Prigogine described how nature has evolved from simplicity to greater complexity through (among other factors) the increased and novel interactions within a highly nonequilibrium system, resulting in a quantum jump, a repatterning to a higher order. The new social function we are describing will facilitate our social system to make such a jump through providing the opportunity for greater and more coherent interactions among innovating elements.
As we have seen, our global society can be viewed as a large dissipative structure that is increasingly undergoing perturbations. On the one hand, there is an acceleration of breakdowns. On the other hand, breakthroughs are arising everywhere. We can see that every sector of the Wheel of Cocreation is actually a strand of the evolutionary agenda that is part of a whole system.
The acceleration of breakdowns in our system, such as population growth, hunger, poverty, violence, environmental decay, resource shortages, species extinction, toxic wastes, the greenhouse effect, and pollution of the seas and the soil, accelerated now by climate change, are mutually interactive. They are leading to increased entropy and danger that may cause irreversible damage to our life system in a very short period of time.
What is almost never noticed, however, is that there is a concurrent convergence of positive social innovations. It is a matter of timing as to which happens first: the exponential convergence of the breakdowns or the breakthroughs (which will become critical and cause the quantum change). Will we go downward toward devolution or upward toward evolutionary transformation and metamorphosis?
If the positive innovations connect exponentially before the massive breakdowns reinforce one another, as suggested by the idea of the “global moon shot,” the system can repattern itself to a higher order of consciousness and freedom without the predicted economic, environmental, or social collapse. Can we evolve toward the positive as quickly as we might devolve toward the negative? Are we in one of those moments of evolutionary quantum change? During these moments of radical change doing more of the same will not work. What needs to happen is social synergy — the phenomenon of nonlinear exponential interactions of projects that work. This is the call to the spirit-motivated process of action. It could make the critical difference between a quantum jump to syntropy, cooperation, and cocreation or to entropy, conflict, devaluation, and chaos. If the system could go either way, a slight intervention to assist the convergence of the positive can tip the scales of evolution in favor of the enhancement of life on Earth.
We need to facilitate what is natural but is being restricted by divisiveness in our system, such as the separation between all disciplines, the competition and violence among religions and nations, the mass media’s emphasis on breakdowns, and the absence of a cooperative, cocreative process within and among organizational structures.
We are in a period of dramatic increased instability, confusion, loss of vision. Tension is increasing everywhere as the old order struggles to prevail and the new order tries to emerge; we are in what may be called the “tension zone.” Innovators run into complexities and difficulties, both in the external world through resistant social systems and through immaturities, addictions, and egotism within themselves.
As the climb gets steeper, any flaws in our character will show up. To enter the convergence zone as those who are responsible for social innovations, we must become mature imaginal cells. It is a time for continued self-development as we realize that we are not only intending to heal what is sick but to evolve what is well. In fact, the social potential movement gives new meaning to the effort of millions within the human potential movement. The “self-actualizing society” is the fulfillment of the rising numbers of self-actualizing people. To take the next step, we are becoming ever more conscious of our own state of being — of our thoughts and intentions. For as we approach the convergence zone, everything within us is magnified, our weaknesses as well as our strengths. The pressure on all social change agents is intense. We continue to struggle to evolve — personally, financially, organizationally — usually with little support from our current culture. Many of us may fall by the wayside, at least for the moment. But those who persevere through the tension zone have a great reward in store for them. For inside the convergence zone, new patterns prevail and reinforce one another, synchronicities increase, and we get a taste of the cocreative society — heaven on Earth.
Practicing the personal path of the cocreator is vital, for it helps us stabilize our own higher internal consciousness so that we can remain at a high enough frequency or state of being to resonate with the energy within the convergence zone. Most particularly, we seek to overcome our ego-driven behavior — our desire to dominate and win over others — and learn to cooperate and cocreate. Few of us have learned to remain in our higher state of being. We are competitive and have a desire to win. We lose resonance, we fear rejection, judgment seeps in, and we fall into separation — then struggle to rise again and again, seeking to stabilize. Very few of us have stabilized at our own high norm (certainly including me). We flicker in and out of higher consciousness. But remember, we are still a young species. We have not yet discovered what it means to be fully human. This is the work of the maturing social potential movement: to provide win-win social systems within which the higher qualities of love, creativity, and the responsibility of humanity can be reinforced and secured.
When we enter the convergence zone, our new state of being as cocreators is enhanced and stabilized. We experience the joys of cocreation. We have all felt this magnificent state in flashes of peak experiences, when we are in the zone, in the swing of things. It occurs whenever two or more pioneering souls are drawn together to cocreate, to fuse genius, to work on an activity that actualizes each person’s unique potential. In those moments we experience resonance, a re-sounding, or echoing, of each other’s higher qualities. This wonderful feeling affirms and reinforces each person’s creativity.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in The Evolving Self refers to this state as “flow” and defines it as when we are using all our capacities to realize a goal of intrinsic value:
Flow usually occurs when there are clear goals a person tries to reach and when there is unambiguous feedback as to how well he or she is doing. . . . When we enjoy it, it is because we think of it as something that allows us to express our potential, to learn about our limits, to stretch our being. It is for this reason that flow is such an important force in evolution. Without it, our genetic programs would instruct us to continue pursuing what has been “good for us” in the past; but flow makes us receptive to the entire world as a source of new challenges, as an arena for creativity. . . . It is an escape forward into higher complexity, where one hones one’s potential by confronting new challenges. Because the fine balance between challenge and skill makes it necessary to concentrate on the task at hand, people in flow report a loss of self-consciousness.1
In other words, the experience of separateness and awareness of self as a separate being dissolves in the flow state. A more unitive form of consciousness is momentarily achieved.
Dissonance and resistance dissolve when we fuse our genius. Convergence “eats” entropy. Two or more gathered in resonance in evolutionary circles form basic building blocks of the integral culture. In this field of resonance, our self-expression is amplified and flows naturally. Nature has built in an incentive for cocreation just as she has for procreation. It is pleasure! In the convergence zone, we do not solve our problems in the same state of consciousness in which we created them. For in the process of coming together to solve problems, we ourselves are changed, our genius codes join, and something greater than ourselves emerges from our union with other kindred souls. That is, love!
When we are in the convergence zone, the Four Ss prevail: synergy, synchronicity, syntony, and suprasex. The joy intensifies, we feel social ease, laughter, fun, and effortlessness. That’s how we can tell we are in the “zone.” Let’s see what the Four Ss teach us.
1. SYNERGY
Synergy is the experience that we are part of a larger group or social body. It is the glorious sense of becoming ourselves more fully through deeper participation with others. In a synergistic team, all we need to do is our part and allow and encourage others to do their parts. Our part becomes amplified and fulfilled through joining with others, who are experiencing the same fulfillment of their unique parts through joining with us. The words “love your neighbor as yourself” become a reality. The “other” is part of oneself. In synergy we recognize that we are members of a larger whole; the dichotomy between self and other is overcome. The illusion of separation dissolves as the uniqueness of each person increases through participation in the greater whole.
By the alignment among all members of the body, the binding force of nature, grace, Spirit — whatever name we call it — joins us as part of a larger whole in which we, as separate parts, mysteriously feel more uniquely ourselves than ever before. The word “cooperation” changes its meaning from helping one another to being members of one body coordinated by the larger process of creation.
2. SYNCHRONICITY
Carl Jung defined it in Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle as “a meaningful coincidence of two or more events, where something other than the probability of chance is involved.”2 In the convergence zone, synchronicities increase. The timing is not in our hands; events seem to occur as needed. Complexities that could not be planned for appear to self-organize. There is a sense of effortlessness although everyone is working very hard.
People we are looking for are often looking for us. We ask a question and the answer comes quickly, often in strange and unexpected ways. When we are in the flow there is the feeling of being organized by the deeper pattern rather than by having to make things happen by will and linear planning alone. We still plan and execute, but with a feeling of grace and support rather than by will alone. We sense we are coordinated by the whole of which we are a part. This feeling may be accurate, for in the flow state we are more sensitive to the deeper tendency in evolution toward higher consciousness and greater freedom.
3. SYNTONY
This term, coined by Erich Jantsch in his book Design for Evolution, described one of the ways of accessing conscious evolution, as mentioned earlier.3 The relationship between the cosmic design and the individual intensifies through some form of syntony or resonance. Syntony feels like guidance, intuition, or direct knowing. We do not have to figure out what to do. We know. We perform with spontaneous right action. The inner world of subjective experience and the outer world of objective reality blend and become one. We and the world “outside us” are interconnected in one larger field of intelligence. The great flashes of awareness that mystics have experienced throughout history are reinforced and normalized. Each of us becomes more attuned to the deeper patterns; intuition and intellect blend. The mystical state becomes grounded and manifested in spirit-motivated social action.
The next stage of sexuality, suprasex, occurs when our genius is aroused and we desire to join our genius to cocreate. Suprasexual passion increases in the convergence zone. We are vocationally aroused at the level of our genius. Instead of joining our genes to have a child, we yearn to join our genius to give birth to our full potential selves and to the creativity that expresses our combined love. Energy floods into our systems. Procreation extends itself into cocreation. We do not tire as easily or get sick as often. We feel exhilarated, lighthearted, and exuberant. Brilliant ideas are triggered by the presence of others who reinforce our own potential. Even our sexuality is enhanced, not to have a child but to “have ourselves,” to regenerate ourselves through love. While the emphasis is not on sexuality but on creativity, sexuality is enhanced by suprasex and by vocational arousal. We’re excited. It’s fun! In fact, for many of us as we live longer lives, this new passion is the most rewarding and loving part of our lives. It’s the reason for longevity and extended health.
Possessiveness and self-centeredness dissolve for the moment, not out of self-sacrifice, but out of self-fulfillment through cocreation. The ego is absorbed through expressing its uniqueness. The poison of selfishness is dissolved as we give our best in such a way that both we as individuals and as others are blessed by our creativity.
In certain moments of convergence, we experience the ecstasy of cocreation. It feels as though we are one with the creative impulse within ourselves and our partners, which transcends the self-centered individual. In the act of expressing our genius and of being received in love by other members of the whole, we feel as though we’ve come home at last, no longer alien and cast out in unfamiliar surroundings, as we give of ourselves lovingly and we are received in love. This is a form of “social love” possible in a cocreative world. It combines “eros,” erotic love, and “agape,” altruistic love, arousing our passion at all levels of being. Another word for this kind of love is “telerotic.” “Telos” means “higher purpose,” and “eros” is “passionate love.” When passionate lovers join for higher purpose, they become telerotic!
At our current stage of evolution, we are deeply drawn to stabilize the experience, not as an ecstatic high but as a new normalcy. We proceed by making normal what was first a peak experience. The pleasure principle is intrinsic to social evolution. We do not evolve the world by guilt and duty any more than we populated the world through such feelings!
Our social structures often separate us, keeping us from our natural desire to cocreate. We simply haven’t known that social convergence is the key to our heart’s desire. We are separated into disciplines, fields, mind-sets, ideologies, colors, races, economic classes, and religions. Our communities and families are breaking apart, and we are often lonely, isolated, and purposeless. For lack of something exciting to attract us forward, many of us are looking backward to our ethnic roots for exclusive identity, or sinking into the misery of substance abuse, depression, illness, even violence and despair. We have not created systems to help us find our teammates, partners, and social cocreators at local or regional levels. Few places are designed specifically for joining our genius and giving birth to our projects and gifts to the world.
Yet we can see that the process of evolution tends to favor our higher consciousness, our greater freedom, and our efforts toward a win-win synergistic society. Every such intention and action is reinforced by the tendency in evolution that has been moving forward toward greater complexity for billions of years. Although there is freedom in the system, and increasingly so, it is also true that the universe is designed to select and enhance higher states of being and doing, as it has demonstrated in the progression from molecule to cell to animal to human to the great avatars, and now to us attempting to become a universal, cocreative species. From the perspective of conscious evolution, we are not operating in a vacuum or in a neutral universe, but in a universal living system animated everywhere with intelligence, growing toward higher consciousness and freedom. It is this intelligence that we are becoming aware of in us, as us, as we practice our own conscious evolution.
Our passion to create and self-express is always driving us toward convergence. The drives for self-preservation and self-reproduction are merging into Maslow’s second drive — self-actualization — giving us the fuel to forge the evolutionary frontier. In the United States, for example, we invented the Constitution, the jury, the vote, the town meeting, and the Bill of Rights for the first phase of freedom, and now we are inventing a new social architecture for cocreation.
In my experience, one of the very best ways of cultivating social synergy is the SYNCON process. SYNCON stands for “synergistic convergence,” and the process brings people together locally to share their passions, to match their needs and resources, and to optimally cocreate. It changes the social architecture from the pyramidal, top-down structure of modern civilization to the integrative, whole-system structure of circles, based on the Wheel of Cocreation.
My Committee for the Future in Washington, DC, in the 1970s developed twenty-five SYNCON Conferences, which took place in wheel-shaped environments, a local version of the Wheel of Cocreation, to bring diverse and opposing people together to seek common goals and match needs with resources. It was the Wheel of Cocreation come alive. Everyone was asked three questions: What do you want to create? What do you need to create it? What resources do you want to share freely? People sought common goals and matched needs with resources throughout the group. At the end, we took “all walls down,” removing the portable walls that divided the Wheel’s sectors, so that we could sense ourselves as a whole social body.
At every conference, people discovered they could better achieve what they wanted through cocreation rather than opposition. Synergy creates more energy. The social whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And connecting to cocreate is a form of social love.
Many other groups have reported that using the SYNCON process and the Wheel of Cocreation has helped them create positive social change. For example, the Hague Center for Innovation, Global Governance, and Emergence (www.thehaguecenter.org) is currently activating the architecture of the Wheel of Cocreation to bring communities in Monterrey, Mexico, and Cairo, Egypt, into transformative change processes. They report that the process allows them to create the necessary conditions for the emergence of resilient and thriving communities with more evolved governance models, social cohesion, and spiritual awareness. Kimberly and Foster Gamble are also using the Wheel of Cocreation to great benefit in their work with the Thrive Movement (www.thrivemovement.com).
HOW TO DO A SYNCON
SYNCON works with groups from twenty-five to several hundred people. The process is very simple and can be done in person, online, or both.
It is advisable to use the illustrations of the Spiral and the Wheel of Cocreation upon which the SYNCON model is built. Anyone who is coordinating the process can offer the context and perspective of the 13.8 billion years of history leading up to this moment, as well as the simple lessons of evolution, such as the fact that problems are evolutionary drivers. This context is very helpful and exciting for the process of synergistic convergence.
The SYNCON process is as follows:
1. People meet in each sector of the Wheel according to their functional interests and vocational calling, forming a “task force” in each sector. (The Wheel categories discussed in this book may be used, or others may be devised as needed.) Participants form one or more circles in each sector of the Wheel. A scribe, a facilitator, and a spokesperson from each sector volunteer to represent that task force.
2. Each member of the circle responds to three questions:
• What is my passion to create now?
• To fulfill this desire, what do I need that I do not now have — what is lacking?
• What resources do I have to give to this group or to people in other sectors of the social body?
3. After listening carefully to one another, participants form smaller groups based on shared purpose and affinity. They support one another and often devise joint plans.
4. The smaller groups reassemble in their sector of the Wheel and share their joint strategies.
5. Each sector prepares a composite statement of goals, needs, and resources.
6. The whole group meets in an Assembly of the Whole. The assembly can be visually exciting, in theater-in-the-round style, with ribbon dividers, placards, or artistic renditions to suggest the different functions of the social body.
7. Each task force’s spokesperson presents the shared statement of goals, needs, and resources of its group to the Assembly of the Whole. Everyone listens actively to each presentation, noting where one group’s needs and another’s resources match. Each sector chooses from among its members “vocational ambassadors” to visit other sectors.
8. A facilitated mingling occurs, either of functional sectors or of individuals and groups, seeking the synergies, linkages, and connections that are natural to any system but are often unnoticed because the process does not facilitate their discovery. If a video camera is available, it becomes the “nervous system” of the group. People call for the camera whenever they have a breakthrough or new linkage. The Four Ss — synergy, synchronicity, syntony, and suprasex (see page 172) — are cultivated. If possible, a NewNews show (as described in chapter 13) is edited from the event, expressing the fact that cocreating is the news now, fostering the social uprising of wellness.
9. The Assembly of the Whole reassembles. Each group re-presents its goals, needs, and resources, taking into account expanded connections and synergies. According to the time available, the assembly can discover more synergies and experience the fact that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Participants find they are better able to achieve their goals through cocreation than through adversarial or even competitive tactics. Music and dance can be used. In the end, a celebration occurs and people walk the Evolutionary Spiral together.
10. Ideally a local website is developed. Each task force is invited to place its goals, needs, and resources on the website. Eventually, many such websites will connect to help people find common goals and match needs with resources throughout the system, as suggested in chapter 11. The NewNews coverage (see chapter 13) of these connections can be communicated via email, websites, and other media.
SYNCON remains one of the best processes that we can apply at the local and global scales, as well as in face-to-face and virtual contexts. The SYNCON process can best be understood when seen as part of the whole story of creation, symbolized in the Spiral and the Wheel of Cocreation (see page 165).