The sunset cannot be described.
You can measure the frequency of the light. You can map the atmospheric refraction. You can even write a poem about the bleeding of purple into gold. But the touching: the visceral, internal shift that occurs when you stand before that fading light, cannot be transferred through words.
In my latest conversation with Jim, we decided to tackle the impossible: the participatory side of system change. We explored the things that can be named but never fully explained.
The Left-Brain Hijack
Our civilization has been hijacked by the left brain.
As Iain McGilchrist argues, we have traded the intuitive, scanning, and integrative capacity of the right brain for the linear, grasping, and categorizing mode of the left. We have turned life into a series of “mentioned” sentences rather than lived experiences.
This is the core of the multipolar trap. We have commodified time to the point where “being mode” feels like a betrayal of productivity. If you spend four hours watching a sunset or picking coffee with friends, the system marks you as a defector. But this “defection” is actually the first step toward sanity.
The Status Game of Moloch
Why do we choose the car chase over the rose garden?
It is a question of granularity and status. We are wired for the high-intensity signal: the explosion, the $M_3$ growth, the aircraft-carrier-sized truck. These are the artifacts of a culture that has lost its connection to “Qualia,” the raw, felt sense of being alive.
Jim and I discussed the ultimate lever for shifting this: the status game. If we want to change the world, we must change what we reward with our attention.
We need new stories. We need a “Netflix for Game B” that doesn’t just entertain but lifts the viewer into a higher granularity of mind. We need to reach the point where the person participating in a community sunset drumming circle holds more social capital than the one trading Bitcoin in a basement.
Building the Asshole-Free Zone
How do we start? We build the Membrane.
Individual agency is fragile, but a membrane of conviviality is resilient. One of my own heuristics for this is the creation of the “Asshole-Free Zone.”
In business and in life, we must learn to trust our high-dimensional intuition. We must filter for the “rate of learning” and the quality of being rather than the resume. When you find “the others”—the ones who are willing to embarrass themselves, to fail, and to grow—you create a mycelial network that Moloch cannot penetrate.
We must move from the “having mode” to the “being mode.” We must follow the water until the ecosystem accepts us.
