Inner Journey Subgroup

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The second element of the Bootstrap Map, beginning in the youPlusU stage.

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Leads

Alex Cavalli

Charter/Mission

In the early part of the 21st century many are recognizing that separate disciplines and lines of human thought can no longer be kept apart. Austin is an archetypal environment where science and technology blend with the arts (music, film, theater, etc.). It is this blending that, in part, makes Austin unique.

But beyond the obvious merging of art with science and technology there is evidence that the world of business is merging with art and science and technology. And beyond this there is a definite change in thought that is beginning to merge theology and religion into these other three.

This merging of disciplines or lines of thought in some sense is illusory in that the separation of these major fields of endeavor is, in the first place, an artifact of the limitations of the human mind. That is, the fact that we've treated these as separate disciplines and separate human activities for so long is our limitation and not a true picture of how things work.

The process by which these discplines are merging is sometimes called convergence. But the truth is that there is no convergence happening because these modes of thought and activity have never been truly separate to begin with.

What this means is that our ability to think and grasp these ideas as a single whole is growing and this means that there is a journey before us. This journey, however, is not an outer one, from one place to another, either in time or space. It is, rather, an inner journey to discover this larger picture in our own thought and then to bring that larger thought to bear on the human experience. In a very real sense it is the hero's journey, a journey that shucks the baggage of human selfhood to find another way to be and to live.

This inner journey itself is a bootstrap process because it starts when we first admit that we don't know how things will turn out, but take some steps anyway that lead only to what to do next with an open willingness to learn at each step. Indeed, through our bootstrapping adventures we have the opportunity to grow and evolve internally.

Practically speaking, we can realize that business lies within this converged thought and that, therefore, creating businesses, making successful businesses, is integral to moving the journey forward.

Resources

• Book Club#History - Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces" was discussed
• Siddhartha, Herman Hesse
• Bruce Lee, A Warrior's Journey, DVD - interviews with Bruce Lee and his 'no style' martial arts
• Tao Te Ching, translation by Victor Mair
• Bhagavad Gita, translation by Eknath Easwaran
• Dancing Wu Li Masters Gary Zukov
• Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl
• The Secret Teachings of Jesus, Marvin Meyer
• The Path of Least Resistance, Robert Fritz
• The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
• The Self-Aware Universe, Amit Goswami
• Consciousness Speaks, Ramesh Balsekar
• Management of the Absurd: Paradoxes in Leadership, Richard Farson
• The Missing Piece, Shel Silverstein
• John Mackey Talk
• Consilience and Edward Wilson's book on the topic
• Theory of Everything, Ken Wilber

Organizations

• FLOW - entrepreneurship + doing good, cofounded by John Mackey and Michael Strong
• Wisdom at Work
• Tactical Magic
• Integral Institute - Ken Wilber's organization promoting the "Integral Approach"

Practices

• Aikido - Kevin Koym, Kert Peterson, Jesse Bloom and others are members of Austin Aikikai
• Yoga - Yoga Yoga
• Chi Gong - Nancy
• Improv Theatre - Kert