Wanderer, your footsteps are
the road, and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking

Antonio Machado

Steve Jobs reasoned in his famous speech at Stanford that “you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward.” If I look the path I’ve left behind hitherto, I must be grateful since my dropout from useless stuff in the mode of “To Have” allowed to me dropped in on the way of “To Be”, yet there’s still a long road to make. Not only through Gaia Education but through the whole systems approach I’ve been able to join further dots for my life’s purposes. Despite Jobs said there’s no chance of connecting dots by ‘looking forward’, I feel now a fire in the belly as a compass that shall guide me to identifying meaningful points on the necessary cultural evolution towards the Homo Sapiens Reciprocans.

Thus in regard to what I’ve absorbed as well as the arguments the universal mind has manifested on me, there are some interesting dots to highlight. For instance, Thomas Berry in approaching the ‘Earth rights’ argued “There is an urgent need for a jurisprudence (system of governance) which recognizes that the well-being of the integral world community is primary, and that human well-being is derivative”. Hence we need new sources of finance, new currencies, and business forms to fostering the formation of new socio-ecological systems that being aware of flourishing mutual aid. Furthermore, by considering the art of commoning Jay Walljasper exposed that “Growing numbers of people are taking steps that move us gradually, in the direction of a commons-based society – a world in which the fundamental focus on competition that characterizes life today would be balanced with new attitudes and social structures that foster cooperation.” We certainly are a collective mind driving a shift towards a new mindset. Also, concerning the importance of thriving an ‘open source public intelligence’ in consonance with Robert David Steele’s approaches, the contents point out “Open source enables not just collaborative economy, but locally adapted collaborative societies cooperating in the creation of a collaborative human civilization. We urgently need such a collaborative human civilization in order to respond to the converging crises in time, but more importantly to unleash the creativity our specie is able to unfold as we co-create collaborative abundance and transition to a regenerative human presence on Earth.” So these outlooks add up to on the way of how this cultural evolution is moving (Gaia Education, 2018).

Additionally, by means of all these realizations it’s clear today the systemic consultancy approach in Organizational Development (OD) I’ve been shaping is also a socio-ecological enterprise/innovation that aims for the well-being of business organizations as reflexive, conversational, and interdependent living beings. I like to compare my method with an agro-ecological process. Whilst permaculture is about designing with Mother Nature for thriving socio-ecological ecosystems, in Jscinteractivo we’re designing –as Gregory Bateson would say– an ‘ecology of mind’, and therefore an ecology of ideas, communications, relationships and learning processes to cultivate positive changes on business organizations. Although my present legal form is bound to the current system, I’m precisely seeking both for a new business model and sources of finance that allow spreading out Jscinteractivo’s methodology all over the Oikos, and thereby to keep consolidating the Ecobiopsychosocial Capital in a collaborative way.

To conclude I just want to emphasize once again that The Systems View of Life and action is further than necessary to keep connecting the dots to move humans and their organizations to a real state of cooperation. A condition to flourishing a cultural evolution towards not only the Homo sapiens reciprocans but the Organizatio sapiens reciprocans.

Author: Juan Sebastián Cárdenas Salas (May 16, 2018)

From the serie: Reflections Around Gaia Education

Watch/Read Steve Job’s speech

Enroll in Gaia Education
https://gaiaeducation.org

Visit The Gaia Foundation – read about Earth Jurisprudence
https://www.gaiafoundation.org/what-we-do/earth-jurisprudence/

Read Jay Walljasper on The Art of Commoning
http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/all-that-we-share

Read The Open Source Everything Manifesto by Robert David Steele
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12998524-the-open-source-everything-manifesto

Resources of support

Economic Dimension – Module’s 5 Handbook general contents and references (Gaia Education, 2018)

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