A traveler and and old man of the village conversed. The traveler asked the old man why he called himself Father Ramrod, while he was a slouchy and frail person. The old man replied that it was the name he and the villagers had always used. The traveler told the man that to his face the villagers used the name Father Ramrod, but when he was not around, they called him Father Slouchy. The old man was shocked and laughed a great deal at this duplicity.

The next time the old man was in the village, he told the villagers to call him Father Slouchy. The villagers grew visibly ashamed. However, he did not call them out on their mockery, and they agreed to call him Father Slouchy. Then behind his back, they began calling him Father Ramrod. The next time they saw him, he was standing perfectly straight and moving about like a younger man. They insisted on calling him Father Ramrod and they continued to do so while he was not there.

One thing that is considered in discussions of such enclaves is the Dunbar Number, where a group of primates peaks at some specific population size before breaking into another group. For humans, that number is often described as about 150 people.

I was thinking, “If I started a resilient community of some sort, where I wanted to gather a group of people to survive and prosper together, who would I pick?” Having democratic sensibilities, I didn’t think I would pick all 150 people. And I didn’t think about required skills either. I mainly thought about who would I really like to be around me.

I have a few friends who have lived in communal homes, where a large house is rented and people sign up for rooms. It is kind of like a dormitory at a college, but with people that you are previously socially connected to. Turnover is interesting to watch. And disputes are also very interesting. A necessary requirement is usually that an external housekeeper be hired from time to time, or sanitation breaks down. Communal houses that don’t have this rule get dirty quick. These are the closest social constructs I have for imagining a Resilient Community.

After picking friends and family, I thought, “No one would live in my community unless they could pick people as well.” So I searched for the number of people that I could pick, where the people I picked could also pick that same amount of people, and still remain at Dunbar’s 150 optimal community size.

The formula for picking a community comes out to:

(y * y) + y = approx. 150.

So if you pick 12 people. And they pick 12, you get:

(12 * 12) + 12 = 156

Or for 11

(11 * 11) + 11 = 123

So you end up being a little over or under a Dunbar no. of 150. In reality, a group taken from an initially chosen seed of people would have some overlap, so a larger number might be able to be used.

Who would you put in your community? Who is already in your current community, whether virtual or physical? Snacks for thought.

Here was my learning problem that I solved with a story. For a long time I strove to cope with understanding in an almost purely intuitive sense. I avoided many quantitative tools for understanding. This was a compulsive behavior. I would look at the summaries of the concepts, and avoid the formulas compulsively. My brain would do a sort of switching off, and become exceedingly avoidant. My intuitive faculties became hyper-tuned, an I would often surprise people with understanding that they expected necessitated quantitative tools. But I also held myself back because I wasn’t developing other tools for learning. I was suspending my ability to observe the beauty of mathematical relationships. A mix of exceedingly bad teachers, the limitations of institutional teaching, and myself had put me in this situation.

For the past six months, I have been working on a new type of jet engine of my own invention. I have made incredible leaps and just this morning I hit a milestone that makes me certain I will soon have a self-sustaining engine. Simultaneously, my intellectual development in regard to jet engines has run in parallel. I know I finally have to get into the math of things. Nato Saichek loaned me a book called Aerodynamics for Engineers, and I started to read it. I realized I needed a story to reorganize my approach to learning.

Here is the story I imagined, based on the theme Understanding the Book Aerodynamics for Engineers.

A man wrote a formula on a chalkboard. It was a new equation of his own invention. He looked at it and was amazed. He ran home and told his life partner about it and she took it in stride. She was already aware of his genius, even before there was ‘proof.’ The next day, the man returned to his equation with worries he had accumulated in the night. He checked it against empirical data again. It seemed to work out just like yesterday. Suddenly, he was suffused with a euphoric glow and the certain knowledge that his equation was correct. He showed it to his colleagues and they marveled at its simplicity. They knew this was momentous. He showed it to his most liked student and his student said, now they could take out a quarter of the aerodynamics book. They hugged at the wonder of it all. The student was pridefully aware of his affiliation with human discovery. Sometime later, the man accepted an award for his scientific development. He glowed with pride and gave an inspiring speech about the necessity of the cultivation of virtue in all endeavors, even those that do not appear to necessitate it.

Though this story is very short and simple, it moved me deeply. I found myself reading the textbook with an entirely different sensibility. And when I felt myself not understanding and falling back on lousy behaviors that restrained my intellect, I was able to overcome them by remembering the story. In the story, I am the professor, the partner, the student, the colleagues. I am standing on a podium, and writing on a chalkboard. And each of those components of the story remind me that I can learn from the text I am endeavoring to understand. Not just concepts, but the exact way of speaking that the math describes.

When I learn, it has always been in the context of creating revolutionary new artifacts. When I used to learn math, I never brought that sense of myself to the learning experience. Now that I understand the story I wrote, the way I learn math and physics has changed. It is a simple thing.

Have performance reviews not only for employees, but also for managers, and have these affect whether you keep your job. This is important because many companies have an asymmetry between employees and their managers when it comes to reviewing performance. Traditionally, information and advice come from managers in the form of a performance review, but they don’t usually go from employee to boss. Performance reviews in each direction, with the weight of reward and firing are essential for effective information flow. People should be able to fire their bosses, as well as be fired by their bosses because that creates an impetus for each of them to take feedback seriously. It also eliminates the moral hit that comes with tyrannical bosses because employees have a mechanism to curb tyranny and incompetence.

Another trick is all decisions should come with their reasons. The reason for this is context allows a worker to adapt to changing conditions and to widen the domain space for making decisions. Here is a military example I took from this excellent video series by Paul Van Riper (audio does not match video), his interesting work appeared in the Malcolm Gladwell book, Blink.

The story he illustrates later in this series is that of giving a command for a group of soldiers to take a hill. The group may take the hill, but totally avoid stopping military forces that have changed their mind and gone around the hill. Devoid of context, the soldiers remain on the hill and don’t stop the enemy, but if they are given the command: take that hill because you need to stop enemy forces from moving through the valley, now they have reason to get off the hill and attack the enemy. Their wider context increased their adaptability. Meaning removes simple mechanistic behavior and replaces it with dynamic and hopefully effective autonomy.

Another is a democratic work environment. Peter Drucker constantly said that modern workers are the best judges of their needs, and managers who now are often less informed then their teams, have to become facilitators. Autocracy is prone to myopia. Democracy better suits peoples needs because employees are central factors in the definition and administration of their needs and solutions. Better-matched resources and needs result in better company health (financial and social).

Another great trick is arbitration by experiment. This is where hard and debated paths, are solved by creating an experiment between conflicting parties. The experiment clarifies the argument-space and opens up new possibilities for the company, and better understanding for all parties. I have done this unconsciously in the past, but now that it is an explicit thing in my mind, I want it to be something that I institutionalize (that is, if this particular experiment in experimenting works.)

A trick that takes advantage of new viewpoints is to interview already hired new employees to find flaws and good things about the company. New employees have an objective eye when they arrive. They aren’t yet bogged down by working. When they get to work, find out what they observe. Do they notice the company has a fear of marketing itself? Do they think the CEO shouts too much? Is something about the team’s engineering methods weak? New eyes can offer new viewpoints if interviewed within a context of safety and trust.

Having a workplace filled with virtue is something important to me. I have experienced workplaces bogged down in day-to-day operations. It’s hard to get your head above the water because swimming looks so important. Still, I find this all so absolutely necessary to start thinking about from day one. If you are not taking steps to control the long term health of your company, you may still be successful, but you won’t be the roaring success you could have been. I will make my company a success. To me that means happy employees, profit, and a positive social impact.

If I ask you, can you work on something with constant diligence, that the work itself will energize and drive you, you may not be able to answer because I used the incorrect words. Perhaps I should have used the word love? Can you love this with all you heart, that you will connect intimately with this something on a enduring basis? Were those the write words? In the first, there was an appeal to diligence, in the second, love. What about bravery, oft confused with immature fearlessness and imprudence. Can you be terrified and persist?

What are the words you need to be you in your maximum capacity? That every calorie you consume, develops into that uniqueness that is you. If you’re just like everyone else you’ve achieved nothing. I refuse to be a copy. Teamwork, society, civilization, governance, music, sex, engineering, and conversations can happen with the unique you, strongly expressed and loving every minute of it. It’s okay to be great. I wish you knew me more, so you could hear me when I say, “I strongly recommend being great.” Terrifying to many, I know you can handle it.

For instance, I was having a really hard time writing this post. Part of it is I want you to want the practice of Story Meditation, so that you don’t pass over it as trivial, and that you try it. I kept writing sentences that were not resonating with me, so I decided to apply some Story Meditation. I sat on this exercise ball that I use while meditating and presented myself with the theme of, “This post I’m trying to write and am having difficulty with.”

I sat and constructed a story: I thought about some dude, and he happened to be on the Moon. And from there, he went to Earth, flew over the face of it and saw much suffering. The people of the Earth were in agony. Finally he saw Buddha on the Earth, he landed next to him and said, “I’m from the Moon. I have many powers. Is there anything I can do for you and the people of the Earth?” Buddha said, “No, the people are suffering from illusions, but it is in their minds. And in their minds is also everything they need to free themselves from suffering.” The Moon Man said, “But what if I alleviate their pain?” And Buddha said, “No, it is not necessary.” But the Moon Man was unconvinced, and he picked up a suffering man, shook him with a slight jostle, and the Man was cured and would suffer no more. The Buddha was quite surprised and he said to the Moon Man, “On second that, just do that for all of the people of the Earth.”

What the hell does that story mean? After writing it, I initially did not know. Sometimes it takes me hours to figure out my stories, with some obvious connection arising quickly, and subtler understandings coming later. In this case the story was kind of obvious. I have a super-power that alleviates my suffering. It may help others. Go tell people about it so they can see if it works for them too. Just do it man! Don’t worry about getting them to discover the mechanisms inside them. Just go and shake the sick man. Buddha will see the obvious value.

Examining the story for it’s meaning, I see I am all three characters. And when I construct new characters for other stories I am always them as well. For instance, in this Buddha-Moon story, I thought the audience (of readers) was Buddha, since I was trying to get my message across. And so it is, but I am also Buddha, who is saying, “No need to use your powers.” And I am the Moon Man with his special gifts, and the sick man who suffers under his illusion/delusion, but can also be cured.

The concept for this practice came to me when I was reading Joseph Campbell’s “Hero With a Thousand Faces.” It is a work describing the patterns between all mythologies. He talked about how myth can be a medium for communicating with the unconscious, which makes a lot of sense when you see how myths confront sexuality, power, destruction, and creation. Sadness and happiness. Enlightenment. It’s a group of people constructing tales to communicate the essence of their internal struggles. The difficulty is that in the age of modern science, where we can illuminate through analysis, myths become absurd historical artifacts.

Seeing myth as a communication medium for the tumult and peace inside me, I thought to create a personal neo-mythology. Which, if this practice ever becomes popular with others, I would suggest the genre name of the stories to be, “Personal Neo-Mythology.” And that’s the idea, you are creating your own non-super-natural mythology to address your problems. Whether it’s a breakup with your partner, the death of a loved one, or any other of the common and unique human discontents.

I have already generated what might be about one hundred of these meditation stories. Initially, I was loathe to share them because I was worried about what others would think. And that they are very fantastic, and sometimes have a child-like simplicity. What changed my point of view was actually a story I generated that made it clear I should began to share these stories. In the near future, I hope to extract my stories and publish them as a series of short books for the Kindle. I’m not sure if there’s an audience, but what I’ll do for each story, is to describe the theme, tell the story, and also show the impact on my life and the events surrounding the story.

So if you’re going to attempt this type of meditation:

• Sit in a quiet place as free from interruption as possible.
• Pick a theme, the more emotionally relevant, often the more powerful the story.
• Trust that you will stick to that theme as you construct it. Let it guide you back if you get lost in your assembly of the story.
• If you get stuck, imagine that a child asked you what happens next in the story.
• Then sit back and create it.

You may surprise yourself. I know I have.

I then made the following image, trying to put a lighter side on the harsh reality of revolution, social upheaval, and the fight for human rights.

In the crowd, a woman pushed her way toward Tim. Her name was Xeni and she was about thirty five. She saw him standing, looking in the window. She wasn’t sure what he was sad about, but she approached. Xeni aimed her phone at him, to make sure, and then she turned him around and gave Tim a great big hug.

Tim was surprised and totally derailed from his sadness. He did not know Xeni at all. She was a random person in the mall, but he knew why the hug had come. Small variations in his heart rate were transmitted to his phone. They were compared to a statistical base line of a communal historical heart rates. Then a program flagged him as having a high likelihood of sadness.

Xeni was a Universal Acceptor. This meant that she would hug anyone who needed it. Not everyone else was as kind as Xeni. Tim had already been passed by two Mutual Christians, who would only hug other people from their particular sect. Xeni didn’t care that Tim was an Atheist. She really didn’t care what anyone was, as long as they needed her help.

After a thirty second long hug, Tim wiped the tears from his eyes and looked into Xeni’s. He asked her if he could buy her some hot chocolate and she gladly accepted.

With GPS listings of restaurants, the Indian Restaurant buried deep in the strip mall has as much exposure as the McDonald’s on the corner. Of course, this does not eliminate the competitive advantage Starbucks and McDonald’s have of being familiar. And if you’re traveling by visuals, you’ll still see the restaurant on the corner first.

With self-driving cars, this will go even further. The necessity to discriminate by visuals could disappear. You simply get hungry, dial in your desired food, and arrive at the location. The car will have become the mobile room it has always attempted to be.

Companies do this to some degree, but their societies are preoccupied with product creation. This artificial society would only be preoccupied in the perpetuation of culture, not products.

Religions also do this, but are generally tied to a concept of supernatural activity of some sort.

As a necessity, the culture would have to be distinct, otherwise there would be no reason to join. I imagine someone putting their culture’s values on the internet, talking about the people they already share this culture with. And then going about establishing funds for the centralization of this culture.