Dante’s Blog

part of a mail I sent to a friend :

strongly feel I want to accelerate the current networking of brothers and sisters wanting to manifest intention in an emergent way.

Starting by staying open to recognize each other.

Connecting with cultural creative memetics is not too difficult, as many (bourgeois and non bourgeois bohemians) already seem to converge in certain places. (Some neighbourhoods in big cosmopolitan cities such as Berlin,Brussels,etc)

But finding connection while listening,learning together,overcoming fear,being playful,
While staying together, is less easy to find,share,and then build on long term.

Somehow,I feel my close friends either move a lot,either are spread.

(Places / temporary autonomous zones like ecotopia are great to converge and reconnect)

Finding people searching for meditative peace,within cultural creatives,is accessible,

But finding individuals with whom to maintain this inner presence and peace in every moment,while moving into shared intention,through chaos of unknown, collaboratively,sharing evolving meaning, is not easy to find or maintain within current systems.

So somehow I am focusing on the development of tools that could make collaborative intentional individualist shared dynamics easier,
enabling certain flows.

Emergent flow is already there,
Yet I am interested in having a better overview through tools,as to further empower its distributedness into all aspects of life,beyond artificial bottlenecks from artificial scarcities.

This feels clear,and much of the other parts of my life get organized around such meta manifestation,
even though it may be difficult for many to recognize or identify with.

A challenge is to create easily understandable and identifiable chunks which may corresponds to needs at a material realm level, creating an entry point that converges people and resources from there on, liberating further potential for cultural experimentation,
and the individual spiritual perceptions such cultural space may accept or facilitate.

—

Other then that, staying in Brussels as it currently seems easier to access resources here,
but still wanting to open up to several places.

I feel happy when friends meet me.
I want to live with people I feel I share love with.

I can not live in a flat alone,as in the past half year. I also do not want to return to a free fall Nomad life without place to feel home and return to.

I also want such living convergence space for our brothers and sisters that meet with each other and share resonnance.

A non collectivist space.
A cheap place ( central bank money wise),where I feel I can listen to myself and others more easily,share,co create,and welcome new creative influences and initiatives,

In a festivalist shared lifestyle:

http://p2pfoundation.net/Festivalism

Some places in Europe where this happens, but not as much at post industrial,post capitalist, urban or semi urban approach.

It’s networked.
I like to expand and empower the festivalist memes further

Green,yellow,turquoise… to refer to spiral dynamics and integral “theory”.
(sending you links on next message)

I also want to consider going back “on tour”, but after already having prototypes… (?)

–

How are you and how do you sense your experience?

PERCEPTION

. . .Something To Think About. .. .

Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.

4 minutes later:

The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes:

A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes:

A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.

45 minutes:

The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

1 hour:

He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition..

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.

The questions raised:

*In a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?

*Do we stop to appreciate it?

*Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made.

How many other things are we missing?

How many special persons pass us by and we do not MAKE ANY EFFORT TO get to know them?

http://www.google.be/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Joshua+Bell+playing+incognito+in+the+metro

In English :

In French :

Shots in the Dark,

a documentary produced by the National Film Board of Canada, as of yet unreleased.

The delicate subject of vaccinations and its dangers is approached in a very revealing documentary film. Scientists, doctors, patients, and parents from Canada, France and the US all get their say.

Perhaps this film is the reason why the arts in Canada had their budget slashed in the last years by the Conservative government.

It was NEVER released or published.

July 2008 , Dante

http://dante.ecobytes.net/2008/07/16/recurrent-transition-point/

” doing what I am passionnate about ” ?

July 2009 , Dante :

There have been developments since last year …

Its very much about nurturing long term friendships, and friendships between friendships…
which enables a feeling of meaning through sharing,
creates value through non direct reciprocal economics,
yet builds potential within networks of friends and grows new fruits that feed the networks on the long term ,
and enable such synergies on a broad international scale,
but very importantly also “on a local scale” …
building up a sense of belonging… and a potential lager integral view point… understanding what one “can”,
participating by enabling potential… and “empowering oneself by empowering others”…

I feel it is very fulfilling to build up intentional environments with whom there is mutual empowerment.

For a long time, I felt alone, trying to bring together some pieces of the puzzle,
but I feel its accelerating, and various nodes of interconnected friends are emerging… and creating life dynamics… being mirrors to each other… enabling the manifestation of the consciousness we re-membered within ourselves, into prototypes out of our own body, and together with others…

The recurrent transition point I mentioned last year,
can evolve when such mutually inspiring, mutually empowering dynamics of trans-connections enable outlets for further synergies according to our own potential, according to what I can to allow others to develop what they can…

The Jewish Barber (Charlie Chaplin’s character): Hope… I’m sorry but I don’t want to be an Emperor – that’s not my business – I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.

We all want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls – has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say “Do not despair”.

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish…

Soldiers – don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you – who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.

Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate – only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers – don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty.

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written ” the kingdom of God is within man ” – not one man, nor a group of men – but in all men – in you, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let’s use that power – let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers – in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting – the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality.

The soul of man has been given wings – and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow – into the light of hope – into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up.”

http://www.clown-ministry.com/

interesting 5 minute hearing :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj0JAfq4esk

“Fed Vice Chair Donald Kohn testified before the Financial Services Committee today, along with John Bovenzi of the FDIC. The Fed’s balance sheet has expanded by $1.2 trillion since September 1. Where did the money go? Kohn wouldn’t say.”

and a news report on the same hearing, with better sound quality :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxuqmPyKqcs&feature=related

“So, you know about the Treasury’s $700 billion bailout plan. But you probably don’t know that the Federal Reserve has lent out about $2 trillion since September. Few do. And that is what’s irritating bulldog Congressman Alan Grayson. Will he be able to shed a light on the Fed’s secret spending?”

—

Gift Economy called “Dama” in Malian Culture

I like the complicity and shared passion between prof and pupil(?) in this video on “emergence of open design and manufacturing”

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/marvellous-interview-with-eric-von-hippel-on-user-centered-innovation/2009/02/08