The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the power of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, can no longer ponder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead. Albert Einstein.
What leaves you awestruck?
It comes in so many remarkable different forms. I am struck by watching what happens when a water droplet falls into a pool of water, and then watching in slow motion how it hits the liquid and causes a reverberation way up into the air above the pool of liquid and back down again.
I am awestruck by how many particular pieces of music are able to instantly touch upon my emotions and transport me to a place I was not at, seconds prior.
When I look at pictures that NASA and the James Webb telescope are able to deliver from hundreds of millions of light years away I get lost in thinking that that which I am looking at could have disintegrated millions of years ago, but that the light from that item is just finding its way to the telescope now…. or that man could even jettison ourselves off of this planet and into outer space! When I contemplate how our eyes work, and how many remarkable things happen within our own body in fractions of a second, I cannot help but wonder how it all comes about.
This quality is resonant in countless forms of motivation in our society, and gives us continual reason to share things with one another, because we are motivated emotionally by the contents, and struck by the tremendous qualities of that which we are witnessing.
In our mind, we filter each of these variables against the internal data that we have aggregated thus far, and when something exceeds one of those categories, we find ourselves delighted that our own internal database is expanding once again, such that it feels the deep appreciation for something that could ordinarily be common place.
When we, as a society, work to value these kinds of stimuli, we are continually evolving into a higher order of specie. It may not immediately register to you as such, but when taken in context, what is really happening is our parameters that currently define reality are being re-shaped with new details, opening the boundaries ever wider in the process.
Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. Matter is spirit reduced to point of visibility. There is no matter.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
(No matter) how many times I set my mind to contemplate the vast perspectives that I have learned from Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene and other thought leaders, I am still continuously thrilled at how capable their ideas are at transforming my understanding of reality.
When you are able to embrace that everything is vibrational energy, it has the tremendous power to change the way you perceive reality in many foundational (as well as many subtle) ways.
If you hook a person up to scientific equipment you will see countless physiological responses that indicate the changes taking place during shift of moods. Heart rate, blood pressure, brain wave activities and so much more. So then drill down on the atoms that make up each of those components and you find energy fields. Those atomic diagrams that look like balls and sticks to represent atoms are wholly inaccurate.
Grasp a glass and you don’t actually touch it. Electrons in your hand push against those in the glass creating a tiny but unbridgeable gap. Sit in a chair and you actually hover slightly above its surface. You’ve never had direct physical contact with anything.
An electron is a tiny, negatively charged particle that whizzes round the atomic nucleus. That’s been clear since its discovery by the British physicist J. J. Thomson in 1897. But 30 years later, his son George made a discovery. Sending electrons through a thin film of metal, he found that they created an interference pattern – just as if they were waves, not particles. Like his father, George won a Nobel Prize for his work, but this ‘wave-particle duality’ – shown by all particles, including photons of light – still provokes arguments.
There are two schools of thought. One: particles change their nature depending on what happens to them. In some experiments, they become wave-like, in others particle-like. Two: they’re weird things that always have a mix of both wave- and particle-like traits, but only reveal their wave-like aspects in some experiments, and their particle-like aspects in others.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Think different.
That was Apple’s mantra. (Even if they did not use proper English as it should be Think differently.)
The world is changing so incredibly quickly at this moment, we are continuously on the watch for new options, opportunities, and challenges. During this time, we are battling a wave of new obstacles and counter forces, each appearing capable of eliminating our dreams, hopes and desires.
The more we work to evolve, the faster the circumstances around us evolve, making a continuously unstable playing field on which we must make our plans, evolve our approach and perpetually explore every option at our fingertips.
Under circumstances of this nature, it would almost appear impossible for us to find a proper course on which we may navigate our path to a new safe harbor. Even as we have chosen that course, circumstances may evolve and the path we have set out upon will require new perspectives, approaches and means to accomplish whatever we put forth at the outset.
Yet, despite all of that cacophony in which we operate, we manage to prevail, time and time again. How is this possible?
Presumably it is due to a continuous set of sensory apparati in our beings that tune into the harmonic distortions that impede us and give us internal warnings that things are changing and that we are going to have to take a new approach if we are to succeed in our respective mission.
The Illusion Factory has earned our place in the future by helping to invent it. Our approach has always been to look at how things are produced currently and project how they will evolve and then invent the pathways, approaches, methodologies and experiences required to help our clients in their pursuit of the future opportunities that await them.
It is no wonder that Apple adopted their mantra, as the continuous wave of revolutionary experiences that they have created has evolved humanity in countless ways. Try and imagine what it was like before you had any computer whatsoever in your access, let alone one in your home! How many phone numbers did you have memorized before you had your first smart device? We, as a specie, have evolved into a cyborg (part human and part machine) as a result of the invention of the iPhone and following that, the Android devices. The smart device is clearly an external hard drive to accommodate the human brain and which augments that brain in countless ways.
Life will continue to put new problems in our path, and therefore make it incumbent upon us to work daily to find our path between where we are currently and where we are headed. As best as I have been able to calculate, that path is a nonstop maze of solving new problems, and evolving into new beings along the way.
It may not be easy, but if we embrace it as a fact of life, it is not only fun and challenging, but perhaps it is one of the greatest adventures of all time.
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Success takes many shapes and forms. It comes with accolades, privileges, respect, admiration and opportunity. But it does not necessarily make a person of value.
Being of value stems from a general sense of another category of existence. It is a recognition that you are part of something much larger than yourself. It comes with an understanding of that part of the larger picture. A tiny segment of something so large and so vast as to diminish any aspect of your own real self importance.
To grasp how this works, it is helpful to see the world through a filter of encounters. If you were to diagram your weekly encounters with everyone you meet, speak with, communicate with or have a chance passing, you might be able to collectively view a much larger whole perspective.
Start by labeling every single communication, conversation, social media post or chance encounter as an equal point on your timeline for your week. Depending upon who you are, how you conduct your life, how active you are and how you communicate in business or social media, you see that your numerous points of connection can easily grow into hundreds, if not thousands, depending upon your social media footprint.
For each label you identify, you may then ask yourself if you left the recipients in either a higher, lower or neutral place than they were prior to encountering you. Were you smiling? Even on the phone calls? Even to the passersby on the street, supermarket or public places? You get the picture. By the time you have diagrammed everything, you can see that there is a math formula that correlates. +1 for the ones you left happier for the encounter with you, -1 for the ones who were in a lower emotional state for having dealt with you and 0 for the ones who were completely neutral.With this formula, you might gain an insight as to whether your presence makes others better for encountering you.
This in and of itself does not warrant value, nor equate to the whole picture, but it is an interesting metric for sensing how your having walked the planet that week impacted those around you. Beyond your personality connections with others, comes the less tangible things that your week included. Depending upon your paid or volunteer work that you expended your energy on, did you create value to others for what you are spending your time on during that week? Some work is entirely self-serving, and other work is clearly benefitting society. It is not always recognized in the remuneration for that work. The sanitation engineer is paid less than a day trader. Without the sanitation engineer, our world populates with filth and garbage. Without the day trader, very little impact on society would be noticed. Another metric might be your general service to others, done without the face to face encounters. There are millions of people who are pushing papers, advocating on the behalf of people whom they will never meet, just because they know it is the right thing to do for humanity at large. This is seen in the aphorism… A wise older person plants a tree under whose shadow they will never sit.
Whatever metric you choose to gauge your value, you can extrapolate from all of the above, that in all circumstances, the equation exceeds the value you create for yourself and compounds quickly in the consideration of how many others are you helping in humanity by your having walked the Earth this week.
We are not all going to revolutionize Newton’s Laws of Physics, as Einstein did. We are not going to pave the road for space travel to other planets with a concept of space time. But each of us, in our own special way, have the privilege of communicating with others, knowing that our tone of voice and smile make all the difference. We know that our approach to others makes considerable impact on their well being and sense of self. We know that we are personally capable of putting out efforts that help our community, our city, state and nation. We know that we are all part of a larger body of humanity that can only survive if there is a general consensus amongst the specie to self-preserve and respect the world in which we live.
Being a success in life is a remarkable accomplishment, in whatever metric you choose to measure it. But being of value carries a far greater quality. One that takes daily effort to tend, nurture, improve and share.
Working on that quality in life not only improves the world for everyone you encounter, but it makes you considerably happier for the effort. Therein lies the value.
There are thousands of ways to formulate a question. For those of us who are insatiably curious, questions are the fuel for the brain. They drive our core actions with a mind of their own.
Trying to understand things is one of the single greatest qualities of being human. Our brains have evolved to such an extent that deep, abstract thought is as pervasive as gas stations all over our planet.
And both serve similar purposes. A fueling station facilitates the ability for whatever vehicle we are traveling within, to go greater distance. Deep, abstract thought facilitates the ability for an inquisitive human being to travel further down a path of enriched knowledge and life experience.
When we encounter topics that venture further into the fringe of knowledge, we are faced with ever greater challenges to find a way to navigate into the unknown. Albert Einstein once said, “It’s not that I am so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” His ability to stay with problems longer gave humanity a much greater view of reality; far more evolved than any human being who had preceded him. He and his wife, (who may to this day, be an uncredited source for some of his brilliant work), were able to peer into the universe in ways that gave birth to the theories of general relativity as well as the distortions that are created in the space/time continuum. In fact, I was reading yesterday, that Einstein was proven right (once again) when scientists were able to observe X-rays that bent behind a black hole. I won’t dive into the amazing reasons why this is so fascinating. I will leave the article below to your perusal.
Behind the massive implications of an Einstein questioning reality, the person with the questions could be your parent, your bestie, your spouse, your child, your teacher or a perfect stranger. Questions can come at us from the most unlikely sources. Many of the questions are banal and pointless. Some have value. And an even smaller percentage can be so targeted as to deliver the key to your next thought, move, experience or other.
The question stems from a curious mind in most cases. I recognize there are other causes for questions, and I won’t waste your time in discussing them. The questions that fascinate me are the ones where someone is clued in on an aspect of something we are doing that causes them to potentially see an alternate option, or a flaw in our choices, or a new avenue of discovery that points us in a direction, heretofore either unconsidered or alternatively, unfollowed.
Perhaps, even more important than the question is what happens after the question arises. If the question stems from within, it may either be met with a metaphorical shrug of the shoulders, or an internal voice that stamps it out like vermin, or, in some cases, it sparks an insatiable itch. That insatiable itch is the single greatest asset of the human species in terms of our evolution. The massive…. WHAT IF? From that spark, we can trace quadrillions of things that have come to pass on this planet. Some good, some amazing, and some horrific. Questions do not always lead to improvement, they are equally capable of leading to unthinkable atrocities.
On a very personal basis, questions are the cause to kick our heels out of bed in the morning. What will today bring? How might I best pursue whatever is on my mind? If I am to explore X, will it take me to where I hope to grow into, etc. I would clearly proclaim that the very best work The Illusion Factory has ever produced, stemmed from the questions of our team. They are trained to evaluate the stimuli that comes from clients, society, technology, advancements in global processes and ask the really tough questions of one another. In a culture that permits anyone to question anyone else in a nonthreatening manner, growth accelerates exponentially. The culture has to start with “leave your ego at the door” policies and follow up with the mindset: just because someone is questioning what you are doing, does not necessarily make their question a criticism. That is a core truth that many fail to understand, accept and most importantly, to embrace. We are trained to fight rearguard against things that take what we believe to be so, and put out into the world a thought that is directly contradictory to what we believe to be so. It threatens our existence on some level, so we instinctively rebel. So questions must come with tact and diplomacy in order to really deliver their true value.
This is the biggest problem in the United States at the moment. If policies and agendas of a political party outweigh the desire for transparent truth, and an open discourse that explores facts in a scientific based method of evaluation and exploration, then the power of the question is crushed. Suddenly there are no values in questions because an agenda outweighs a desire to get to an indisputable truth. With an ignorant populous, whose life experience would preclude them from reading my musing today and understanding the core value of what is being expressed, feeling self-righteous based upon the spurring of whoever’s agenda that is guiding their thoughts and behaviors, an enlightened society can quickly crumble in the face of clear knowledge.
We are living in such a time. A time when intellectuals are being painted as negative and potentially damaging to our society at large by those whose agenda is in direct conflict with the greater good of society. This is why our world is going into CODE RED on climate issues. It is the reason why our behaviors could cause the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean to collapse and cause catastrophic outcomes that we cannot begin to imagine.
Questions have delivered humanity to this moment in time. More questions will catapult us into a future worth living in. Intellectuals are essential for the growth of humanity and without us, the rest of humanity will slip back into a society of servitude to the powerful. And intellectualism will be suppressed on all levels.
We continue to live in a time and place on Earth where the choice is still ours. It is a freedom that most of our predecessors on this planet fought with every ounce of their beings to create. It pains me to watch our nation tremble under the continuous weight of agendas having sway over the overall benefits of humans in general and the planet at large.
If you like what you are reading in the blog, you will even love the book more. Take a free preview below and watch the Sizzle Reel. It will give you a sense of how this book might be of help in your life when you are looking to make some tough decisions.
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