Journal

Reflections on “Symbiotic Earth” movie, part of Living Systems Collaboratory.

Symbiosis to me is a co-creation process between humans but also a deep sense of connection with all living world. We’re part of nature. I am. We are.

Life as Process

This film makes me think differently! I previously noticed that everything around me and inside me is alive. But now, a deeper dimension has been added. Like a feeling of being home. Like a feeling of being heard. Like a feeling of listening and noticing. Like a feeling of being together. Evolving together. I have this quote from the movie on my desk “What is Life? A process! Life creates more life. A live thinking planet. Life on Earth regulates its environment. Environment modules Beings, and Beings module Environment”. Like a dance of interactions. Really easy way to live! I mean, really. Just interactions. A natural way of being.

Communities

I loved seeing the world through the micro lens so much. “Cell makes more life. Cell as a community.” It made me think, how would we live if we see a “Human as a Community” and “Humanity as Organism”? Hearing that 3 events during evolution sparked all species on Earth from 4 bacterias was a WOW moment. Where do we go from there? Because life is a process, it keeps evolving. So what’s next?

Truth?

Also I could not believe how some ideas that are in textbooks are not true. Why we believe that genes define our lives (the movie says it’s a Cell that runs the show)? Why we believe that everything is dead (and not a living process=Life)? Why we believe in selfish genes (and not Interdependence and evolving together)? The point on Thought Collectives and how scientific facts change based on culture and that many theories used are Metaphors, not Facts make me say LOL. What else can I say. Overall, I loved the approach in the movie on “I had to change my world-view” and “truth doesn’t exist”. And how a film maker followed a rabbit-hole, questions, interviews, puzzles, trying to create a new world-view for himself and showing this process in the movie. My style!

Leaps

Finally, I loved the example of some beings go through transformation twice – like a caterpillar and the larva in the sea. It shows how little we know about evolution and how much is there to explore.

Eco-Thinking

I’m already integrating the learnings into my creative process. How I create my project MUTANTU is a dance of interactions (like this movie, like collabrarians, like my notes on stickies adding on top of each other). I’m thinking, how could any of my projects be part of larger ecosystems? And how each of my projects could connect with other projects of mine and others? I call it eco-thinking!

Feedback

One of my new habits I’m seeing evolving is, I often question “what is the easiest way for me to move forward with a project or a seed?” Often the answer is in the conversation, a call, an email, a question described on 0oo.li, a feedback loop, a reflection. Like life is a process creating more life, I see how thoughts are a process creating more thoughts that eventually get composted or turn into projects. Overall, the more feedback loops, the faster the project evolves. Idea ping pongs, that’s how I call it. I also encourage people in my ecosystem to make something, showcase it for feedback. Ping-pong. Ping-pong. Ping-pong.

Reflections on “Living Systems” talk by Mansoor Vakili, part of Living Systems Collaboratory.

Interesting view on linear and non-linear world. I haven’t thought about such a separation (“linear” and “non-linear”) before, I even did not think about such names before. And here I wonder if this separation is necessary? Or perhaps the root cause is an imbalance between linear and non-linear thinking? Between masculine and feminine? Between logical and creative? I like the idea of co-existence striving for existence for all types of being. I think that these days we’re overusing the logical thinking, but perhaps that mixed with a creative logic would play a nice symphony?

Hub

Overall, from the talk, I love the idea of Earth as a cognitive system! I imagine it breathing through winds, and it totally shapes perspective. I’m curious about the minimum effort as a natural way of being too. In my work, I explore an idea of how humans go through personal transformation and shift their thinking from linear to non-linear, in particular, from destructive to caring. I love the idea of self-healing living system which a human body is! Here I would add and say not “a brain as a hub” but “a brain-heart-gut as a hub”. Especially, the bacterias in our gut. The deep universes yet to be discovered! And hey, what is the role of bacterias in this paradigm shift?

Energy

In the talk was also said that “Universe is made of energy” – in my work, I use this as a metaphor that Universe is a comic character. Going back to Masoor’s writings where he talks about Earth achieving its selfawareness goal and human being part of this process now, I wonder, what about beyond Earth, what about the Universe itself? The Universe as energy and its higher goal to survive? ..

Relationships and Values

Overall, coming back to the talk itself, I love seeing relationships and values in linear and non-linear thinking. That’s what I’m also exploring through my storyline (my project is a comic book!). I wonder, is this list completed? What other values and relationships of nonlinear world we could add to this list?

I’m still amazed how a human, being an example of a living system, is behaving the opposite to other systems. Masoor says it’s because we’re stuck in a linear perception mode. But I creatively think that the Earth made humans as an experiment, as an error, and we turned out to be not so smart, just an average, so here we’re – a species worth laughing about!