The Socializers | discovery

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give–yes or no, or maybe–
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

~William Stafford

Perhaps the most confusing aspect of being human is the experience of being alone. We want to connect with one another, to know one another, to be immersed in love with one another. And so we enter the Internet and spend truly huge amounts of time creating worlds to connect within. But for some, deep down,
there is an unsettling feeling that this entire experience in social networks is not meeting what we are looking for. And the question arises as to why this unsettling feeling persists.

Perhaps this feeling is about coming to terms with that moment no-one has mastered…the moment
of passing from flesh into mystery. The moment of physical death. A thousand philosophies speculate on the passage from physical life into the hereafter: from
becoming fodder for worms to reunion with friends and family in the lap of God. The reality is that we cannot avoid this day that eventually comes to us all. So
we keep strong and love those around us the best we can. I believe that humans are architecting spiritual realms via social networks. And I believe that this is what the massive growth of communication in today’s world is all about…a discovery of how to contend with the final doorway, a planning of how one would like “forever” to look like, a participation in a fantasy world that one can make real in a very short amount of time.

To say this again, more directly: The myriad groups and circles that now exist in the digital realm are really a spiritual creation as well. Perhaps we are at a point in history where community created in these digital-light realms precedes or presages the fabrication of such experience in the spiritual realm. Whether one believes in life after death or not, this possibility is here with us now: the bonding of “invisible” presences across the world through image, light and thought. We do this via our laptops and mobile devices every day. And perhaps this is a global training in how to do this with only our minds, only our hearts, only our feelings.

What a truly amazing experience these social networks can be! The experience: I can now see the invisible through my glowing screens. To be clear, I can see the faces and hear the voices of those who share a specific passion with me, who share a common dream with me, who also believe what I believe. Social networks are dream-maps. And it is via these dream maps that I can expand into all that I am meant to be. Giving oneself to one’s deepest passion and discovering a community of support for this has never been so easy, so simple and so satisfying. With one keyword entered into a search field, an individual can make a passage from loneliness into togetherness, from fear into love, from death into life. And that’s a major gift of this experience we are all sharing presently in these networks of light and life.

My conclusion is that humans are architecting their heavens every day via social networks. Humans are writing their ideal worlds into being within the Internet. When I find those who love what I love and share time and food and presence with them…I know, in that moment, that I will have experienced what I believe about the hereafter. These millions of digital circles are a massive proof of humanity’s core desire to be reunited. To find a specific Twitter list, a specific Facebook group, a specific LinkedIn group and to correspond with those who occupy this group…this is an image of humanity’s greatest aspiration: to find one’s people…and be with them, in the flesh, in the spirit, in the heart.

Behind all appearances, I divine a struggling essence. I want to merge with it. ~Nikos Kazantzakis

There is a world behind the world. The best social monitoring tools help one to peer into the vast realm of the unconscious, a place populated by archetypal entities created by sub-cultures. The voices of the unconscious realm become starkly visible in the patterns moving across and through social networks. Within these complex and varied fabrics there ripple millions of vibrations, which ultimately collate to form the deities worshipped by the various tribes roving cyberspace. It has been said that all words find their root in a god somewhere in some mythology. The collective is forming a series of complex, subtly balanced life support systems in the form of social networks populated by living cells!

Carl Jung writes, “…psychic contents, the so-called complexes, take over the control of the total personality in place of the ego, at least temporarily, to such a degree that the free will of the ego is suspended.” It could be said that humanity is poised on the brink of such phenomenon becoming widespread in social networks. It would not be too outlandish for a single voice to catalyze OR motivate the whole. Jung writes, “When someone is able to perform the art of touching on the archetypal, he can play on the souls of people like on the strings of a piano.” With multiple crowdsourcing sites and campaigns emerging, the mechanism is in place to reach those with an affinity to particular messagings AND swiftly guide these groups toward attractive events, products, services and causes. The collective acts like an individual and influences ALL within its own body! Jung says, “The world powers that rule over all mankind, for good or ill, are unconscious psychic factors…We are steeped in a world that was created by our own psyche.”

Currently The Firestarters in organizations are inspiring LISTENING programs AND finding ways to involve the WHOLE organization. These are the ones who understand the value of listening to the WHOLE, divining the “world behind the world” and gleaning emerging trends. Out of this, a Creative has the data to craft more finely-honed FUTURE RAGES. Jung writes, “…any autonomous complex not subject to the conscious will exerts a possessive effect on consciousness proportional to its strength and limits the latter’s freedom.” He goes on to say, “It gets you below the belt and not in your mind, your brain just counts for nothing, your sympathetic system is gripped. It is a power that fascinates people from within, it is the collective unconscious which is activated, it is an archetype which is common to them all that has come to life.” This phenomenon is occurring countless times a day in the social networks as viral elements feed on Likes and Tweets, rolling millions into seemingly irresistible currents.

Nikos Kazantzakis writes, “I feel that behind appearances this struggling essence is also striving to merge with my heart. But the body stands between us and separates us. The mind stands between us and separates us.” In the coming 12 months, I predict this sense of separation will diminish as Transparency becomes the fashionable “way to be” and world behind the world injects itself directly into daily experience through a kind of spiritual tech, fusing humanity’s hunger for piercing mystery WITH financial return. The real VALUE of transparency IS that we are introduced to MORE MYSTERY, having transcended the secrets that acted as blockades to progress. Jung writes, “The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.” To be conscious of ANYTHING is to be free of its influence FOR THEN we have power of choice related to its activities. Humanity yearns to open itself to possibility. Exploring the unknown through social monitoring is a FANTASTIC action for facilitating such an evolutionary process.