The 3 Cs and Our Changing World
My youngest daughter Given was having a challenging time last night. She wanted to watch a TV episode online after it was time to be in bed and I told her no. Then something happened between her and her sister and she got mad and was having a less than easy time calming down. Through the process of attempting to help her get calmer, a few insights came to me that I wanted to share here.
In watching Given try to get what she wanted, I noticed a larger pattern of behavior and in the moment realized the importance of my staying present and introducing another option. The basic strategy she was using broke into these three steps:
1) Conceptualize: she had a mental idea of what she wanted that was different from what was.
2) Conceal and or Confuse: She was choosing not to tell me what was bothering her and was attempting to make me angry by throwing things around the room when I wasn’t looking.
3) Conquer: She was attempting to get what she wanted by having me change my position out of frustration.
The basic pattern she was using, I realized, was a universal approach that humans and human organizations have used to gain power and reach goals. I also was aware of the parent in me noticing the obvious downsides of this strategy and the need for my child to learn a different one. In the heat of the moment I introduced a new strategy, one that just seamed obvious once I said it. It broke into these three steps:
1) Connect with you True Feelings: Not just have a mental concept of what you want but be in touch with your emotions and body sensations in the moment.
2) Communicate: communicate openly and honestly your experience and desires.
3) Cooperate: synergize with others to gain what you want.
Of course I said it differently to Given who is 8. I woke around 4AM last night realizing that these basic strategies for humans creating change in the world were at the core of what appears to be massive global changes happening today. For centuries, the first strategy has been used by individuals, governments, private organizations, corporations, pioneers, etc. to create outer change, and for the most part, this strategy has worked for the parties using it. It appears that many of the massive current upheavals in society are due to strategy number one no longer working as well as it did. Examples of this are plentiful and seam to be growing in number over the past 10 years.
Whatever is going on with the overall state of human consciousness appears to have disrupted the ease with which 3C strategy (as I’m calling it) number one has operated for so long. One of the cool things about humans is that when a strategy no longer works, we can use a different one. Could it be that we are at a point where 3C strategy number two will start to produce better economic and political results than 3C strategy number one?
-Andy Harrison
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