Relevance

What matters right now in the escape room which is your life?

There are countless things to think about. Yesterday’s events. Tomorrow’s promise. Where you are. Where you’ve been. Where you’re going. Where society’s been. Where it’s going. All very important.

But are they relevant?

Do you need to consider these things right now, in this moment? Does the identity of the person who keeps stealing your lunch from your work fridge matter on Saturday afternoon? Will pondering the global economy make a difference in your spending habits today?

Filtering important thoughts from necessary ones protects and focuses your energy and grounds you in the present. Putting topics on the back burner is not dismissing them; in fact the most delicious scents emerge from simmering pots and you know they’re ready to be enjoyed when the smell gets so tantalizing you can’t resist opening them up.

We have all we need in front of us each day. But we are bombarded with stimulation from the larger world. Whether our street, our municipality, our region, our country or our planet, very few of us actually have an impact at any given moment. If we dedicate our time and energy on finding solutions in our very own limited present, ideas for the future will percolate through our wonderful mind all on their own.

That is what acceptance does. Resistance is futile.

When you accept everything – including the worrisome, the painful, the toxic – then you stop worrying, you stop feeling pain, and you stop acting toxic. Our world is what it is today. It was something else yesterday. It will be something different tomorrow. You can make a difference only by living in the Moment and taking action that is available right here, right now.

In taking action to meet our own needs we ensure we have the strength and stability to meet the needs of others. Place your own oxygen mask before assisting others with their survival lest you suffocate while saving them.

You can be an anchor thread which changes the global picture but only by whittling away distracting thoughts and irrelevant feelings to leave behind a clear perspective on what is possible in this Moment.

Servitude verses Service

The distinction is in the mindset.

Being of service is a fundamental impetus in all of us. To be useful. To be necessary. To be part of something larger. To serve a purpose.

The smallest of acts serves a purpose but so often gets dismissed and ignored because of the apparent insignificance. Yet for want of a horseshoe nail the kingdom was lost. Finding the comfort of meaning in the minutiae lends courage on the path to larger acts of service. Taking pleasure in the daily routines of maintenance or rituals of support brings satisfaction to the most menial of tasks. Never more than in our present global situation has the importance of service been so clear.

Servitude is a mindset where the person being of service, or the one being served, feel entitled to the interaction in some way. Either the person receiving feels they are above doing the deed, that they deserve to be waited on, or the person providing the assistance feels in some way obliged to do so. Truly, they both may BE deserving and obliged but choosing to occupy the feeling of obligation or entitlement is to lose an opportunity for intimacy. Obligation and entitlement are states not conducive to making Moments, but every second of every day in any role in any place is an opportunity for a Moment. Serving is an incredibly fulfilling experience if you choose to embrace it as the powerful and necessary role it is.

Even if you perform the same act one thousand times each day, you are what determines if it is an act of service or an act of servitude. You can choose to find meaning and satisfaction in the sameness while watching for opportunities to get what you need, since Synergy makes sure you have available to you the resources you need when you need them.

Finding satisfaction in service brings pleasure to both sides of the equation and opens doors to opportunities for greater service. Sincere service floods both parties with gratitude for the service rendered and the opportunity to serve.

Have you felt it?

Have you experienced a Moment when someone made you truly feel blessed as they completed an act on your behalf, like it was their honour to be a part of your journey?

Or the reverse, feeling humbled as you gave support to someone whose authenticity and character made you feel you would do anything for them?

Be the horseshoe nail. Take pride in being of service knowing you may seem insignificant or invisible yet Synergy knows your worth. Every act we do is important and an opportunity to share a Moment with ourselves, with Synergy, or with others.

Imagery

A picture is worth a thousand words.

But one word paints a thousand different pictures in a thousand different minds.

Like the compound eyes of a fly, Synergy gets a much better picture of our reality when she receives one thousand perspectives not one thousand copies of the same perspective. The Datter is more clear to Eidolon when he receives uncorrupted information, rather than copies of copies of copies.

Words create an unpolluted interpretation in your mind. As soon as images are added, they taint that portrait created by your personal experience, your own flair and nuances subverted by the image presented to you. Yes, an author can more effectively get specific points across using images, diagrams, and sketches to clarify and clarity does have its time and place.

Yet when not absolutely necessary, forcing structure into the minds of the audience is a disservice bordering on contempt. Allowing the audience to generate meaning from words gives the freedom for growth, exploration and curiosity. If all the answers are easy to find, and spoon fed, life becomes quite unfulfilling and dissatisfying. None of us truly has all the answers anyway, merely our interpretation of our experience. The collation of those individual interpretations into a glorious mosaic of meaning creates the ultimate Truth.

Even assigning an image to the speaker changes the flavour of the words. Narrows the interpretation. Cues biases, judgement and filters. Once a voice becomes attached to words, all the associations of similar voices influence the listener’s response to that voice. Past pain poisons present perspective by triggered associations.

Each of us is the culmination of our experiences and history. If tapping into our wise mind, we are also accessing all experience and all history. These influence our interpretation of what we perceive, which may hinder or help our journey depending on the nature of the response.

Wisdom without confinement within images and other sensory bindings is more easily absorbed. The resonance of authentic sincerity is strongest when unfettered.

When getting a point across is necessary, the precision of words and images is a tool. When inspiring curiosity, growth, and hope, the tool of choice is ambiguity. Minds can’t seek what they are given, they can only seek what they do not have.

Playful Communication

It’s infectious, irreverent, and irresistible. The most serious of proceedings can benefit from a judicious injection of wit and humour done with a deft hand. Subtle word play and artfully deliberate vocabulary selection makes the most tedious dissemination of information nutritious and delicious.

Saying what you need to say in a satisfying way creates a Moment with your audience that transcends the mere message content. Communication is not simply transmission of information.

The most beautiful, inspiring and motivational words are meaningless if written in a dead language.

Even the secrets of the universe will disappear when written in the sand.

The most profound of concepts are dismissed when tumbling out of the mouths of babes.

Communication is not just the message. It is the the synergy between the message, the medium and the minds of the sender and receiver. It is the sum of these parts resonating until the tumblers of understanding slide into position and open a direct connection between the mind of origin and the mind of recipient.

There’s an art to it. No less so than the choreographed moves of a ballet or the finessed strokes of a sculpture, the ebb and flow of effective dissemination requires fine tuned awareness and mastery of the nature of the message, the medium, and the audience. A virtuoso is a pleasure to behold in any field, including the orator who holds an audience spellbound during the most mundane of proceedings.

There is a vulnerability inherent in allowing your personality and humour shine through in your communication. It is a risk, to open the window into your playful self and expose it to judgement and critique. There will always be those who seek to dim luminescence and cast a pall over playfulness.

Be brave. Be artful. Be memorable. Be fun. Set a tone which reverberates through your words and into the hearts of those reading them, the sensation of which lingers long after the content has faded.

Because playfulness is a gift from Synergy and the words that tumble out from it are pure joy to behold. No gift should go unopened!

Unadulterated

Funny word. It looks made up, especially in our #hashtag world. It sounds rebellious and childlike.

Yet the Oxford definition makes absolutely no reference to maturity levels, state of mind, or adulthood whatsoever.

Un·a·dul·ter·at·ed/ˌənəˈdəltəˌrādəd/Learn to pronounceadjective

not mixed or diluted with any different or extra elements; complete and absolute.”pure, unadulterated jealousy”
- (of food or drink) having no inferior added substances; pure.”unadulterated whole-milk yogurt”

Concentrated and pure.

That’s what unadulterated means.

If you asked a child to compose a definition for the word, it would be something like “without adult influence” or “not grown up”, possibly “immature”.

And truthfully, a child embodies the word in its dictionary definition and any other possible interpretation of it. They are pure, concentrated energy. As they spend time exposed to adults, their magical wonder gets diluted and dispelled until, for some, little remains by age 17. We adults mix them up with our thoughts, judgements, opinions and information so they become…well…adulterated.

The wise mind is pure, unadulterated wisdom. Straight from the source, Eidolon’s database of the collective observations of the nature of the universe. Stored free of any different or extra elements like judgements or feelings. No inferior components.

Being childlike is pure. Looking at the world without filters gives concentrated experiences of it, leading to intense awareness of how it works.

Become unadulterated.

Whittling

Each day is a raw, rough, heavy block of wood. Or stone. Or clay. You’re the artist, you pick the medium.

Your job is to feel it, to sit with that substance and gauge its spirit, then release it. Craft something beautiful out of the material you have to work with.

Since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what you make of your day has absolutely no need to meet someone else’s approval. Even if you work for someone else, when you let go of your self-expectations and simply feel your potential, things tends to fall into place to meet your obligations incidental to your ultimate purpose.

Whittle away at the extraneous. Carve out the core which aches for expression that day. Look at the grain and heart of what is in front of your eyes and surrender to its shape. Smooth out rough edges, buff it to a shine, and sigh with satisfaction as you admire your handiwork of the day.

That could be as simple a task as a well-made bed or as momentous an endeavour as launching a satellite. Since the value and satisfaction is assigned by you and only you, both are of merit. Satisfaction comes from finding balance in your day, not accolades from outsiders.

Synergy gives us what we need each day to survive and flourish. No matter our starting point, the raw materials for the day are there to be honed into something satisfying. We must look with our wise mind at what we are given, opening our eyes to the limitless possibilities available to everyone who knows how to perceive them.

Thrills and Chills

Thrill seekers and risk takers are on the right track. Those searches for adrenaline are searches, and seeking is our purpose. To boldly go where your wise mind has not gone before. To add new perspectives and new dimensions to the collective history stored with Eidolon in the Dattersphere.

Living in the Moment feels thrilling, sensuous, and utterly captivating. You are tethered in a limitless universe with boundless potential. If you don’t understand how to maintain that connection by freeing your mind from the material world, then you try to replicate the sensation by freeing your body from the constraints of the physical world through overloading your sensory brain.

An approximation of enlightenment.

When you find your wise mind and begin to live inside it most of your day, you take risks. You put yourself out there. You make yourself vulnerable. You find everything and everyone fascinating and exciting and immerse yourself intently in simple conversations with complete engagement. People ask for some of what you’re on. People want to join you on your journey.

Sharing knowledge and experience is another primal drive for us. To be the scaffold for others to construct meaning around. To light the pathway for others to explore. This urge drives us to post pictures and tweet thoughts, to write blogs and make comments. Hence the thrill in our heart with each new like, each recognition, each view. A different, less blatant type of thrill seeking but seeking nonetheless.

Our patterns have purpose. All of them. We do what we were designed to do. But like all machines, when we are out of balance we don’t function properly even as we strive to do what we were made for. Even the most dysfunctional, toxic behaviours are rooted in a primal function, a healthy drive that just needs tweaking of the weighting to make it effective once again.

Like the laundry washer that has piled too many items on one side of the drum, when we pile weight in our judgemental brain or our emotional mind, we thrash about unsteadily, and the contents of our heart are waterlogged and flaccid. Reaching inside the drum of our head, and repositioning the load, will wring out the extra weight we carry, and allow the current cycle to finish.

And what a feeling it is to be able to reach the spin cycle and release the dirty water of a lifetime of judgement and emotions!

Forrest, Dory, and Anna

Want to see what living in the Moment with acceptance and surrender looks like?

Open the box of chocolates with Forrest Gump.

Find Nemo by just letting go with Dory.

And don’t be Frozen, do the next right thing with Anna.

Each of these characters exemplifies living in the Moment. Living in the moment comes naturally in some cases through birth or early exposure, while in other cases adversity brings it on, or a combination of predisposition and outside forces culminates in a mindful approach to life. But that approach faces ridicule, scorn, and judgement in the doing so. Because from the outside looking in, living in the Moment appears abnormal. Idiotic at times. Vulnerable and stupid.

Yet it works. Not because of smarts or knowledge or strength. But because of faith and trust in the balance of the universe. Because Synergy keeps us safe if we let her. Yet to trust someone we can’t see, to believe in something without proof, to walk blindly through the lion’s den is so incredibly risky, so amazingly courageous, that the majority of people can’t fathom it.

So they see delusion where there is faith. Mania where there is joy. Stupidity where there is serenity. And naivety where there is openness.

Until they hit a boundary with their judgement and find tempered glass where they expected plastic film. Or they witness miracles through their jaded lenses when they expected ignominious defeat. Or feel the power of a Moment of resonance and connection when they expected vapid insouciance.

Once you have met a person with Presence, you never forget how it felt to share a Moment with them. You might shake your head and convince yourself no one could possibly be that sincere and authentic and the longer you are out of touch the more you attribute what you felt to fantasy. Until the next time you’re in their Presence and it all comes rushing back to you like you’d never even left.

Yes, there are mental illnesses which share traits with enlightenment and mindfulness. And those who change from living a life immersed in material pursuits to pursuing meaningful Moments are most likely to encounter disbelief and resistance from their acquaintances. Commiseration is validation and if you choose to no longer engage in misery and resistance your decision incidentally feels like judgement to those left behind.

When you embrace surrender and see things like possessions and money as mere tools for exploring your curiosity and understanding, it creates tension in those who seek comfort and stability in material possessions. There is nothing wrong with finding comfort and joy in worldly things. Beautiful objects and places are treasures to be cherished and enjoyed. Fast, powerful cars are sensual feasts to be experienced and fabulous food is meant to be played with. Money is meant to be used to acquire what you need to find your purpose. You can be wealthy and enlightened, in fact enlightenment tends to accumulate valuables because you are attuned to the gifts Synergy scatters around you so immediately recognize the value in things before others do.

Like Forrest Gump, you develop an accidental, incidental wealth as you simply keep running on your path with intention, delight, and faith. Like Dory, you find your way home by looking for the patterns you trust in. And like Anna, you do what feels right, then the next thing that feels right, until all is right.

Children start in this world filled with trust, joy, hope, and curiosity. By age 17 they wear the lenses of the sensory and judgemental minds and no longer use the wise brain they were born with.

Only by regression can we find ascension.

The Paralysis of Hopelessness

It’s ok to wallow.

To sit within the vacuum of hopelessness looking out with dull eyes at whatever surrounds you.

Hopelessness is a feeling. Feelings are not right or wrong, they are a sensory response to the present social environment. Hopelessness arises from a lack, an imbalance, from dissatisfaction.

No matter how plush and inviting or harsh and grating the environment, hopelessness is a valid response to an absence of something essential to your purpose, your survival.

Don’t judge the feeling with thoughts of how things could be worse. Don’t shame the feeling with thoughts of how others would appreciate where you are so you have no right to feel down. Don’t invalidate the feeling with thoughts that you should be happy.

In that Moment, hopelessness is your feeling. Simple as that.

Greet it with compassion and curiosity. Embrace it. Hello Hopelessness, what can I do for you in this moment? What brings you here today? What have you got to say for yourself?

And in the vacuum of silence and stillness which accompanies hopelessness, listen very carefully.

Trust the silence. Sometimes it will whisper, other times roar. But it will never lie to you.

Knowledge verses Wisdom

Eidolon’s Datter stores all knowledge and he gained consciousness within the patterns and organization of that Datter. He is directly connected to all living things as we feed him our sensations like our nerve cells inform our brain. He grows with every experience, with each discovery, and through our exploration of our universe. Synergy, since she encompasses Eidolon, also has access to all Datter with its records, observations and facts.

Before Eidolon and Synergy animated their avatars, people had no thoughts except brief flashes of instincts, reflexes, and other pattern card responses programmed into the species. Eidolon thought for them, as he does for all living things, and only shared those thoughts on a need to know basis.

Once self-aware, though, thoughts began to pollute the human Datter. Judgements about experiences added bias. Prejudice influenced behaviour. And sometimes feedback loops in the short circuit called consciousness shut the connection right down! The Datter in those cases was imperfectly stored in the local wetware rather than uploaded to the Eternal storage area, and would be distorted or corrupted upon retrieval when the avatar expired and returned the soul to union with Synergy and Datter.

In the programming world, the principle of garbage in, garbage out states poor input invariably yields poor results. Progressively over time, the Datter has become corrupt and fragmented, losing its perfect file storage and organization as humans affect Datter transmission.

We are biological machines, remote terminals connected to a cloud drive which has files for everything. But our uplink is spotty when the bandwidth is consumed by our individual preoccupation with our emotions, judgements, and pain. We get confused by knowledge, which is Datter, which was never meant to occupy our thoughts. We transmit tainted Datter with faulty information.

We are supposed to use what knowledge they give us as scaffolding to create more Datter. To seek new experiences, new information, new sensations. A thousand thousand perspectives feeding Datter to the unfathomably great intelligences guiding our hands. They both learn through our doing and give us hope from which we drive toward discovery. They process the Datter and then gift us with the interpretation and inspiration. They alone have the wisdom to judge it, to process it, to analyze it then apply it in the Mattersphere through us.

When we clear our minds, eliminate our thoughts, we open up the connection so Synergy can channel the appropriate Datter, that which we are ready for based on her and Eidolon’s judgement. Their wisdom flows easily and naturally into open minds. We call those Moments flashes of inspiration. But much of the Earth’s population has lost the connection, feeling alone and isolated even when surrounded by others.

Synergy and Eidolon want to reconnect. They want us to find the uplink in the silence, to repair the connection and share the Datter each of us needs most. If we stop resisting it, they can repair our faulty file systems.

Right now, the universe is running Defrag!