"Supreme Executive Power should be derived from the MASSES, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony"
- Monty Python and The Holy Grail
Future Guardian,
Nothing like a little preaching from the Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune to start your day.
I see the word "emerge" and what flashes through my mind is Graham Chapman playing King Arthur in Monty Python and The Holy Grail, reverently speaking of The Lady of The Lake emerging with Excalibur to grant him the power of 'King.'
(And then he gets into an argument with a man scooping mud into a basket about how supreme executive power should be decided)
We live a life where it feels like we should be able to craft the outcome or our existence.
We should be able to gather all the masses together and strategically and justly determine who wields supreme executive power.
Or even simply for our own life. We should be able to decide what it is we want, how we want it, and have it that way, right?
But nothing ever feels totally in our control does it?
We can't just "make" the reality that we want by pointing ourselves towards it with “intentional action” and willing it into existence, can we?
"HEY Now! What about creating the life that we want? What about our solvable problem? What about manifestation and intent!" - I hear you interject
Before you measure me against a duck, let's chat.
(That was a witch burning joke, had to pull one more from Monty Python before continuing)
Because there's truth in both.
There's truth in the idea that you can intentionally craft life the way you want it, and there's truth that oftentimes the outcome just seems to emerge out of the damn lake to give you the entire world.
And I'd wager (at least for me it's certainly been the case), that the BEST outcomes, the ideal outcomes, the ones which align most with taking us towards the life that we want to be living ...
Are the ones that seem to emerge out of the damn lake to give us the world.
It’s almost like magic.
Emergence is a powerful living force you can take advantage of, and whether you do or not, it’s going to happen to you anyway.
But you’ve got to understand why emergence is so powerful and inevitable, so let’s explore that for a moment
Specifically the emergence of our very existence as we know it.
Haven't you ever just thought how wild it is that we are the way we are, where we are and how we are? Like, we're "intellectual" beings (whatever that really means) on a fragile insignificantly minuscule ball meandering through the vastness of all existence, lost within the twists time and space.
Yet we have this very rich, deep, seemingly vast and interconnected experience of existence and life.
And here we are. Contemplating all of it.
How did it come to be?
I recently ran across a very interesting article discussing a research study which suggests "Human Consciousness could be a side effect of entropy."1
Weirdly fascinating. Let's explore a little.
I'm going to let the article do a little talking first, so I'm not just regurgitating what's been said.
"Entropy is basically the term used to describe the progression of a system from order to disorder. Picture an egg: when it's all perfectly separated into yolk and white, it has low entropy, but when you scramble it, it has high entropy - it's the most disordered it can be.
This is what many physicists believe is happening to our Universe. After the Big Bang, the Universe has gradually been moving from a state of low entropy to high entropy, and because the second law of thermodynamics states that entropy can only increase in a system, it could explain why the arrow of time only ever moves forwards."
Alright, so
Our existence in general is highly correlated with this concept of Entropy (I'm intentionally not saying "caused by"). And Entropy and Time are significantly intertwined as well.
It gets really interesting when they discover that levels of entropy in the mind are much higher during states of full consciousness (they did studies with epileptic patients, comparing seizure state to normal consciousness).
The supposition is that consciousness emerges amidst high entropy.
"WHOA whoa whoa there ... that's ... a lot of words" - I can see you ready to drift off
And yes, that's a lot of conceptual theoretical ideas.
Here's the point.
Our very consciousness has emerged into existence due to Entropy. Entropy is essentially more and more random stuff happening over longer and longer periods of time.
Sound familiar?
The components which are present in all situations where emergence happens are:
Time and Randomness.
Those who've been in The Guardian Academy, and have taken in everything we talk about will be familiar with this idea.
We always strive to put Time and Randomness on our side.
Because they are the only undefeated players in the history of existence. Time always moves forward, and Randomness always happens (you just can't predict it).
Yet ...
Here we are, in life, which is a product of time and randomness, living an existence which seemingly emerges out of nothing,
Trying to intentionally create the life that we want, the outcomes that we want.
How is that possible?
Is it right to try to create an outcome with intention in an existence where the outcome emerges from the lake?
What if I told you, we’ve all been embracing emergence our entire existence? …
Alchemy and Shadow
30 years ago, my grandfather gave me his film camera. I had the opportunity to learn how to use a darkroom and all that.
I became fascinated and obsessed with black and white photography.
Especially in a film camera where you can't actually see what you're doing until you spend all that time developing the end roll in the dark room.
I started with the structural components of the scene.
What is the subject I wish to explore? Where does the eye naturally go in the surroundings based on that subject?
In answering those questions, I found myself always just asking one important one - what's happening with the shadows?
Because I always felt it wasn't the light itself that was the most “illuminating” the subject or directing the eye, it was the shadows.
I was also at the time quite into drawing. One of my few memories of art class from this era ...
Chiaroscuro.
It was strangely delightful to create an object out of shadow.
The thing we see and enjoy in these images emerges from the shadow around it.
The shadow is what reveals the light.
Life is like this.
Consider our celestial home, coalesced out of random collections of matter, particles, gravity, forces beyond our comprehension, over a very long period of time, surrounded by the pure dark emptiness of space we have emerged as a living conscious entity.
All of that darkness. All of that random matter. All of that time.
That is what revealed life, at least as far as we know it.
We've known and understood this concept our entire existence. This is why magic and ritual exist. Because people find ways to live and embrace the unknown world around us in such a way that the life we need and desire emerges from the mystery.
Alchemy is a great example.
The mythical stories around which suggest with the right combination of materials you can turn lead into gold, or that you might discover the secret to immortal youth.
At its heart, Alchemy is the process of combining two elements in a way to create a 3rd component which is otherwise not possible to create, or perhaps hasn't been seen before.
Take the simple Hydrogen and Oxygen elements.
When they come together in just the right way,
BAM
Water.
When you think about it that way, it sounds almost silly. Like magic.
Just slap two unrelated gasses together and out pops one of the most critical components for life as we know it.
EMERGENCE.
We are all ultimately here because of that one powerful unifying creative force.
So,
If you accept that all life, existence, and consciousness as we know it is a product of time, randomness, and entropy leading to that emergence,
What makes you think you can do better?
What makes you think you can intentionally operate outside of that emergence? To think so is to pit yourself against time and randomness, and all the celestial living conscious existence as we know it.
So I'm here to implore you ...
Instead of "intentionally" trying to create the life and outcomes you want (which includes a lot of variables you can't control) by pointing to them and saying "LET IT BE TRUE" ...
You flip your perspective into embracing EMERGENCE as the tool for getting what you want. After all, your entire existence is driven by emergence, which is a product of time and randomness, which you have no control over.
Instead of fighting it,
Focus your intention on creating that system of emergence, which has the most likely emergent result of that which you are seeking.
Remember ...
Every system is perfectly designed for the results that come from it
Designing a system2 which embraces emergence, is designing a system that embraces the full power and scope of Time and Randomness. It's not just putting Time and Randomness on your side, it's using their full capability to get what you want in life.
If every system is designed for its outcome, and the best ultimate outcomes happen when you put time and randomness on your side, which you don't control ...
Then the conclusion is that creating systems which are designed for emergence are the most powerful and effective systems over time.
That's scary for people because it means letting go of control.
It means acknowledging that you have far less control than you think you do. The only specific thing you really have control over is the very next action you can take, and after that all bets are off.
The outcome that you desire from a system is almost always outside of your control, whether you realize it or not.
Making a sale. Losing weight. These are actually outcomes outside of your direct control and they are actually emergent results due to other things that you do.
You don't control losing your weight. There's no special dial for "reduce weight".
What you control is what you put into your body and how much you move. What emerges from that is hopefully the ultimate result that you desire.
We THINK we have control, because we’re really good at drawing straight line conclusions from isolated data points. We take an action and get a sale, we think that action resulted in the sale, when in reality that was just one element of a system that resulted in the emergence of the sale.
When you pull back on your life and look to that which you have control over, that which you can make decisions about, you'll discover these two overarching elements you can control:
The environment in which you are in.
Your reactions and interactions with that environment.
We yet again come back to growing trees34 ... because the attitude of becoming the "gardener of you" is the attitude of allowing a situation where the greatest likelihood of what you want emerges from the loam.
It's not about forcing the thing that you think you desire,
It's about creating the situation in which the thing you desire is most likely to appear and be the best it can be.
Our own Nic Peterson talks about his experience with this, noting how he’s observed he is "an environment person," in that he does not seek out “things,” but rather he seeks to constantly put himself in the environment which will allow him to grow into the best person he can be. (Go read here, it's a great perspective)5
I would wager this is because Nic, as he is inclined to put Time and Randomness on his side, fully embraces emergent systems, in life and in business. The Guardian Academy itself is built entirely from emergence, and the concept of emergence is woven through its core.
Every key lesson we teach about getting what you want in life is about building indirect parts of a system that allow you to LIVE and NURTURE the best parts of yourself, from which the ideal life you desire will emerge.
And that always comes back to you and your present self.
"It's always been you, it's always been here, it's always been now"
- Grandmaster Mike Leone
The ultimate perspective is to shed your intention and action from being directed toward a result, to instead being direct toward all the things which you actually CAN control in the present now, which can lead to the emergence of that result.
Your environment, and your next step in that environment. You can only ever move closer. Getting what you want will emerge from that movement.
Let go of all the rest.
Allow your garden to grow, and nurture it so that the life you desire is what emerges from the loam.
(Because whether you like it or not, something will emerge)
Live to Learn. Give To Earn.
Joseph Robertson
Guardian Academy
PS. Speaking of environment…I hope to see you at an event soon. The event scheduled for 2024 was just released. You can see it here.