Gaia Community: Scott's Blog

Great Powers Reading Group

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:44:33 GMT

Over at Thomas P.M Barnett's website is this announcement for a reading group around Great Powers: America and the World After Bush. If you haven't picked this up, the book is finally out in stores this week, and you need to get it and read it. It contains the best and most Integral view of global strategy and America's role in it for the next 50 years. You will thank me later, I promise.

If you want to follow along in the form of an online reading group... join us and have some fun with it.

Tags: Thomas P.M. Barnett, Great Powers

Integral is Integrity

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:38:13 GMT

    Writers love to dive into etymology as if word origins hold the sacred wisdom of the ages. While they're usually interesting things to point to, frequently they're just a cheap device to hammer home a point that could be made with more nuance and delicacy if more work was put into it.

    Let it not be said that I have any objections to the use of a cheap device from time to time....

    I was home last night working on some ideas I have about events that could be held in the Integral world, and a thought crossed my mind as I thought about what to say to introduce one of them: Have you ever noticed that integral comes from the same root as integrity? (For those who already have noticed this really obvious thing, well, please read on anyway...)

    The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Ed., lists the origins of the words integral and integrity as:

Middle English, from Old French, from Medieval Latin integrālis, making up a whole, from Latin integer, complete; see integer.

Middle English integrite, from Old French, from Latin integritās, soundness, from integer, whole, complete; see tag- in Indo-European roots.

    Well, not that there should be much surprise about that, really. But why am I pointing this out? What's so important? Why do I think I'm so clever that I'd better write this one down?

    The point is that once we see Integral philosophy, once we have the "aha!" moment about it, it changes us forever. We realize that none of the previous worldviews can fully allow us to live in the way that we require, and that the world requires of us now. Every previous worldview includes much in the way of valuable truth, but also leaves enormously important truths on the table, waiting to be discovered or rediscovered.

    And you know and I know that that's just not good enough anymore. It's not good enough for us personally, it's not good enough for the culture we live in, and it's not good enough for the world.

    Like Ken Wilber said in this video, "...once you see it, you can't go back. You just can't get that toothpaste back in that tube. That's just not going to happen."

    For us, Integral is Integrity. And Integrity comes from living an Integral life. Nothing less will do, will it? Our soundness comes from living so that we're making up a whole.

    Does this change how you view your personal relationship to Integral philosophy? It changes my view, no doubt. I've been fighting it, trying to cheat on the edges, hoping it were easier somehow. We know that sometimes Integral is as simple as breathing in and breathing out... and sometimes it's as difficult as consciously keeping track of all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states, all types -- in gross, subtle, and causal bodies -- personally, culturally, and globally. And for each of us personally, it involves endless surfing of the waves of agency and communion, of choice and surrender, of involvement and awareness, every day, every moment.

    This stuff is really difficult sometimes. But we have to do it. You can't get that toothpaste back in that tube, can you?

    The next several years are going to show how the movement spreads and deepens among a larger population with a broader demographic. Are you ready? What are you going to bring to the table? What are you going to demand of those who build this movement with you, and what are you going to demand of yourself?

    It's getting high time to decide....

Tags: Integral, Ken Wilber, AQAL, Integrity

Bangkok for a month

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:29:47 GMT

    There had been word that I might be sent to Bangkok for two weeks to do some work for one of our projects (the nature of the work is irrelevant to the discussion, but it's well within my scope of responsibility). That had actually died down, and I though I would be able to get out of going.

    I really have no interest in going to Bangkok, ever. I mean, you're asking me to go to a city where the first thing anyone thinks of when it gets mentioned is underage hookers and STD's. So far, when my coworkers have been talking to me about it, the only things they've said are to make sure I "wrap it up" or I'll come back with a "laundry list" of diseases. I don't even do one-night stands... as if I'd ever hire a hooker in Asia (or anywhere else). Seriously, why the fuck would I want to go there? I don't even like Thai food.

    Anyway, I awoke Monday morning to check my email and immediately became nauseous to find out that indeed I did have to go there for two weeks, and by the way I have a call with the customer Tuesday night PST to go over the details.

    During that call, the customer asked that I stay for three weeks, not two, because the last similar effort of two weeks didn't feel like it was long enough. By Thursday, my manager suggested that I take more of a leadership role around this task and a related one, and turn the trip into four weeks so I can supervise the whole thing.

    So, in the course of four days, I've gone from "dodged it, don't have to go" to "have to spend a month in Bangkok." And what can I do? In this economy, how can I say no? And the revenue I bring in for my team is important right now, and for all I know landing this work could make or break the year for us. And how would I look at the annual reviews if I didn't? The work itself is fine -- I appreciate that my manager wants to put me in a position to demonstrate more leadership -- and the customer really is great to work with. I know that there will be a little bit of language difficulties, but the technical skill of the customer's team is quite high. I just really wish I could do it from Seattle.

    Right now, as long as I don't think about it, I'm fine. When I do think about spending all of March away from home, in a country I never wanted to be in, it just makes me sick, really. I'm just thinking I'll try to get a lot of reading done while I'm there, I guess.

==================================================

Update: February 15th, 2009

    You know what? I'm really embarrassed by this blog post. I'm really embarrassed that I still react this way to being put into uncomfortable situations. Foreign travel is difficult for me, it always has been, and although I've come a long way in terms of it, it's still a big challenge for me.

    I'm also not so chickenshit that I'm going to delete this, though. Whatever. It is what it is, I'll leave it there. It says far more about me and my limitations than it does about Bangkok, and if I've offended anyone I truly apologize for it.

    The final story... I'll be there for the first three weeks of March. The customer has been awesome to work with, and I'm really looking forward to digging in to the work with them. Two good friends of mine who know what I'm about have told me that they love Bangkok, so I'll be following their advice in terms of non-work time. I can't avoid it, so I may as well start to get excited about it. :-)

Tags: Bangkok, work

Jason Mraz

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 07:39:34 GMT

I was a fan, but now I'm seriously a fan... check this out from SNL:

Update: NBC Universal hates YouTube (why get your content out where people could see it?) so here's a different live performance from London:

Jason Mraz - I'm Yours - Hard Rock Calling 2008

Tags: Jason Mraz

This moment in history - a crucial time for Integral

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 08:13:11 GMT

    This is something I've been thinking about for a couple of months now. I've shared this vision with many people I know, but it's worth writing down, if only to record it for later.

    When you ask most people, "When did the postmodern wave start in America?" the answer you'd get most often is "the late 1960's". And there's some surface truth to that. As we see on Mad Men, the early 1960's were just the 1950's with JFK as President, and math and science in the ascendant because of Sputnik and the Cold War. There were still enormous cultural structures that served to define everyone's role in society. In the late 1960's, though, a generation of people managed to see through those roles (although only temporarily for most) and began to ask some fundamental questions about them.

    But I think a better answer to pinpointing the true start of the postmodern wave of consciousness (i.e. Spiral Dynamics Green) is the Beat Generation of the early 1950's. These men and women really kicked it all off. And yes, I completely understand that they couldn't have existed in a context without the prior work of philosophers like Heidegger, Nietzche, Camus, Sartre, etc. but their work (and the conclusions one could draw from their work) wasn't widespread in the culture at all.

    To me, the Beat Generation really started it all off, by creating an ethos and a body of art (cultural touchstones) that the people who came after them were able to read and be influenced by.

    And, really, how big was Beat culture, anyway? I'm not exactly sure, but I think it's safe to say that the Beats, back in the early 1950's, pretty much consisted of a small group of people in each city who would get together and look at each other and finally get to say out loud to another human being, "The world is seriously fucked up, isn't it? I mean, no one gets what's really going on.

    So, doesn't that sound an awful lot like Integral these days? Just a few people in each city who get together to talk about their new worldview, right?

    And that's why I think that this moment, this year, is crucial in the development of Integral.

    You see, we're the Beat Generation for Integral. Cool, man.

    We have the opportunity, right now, to actively shape the development of Integral, and to be able to offer its expanded perspective to many more people. Or we could sit back and see what emerges from it. But we have the opportunity to do that without being completely drug-addled the way they were in the 1950's, and to do it with a lot more confidence and clarity and purpose and humility than those intrepid explorers who hung out with Kerouac.

    I think we'll look back five years from now and ask ourselves, "Did we do the right things back then? Did we screw some things up? Did we do enough?" When that comes, I want to know that I did enough... that I might have made some less-than-optimal choices on the way, but that I knew Integral well enough to make some good choices about how to organize local groups around it. That I came up with and supported offerings that helped the community to grow through the levels if they were only ready to participate.

    The Integral wave of consciousness is going to hit very big in about ten years... and we already have a President who clearly is demonstrating some Integral levels of thinking, whether he's read Ken Wilber or not. Are we going to take a hand in shaping that wave, or are we going to just let it emerge? Are we willing to own that the future of the movement is quite literally in our own hands, and that we have to step up and lead within it? Or will we sit back for other people to define that for us?

    I'm choosing more agency than communion right now, and it makes some sense in the context of the historical moment I think we're in. What about you?

Tags: Integral, Ken Wilber, AQAL

If you could live forever, would you?

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:35:54 GMT

    Yes, I think I would. I have an insatiable curiosity about the Universe, and I would love to live long enough to see worlds beyond the Solar System, watch the development of the Integral wave of consciousness, and the one after that, and the one after that. And if I live long enough, I might see the Cubs win the World Series. (I so wish I could put "Red Sox" in that sentence, but that ship has sailed, I'm afraid.)

    I have no illusion that an extremely long life is related to becoming happier, although one would hope that centuries of meditation would help to calm down such desires.

    Ultimately, long life means a longer time to serve the world in some capacity, and as long as I still can serve, why not be alive? Besides, if Ray Kurzweil is correct, we might come a lot closer to this than most people think right now... and I think he's right.

Tags: QaR, life, living, age, death, eternity

Ken Wilber - The Three Faces of God and Divine Pride

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 09:10:09 GMT

In one of those wonderful moments where the Universe provides teaching that you need to hear, because you're truly ready to hear it... last night I popped in a DVD from Integral Naked that I hadn't watched yet, and it had this clip on it.

I'm in the midst of a lot of discussion, with a lot of different people right now, about the balance between actively engaging in terms of Integral development, and sitting back to allow for emergence. It's just standard agency vs. communion / manifestation vs. awareness stuff. I'm as surprised as anyone else that I'm personally feeling such urgency about engaging right now. I think this an important moment in the world... and I'm feeling more confident about my understanding and place in terms of the Integral world. I'm also feeling incredibly grateful for all of the people all around me who are working to push into the new territory described on this most-brilliant map called Integral.

Ken Wilber - Divine Pride and the 1-2-3 of God

Tags: Ken Wilber, Integral, Three Faces of God

Two Mules: A Fable for the Nations

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:01:39 GMT

Just saw this poster... thought it was awesome. Wanted to share...

Tags: Two mules

Have you pre-ordered Great Powers yet?

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:52:52 GMT

Thomas P.M. Barnett's new book will be released in a couple of weeks... get yours as soon as it's out by preordering it today.

Tags: Thomas P.M. Barnett

Rahm Emanuel on Charlie Rose, for the hour

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:05:54 GMT

If you want to know, for sure, what this new administration is about, and you want to start to understand the changes that are going to come in Washington, you need to watch this interview. The most hopeful thing that President Obama has done so far is to choose Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff. There's no one I'd rather see working with him right now.

Tags: Charlie Rose, Obama, Rahm Emanuel

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a joke

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:09:56 GMT

Bobby Womack (who?!?) is in, but Rush isn't. I'll never go there, ever. What a fucking joke.

Tags: Rush

Big Dig - Seattle

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:19:46 GMT

    Seattle just got a lot less nice today. In a last-minute shove-it-down-the-people's-throat decision, Seattle is going to undertake it's own version of the Big Dig.

    Initial cost estimate is $4.25B, and it's expected to start construction in 2011, and finish in 2015. That means that, by Big Dig standards, it will cost $12.75B, and finish in 2027 or so.

    This is so gross that I don't even know what to say about it. The road that the tunnel is supposed to replace has been estimated to need to be taken down in 2012, so we'll be without a major north-south highway other than I-5 for about 15 years before this is completed.

    Aside from that, the new tunnel completely ignores the needs of the neighborhoods north of downtown (like mine) and will make getting to the airport far more of a nuisance than it is right now.

    This is a horrible, horrible decision, and shows exactly why Gregoire shouldn't have been re-elected. Dawdling followed by incompetence is not what I'm looking for out of a governor.

Tags: Seattle, Big Dig, tunnel

Observations of Japan

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 09:54:11 GMT

    I'm finishing up my second trip to Japan tomorrow. Because everything has gone smoothly, I have had the opportunity to do quite a bit more exploring of Tokyo this time than last time, and I've been trying to understand it all and where I think Japanese society is heading.

    (Generalization warning: I'm going to generalize. I know I'm generalizing. It's OK, no generals were harmed in the process.)

    My first question is: where would I put the Japanese in terms of their acceptance of modernism vs. post-modernism? In other words, have the criticisms of post-modern philosophy taken root here in culture in any significant way? To me, it doesn't seem so... there's still an acceptance and reinforcement of the dominant cultural narrative here, in a way that probably hasn't been around the east and west coast of the United States since 1970 or so. My naive interpretation of media here, and of behavior here, is that people are expected to play the roles they're supposed to play. There are certainly some who venture beyond that, but they're few and far-between.

    It's interesting to observe the women here (which, I admit, I find more interesting to observe than the men). On the surface is what appears to be a higher valuing of feminine energy vs. the United States, particularly as demonstrated in clothing choices. That whole stereotype of Japanese women in short skirts, stockings, and high boots... yeah, that's not just a stereotype. It's something of a uniform if you're under 35, it seems. So if most everyone dresses like that, is it an embracing of one's feminine energy, or is it simply comformity with society's expectations? I don't usually see radiance, I see a person wearing clothes.

    And the processes around relating in a business, or customer service, sense, are fairly well-structured and regimented. Everyone is incredibly nice -- seriously, I have absolutely no complaints about any such encounter here -- but it's just the patterns being played out.

    So where is the outrage? Where are the people doing things differently? They're not found in the advertising (as far as I can tell). They're not found in the pop music, if a quick trip through the J-Pop section at Tower Records is any indication. Again, if I had to place that kind of behavior in America's history, I'd put it just around 1970... as in, there were elements of the culture that were starting to question the norms, but the norms were still very much in place.

    If Japan is 40 years behind us in terms of the adoption of post-modern thinking in popular culture and media, it sure as hell won't take them another 40 to get there. They'll catch up in the next 20 years or so, because they have a very large neighbor to the West that's going to be doing the same thing, and because technology is going to create truly global media for the first time ever.

    I don't think I'd want to live here, although I could certainly adapt to it quickly enough with just a bit of language skills. Any nation that loves baseball can't be all that bad of a place to be (Cuba, I'm looking at you... when the Castro brothers finally die-die-die the world will be a much better place for you). Tokyo is the closest thing to New York that I've seen anywhere... Ginza, Shinjuku, and Shibuya are all incredibly dense and interesting places, with the energy of Manhattan in spots.

    With all of that said, I'm really serious now about learning some Japanese. I will be coming back here, and not knowing the language is really getting in the way of deeply enjoying my time here.

    I'm so incredibly fortunate to have been here at all, and I'm so grateful to have gotten the chance to see Tokyo in this way, and to have enjoyed my time here so much. Being here can only be of benefit for me, to expand my perspectives on the world, to gain new business skills, and to break down personal barriers that keep me from relating as fully as I'm capable of.

Tags: Tokyo, Japan, post-modern, modern

Eurozone, but not for Hungary and the Czech Republic

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:28:09 GMT

Just reading http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7806430.stm. Seriously, Slovakia and Slovenia (quick, name one major city in each country... yeah, most people can't) are members of the Eurozone, but Hungary and the Czech Republic aren't. It just makes me sad that those two nations can't quite get the economic conditions together to join up. I'll be a lot happier about Hungary when they get that done...

Tags: Euro, Eurozone, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic

Tokyo and gratitude

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 07:37:02 GMT

This is what I'm looking at outside of my 30th Floor hotel window right now:

Tokyo, sunset, 1/1/2009

And I'm sitting here in awe of my life right now. I didn't know if I'd ever visit Japan. Now I'm on my second trip in ten weeks, with more to come. I get to fly here in Business Class. I get to have time to walk around and see the city. I get to experience strange new things. I get to start to be familiar with the metro system. Last night I went to the Zojoji Temple to celebrate New Year's Eve. And I get to do all of that while working with an incredible group of people within my group at Microsoft, amazing people at the Microsoft Japan subsidiary, and of course the very talented people at the customer I'm here to work with. I get to continue to improve my professional skills, while learning about how to do business in Japan.

I lead a charmed life right now, and for all the things that I'm up in the air about right now, and all of the things I'm not sure of, I am having some wonderful experiences right now. Thank God I'm able to appreciate it all as I'm going through it.

Tags: Tokyo, Japan, gratitude

Dog-sitting

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 04:19:59 GMT

    I grew up with a dog, and I miss having one. I admit it... I get all mushy when I see a cute puppy, and I'd love to have one of my own.

    And then my neighbor went home for Christmas, and I got to do some dog-sitting over the last few days. Rosie the Dog is, well, I'm not sure what breed she is... kind of like a slightly smaller and sleeker Black Labrador. She's really wonderful and very mellow, she just likes to lay around and relax at home, occasionally chew on a bone or whatever. She doesn't eat much, doesn't bark at all (in fact, I've never heard her bark at anything), and actually sleeps late as long as she doesn't really have to go for a walk.

    And I have to say, I found myself constantly worried about her... thinking about my schedule, structuring things around making sure I could be home to walk her, wondering why she didn't eat right away when I put food out, worrying about loud noises from my stereo that would startle her, etc.

    It's kind of a relief that someone else has taken over the dog-sitting this afternoon... and I'm still thinking that she's laying on the couch. It was only a few days, and apparently it'll take a little while to get used to not having her around, too.

    So, what does this mean? It means that my "I want a dog" thinking is definitely calmed down right now. There was no way on earth I was getting a dog anytime soon (my work and travel schedule doesn't allow for it) so in a sense, this experience has simply gotten me to lay down a fantasy rather than break off something that might actually happen.

    And I'd be happy to dog-sit again, but it's interesting how the reality is different than what I was expecting. I sort-of wonder if I'd love a dog more if he/she had a personality more to my liking (Rosie is a bit too passive for me) but it's good to be able simply to appreciate other people's dogs now.

Tags: dogs, puppies

Flopping a straight flush

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 06:58:40 GMT

No big message here... it's just awesome when you flop a straight flush (odds ~20,000:1) and a guy hits a full house on the river so you get his entire stack. I've had SF's before but I've never flopped one. I expect it'll be a while before that happens again...

Straight Flush

Tags: poker

Blu-ray and concert videos

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 02:00:29 GMT

    You may recall that I purchased a Yamaha RX-V3800 in July. As a Buddhist, I'm not supposed to love an object as much as I love this amplifier, but I do. It's very simply the best use of money on a possession that I've ever had.

    Well, I recently finally bought a Blu-ray player, a Sony BDP-S350. As a Blu-ray player, it's absolutely fine... it outputs full bitstream over HDMI to my amplifier, which has all of the required codecs on it, but if your amp doesn't, this player can do the conversion itself and then output PCM to your amp. It also has the ability to upgrade the firmware over the Internet (and I do have it plugged into Ethernet) so that's cool. So, you know, it's a fine player, nothing spectacular, and I'm sure that in a couple of years I'll be embarrassed that I spent so much on it. Whatever.

    The point of this, though, is that although movie soundtracks on Blu-ray sound awesome, and the HD video is great... you haven't experienced Blu-ray until you pick up some concert videos using lossless codecs like Dolby DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby True-HD.

    So far, I've picked up Hall & Oates Live at the Troubador, Chris Botti: Live (With Orchestra and Special Guests), and of particular interest, Pat Metheny Group The Way Up - Live. If you own Blu-ray, and you have a proper 5.1 system, you need to own The Way Up - Live. It's the best-sounding, best-looking recording I've ever seen or heard. I can't wait until classical starts to pick up on Blu-ray, because SACD classical is the shit, and Blu-ray DTS-HD Master Audio is even better.

    When I first got the amp, and I first had the chance to listen to DTS 5.1, I was blown away. Now that I've heard what lossless codecs sound like, and how ridiculous they are, I can hear the difference when I listen to DTS 5.1 and how much information is missing. DTS is only a maximum of 1.5Mbps... DTS-HD Master Audio and True-HD are something like 18Mbps. It's insanely good sound.

    It's all of the sound.

    It's all of the sound you've been missing.

    You need to hear all of the sound.

Tags: Blu-ray, concerts, music, Yamaha, Sony

Rituals

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 06:21:38 GMT

    I was having a conversation with a couple of friends over dinner in NJ last week... one of them had just returned from a five-day leadership seminar. At that seminar, a guy spoke (I don't have his name) about what he calls Level Zero, Level One, and Level Two learning.

    Level Zero learning is when you realize that something about you has to change. Everyone can do this... we do it all the time. This doesn't impress our speaker.

    Level One learning is when you realize that something about you has to change, and you actually make the change.

    Level Two learning is when you realize that something about you has to change, and you actually make the change, and you remain conscious and aware of yourself as you're changing.

    Level One and Level Two sound to me like Torbert's single-loop and double-loop learning, but that's an aside.

    So I was thinking about this, and thinking about how change takes place when you make new habits, or rituals. Something about that word -- ritual -- struck me. A ritual is commonly defined as something we do without thinking about it, or something automatic. Even in a religious sense, it's something that we do because we're supposed to, whether it makes sense or not. So many of us in the post-modern world reject the idea of rituals as we grow through levels, and with good reason.

    But I started thinking about recapturing the notion of rituals at a higher level, and what that might look like. I'm starting to think that I've done enough thinking, and that all of the freedom I've set for myself, and been fortunate enough to have, in this life is starting to be detrimental. I've overcome the Erich Fromm stuff... but I've taken the choices I have in terms of action and entertainment to the disservice of a sense of discipline. There are things I need to do for myself that I haven't had the discipline to do, like exercise properly and eat in a more healthful way, because I overvalue freedom and devalue discipline, or, to use another word, ritual.

    I need to establish rituals of working out, rituals of eating, and rituals of meditation, and I need to do that from the sense that I am as sacred a creature as any other on this planet, and that I have a responsibility to take care of myself. I don't think calling them habits reflects the energy I wish to put behind them. I don't think it's enough just to book time for it all. I need rituals in my life... nearly 25 years after I rejected the notion of rituals entirely, I find that I need them.

    This is how I move from Level Zero learning to Level One and Level Two.

    I'm still working on the form that these rituals will take, but I will hold myself to it all. This is too important, and taking care of all beings includes oneself.

Tags: rituals, meditation, exercise, working out, freedom

Will vegans still vote for Obama?

http://ScottBArbeit.gaia.com — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:22:37 GMT

I notice that the Kenyan village that Obama's father is from is planning to slaughter a bull in celebration of his victory... now what does a vegan do? If you vote for Obama, you're directly taking responsibility for the slaughter of a cow... if you don't, you're not following your own conscience (probably). Oh, such a dilemma... :-)

Tags: Obama, vegan