How to Live a Syntropic Life
Five years ago, on July 17th, 2018, the Source Idea for what is now Syntropic World downloaded into my being.
I felt it arrive and knew I had to move from my regular desk to another space to capture the rush of this idea.
When it arrived, I was in the final stages of severe depression. I had neither the capacity nor the resources – emotional, spiritual, and financial – to do much about it.
Yet it sat there, captured in my journal and burning a hole in my soul, refusing to remain dormant.
In early March 2019, I was seized with the first step. To create and deliver a workshop – A Masterclass – in three weeks. On March 19th and 20th, 2019, I delivered the first of three iterations, now the Syntropic Enterprise Masterclass.
In June of 2019, I knew I had to call what I was doing something different.
I walked from my desk to my bookshelf and pulled down my over-read, no longer bound edition of Critical Path by Buckminster Fuller, looking for naming inspiration.
It took all of ten seconds.
Syntropy was right in front of me.
My history had been conspiring to have me arrive at this place.
I am a lover of words, linguistics, and etymology. As a student of Buckminster Fuller’s work, I loved his insistence on creating new words for a new world.
Think about it. If we want better and different, we need a new language.
I had fallen in love with the word Syntropy when I first met it in the 90s in Critical Path. And then I had tracked it from the very early days of Google when typing in Syntropy brought up about six entries and an otherwise blank screen. Unheard of now.
I even chatted with Daniel Wahl around 2009 about Syntropy and how we might expect it to become a common word.
So in June 2019, there it was, a clear choice. Syntropy: towards a higher order for an eternally regenerative Universe.
I added the word Enterprise to signal an advance on the word business. Enterprise is an endeavour.
A Syntropic Enterprise can be any or all of the following.
Your life
Family
Community
Not for Profit
Charity
Multinational organisation
Team
Political Party
A Syntropic Enterprise is more comprehensive than a Social Enterprise. It practices a whole new set of codes and principles. It is not just about a social purpose. It is about applying new models designed and built with integrity to everything. Evolutionary Purpose is one element. Every system and structure used must hold the Pattern Integrity of the Evolutionary Purpose. The relational dynamics and culture are a clear reflection of the Pattern Integrity. The choices made, the strategy taken – all in complete integrity to the whole. Our leadership development. Our ability to steward. How we coordinate people. What we call work and how we value contribution.
It is an expression of the Buckminster Fuller quote:
What is the ‘existing reality’ from a human enterprising perspective? What are the operating systems that underpin the world we have?
Well, depending on the particular nation states you focus on, we have various forms of democracy, theocracy, and autocracy. We have a currency and monetary system underpinned by the US$. We have late-stage capitalism. We have legal codes of enterprise, corporation, asset protection, intellectual property, and liability. We have tax. We have a particular way of edifying success. We have an education and health care/sickness care system. We have employment and workers’ rights. We have the rights of the corporation equal to the rights of people.
These systems and structures, and more, are the substrate of the current human enterprising world.
There are increasing rumblings about many of them reaching a failed state. But what will we replace them with? And is this even possible?
Syntropic World thinks it is possible, and we are busy building new models based on Natural Design Science. In other words, we take Nature’s coordinate system, Nature’s operating laws and apply them to everything we do.
This is why Syntropic World uses the expression, no more rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Let’s build a new boat.
Taking a beautiful idea for a world with a future and wrapping it in the old current models and operating systems will get us more of the same. Not transformation. Incrementalism. This is a tragedy. So many beautiful ideas. So much goodwill. So much human ingenuity. They end up rearranging deck chairs and hoping for a new boat.
I know. I did the deck chair rearranging for decades. Until my heart broke.
Any time we choose to act for the increased well-being of Earth and all her creatures, without ecological offence or the disadvantage of anyone, we choose to act as a Syntropic Enterprise. It is a whole systems approach. And for this, we need to know the operating system we are currently playing in. We need to know the design features of capitalism, particularly the stage capitalism is in now. We must understand what happens when we overlay our enterprise with a legal code plucked from the business-as-usual song sheet. When we consider value only through the lens of one domain, assigning all other value expressions to the ‘not valuable enough’ domain.
This is not an easy task. It is far easier to create a business-as-usual enterprise. It is far easier to seek to make money than to design an enterprise for a world with a future.
Those attracted to Syntropic World are the positive deviants. The outliers. The rebels and the misfits. Risk takers. Transformative change makers.
We know that to create new models, maps, language, and world views, to do this type of change initiative, we must commit to our personal development and capacity for increased perspective holding.
But this is not enough. Changing the consciousness of the world is not enough.
We must build new operating systems and models that make the existing ones obsolete.
Always centred around the purpose made evident by the Evolutionar Purpose of an increased all-well-being of Earth and all her creatures.
We must design relational dynamics and cultures that enable people to bring their very best while working elegantly in community.
Again, not easy. But worth it.
Our Syntropic Enterprise is the model of the world we want to see.
Our life is the model of the world we want to see. We are the demonstration.
Our families are the demonstration.
Integrity is the essence of everything.
In all my work, I have never separated a person’s ‘personal life’ from their business/working life. I see and work with people as a whole. Everything matters. What we do in our relaxation time is reflected in what we do in service to others. My marathon running and my new sport of surfing imbue everything I do. If our personal life is fractured, it affects everything else, and vice versa.
A Syntropic Enterprise includes a Syntropic Life. It is the chicken and egg. Not one before the other. Integral. Complementary.
How to Live a Syntropic Life? Be the model. Have your life be a demonstration of a move towards a higher order for an eternally regenerative Universe.
Eat fresh, healthy food if you are able.
Move daily.
Sleep well.
Model tensegrity – the combination of contribution/work/giving and rest/recovery/receiving.
Have your most precious relationships with people, activities, and self be primary.
Continue to evolve your emotional, cognitive, spiritual, moral, ethical, and integrity development.
Be surrounded by people you trust who insist you demonstrate integrity and call you on your BS.
Clean up the past.
Commit to Clean Communication.
Clean house. Literally and figuratively.
Create a code of conduct and live it. Be a disciple unto thy self.
Know your shadow, dark side, fears, and insecurities.
Pay your debts. Not just the monetary ones.
Make the scary call.
If you are interested in a checklist – a Personal Integrity Inventory – to help you be the foundation of a Syntropic Life, please email reply with Integrity Inventory in the subject line.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a risk-taker and change-maker.
It is time for us to amplify. In every way. Watching the world burn is not optional for us.
No more rearranging deck chairs. Let us build new boats.
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Clean Communication
