What happened to the handshake? Physical and Digital Communities may be missing something – A Series from the home to around the world in 18 months.
What we are going to talk about today comes from an adventure of 50,000 miles on the road, travels around the world meeting with bankers, administrators, founders, priests, artists, beatniks, junkies, strippers, hippies, gypsies, rv’ers, off-gridders, men and women, people who are checking out, some happily checked in, and some who are trying to get back into the big thing that we call a society, maybe an economy, but definitely the world. Backed up by one of the most vibrant think tanks and research institutes, Bluprnt, Smartfounders, and Rascals With Ideas over eighteen months of economic, sociological, and philosophical research on the ground from…
Chicago with its banks, fintech, and commodities. Seattle and its rain, mountains, and groves. San Fransisco and San Diego with their beaches, sun, and stretching harbors. Las Vegas with its gimmicks, palaces, and endless conveyor belt of pleasures. Dallas and Houston with its oil, gas, and where everything seems to be big. Atlanta and Louisville with their dirt roads, music, and hollers which, as you roll through them they seem to swallow each other up, like a distant memory. Then finally to the other side of the world in Romania and Bulgaria with the rugby tomatoes, cheese, and a fraud that has become almost a religion and one person of honor is worth everything.
From the capitalist, the socialist, and communist environments a few things remain the same, things bind us all together in this big, seemingly chaotic world. What we found has been incredible in the struggle to find , to use, and to live.
So, let us start at a place of no assumption other than a place to meet being needed like this blog, a place to ”sift and winnow”, to think and reason together. What is most appropriate then is a question, and ours today is, what happened to things like the handshake, or in parallel, what are we losing out on without physical interaction? This brings up the idea of physical and digital communities which is a big topic and also for parents right now who are raising young children through COVID lock downs or young adults with the use of digital tech in personal interaction.
To start, what we will point out applies very critically to how you can work with a business, with different audiences in life, or in normal more simple one on one relationships. The reason that this is being stated this way is we that we have found that in order to approach subjects that are attempting to describe something like the thread that weaves together a canvas that we are all a part of, we need to work with things that apply across everything and in order to do that we are going to take this back to first principles and build up from there.
Like the example of the chopsticks, it is a technology, that for certain tasks, is much more simple, elegant, and producible from most environments compared to a fork with prongs, a spoon with a cupped surface, or a knife with a serrated edge. It is the environment as laid out and how you approach it, that for us, needs to be simple and elegant to make much sense of anything or further to apply that.
Second we would need to accept one preimse and that is that there is a balance between the ego and the body. Here, we talk about the body and how that fuels the ego from that direction. However that does not preclude us looking in the future from the direction of the ego to the body or even further that there really is possibly no directionality in this dance, but more a symbiosis. However, terms like direction or directionality are more linear and understandable and therefore more approachable for anyone to learn with on their way to digesting balancing-complex-cerebral concepts and distintictions.
If you are in agreement with the premises and feel comfortable that, ”you understand so far” what we’ve discussed already then lets get going! 😁
Imagine that you are in place you have always wanted to go. Someone that you know really well is there. Imagine the feelings that you have about them. Is this someone that you respect? Someone that you are love to be with? Now going further into what you feel, are you excited to be with them? Maybe even a sense of honor to work with them in life. This is someone who’s opinion matters to you and you like doing many of the same things. Now try to map out how this came to be, these feels of rapport, where did these come from?
In this one on one relationship we can relate now to each other that a rapport has been formed between these two in some way and we all want that usually. What psychologists and neuroscientist debate on is where this this comes from two things that they feel are critical and I have studied, logged, and seen in the ”real-live” where real life happens ;).
This however, gives me pause as this is coined from me viewing this from the perspective of someone that is more familiar with and therefore sees life through the lense that when a red dot appears on something like youtube when a stream of life happening, this going live moment is more familiar then personal interaction. This makes me wonder where we get the reinforcement and social ability from when it seems like we fit ourselves into the digital world instead of the digital world fitting into our life. (Examples from youtube, twitch, and facebook streaming)
So, our two things today are,
Oxycitoncin and,
The Mirror Neuron
Here is some background on how these might play into your life.
Some researchers in cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology consider that this system provides the physiological mechanism for the perception/action coupling (see the common coding theory).[3] They argue that mirror neurons may be important for understanding the actions of other people, and for learning new skills by imitation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron
Oxytocin is believed to have a significant role in social learning. There are indicators that oxytocin may help to decrease noise in the brain’s auditory system, increase perception of social cues and support more targeted social behavior.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin
These are like the mirror that we groom our ego in, to be able to go out with confidence to build with the mud, the structure that holds up the mirror.
Idea rascal
Rascals with ideaS
To make this further applicable we could give two examples that can be very understood in real-live or real life.
One, meeting someone in person and,
Two, physical interaction as something like shaking hands or giving a high five.
I don’t believe, and have not seen from digital, and on the ground experience that there is any way to automate the need for the the 2 things as listed above nor the 2 examples given. Both groups are at the principal level of any relationship or community starting, building, and being stable.
Hence the result is most marketing and digital communities are approaching this in a way that is not reflective of the recession or resignation, and in my opinion the focus, if a strong community is to be formed, is misguided as there really is no deep connection or loyalty. However, to be clear that’s not the only thing but these are two very critical factors to be even able to consider utilizing others.
This is just my opinion based on data and experience over 15 year of experimenting with community, organization and self-replication from the perspective the economics of interactions and how can each maximize our own utility in life. By with everything I’m seeing and living this is totally possible
How you mirror, adapt, and learn are part of how you do something unbelievable. In order to accomplish this there are a few things that are needed and we starting at the basics. So, I hope you have enjoyed an unabridged version of these observations since they are truly meaningful for me and further if people can benefit from them. In closing for me the greatest thing in the world, the thing that drives me is seeing the sparkle in someone’s eyes when they get it, it’s seeing people come together and enjoy, it’s seeing things get done to change the world and without these principles of understanding and also how to apply them, we might end up as just rats in a cage looking for cheese or doomed to just repeat the same thing because we don’t understand it.
Let us grow and learn with each other. Today outside of Lake Tahoe my brakes thankfully failed at the top of the mountain and someone was there that could help me. I am thankful for these things in life and my heart goes out to anyone that tries, you are not alone and don’t have to be, all you might need to do is one simple thing. Just, learn, try to connect the best way you, and find the joy in life.
