People are Stupid

I hope the immature title caught your attention

I have been in the midst of a 30 month long state of transition, arguably another year longer, but I like to think of its genesis as the summer of 2010. This was a time that everything I knew, everything I had held on to, was cast into the wind and has ultimately led me to who I am today.

The world is an illusion and I do not mean that in a conspiratorial way, but as a statement of fact. Illusions are fake things appearing real, or more appropriately, something appearing different than its true form. There is an old adage which I frequently cite which states simply, “That which never changes is real, that which changes is unreal”. This is a weird, spiritual way of stating an overlooked reality of humanity, that very little of what we sense or perceive is real.

Have you noticed that you, in a state of disarray, can approach 5 people with your problem and receive 5 different answers? Or you can be certain of something one day only to have the whole body of that concept challenged the next? Information is one of the most illusory constructs in this world based on the nature of what information is: information is a description of the world, seen and unseen around us. If the predominance of things around us are in fact illusions, constantly changing shadows of potentially real concepts, then information becomes a virtually useless thing.

Information frequently follows the zeitgeist of its time, it is loosely constructed around the prevailing opinions, concepts, and social normalcies of the era during which the conscious is interpreting it. We have shifted into a dispensation, a time frame, during which too many prevailing theories are allowed to compete for the same brain space. Humans in the last 15 years have taken immense steps in connecting the world, a world that used to be defined by strict cultural paradigms. The result is a social topography that is now utterly confused as more and more people mix and mesh information as they see fit, often times taking vital principles and axioms out of context, and proclaiming them to other confused individuals.

We see this everyday. Every time one logs on the social network of their choice this reality confronts them. It manifests itself in a variety of ways, but most often as a general irritation when you see differing perspectives. You find yourself asking: “how the fuck did you come to that conclusion?” or “Dude, just shut up.” To make things that much more difficult, you then have to see yourself inside this cycle of stupidity, realize that you are probably contributing massive amounts of misinformation or just slightly incorrect interpretations to the fold. Information is passed under many different aegises, religious information always seems to command the most pretentious sort of authoritative amnesty, but we will derive our belief systems then promulgate accordingly.

So what then, Bryce? Are we a pointless species, trading useless cognitive commodities because there is nothing else to do? Yes and no. Yes in the sense that there really is nothing else we can do, humans are social creatures and we must communicate and what we communicate IS information. But because I am the type of person I am, I am trying to discern what is from what isn’t. The “what is”: is information that can profit without disillusioning the individual. The “what isn’t” is of course the opposite.

The questions I find myself asking then, whose opinions are actually valid? Whose thoughts are those of actual profitable and whose are interminable dross? Whose mind actually resembles the only Truth the only Real in the universe, The Almighty God (regardless of your religious proclivity)? Whose semi-truths bring harmony to the earth and whose strife?

Let me provide a few more examples of why I am going down this tract as I bring this post to a close. Last week I saw a young woman put on Twitter “never apologize for who you are, be true to yourself no matter what”, to which I replied “what if I’m a racist ax murderer hellbent on ethnic cleansing?” (or something to that effect). This is another one of those illusory, faux wisdoms attempting to appear real and it is a COMMON adage propagated by those in my age bracket. Another example, well a class of examples, is illustrated by the fact that most conventional wisdom is countered by other conventional wisdom that is DIAMETRICALLY opposed to it. Most accepted human wisdom is utterly hypocritical to some other parcel of insight. Example: “good things come to those who wait”, whereas in the world of business “good things come to those who aggressively work”.

There are infinite examples of these binary, ternary, and quatenary informational clusters, which seem to exist in a constant state of flux. Instead of trying to conceive a informational stream with one of these wise adages at a time, man should always be in the practice of evaluating instances with an informational cluster, comprised of multiple interpretations and perspectives. As our globe continues to shrink and we continue to trade cultural capital and more distinct familial and experiential capital, perhaps this best vehicle of informational transit is through these clusters.

I want to conclude by bringing this back to my opening paragraph in which I stated that I am still steeped in a state of transition. I used to be a person with absolutely rock-solid perspectives and beliefs. i was determined that every single modicum of information I had at my cognitive disposal was as close to the truth as a human mind could be, because I was of course familiar with my deductive and inductive faculties which derived these existential, spiritual, mental, and romantic answers. I think that also is a serious, serious disability in humans…. It isn’t so much the information we believe to be true, but the processes we employ to come to our conclusions. Mental processes are so rife with invalid biases that one can only expect to come to some outlandish conclusion, but to the chagrin to the state of progress around them.

Although I am sure of everything, I am also unsure of everything and this is the genesis of all my thought processes. I’ve learned, the hard way might I add, that my judgments mean nothing, my positive, rational qualities mean little, and my willingness to listen to others are undermined, if I don’t get a handle on how I receive and process information. I no longer wish to be a hypocrite, a flip-flopper of cerebral content merely patching serious social wounds with words and beliefs that sound good at the moment or worked one time because I heard someone else say it. I no longer wish to be blinded behind the veils of abject illusion, constantly believing things that my limited sensory organs and abundantly imaginative cognitive faculties push out.

I have long relished my self appointed position of agent provocateur in terms of human interaction. I challenge everything, tonight is no different. I challenge each and every one of you to look at your decisional matrices, the premises on which you make choices, and determine if you are contributing to the social soup of confusion or actually providing any life savers to bring us into a new age of understanding. If information is to have any real value again, we must be willing to pierce the veil, my friends, pierce the veil of illusion and discuss ways to organize the masses annals of knowledge into practical, timeless applications of success.

bryce

Success vs Failure: Your Mind

The world is finally catching on to the fact that the mind is the new frontier for virtually all commerce. As ephemeral things such as brand loyalty, employee-employer dynamics, gender roles, and race constructs morph and bend, more and more managers & strategists have had to apply traditonally unconventional knowledge to solve new problems in the 21st century. VB ICON likes to believe that it is on the forefront of one of these new paradigms, but the fact remains that a new zeitgeist has descended upon us…

The mind is the new mine.

As some of you who follow my blog, you may remember that I break up the human existential condition into 5 parts: Mind, Body, Heart, Soul, and Spirit. This is an offshoot from the conventional Christian breakdown which has only the Flesh (body), Soul, and Spirit. I add in the Heart and Mind because they have qualities which I believe can be observed and dealt with separate from the other components and this expanded construct has also led to several of the cathartic realizations I’ve had over the last year and a half. Although each component complements and affects the others, they maintain what I believe to be very distinct differences which, once understood, can lead a person to greater enlightenment and a bump down the path of self actualization.

What is the mind? I am not going to venture into an ontological debate about where the mind exists because quite frankly my answer involves multiple dimensions and a whole slew of esoteric, theoretical components that aren’t my main focus tonight. So I will simply say this about the mind: it is the conscious. It is the place where all neutral information goes to be considered and meditated on. The brain, the physical component of the mind, is simply a computer which receives and sends out signals, whereas the mind interprets those signals for the purpose of creating perspectives and opinions. Using inductive reasoning, one can see how the mind is affected by the other components of existence… The spirit, which some may call the conscience, offers positive uplifting information. The body simply seeks maximum, short term pleasure. The heart offers undifferentiated emotion, skewing the interpretation off things this way and that. The soul though, for me, is rather neutral; its manifestation will be comprised of how the individual mixes the other components.

The mind is then an extremely interesting component. As the wellspring of conscious thought, the mind is the seat of practical intelligence. The mind is exceptionally malleable, prone to changes as one ages or gains more information. The mind is where we create our biases and our subjectivities, it is literally the site of our views on life. In our conscious we look at ourselves and assess such things as self worth or self efficacy. Our mind is generally the vehicle through we engage in introspection or an evaluation of the effectiveness of all our components working together. Therefore the mind is an extremely instrumental place. I mean it is the faculty through which we express our conditional free will; I say conditional because all of us are bound by something. Nevertheless, the mind is the progenitor of action and therefore something that we should all vigorously strive to understand.

As aforementioned, our mind is defined by an intricate latticework of predispositions and biases. These arise from experience, childhood development, parental relations, and natural personality propensities. However, most of us are unaware and will vehemently deny that we have success crippling biases. Why? Because many of these biases lurk deep within our subconscious and are very comfortable places where we tend to hide our insecurities or general ignorance. Thus the mind becomes bogged down by useless information that only serves to hinder us and never actually bring anyone forward. This is why so many women will make the conscious decision to stay with an abusive man or why a person who hates their job will be paralyzed with fear to pursue alternative careers. These same deeply embedded neuroses lead people to constantly blame others for their shortcomings or only accept limited responsibility. Under these hindered mental conditions you find those who complain, those who judge, those who lash out in insecurity, and a myriad of other observable symptoms.

Sound like anyone you know? Perhaps maybe yourself?

Those who are not currently doing what they’d like to be doing or passionately pursuing some goal are living in failure. This does not mean that they are failure, but instead are living in a state of failure. These people have allowed their circumstances to define them and have acquiesced to the torrential current of life and simply quit. They had kids, got married, got fired, had too many bills and just began surviving. They really stopped believing in the dream. I know you’ve heard shit like this before, but really its true. Those who achieve, those who truly accomplish in life are those who refuse to bow down to the relentless pressure of life; they instead fight back with a pressure that overpowers life’s obstacles. They are objective about their struggles, not blaming others or blaming the economy, but instead shouldering the blame then coming up with a practical solution. They sacrifice every goddamn drop of energy they have. Why? Why are these people so resilient? Because they believe in whatever it is they are trying to achieve.

Here’s how it all works. The mind is a remote control and the game is being alive. We are all nothing more than self fulfilling prophecies with chance, luck, some Providence and occasional misfortune peppered in. When the mind believes in a goal, obstacles become minor inconveniences, its simply shifts gears and maneuvers around them. Thus those who achieve seem to have some upper edge, some superior intellect or unfair assistance helping them, when in fact they are simply those that align with a goal. Now here’s the kicker, we are all believing in something, even those not achieving their aspirations. Most of us have programmed our minds to accept life as subpar, we think God is punishing us, or Jesus wants us to learn a lesson. We think that maybe it wasn’t our “destiny” or God’s will for us to be the lawyer, doctor, or CEO we once envisioned. That is all nonsense. Utter nonsense.

Your mind will act on the physical because your mind controls your actions. Your actions control your opportunities because the harder you work the more fertility for opportunity you generate. Mate that with wisdom, prayer, meditation, and an acute eye for analysis and you suddenly have people who are “successful”. They aren’t special or more talented; by thinking and acting they allowed their prophecies to be self fulfilled.

This is the most important lesson as we look towards a shaky future. Geopolitics are uneasy and the world is poised to go through a very uncomfortable transition, it is imperative that those who are ripe begin to get their minds right for success. This is not New Age thought, most of these principles can be found in virtually every culture, Judeo-Christian, Islamic, Asiatic, and Sub-Asiatic all have versions of this simple core principle. YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK.

If you think you are shit, you will commit actions which prove you are shit. If you think you are a 24 year old CEO, you will act in ways that prove and eventually realize you are a 24 year old CEO. The physical realm is an eventuality of all the intangible realms and right now the mental is one primed for investment.

bryce

Strategy

Most people blindly believe that because God created us as moral free agents, we are automatically creatures of free will. This concept of “free will” has been hotly debated by philosophers for ages for a myriad of reasons, however, most salient is the reality that although we are given independent thought from the Divine, we are are restricted by several boundaries around our choice matrices. I espoused various mathematical concepts, mainly asymptotes, last year with some observations on humanity to derive The Lemniscate Theory, in an attempt to reconcile the reality around the illusion of free will. Although we are indeed allowed to make choices, our choices are not infinite, we are still defined by the parameters of humanity, that is, we are governed by the laws of physics and so on.

However, the most instrumental parts of our existential decision matrices often go unspoken of, or more appropriately, unnoticed, by the majority of people. In Malcolm Gladwell’s incredible book Outliers, he talks about how our lives are governed by where we came from; that those among us who have achieved great success, often have their origins to thank for it. I would like to talk it none step further and analyze how a person’s intangibles are the fundamental restrictors to their ability to get where they would like.

In my last post, I gave an introduction into the Principle of Objective Purpose, which explicitly states that success comes about by identifying with a non-subjective goal, mitigating a person’s emotional oscillation’s effect on their achievement. The Principle is a practical application of maturity versus immaturity, in that mature people tend to think about things outside of themselves and are dexterous at navigating the water’s of alternative perspective. They are willing — and able — to see how the world does not revolve around how they feel, then react accordingly. This is a cardinal attribute of the successful. It is the fastest way to achieve authentic power.

If there is one thing missing from most people’s lives its a strong notion or understanding of strategy. When the word strategy is even brought up most people are going to think about a game, a military maneuver, or perhaps some sort of business tactic. However, these are all “macrocosms” of ourselves in this world. Strategy is, in its purest sense, one’s plan of action in order to achieve any conceived goal. It is not some mystery concept only privy to those elite few Rothschild-esque individuals sitting high atop society. Strategy is, my humble opinion, the most important concept we as humans can begin applying to our lives.

My company is in the business of strategic consulting, however, our domain is human capital. As an Image Consulting firm, we come up with strategic ways to posture one’s self in order to reap the maximum benefit in any environment. A management consultant’s job is to come up with a strategic course of action in order to maximize an organization’s profitability. A teacher’s job is to strategically convey information to train the next generation of asset holders. A musician’s job is to strategically organize notes in a way that is mellifluous and enjoyable to the listener. We are all strategists; however, we are not all knowing strategists.

Many people, especially Americans, are governed by wanton emotion. We hate when someone disagrees with us and we display it for the world to see. We react when we are slighted in the workplace, not necessarily caring what the ramifications are for our future. We talk to people in the throes of our emotional distresses, often times releasing information and general negativity into the cosmos. We get angry at God when things don’t go according to the haphazard plans we string together as we tumble along. We are slaves to our emotions. This is the single most restricting factor to our decision matrices; we are often so consumed by what we feel is right, what we believe is noble and full of honor, and moral righteousness, that we completely sabotage opportunities for us to genuinely receive what we so desire. Through unchecked insecurity, low self worth, or conversely bloated self worth, we create dimensional analyses of things as WE see fit. This is probably the most disturbing of the rampant neuroses that I see in the world, especially when I find myself frequently do it.

This is the very form of subjection that we have to begin to reconcile with the world. No, we all won’t agree. Yes, there will always be tension and friction between some prevailing concepts, simply based on the nature of things. If we all thought and felt the same way about things we’d either exist in a utopian society or a bland, totalitarian regime. However, and a very, very big however, that does not mean we can go around pandering our subjections as truths. The truth to you is not the Truth. The Truth is hidden away in the endless interstices between our perceptions; it hangs just out of current reach, goading the intelligentsia and naturally curious to dig some more to get to it….

But I digress.

Subjectivity is dominated not by facts, not by empiricism, but by — you guessed it — feelings and emotions. Why? Because a purely emotional response requires no effort, no finesse, no practice, it simply pours forth from the ignorant man and exposes layers and layers of his ineptitude. So we must get into the practice of meditating and implementing strategy into our lives. Strategy rewards the cerebral, cunning person because they will have spent time mastering their emotions. Mastering of one’s emotions can come about by a variety of practices, I suggest spiritual exploration, by finding God you will naturally reduce the sense of self innate to humans, however, one can simply mask their emotions or choose to be a manipulator. I’m just being honest. Once the emotions, which is simply a constant stream of undifferentiated energy, is generally reigned in that energy can be harnessed into beneficial practices. You are slow to anger, slow to offense, and are able to create plans in an enigmatic, fluid way that have defined the various political, musical, and corporate masters of our time and the past. Life strategists are acutely aware that you cannot control all circumstances directly, however, you begin to alter them for benefits by fastidiously choosing your responses. I cannot control the arrogant bully or asshole at work, BUT, I can eliminate the effects on my life and possibly remove him altogether by not reacting but destroying him with various psychological maneuvers and social counters. That is the beauty of strategy, it channels power into the user and turns the world from “acting on” to “acting with”. In other words, one who strategizes is no longer a “victim of circumstance” but a creator of occurrence.

So in short:
1. Strive for objectivity by realizing your feelings, wants, needs, propensities, prejudices, insecurities are not important to anyone but you and you can in fact get more out of life by broadening your cognitive, emotional, and spiritual horizons. You are subjective if: you think you always right, if you are easily offended, your mood dictates your productivity & so on.

2. Begin to stress strategy over emotional reaction. Instead of immediately responding, take time to understand how you feel then using the energy of you emotions to derive a strategic plan of action. Strategy over time should work for the greater good, as well as whatever vested self interest you have.

3. See the world as a game in which every move you make has implications on the end goal. Thus any blunders or missteps you make because of lapses in judgment need to be addressed and not repeated.

Taking all of these and applying to your life will make you 1,000% more productive, because you will be a blessing both to your environment but to yourself.

bryce

When Love Lasts: Principle of Objective Purpose

This year has been marked by a myriad of changes to my beliefs. Through tests and trials, I have been forced to reevaluate how I view pretty much everything in life. Chief among those paradigm shifts have been my understanding of success, my understanding of the meaning of life, and my understanding of love. From those three I have been able to derive a cornucopia of smaller hypotheses and postulations, but the truth is I have only uncovered a few inches of an iceberg miles deep. My fear is that I might be writing this post prematurely, but I consider this blog a journey, not an authority; therefore, anything I posit on here is a testament to my beliefs at the moment, not a concrete representation of fact.

As I excavate more and more of life’s mysteries, I see that God’s genius has been given to us in so many ways. He is the Great Architect of thought, thus, He has placed recurring motifs all throughout the tangible and intangible DNA components of human existence. For example, the ingredient necessary for professional success is the exact same as those necessary for intimate success. The same ingredient needed for those two is the key component for mitigating drama and establishing healthy self worth. This component is rather simply in principle, yet still a lifelong challenge in application: establishing an objective purpose.

What is the meaning of life? This question has been a quintessential (and subject of much parody) for philosophers for millennia because humans have been driven by the need to quantitatively understand all of the components of existence. I have recently come to my conclusion about the meaning of it all: the meaning of life is to live and live abundantly. To hell with all the bells and whistles and froufrou complexity that I have long accepted as more viable. Ecclesiastes says it, various philosophical schools have said it, and now I am saying it. There is no greater purpose for man, than to enjoy the fruits of his labor, and simply take pleasure in being alive. HOWEVER, in order for one to even begin understanding fulfillment of that nature, they must understand the Principle of Objective Purpose. We are creatures of subjectivity , everything we do from the minute we are born is rife with self interest, bias, and personal opinion. I would go as far as to say that most people one earth are incapable of even taking a step towards objectivity. Why? Because objectivity is a temporary attenuation (reduction) of self. Objectivity means that for that moment you as a thinker must put aside everything you feel, believe, have thought and look for ground that is fecund with widespread wisdom. Subjectivity is necessary to life,because is is the subjective that gives rise to human diversity; it defines cultural and individual propensities, as well as establishing a framework for human expression to flourish. However, when subjectivity or personal feeling is too strong, too viscous, too poignant, the ability for synthesis diminishes. The Principle of Objective Purpose simply states: that in order for something or someone to succeed, they must reduce the effects of divisive subjection and opt for a Goal or Goals which are objective in definition.

Create an objective purpose in your life. Objective purposes/goals are fertile soil for success in business and in personal arenas as well. The most personal being a person’s love life. Lets see how the Principle of Objective Purpose applies…

When you are talking about human feelings, the words temporary, fleeting, and changing are probably common adjectives that come to mind. Humans are notoriously fickle, one moment we love, the next we are offended to the point of virtual hatred, then ready to reconcile and so on. Feelings are ephemeral because they are rooted in the emotional center, environment of utter instability. Jeremiah 17:9: The Heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. You don’t have to be a Christian to see the truth in this Scripture. The heart will lie, it will pull you along an emotional excursion that will bring pain and potentially regret. In is raw undifferentiated emotion, therefore the “wickedness” is not inherently malevolent, but instead something more destructive: confusion. We have all lashed out against people in a fit of rage, only to come back and apologize for our irrational behavior. Our feelings are constantly riding the wave of “real time” (they are present reactions), but they are often steeped in our perception of the past and our anxiety regarding the future. The heart is just confusion. However, so many of us believe that following our heart and our heart alone will bring us true love. If you understand and agree with what I have put out about the heart, you can see the dangers in this. You are entrusting a lifelong bond in the hands of a illogical, moody mass of whimsy.

This is not to say that the heart doesn’t have good commentary on your decisions. The heart is a vibrant, lively place, full of movement and a constant source of inspiration. However, given its sensitivity to subjection one must channel the heart’s fervor through an Objective Purpose. An Objective Purpose in the realm of love is choosing a place in which you and whomever is your soulmate to grow together. A powerful example of Objective Purpose are my parents. My parents’ OP is God. By placing all of their faith, energy, and trust in Him, they have found neutral ground to work out all differences and ultimately keep their hope secure. Think: [If a person wants to truly get your heart, they must go through God to get it] Throughout all of family’s hardships, homelessness, financial woes, sickness, anger, disappointment and so on, my mother and father have remained inseparable because they did not place their faith in their “feelings”. Their feelings were invested in their Objective Purpose, God, were they are kept in check throughout all of life’s peaks and valleys.

I know this concept seems a little abstract (quite frankly it is), but trust me, it is gospel truth. Of course, two people’s Objective Purpose can be anything, not necessarily religious. It can be a shared philosophy, or professional work. It can be a general life goal, which includes room for a copilot. Really that is up to the individual to decide. The key to discovering your most effective Objective Purpose is choosing a concept that truly brings you happiness. My parents have loved The Lord for decades, therefore, they chose an OP that they had already invested themselves in across the spectrum of their lives. Their faith in God held all the commodities they hoped to see increase in: professional aspirations, health and so on.

The reason the Principle of Objective Purpose is necessary is because an effectively chosen objective will reduce the effects of emotional wavering. You will begin to see your life as a part of a larger web of human history, a star in the larger existential sky, and your wants, feelings, and emotions will reflect your ability to see things outside of your own perspective. Once one begins seeing through other lenses, their self of being enlarges. We ask ourselves “why are there gurus?” or “why does so & so seem to be so successful/happy/romantically satisfied?” and it will always boil down to a place in which they were able to see the world broken down into all its components. Think of it this way. Love is a prism. Human experience is a beam of light. When the human experience hits the prism a colorful array (the light spectrum) is displayed in all of its diverse beauty. Every color bands exhibits a way of looking at love, none more superior or inferior to the other, just a different way of seeing things. When one begins utilizing the Principle of Objective Purpose, they are able to view this spectrum without judgment, anger, disappointment or rancor, but with satisfaction that God has allowed us to live in a universe where so many views are possible.

Love lasts when you take your Self, the subjective, irrational, selfish notion of Ego, out and replace it with an Objective Purpose.

Be blessed.

bryce