and fighting others, sometimes cornered and beaten up, sometimes crushed into pieces.

The beauty of the opinion is that it bears the soul of a phoenix, if the opinion burns itself and understands that needs to die, it is reborn from its ashes into a stronger more beautiful bird capable of spreading its wings and capable to have a higher view of the whole field.

This is also a never ending game, there are no breaks, some could sit on the bench for a while but by nature should always accept to join the game if called for. When an opinion is ready to leave the game it means its ready to go on a mission, and I will come to the mission right next.

Retiring an opinion should never be an option. If we do, very similarly to an understood idea, the opinion intensifies and hardens into a heavy stone that we need to carry around.

The Choice

The choice is when an opinion decides to leave the play ground and join a mission,

The Choice is an Opinion with a Sense of Purpose.

It will be challenged and will be put to the test trough various adventures and experiences. This is where the opinion dresses up and gets ready to have some face time with the material universe, what we need to understand is that there are endless journeys to be experienced and there is no death, only development. If a choice understands to have failed, it decides to dress down and return to the playground in order to reshape itself into a new opinion, collecting though within, the experience it gained in the process of loosing.

The Choice is what we live for, its the essence life.

The Action

The action is the awareness of our choices, its the experience of the Idea. Its the world surrounding us, the world we experience trough our senses. This is where our choices come to life and struggle trough the fabrics of the universe and put to the test itself (The Choice), its motivation (The Opinion) and its understanding (The Idea).

The Debate

So what is really the debate ? The debate is what shapes an Idea. Is what connects the dots, and disconnects, and connects again. Its the game that is played in the field, its what keeps alive the game, what makes the journey worth leaving. The debate is what makes choices grow into statements or into experience. Its what gives you the power to move forward and prevents you to stall.

If the choice is the reason we are alive, the debate is the energy that powers it all.

and The Debate shall never end…

Sadok Kohen
In truth, without deceit, certain and most veritable.

I think that having a say on any matter should be something to earn. How can anybody vote without first understanding what is it that is debated. Shouldn’t at least the voter prove that he has at least a level of understanding that would allow him to?

I am not saying only doctors should vote on health care for example, i am saying that whoever wishes to have a say in the matter should prove that he knows enough of the current policies, the options around, the different opinions with their reasoning and then be allowed to vote.

Can you imagine a courthouse where each jury member is allowed to come as it may, ask for brief summaries about the court case at random from somebody in the courtroom and then give his vote based on that? How is this different from the way politics are run today?

Sadly well informed citizens have equal influence to the clueless and politicians ride on that.

Plato said:

Philosophers [must] become kings…or those now called kings [must]…genuinely and adequately philosophize

But it takes a philosopher to vote for a philosopher king so this is my quote:

philosophers [must] become VOTERS…or those now called VOTERS [must]…genuinely and adequately philosophize

Sadok Kohen
In truth, without deceit, certain and most veritable

Corporates where born as a necessity of traders specializing in different crafts, providing services to each other basing the value of their service according to supply and demand. Monarchs at that time, afraid of loosing control over wealth production, put into place some laws that would shape the history of human kind: they passed a law enabling them to monopolize industries. They then became partners of the companies they exclusively gave right to operate…

I am not going to discuss here the many implications of these acts. You can read more in Life Inc. a great book, but what I want to focus on how this have shaped the employer and the employee in today’s world.

Companies granted favors from governments are generally led by unscrupulous owners who’s main focus is never to do the job as good as they can but their only goal is the accumulation of wealth and power, for the sake of wealth and power, on the other hand this is the only way monarchies knew how to operate and it is only natural that this would be what the corporate world inherited from them.

This wealthy employer needs employees in order to operate so he triggers another inherited vice: exploitation… He has the exclusive right to produce a paycheck, therefore the real craftsmen have to sell their services not to the value of demand but at the mercy of “the” supplyer!

With time craftsmen loose their craft, employers loose their wealth, employees learn the rules to become new employers, employees adapt their expectations and from craftsman they become mare operators… In the meanwhile the original employer finds a way to once and for all control the “source” of wealth: the central banks are created. He is unaware of having created a Monster!

Controlling the money output and loaning it to the markets in exchange of production makes what was a zero sum game a time bomb… The only way for this system to work was turning producers into everlasting consumers! You know how that story went…

So now what we have is not even the original “employer” anymore but the corporate “machine”, feeding off of consumption and needing more and more. This beast, as all creatures, has basic survival instincts and in order to survive it created for itself the perfect environment to keep at bay the human intellect: standardized education, centralized mass media, distractions of all sorts, the illusion of scarcity and many many more enchantments.

Today we live as zombies, employers and employees all together… Our time has a value set by arbitrary salaries or revenues that reflect the needs of production and not the value of our real human capital. There is no direct incentive for the employee in most places to do better and no incentives for the employer to want their employees to become better.  Biggest business deals are still done by networking, by pulling favors or in lamer terms by kissing ass…

Inheritance is the original sin!

I cannot reverse all this, none of us can. The machine is too big now, very few of us took the red pill, and yet even we still love the taste of a great steak. I have a suggestion though:

There are many things we can learn from sports: Team spirit, discipline, drive, commitment, love, fairness and many many more. It is like we really could save the sports from the faith of human mediocrity. With sports there are traits in player trading and league management that could easily be applied to the corporate world that could lead to human beings relinquishing control over the machines.

Having the best player during his time on the team and the value of creating an asset that later could be traded for money or an equal valued player is a good deal for both sides. This allows the team (the employer) to look at players (employees) as a long term investment and a direct asset of the team (company). Now the better the players the better the team, the better all the teams the better the league (world)…

The only thing that needs to be done in order to understand the value of employees as clearly as players is setting more transparent goals. We know a player’s value for the team because we watch him doing things, we keep statistics, we see him grow, win, loose… See his commitment, his performance under duress… We need to find ways to show and keep track of this things in the corporate world as well. But isn’t this what most best selling success books tell us ? Set your goals, follow trough, be accountable, get feedback, be a team player, review your goals, adjust, succeed… It definitely could be done.

But how to prevent a team of getting all the good players just because it inherited more money, had an early start or simply knows the right people ? Well, in most places including Europe they didn’t and therefore they have unbalanced leagues where the wealthy teams strive and the poor just crawl. Sounds familiar ? We do have a solution though called drafting and salary cap. This is what makes franchises like the NFL or the NBA successful for so many years. It is really hard to monopolize success with this set of rules and the good thing is that the competition is so fierce, the incentives to succeed so high that the only way the quality of the game can go is only up.

Watch the quality of these leagues, you can clearly see a huge improvement every year. It demands perfection and commitment from every player, just the way it should be.

So why don’t we run our industries like this ? We succeeded managing our leagues like that…

The real question is: could the one’s in power accept this new rules and take part in a fair game ? The great thing is that they don’t have to! Let me explain:

The NFL, the NBA or any other league monarchic or not survives only as long as we watch it. The more the viewers the better the league, that is a universal formula. One thing the machine has not calculated is that we ARE the key to turn it off, WE are the buyers, the consumers, the zombies remember ? So the day we really decide things HAVE to change they will… They must…

I think what I suggest is a win win situation in all senses… Don’t you ?

Sadok Kohen

I hear screams, I hear crying, I feel tear drops in the rain. Good man are pushed around, good man are drawn into their corners trying to make sense out of the sensless…

How can we live in this world, in this world of madness. There is no logic, no knowledge, no feeling, no awareness not even the smallest hint of purpose.

Everything is right in front of our eyes, the information is out there, everything we need is out there ABUNDANTLY and yet we live in complete scarcity.

There is a black hole inside us, never satisfied… Why ? Why ?

Do we really need to be shaken up at the deepest level, do we need to feel so much pain to understand what is in front of our eyes ? Do we need earthquakes and floods and hurricanes to bring us closer together ? Is this really the only way ?

Nothing has changed since the great flood then, Babylon did never fall…

If you see your neighbor building an Arc in his backyard… you better join him…

Actually why don’t we all try and build Arc’s inside our soul and then flood all the rest, all the beliefs, all the prejudice, the hatred, the fear… Lets go trough that storm, day in and day out, and lets keep sending out that white dove into the horizon… Zen teaches that you cannot fill a cup that’s already full… Lets rock the cup so hard that is empty again…

Then the white dove will arrive with an olive branch in his beak… And we will have another chance, to choose… and choose again… until Babylon will fall once and for all…

Sadok Kohen
In truth, without deceit, certain, and most veritable…

Year in, year out we come up with new resolutions, new promises, new targets. Almost never fulfill all of them but yet the vision alone of having it all figured out is a driver by itself.

I read a book (on my e-ink device obviously)  recently that shook my soul in a very fundamental way. It’s “Who’s got your back” by Keith Ferrazzi.

At the beginning of the book there is an event where somebody tells Keith: “You are not elegant”. Not in a dress code sense but in how he lives his life… That’s where I said “That’s it!”, that is exactly what is not working in my life. I live a very fulfilling life, I have a great family, an incredibly challenging and exciting job, I am growing every day, adding new tools to my arsenal, a lot of learning. I mean life is beautiful, I am blessed from many aspects but I don’t seem to be able to quit struggling somehow…

There is always an important call, a missed opportunity, an urgency, a stressful task, something missing, anxiety of what’s to come… I am so mad at myself because I have all the tools I need to take under control my feelings, my finances, my time, my schedule and my goals thanks to Tony Robbins and David Allen. So why am I still in a constant rush to “make it”, whatever “it” is…

I want to streamline trough life, have my sense of purpose at sight 24/7, be grateful and just have a blast.

There are many components that I need to fix to make it happen, there is a lot of discipline and knowledge that I still have to grasp and perfect, but here it is:

My resolution for 2010 is to start and live elegantly!

Again: My resolution for 2010 is to start and live elegantly! Period.

Sadok Kohen
In truth, without deceit, certain, and most veritable…

Accordingly, since nothing prevents the earth from moving, I suggest that we should now consider also whether several motions suit it, so that it can be regarded as one of the planets. For, it is not the center of all the revolutions.

Copernicus words staggered the world, which was skeptical and even angry to the possibility that the God made Earth and His beloved creatures  were not at the center of the Universe.

It is a crucial point in human history and a chain of events that lead to Galileo’s “Scientific Method”. From that point onward people had to choose between faith and science as there wasn’t really middle grounds, either you were a man of science at heart or a man of faith.

Fortunately enough humankind intrinsically cannot be controlled for too long. This comes from the First Apple, the gift of Choice which is always and will be always there.

Copernicus was proclaimed genius and the Earth was removed from the center of the Universe.

Sadly enough humankind is also intrinsically stupid by having taken that bite in the first place… Very few understood what could be middle grounds:

Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind. – Einstein

Unconsciously people were relieved of a great burden, they were not at the center of the universe anymore, and what an unconscious responsibility that was…

But what did this imply ?

In our daily lives we tend to “decenter” ourselves, in other words we put our centers onto other things. The center of our love life might be our spouses or our children, the center of our financial expectations could become our job or a business deal, the center of our happiness may lay in abstract expectations as money or a future success…

So what happens if our centers get away from us, or they disappear. What happens if we continue to live our lives chasing, expecting, waiting or longing for our centers to come close?…

What we need to understand is that WE INFACT ARE THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE! Each one of us IS the center of their own universe. The Universe is our own personal Truman Show, everything in our universe is there for us and us only. What we fail to understand is that the moment we bring our center back to where it belongs, the awareness of being at the center of everything else that is happening around us will give you all the certainty, the love, the happiness and the focus that you never experienced before.

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. – Lao Tzu

Everything that happens in YOUR life happens for YOU to experience something. Acknowledge this fact, cherish it, own it…

But not only: Don’t let yourself be the center of somebody else’s universe! Those chains are as harmful to you as they are to whoever is decentered. Help them bring their center back and enjoy the radiating energy that you will be able to experience.

Try to visualize it, walk around and open up to the fact that everything around you, everything that is happening to your life exists because of you. All your feelings, all your emotions, all your worries, all your friends, all the books, the movies the people that you don’t yet know. They are all there for you to experience, by choice…

Maybe Copernicus was correct from a mathematical perspective. Mathematics by definition is a set of rules, a language to understand certain events and try to predict them. What the world failed to understand is that Life is ALIVE and cannot be bound by formulas.

So choose and choose without fear for mistakes are only there for you to grow, and all emotions happy or sad are there for you to know yourself, for there is only you and no one else…

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.  -E.E. Cummings

Sadok Kohen

We live in an amazing world: We can reach all kinds of information at the press of a button, we can video call long distance and collaborate on a document with several people scattered all over the world. We can single handedly reach 1 Million people and communicate to them directly without the influence of any socio-political filter. We are capable of aggregating information to our liking and build our own personal newspaper. We can build our own community and share our life and know about our friends like never has been possible before, even broadcast ourselves. We can watch what we want when we want, and we can decide what others should watch or read and make our opinion matter…

Then we can travel all over the world in a matter of hours. We can remain in touch with all the above with a small device in our pockets, we can hold a library in our other pocket and a whole music collection in our jacket.

We do all this, and we do it naturally, elegantly… Almost unconsciously…

A friend told me, in regards to having Internet on a plane: “So you see, you are miles high in the sky, actually flying, sitting comfortably and flying, having your drink, your friends your music and reaching the other end of the world in the middle of the sky, you will be somewhere totally different, a new adventure is expecting you… and you go: ‘Fuck it, the net  is so slow on this plane!’ ”

I wonder how while continuing to pursue new horizons we could constantly remind ourselves of our real basic needs: Health, Nature and Love… always were, always will be enough for the pursuit of happiness.

Sadok Kohen

Seizing the day or every moment in that sense would mean to enjoy every emotion, every action and reaction that comes with it in that moment, in that exact perspective with everything around it. In this sense technology is allowing us to avoid most confrontations in life:

We prefer to write each others sms, emails and instant messages where we hide behind stylized fonts and emoticons to represent our virtual projections trough a filter of not who we are at that moment but who we want to represent.

We came to the point where trough social networks we have hundreds of friends that we really don’t know or care about and yet trough the ease of various technologies we easily remember to send them massively impersonal holiday greetings. We would never talk to them to cheer or never be with them in time of joy or sorrow, never share that instant feelings that would be there only for us to experience.

Last new years eve we sent 43 BILLION SMS messages around the globe. 43 Billion happy messages… How many of those 43 billion messages really meant something ?

This kind of fastfood massively multiplayed relationships make it impossible to have real one-to-one deep ones for a very simple fact: we decided to have lives with separate internal clocks, therefore we live asynchronously with everything around us, including the world: every man is an island… (contrary to John Donne)

We respond to feelings or problems in our own time, we join or leave discussions in our own time, we add, block or delete friends in our own time, we start or end relationships in our own time.

Technology is no evil, we just decide to make bad use of it (as we always did).

We have the illusion to be infinitely more connected then we used to be but connected so loosely that the real strong bonds that made the human race survive trough many tough times are simply not there anymore. New generations will probably not have a clue of what real friendship meant, or loyalty, or belonging…

Its so easy to divide and conquer were you don’t have to cut trough those tight knots we once had.

Don’t misinterpret me, I am all for liberty and I am not saying that bigotry, the power of the church, empires or kingdoms are better: those were not hand-by-hand, arm-by-arm knots but chains!

I am talking about big families, old towns, tribes, clans… On a bigger scale I am talking about being one with the universe, with the ecowatch and not the egowatch.

Sincronicity is a way of life, is a huge lesson, it needs will and training but most of all it means having a totally different mind set and surroundings.

“Walk lightly in the spring; Mother Earth is pregnant.”

I am not going to discuss what this means here, just listen to it… I wish we could feel this way one day!

An old Navajo saying says: You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep

So for who is not pretending: WAKE UP!

SK

Sometimes its just a way of being, so romantic and courageous, sometimes its a revolt, a revolution, a declaration of independence, a country, a job. Sometimes its a house with a view, sometimes a word, sometimes a song. It can be a smile, a kiss, a stroll in the park, a juicy wonderful steak. Its sometimes a book, a movie, a name… But at the end its just a word.

We live in a world with lots of illusions, the biggest illusion is freedom! We have no difference from the world depicted in the Matrix:

Agent Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you’re fighting for something? For more that your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Yes? No? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can’t win. It’s pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?

I find myself asking the same questions again and again. Different circumstances, same questions, sometimes it makes me want to puke…

There are several wars you can attend to, but not all are clean and you can’t win them all. A saying says:

Never wrestle with a pig-you both get dirty but the pig likes it!

Another says:

Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience!

Well its sometimes hard to run away from getting dirty and from being beaten down. Its also true though that every war bares a lesson, and every lesson has a price. The price makes you want to shrug and give up on the world you have built on your shoulders, and life seems so pointless and in vain.

So why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?

Because I choose to.

Sadok Kohen

for Sam