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Moving Groups
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Tuesday, February 13, 2007If you’ve ever wondered about what really makes it possible to “Know Thyself” there may no be no better way than to know yourself within GROUP ...
Hello all,
I've just returned from Tiburon (California) running the EPC2 - Exquisite Performance Consulting module. We had a great group of twenty-odd folks there - including our youngest ever MythoSelf program participant at just twelve weeks old, I can't wait to take her to lunch in about five years from now.
Anyway, this program was all about GROUP - the nature of people coming together and building relationships and connecting around a common cause. We built a premise that we began working from defining group:
Two Kinds Of Group Exist -
Group Type A) a group that exists to produce the outcomes of the individuals that comprise it, i.e.: by joining the group you will get your (individual) outcomes
Group Type B) a group that exists to produce the outcome of the group without either guaranteeing the outcomes of the individuals that comprise it or conflicting with them (the individual outcomes).
The first kind of group described above, i.e.: Group Type A, more typically defines the kinds of groups that most people are familiar with (experiencing). The premise that these groups operate under includes two aspects one explicit and the other implicit: 1) the first aspect, the explicit aspect, states that through the group you will get your outcomes satisfied, and 2) the second aspect, the implicit aspect, suggests that only through the group will you get your outcomes satisfied.
The second kind of group described above, i.e.: Group Type B, while much less familiar to most people - either in their personal or professional experience - represents a possibility of GROUP that will never be present in the first type. In this second form of group the outcome intended organizes the entire reason for being of the group and all who are engaged in it. The individual puts aside the desire for personal gain - other than that of participation in the group.
Ah ... there we have it ... other than participation in the group ... this becomes the individuals reason as well - i.e.: to be a part of GROUP. More even than being a part of this/the group, the individual in question wants to experience GROUP.
We can say that this includes the reasonable assumption that:
The individual likely has a reference experience about being in GROUP. And in fact it would probably be fair to say that the individual even likely has a strong reference about the sense of being in GROUP as somehow more significant, profound or even real when in GROUP.
This suggests that being in GROUP may somehow make being more real somehow for the individual. The presence and awareness of and about OTHER may in fact be at the cause of this particular phenomenon. All of a sudden the presence of OTHER also becomes more real as well ... OTHER exists!
The flash that accompanies this realization ... "I also exist by virtue of being real to/for OTHER." ... brings the significance of being into the open in GROUP, i.e.: you cannot be in GROUP unless you exist, therefore you are by virtue of this real. For many people this realization creates profound ripples ...
In this sequence the individual finds themselves to the same extent they lose themselves in GROUP. So maybe we can postulate the first rule of group as being:
FIRST RULE OF GROUP: "All who enter here leave yourself behind."
Notice the FIRST RULE OF GROUP doesn't say, "All who enter here get left behind." In fact I'd go so far as to say:
SECOND RULE OF GROUP: "Leave no one behind."
So let me pose this question in closing:
When you truly let go and allow yourself to be in GROUP, who are you Being?
Joseph Riggio
Princeton, NJ
P.S. - Extra Credit Questions:
1) As a result of who you become by virtue of letting go and through this act allowing GROUP to come into Being ... what has GROUP become for/to you ... and in turn you for/to it?
2) As a result of allowing GROUP to come into Being through the act of letting go and as such having become a part of GROUP coming into Being, who has formed what ... you forming GROUP ... or GROUP forming you?
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Joseph,
Do you think there’s such a thing as GROUP ontology...like the GROUP has it’s own ontological position? How big of GROUPS are you talking about, b/c it seems that really just more than one person is a group as you’ve defined it above, so any type of relationship that involves at least one other person - well, you have the consideration of OTHER, then...so that’s a group and the above rules would apply. I think. Anyway, I’m going to check your questions out - I don’t know yet on those.
Best,
Allison
Let me disagree with you concerning group A. Why would working through the group A entails “ONLY THROUGH the group will you get your outcomes satisfied”? I assure you that I belong to one of the most beautiful groups you would ever think of. When I joined it in my work at the first place, I never thought that I will be able to do and embrace such major leaps in my own knowledge and career. The group with its dynamics allows me (and others) to bring endless streams of thoughts and ideas to the group system itself to take the system to which we all belong into un-imagined realms of cooperation and excellence. This group is so receptive and supportive, yet so careful and so meticulous for the new ideas that I suggest or other colleagues suggest in a way that never ceases my astonishment.
The gush of ideas and interaction keeps the flow inside this group/system alive, afresh, evolutionary, that implants and saws the importance of aligning the individual intentions with the group highest ontological intention. The former can’t survive without the latter and the latter can’t breath with out the former. I am not amenable to think of groups and individual in terms of two separate poles that may contradict each other, but rather as a system of interaction and reciprocity along a continuum of evolution and growth.
Let me also disagree with you about the nature of group B, where a person can’t help with “guaranteeing the outcomes of the individuals that comprise it or conflicting with them (the individual outcomes)” , where “the individual puts aside the desire for personal gain - other than that of participation in the group.” In my own humble opinion, no one can belong to a group that doesn’t guarantee the minimal threshold for his growth either in terms of an ordinary biological or an ontological or an epistemological or a holistic growth.
Two more points. First: The existence of the individual is a priori to the existence of groups, and therefore the group will naturally be affected by the individuals who comprise it at the first place. Second: It is only latter on when the individual is strongly in alignment and consent and attached and bound to a group that the group can control the tide of the person, but there will always be a space for the individual to detach and evaporate and condense into any other groups to form another crystal droplet of being.
Please notice that I am talking about the conscientious person who experiences life from an aesthetic ontological viewpoint, not the superfluous person who tends to be shaped according to the propaganda of mass effect.
I agree with your words that “This suggests that being in group MAY SOMEHOW make being more real SOMEHOW for the individual.” But let me tell you one thing: Who has never been deluded with the idea that the human value only stems from the group to which he belongs? Who has never been deluded to equate his own value with the value of love and appreciation he always sought for from his partner? Who has never been deluded to measure the degree of success in the future with the degree of success and “nurture” he had in his past?
So what is in fact hard for me to taste is the conclusion that follows on that “FIRST RULE OF GROUP: “All who enter here leave yourself behind."” I agree with you that feeling of belonging and intimacy and relating is just one facet of the different facets of BEING that change endlessly and limitlessly according to the stance of being you are involved in. So you can find yourself one moment in deep fascinating connection with somebody, but in the very next moment, you can find yourself in deep desire to be with yourself, on your own, for the sake of being with your own.
In other words, BEING STANCES are exactly like human states, they are always fluid, dynamic and ever-changing. That is why one decision that you took at one BEING STANCE can be the best choice you have ever made at this stance, but when you revise this decision in retrospect, you would blame yourself for taking such a decision. But the astute person who stems and walks his life through an ontological basis of living will automatically and spontaneously acknowledge that at this moment of blaming himself for this decision he took whose consequence was less than useful, this astute person will spontaneously acknowledge that the moment he allows the blame to take over his power is the same moment where he loses control, and is the same moment where he allows the vicious circle of inhibitory bias to reign. And so the astute person will agree to leave himself behind for something that is ONLY in accordance with his trajectory of intent to embrace what can be called the “Greater Than The Self” of the group.
And since the Mythoself process and the ontological process -as far as I get it- are about living and experiencing life in terms of oscillation between the Generalized Desired State (which is the personal intent to become and be) and the Greater Than The Self , thus the point of “leaving yourself behind” is a point of foregoing and quitting the ontological experience of life itself.
My whole point is that why would I leave myself behind even for one millionth of a second? And wouldn’t this leaving contradict my whole ontological freedom and value of existence? If I were to join a group, I will prefer to be open and receptive and examining and tentative. These are the qualities that would really align my own ontological freedom with the future group to which I will belong. And here is where the solution arises from the paradox. The solutions in my own opinion always lie at the borders of distinctions and differentiations between different corpses/institutions/families/systems/ideas of being and life. And these very borders and distinctions come the true solutions which are by nature transcendental to the existing problems. Sounds complex? Huh?
Let me also add one more point which is: Any human being belongs to tens of groups and systems at the same time. And if I -for example- see not my neighbors group as favorable to the working group that I work with, I will still be able to work with the working group but may not be able to tolerate maximally the lousy neighbors of the district that I have my place in. Let me expound this one more time. People belong to different groups at the same time, and thus the person can never just “leave himself behind” just to comply and abide to all of these groups at the same time. What is more plausible and sane is that a person stemming from an ontological point of view will always be ready to experience different groups/opinions/systems while always maintaining his own ontological intent as the only supreme reference upon which he will include or exclude any group or system. Thus through this process, the person will only be exhibiting and creating and manifesting his BEING STANCE.
And let me emphasis that sometimes the group may contain different subgroups that I the person can be very satisfied and contended to work with some of them. Consider this real example: I worked with a fantastic group in one of the beautiful researches concerning a certain drug a couple of years ago, but I didn’t like the way with which the managers used to run things. The general manager himself was so autocratic and somehow depreciating, though he was so knowledgeable. You know, I was so pleased and delighted and excited to work with the group that was assigned to do pilot study, while trying to keep my interactions with the managerial stuff to a minimum.
I enjoyed working with one subgroup, and didn’t enjoy working with the other subgroup, but as a whole I enjoyed working with the group. Why? Because my ontological intent was to enjoy the mystery of the unknown, carry on this research tough stuff forward, gift humanity with something precious, and gain experience. You see what is the first premise upon which I chose to belong to this group? It is my intent, ontological intent.
Is it a relative and a case-dependent thing to work and feel your personal individual outcome with and within a group? I guess so.
So let me re-state the two RULES of groups as this:
LAW NUMBER ONE: All groups are formed to grow and evolute.
LAW NUMBER TWO: The more the group is open and receptive and “incorporative” AND appreciative to the individual outcomes of their individuals, the more dynamic and evolutionary and masterful and “moving” this group will be.
With appreciation and love,
Bob
Hi Bob
could you rephrase that, I don’t get you point !
Dear Per,
My idea is that every human being has to be clear about his own intentions when he joins a group, any group. And more presicely he has to ask himself two questions:
First: Why would I join this group?
Second: How could I interact and communicate with this group in a way that will achieve my own and their own goals in a smooth creative way?
You see my friend, the person HAS TO ask himself these two questions beforehand. These are the questions of being and actualization that -in my opinion- every person who wants to live a life full of experience, joy, success and fun has to ask.
But were I that vague my friend? Lol.
Stay blessed.
Bob
P.S. May be because I commented on the ideas mentioned in the article sparsely, my own comment were understood sparsely. It would have been better if I pasted Dr. Joseph paragraphs, then commented on them.
Aha..I forgot to say that these two questions lead the person to understand and live his own “reality!!” and experience his unique ontology. Which treads another direction than that of what Dr. Joseph suggests, which is stated in Dr. Joseph FIRST RULE OF GROUP (All who enter here leave yourself behind). My opinion (and experience) is to never leave yourself behind, just know thyself, then join the group you want to join, then communicate with the group, then transcend with the group. Then and only then when you transcend with the group, you will have the autonomous ability to leave your OLD self behind, since this old self will be not more than an old stuff. And in order to fly and free yourself, you should throw down the old stuff.
Smile..
Bob
