Managing Complexity: A Different Approach
From complexity to possibility – an artist’s approach, presented by Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and co-author of “The Art of Possibility”.
On May 6th I went to the after work lecture in the Hochschule Liechtenstein. It was a very interesting and inspiring speech from Dr. Amlan Roy who is Head of Global Demographics and Pensions Research for the Investment Banking Division of Credit Suisse in London. He packed a lot of information in his 90 minute talk:
He started with a quote from Peter Drucker on Demographics: “Demographics is the single most important factor that nobody pays attention to, and when they do pay attention, they miss the point.”
Conclusions
Demographics affects economic, financial and social variables in the short-term, medium-term as wall as long-term, not only long-term
Demographics affects GDP Growth, Fiscal burdens, Inflation, Current Account, Asset Returns, Urbanization, Migration, Climate Change and Geopolitics
Sectors demographically advantaged: EM, infrastructure, natural resources, financial services, pharma & biotech, leisure and luxury
Demographic solutions: increased retirement ages, selective migration, increased female labour force participation, outsourcing
Uncertain Life Expectancy necessitates capital market issuance of long bonds and Longevity Derivatives
Books he recommended :
- Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller
- Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists: Unleashing the Power of Financial Markets to Create Wealth and Spread Opportunity by by Raghuram G. Rajan and Luigi Zingales
- Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes by by Mark Penn and E. Kinney Zalesne
From the New York Times:
The glitch that sent markets tumbling Thursday was years in the making, driven by the rise of computers that transformed stock trading more in the last 20 years than in the previous 200.
The old system of floor traders matching buyers and sellers has been replaced by machines that process trades automatically, speeding the flow of buy and sell orders but also sometimes facilitating the kind of unexplained volatility that roiled markets Thursday.
“We have a market that responds in milliseconds, but the humans monitoring respond in minutes, and unfortunately billions of dollars of damage can occur in the meantime,” said James Angel, a professor of finance at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/business/economy/07trade.html
When you don’t cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought. Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much.
Don’t say this is an oaktree but say this is called an oaktree for example if you are speaking with children. They should learn that nature is more than just a label we put on. The word is just an abstraction and has nothing to do with the thing itself.
The egoic mind is completely conditioned by the past. Its conditioning is twofold: It consists of content and structure. The content you identify with is conditioned by your environment, your upbringing, and surrounding culture. It’s different for everybody.
The unconscious compulsion to enhance one’s identity through association with an object is built into the very structure of the egoic mind. One of the most basic mind structures through which the ego comes into existence is identification. One of the most basic levels of identification is with things.
“The people in the advertising industry know very well that in order to sell things that people don’t really need, they must convince them that those things will add something to how they see themselves or are seen by others;in other words, add something to their sense of self. They do this, for example, by telling you that you will stand out from the crowd by using this product and so by implication be more fully yourself. And so in many cases you are not buying a product but an “identity enhancer”.”
What you identify with is all content; whereas, the unconscious compulsion to identify is structural. Paradoxically, what keeps the so-called consumer society going is the fact that trying to find yourself through things doesn’t work: The ego satisfaction is short-lived and so you keep looking for more, keep buying, keep consuming.
When you can no longer feel the life that you are, you are likely to try to fill up your life with things.
You can value and care for things, but whenever you get attached to them you will know it is the ego. Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on them.
The Ego tends to equate having with Being: I have, therefore I am. And the more I have, the more I am. The ego lives through comparison. How you are seen by others turns into how you see yourself.
No ego can last for long without the need for more. Therefore, wanting keeps the ego alive more than having. The ego wants to want more than it wants to have. And so the shallow satisfaction of having is always replaced by more wanting. Wanting is structural, so no amount of content can provide lasting fulfillment as long as that mental structure remains in place.
In the west the physical appearance of the body contributes greatly to the sense of who you think you are. For many people their sense of self-worth is intimately bound up with their physical strength, fitness etc. And because their identity is based on their good looks they will suffer when it begins to fade. Physical form shares the destiny of all forms – impermanence and ultimately decay.
But it is not just the people with good looking bodies who are likely to equate it with who they are. You can just as easily identify with a “problematic” body and make a illness or disability into your identity. You may than think or speak of yourself as a “sufferer”.
If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn’t even know you are thinking. You would be like a dreamer who doesn’t know he is dreaming. So there must be more: a new dimension of consciousness.
The ultimate truth of who you are is not I am this or I am that, but I Am. If for example a person lost everything so there is nothing left to identify with, the ego is looking for something new to identify with. Sometimes this situation results in complete freedom if there is no new identification. The spirit is released from it’s imprisonment in matter.
Waiting means you don’t like this moment. Whenever you are “waiting” why not practice being instead of waiting.
Tolle writes in the introduction about flowers and their evolution. “Seeing beauty in a flower could awaken humans, however briefly, to the beauty that is an essential part of their own innermost being, their true nature”. Flowers were one of the first things which had value to us although they had “no purpose” for humans at this time. Flowers grow very beautiful and are not anxious about tomorrow. They present themselves fully and to see that, you should not name it, should not put a label on it but just be present with them. Tolle calls this limiting labeling compulsive naming.
The reason why this labeling is so limiting is, that your mind is run by mental abstractions and concepts, its not life. The human condition is Lost in Thought . That’s the voice in the head. It is your conditioned thinking , conditioned by your past, your culture, your surroundings etc. Key is to recognize these thoughts and not to be identified with them. Just allow them to be, be there as the witness. There has to be space between you and your thoughts.
“What liberation to realize that the ” voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.” Or in other words: You are the space in which thoughts and all emotional and sense perceptions happen.
“Undergoing enlightenment” is a extremely rare occurrence since it is more than an evolutionary progression: It also implies a discontinuity in its development, a leap to an entirely different level of Being, most important, a lessening of materiality. This transformation is similar to the transformation of reptilians to birds. Birds didn´t just become better in crawling or walking, but transcended crawling and walking entirely.
For humans this transformation means to rise above identification with form. (p3)
Essential things only happen if there is a need for them to happen. If there is a certain crisis point reached.
Underneath the surface differences of many religions are two core insights that most of them agree on. The first is that the normal state of mind of most human beings has a mental defect or even madness. Of course each religion describes this state differently but they all point into the same direction. (p8) The second one is the good part: A radical transformation of the human consciousness is possible.
Most religions are belief systems, a set of thoughts that they regard as the absolute truth, but it can be dangerous if people derive their identity from these thoughts. Other people who don’t think like them become enemies. Because they were identified with these thoughts they felt that their identity is threatened and in the distant past this even justified the killing of others. So religion can be a closed door or an open door to spirituality. It depends how deep you go.
“How spiritual you are has nothing to do with what you believe but everything to do with your state of consciousness.” The arising of this new consciousness is not another belief system. In fact it is the end of all belief systems, it goes deeper than thought.
“You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.” Lasting change has to go with a change in your state of consciousness.
Most people think for example that if they go on vacation they could be more happy and everything would be fine. They think a new place is the solution to their misery. Sometimes a new environment can help but it is only short-lived. But the truth is that unless they change their state of consciousness before traveling they will be the same unhappy person, independent from the place they are.
The Ego is no more than identification with form, primarily thought forms.
What does life want from me rather than looking for what I want from life is the more powerful question.
We need to learn how to find in our daily life as often as possible this point of power of the present moment. A very simple thing to access this point is to ask yourself ”Are you still breathing?”. Or another thing is to do simple things like washing hands or going up the stairs very conscious. That means to be fully present while doing these things. To the mind of course these things are completely meaningless. With these things you can train your mind. Unfortunately most people do simple things just as an means to an end. They always think about the next moment and not the present moment. For example while we making the cup of coffee we already want to drink it. Become friendly with the present moment.
Ask yourself as often as possible: “What is my relationship with the present moment?”
What you resist persists.
Things can’t provide ultimate satisfaction. Or general speaking the world of form cant satisfy you. Maybe for a short time but not ultimately. But we can enjoy forms.
Don’t be defined by things.
At TED2010, Bill Gates unveils his vision for the world’s energy future, describing the need for “miracles” to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he’s backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050.
One of the key formulas to decrease the amount of CO2 is the following. (Picture taken from the talk @TED)
The key factor to get this equation to zero is the last one as Bill Gates explains in his talk.
He talks about a new kind of energy production called terrapower which basically is a nuclear reactor that runs primarily on depleted uranium.
David Allen speaks on GTD and the two keys to sustaining a healthy life and work style.
It is good to know your present personal happiness level to estimate your happiness set point. For this the book provides some self-reports you can do like the “Subjective Happiness Scala”. You should repeat the report after 2 weeks because it is a heavily subjective report and the result depends on your current emotional state, your preceding events etc.. So it is best to take the average of several reports to get a better estimation.
There is also a “Depression Scale” in the book to determine your depression score. Sounds funny but it is a serious topic as the World Health Organization predicts that by the year 2020 depression will be the second-leading cause of mortality in the entire world, affecting 30 percent of all adults.
The following statements are generally accepted but they are wrong.
Happiness must be “Found”
Happiness is not out there, it is inside us. Happiness is more than anything a state of mind, a way of perceiving and approaching ourselves and the world in which we reside. So the right thing to do is to change and manage your state of mind.
Happiness lies in changing our circumstances
As mentioned in my first part of this review the circumstances control only about 10% of your happiness level. Changing the circumstances of our lives (like Material Wealth or Beauty) can make us happier but only for a small period of time. It is not lasting. There is a very interesting experiment described in the book:
They asked Americans in 1940 when one third of all homes did not have running water, indoor toilets or central heatings what their overall satisfaction of life is. They reported being “very happy” with an average score of 7.5 out of 10. The typical house today has not only running water, two or more baths, central heating but is twice the size with color TVs, DVD players, iPods, PCs etc.. Surprisingly the average score for Americans happiness today is 7.2!
You either have it or you don’t
Yes, some part of our happiness level is determined by our genes but it is possible to overcome our genetic programming.
Currently I’m reading “The How Of Happiness – A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want” from Sonja Lyubomirsky a Ph. D. from the Stanford University. This post is part 1 of the review.
It is the first how-to-become-happier book authored by someone who has actually conducted research revealing how people can achieve a greater sense of happiness in their lives. The book starts with a very interesting question and a surprising answer.
What do you think would make you happier ?
- A relationship?
- An extra bedroom ?
- A baby?
- More money?
- More Time ?
If your answer looks anything like these you’re in for a surprise. None of these things will make you substantially happier. We often look for happiness in the wrong places. What we believe would make a huge difference in our lives, actually makes only a small difference, while we overlook the true sources of personal happiness and well-being. Why is it so hard for us to believe that money really doesn’t make us happy? Because the truth is that money does make us happy. BUT our misunderstanding is that “we think money will bring lots of happiness for a long time, and actually it brings a little happiness for a short time.”
The 40 Percent Solution
50% of the factors which determine happiness are the genetically Set Points. They can’t be changed and therefore they shouldn’t be in the focus. The smallest part by 10 % are the circumstances we live in. So life circumstances like house, money, etc. are not the keys to happiness. That means that the remaining 40 % is within our ability to control, the 40% for opportunities to increase or decrease our happiness levels through what we do in our daily lives and how we think. This is the interesting part and it is the main focus of the book.
I recently bought the paperback edition of “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. There is additional information about the topics and a discussion forum on his website RichardDawkins.net. The hardcover edition was described as the surprise bestseller of 2006.
Chapter 1 – A deeply religious non-believer
Great scientists of our time who sound religious usually turn out not to be so when you examine their beliefs more deeply. This is certainly true for Einstein and Hawking.
“An atheist in the sense of a philosophical naturalist is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles – except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don’t yet understand.”
Especially Einstein says that he does not believe in a personal God. Further he mentions ” If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” Einstein is a religious non-believer.
Theist, Deist and Pantheist
There are a few definitions which help to understand the different ideologies in the first chapter. For example is the difference between the theist and the deist important and interesting. It helps to find what kind of believer you are.
A theist believes in a supernatural intelligence who , in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation. A deist too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws the govern the universe in the first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs. Pantheists don’t believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness the governs it’s workings. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism.
Einstein used the word “God” many times but it is clear today that he used “God” in a purely metaphorical, poetic sense.
The last part of the first chapter deals with the great amount of respect humans have for religion. For example it is normal to openly discuss ones political or economic interests but to have an opinion (and share it openly) of how the Universe began or about who created the Universe is much more difficult. We are used to not challenging religious ideas. The author gives much more examples to confirm this statement.