We are social

Isn't it obvious? Everyone in the world is connecting with others. Yet to do it consciously, with awareness, is another story.

Inspired by Jim Paredes some years ago I started reading Ken Wilber, and have done so more often of late. Wilber helps people to increase there awareness to live in four realities at the same time. He maps them as quadrants, the interior "I" and "it", and the exterior "we" and "its."

Doing a quick "quad scan" several times a day helps to expand consciousness, to gain new perspectives on a situation, and live mindfully and "awake". I found that, at any time, I tend to live in one of the quadrants more than the others. When that awareness arises, it comes with a realization that I am missing out on quality experience in the other three, and on the synergies that a more integral awareness brings.

Quad scans are easy to do, I found. It just takes me a minute or much less. In terms of relating with other people, it helps me review a situation quickly when I am with someone. Whether it is at home, work, with friends, traveling, in a shop, or other situations, there are questions to ask myself.

Why am I meeting this person? How do I feel about meeting this person, right now? And how does he/she seem to be feeling about meeting me? What could be the purpose of the meeting, beyond the obvious reasons? What does the other person want to get out of the meeting? Can his/her views broaden my perspective? Is there an opportunity to make a win-win move with the other person, on the spot? What options do I have, and what action can I decide to take?

Such a scan of the "we" quadrant can be quick, very quick, like thinking and feeling on my feet, at the same time, with heightened senses and awareness, because I have decided to be awake to the relationship in the moment, on the spot.

In his Tapping the Creative Universe workshop, Jim told us to pay attention to "connections" when we show up to be present in each moment. Scanning my quads now starts to fascinate me, and I do it more often. I always believed in synchronicity and serendipity, and I realized that it takes me to switch on my antenna to get the benefits, and hopefully bring some benefits to others on my path.

I am flying from Ho Chi Minh City to Manila as I write this, and reading the English daily in Viet Nam often inspires me with some interesting life stories, most of which with a positive view.

Today I read about Nguyen Son, once a poor boy pushing a cart to sell coal on the streets of Hanoi, now a well-known architect and director of his own bureau. The story recounts how he lately realized that his passion lies with music, supplemented with painting and poetry. His songs are now favorites with young Vietnamese.

I read how Laurent Habrard, a vigneron in the Rhone valley of France is coloring his business green, conserving water use, insulating the farm buildings, using alternative sources of energy. Cutting out middlemen, he has taken to direct online marketing of his wines. He sends samples of his produce in vacuum glass tubes through regular mail (the mailman goes anyway, no extra CO2 produced) to anyone who wants to taste them.

Another article describes how the city of Paris is drilling holes to tap geothermal hot water to help provide hot water to homes and reduce energy costs.

For all the shocks that we are experiencing in the global economy today, the world is still full of stories of people moving forward with a positive attitude, with creativity and courage. I expect that stories like these in Viet Nam News can inspire people anywhere into action to write the next chapter of their life story on the blank pages that are waiting.

It certainly works for me, and I will start writing my 53rd chapter on the blank pages from tomorrow, enjoying to live in the now, practicing to scan my quads, and letting myself be inspired socially by people around me, close and far.

Photograph: Social at the village temple in Cham island, Viet Nam.