in progress

Considerations - 260522

principles

• English first
• ebook and print
• along the metamodern approach (aesthetics / sincere irony)
• accessible for different approaches (healthy blue / orange / green)
• meta-talk (about metamodernity etc) on different channels, eg substack - keep website and publication accessible for not-nerds
• sharing as ebook AND as a proton doc for people to comment
  • comment on what Bernhard wrote
  • ask questions in the text for particpants to be answered
• audiobook with different voices? (AI?)
• let people find little screts in each book
• qr-codes with links to material
• find a metamodern aesthetic
• publish chapters one after the other on substack

To consider when publishing
How can I lower the threshold for NGL, how the large religions did it:

• Follow: CONCRETE (2 lower than the model would see it)
• Communicating: ABSTRACT (1 lower than the model would see it)
• Reproducing: Metasystematic
• Coordinating: Paradigmatic
• Updating: Cross-paradigmatic
• → make following and communicating really easy - provide simple metaphors, narratives, checklists and processes

Book 1: The NGL Crew

• introducing the NGL characters along the 9 Elements
  • Soil: basic needs / body
  • Air/Breath: spirit - everything is alive and sacred
  • Metal: it needs power, courage; honor
  • Tree: We!
  • Stone: do something - act!
  • Fire:  think it through - reason!
  • Water: deconstruct it - don´t you see?
  • Crystal: there is a pattern that liberates and enables
  • Lotus: it is already ONE
• each character can flip into an exaggeration if tense, triggered
  • describe what triggers them
  • describe the reactions when triggered (inculding body signals)
  • describe what helps them to relax
• a sincere ironic view on the elements
  • Soil: playing (with) the animal in me
  • Air/Breath: I always find something that is hurt and damaged, in nead of healing
  • Metal: living me hero(ine) and my impulses to dominate and be dominated
  • Tree: loving to be part of the herd, being the herd
  • Stone: McGyvering - there is always something that can be done!
  • Fire: Mindfucking is joy!
  • Water: playfully deconstructing the Wizard of Oz
  • Crystal: eating the menu as a starter
  • Lotus: standing in awe in the middle of the road
• design characters - create visual
• give names (or stick with the names of the Elements?), maybe for healthy and exaggerated form, e.g.
  • Soil (aka „The Beast“ or „Mama Earth“)
  • Air/Breath (aka „The Wounded Healer“ or „The Whisper“)
  • Metal (aka „The Knight“ or „The Tyrant“)
  • Tree (aka „The Herd“ or „The Root“)
  • Stone (aka „McGyver“ or „The Builder“)
  • Fire (aka „The Jester“ or „The Mindfucker“)
  • Water (aka „The Trickster“ or „The Deconstructor“)
  • Crystal (aka „The Pattern-Seer“ or „The Menu-Eater“)
  • Lotus (aka „The Fool“ or „The One“)
• create a special bot that enables people to talk to one / some / all of the crew members (and let the elements flip, get triggered by reactions of the user and of other elements)
• show how the characters contradict each other, create tension, trigger each other and push each other to unhealthy extremes - and how the NGL emerges out of this tension, not one character, even when healthy, being complete
  make a half-circle with each element connected to each others, 36 relations, these can be described: how they trigger each other, how they heal / complement each other
• how to make the characters 3D - history? maybe invent stories how they emerged because they had been lacking - trauma-informed
• show interactions: e.g.
  • Soil and Fire argue about whether to act or think first – while Water laughs and deconstructs both positions. Lotus stands in awe – while Stone rolls up its sleeves and says, ‚Enough awe, let’s do something!‘
• NGL emerges when elements interact with tension, complementing each other
  
  

Book 2: The NGL Book of ANDs

• some basic both-ands:
  • I AND We
  • doing AND being
  • sincere AND irony (it is hopeless, but not serious :-)
  • grief AND fun
  • stoics and epikureans
  • now AND future
  • thinking AND feeling
  • aesthetic AND pragmatic
  • liberated AND tense
  • believing "firmly" as a hypotheses - AND inviting doubt
  • A and B AND A or B
  • clarity about what is ahead of us AND unclarity how this will look like
  • denial, grief, despair AND senerenity and happiness
  • linear AND chaotic
  • (narrow) focus AND (wide) attention
  • pursue AND pivot
  • nourish growth AND make if infectuous so it grows by itself
  • people count AND processes sustain
  • resonant (integrating ideas and feedback of others) AND pursueing ones ideas
  • accept each other and ourselves as we are AND nourishing growth in ourselves and others
  • focus on long levers, impact AND doing things just because "it is right"
  • sharing my ITCs/vulberabilities AND seeing ourselves and others as beautiful
  • take full responsibility AND acknowledge how you need others -
    let others take full responsibility for themselves AND decide for subsidiary responsibility for others
• methods, exercises, constellations and rituals that enable
  • clarification of polarities
  • dialougue between polarities
  • balancing and integration
  • → things that meet orange and green
• make the __AND__ a central feature of the NGL approach
  • and there is always a polarity that we do not yet see, that is absent, where one polarity is not yet included while the other is taken for granted
• show how the ANDs can be
  • A- fighting with each other,
  • A+ wrestling with each other - in a helpful way,
  • B+ be integrated - in a helpful way,
  • B- but also be too smooth with each other, avoiding tension
• share the pain of holding these tensions
• these are the ANDs that the whole NGL approach tries to embody
• space for people to add their own polarities 

Book 3: The Quest: Inventing my Narrative (for individuals)
Making up how I define my calling, my responsibility

The invitation

• It may be that I think I lived a "conscious" life already.
• However I let myself be affected by what is happening in the world: I may see that the stable life
• I have been leading is in question.
• I may see that some things are coming to an end: for the world, for us, for me.
• This is a very good time to realize that I have the freedom to decide my story. I always had.

I am aware that I invent this narrative.

• Even what feels like a metaphysical truth:
• I know that I am free to decide.
• I do this with pains AND with joy.
• With my mind AND with my body.
• It is fully serious, I can make a difference, AND maybe it is fully useless, it does not depend on me.

My Quest ;-)

• The calling I am hearing:
  I have heard a calling or more before.
  I decided not to follow because: Now I hear this calling and I decide to follow, because: I am in my core a person who:
• Looking back I can see that my gift to the world has always been - in some form or other - to:
• There are things in my past that I can look at with more or less peace, which may be relevant for the future:
• There are things in my past that are in some form a burden for my future, and I will have to decide at a certain point if I want to clarify and solve things for me here:
• What I see in the world now is:
• What I assume for the near future is:
• This is how I tell myself the story how we as humanity got here:
• This is the area / domain where I am taking some responsibility. Maybe this is "just" me and that is enough. Maybe my family, my friends, my neighborhood, my village / city, my region, my state, my continent, the world? I repeat that I am inventing this responsibility, I decide - even if I "feel" that I "have" a responsibility:
• With (at least bit) open eyes at the world and how it us unfolding: This is the best future I can see for this domain:
• This is how I see myself in this good future:
• With (at least bit) open eyes at the world and how it us unfolding: This is a rather bad future
• I can see for this domain: This is how I see myself in this rather bad future:
• This is what I can do "now" to make the good future more likely:
• This is what I will do in case x to make the good future more likely:
• This is what I can do "now" to make the rather bad future a bit less likely:
• This is what I will do in case x to make the rather bad future a bit less likely:
• Until that I will focus on:
• These are the companions that I see on my, on our journey:
• This is how I have my eyes open and update my perspective:
• While this is also an outer journey in the world, this is the inner journey for me:
• This is how I want to cherish the present:

→ integrate:

• body aspects - make a dance exercise / a constellation exercise around itcreative aspects - music / movies / pictures / memes for different aspects?
• playing with the Hero / Anti-Hero motif
• exercises:
  • Choose an archetype that represents your journey (e.g., The Fool, The Weaver, The Phoenix).
  • Write a myth about your life – in third person, as if it’s an ancient story.
  • Find a symbol for your calling (e.g., a compass for direction, a bridge for connection).
  • Create a ritual to honor your narrative (e.g., light a candle for your past, plant a seed for your future).
  • "Because stories are not just told – they’re lived as myths.

Book 4: The Quest: Inventing our Narrative as an Organization
Making up how we define our calling, our responsibility

The invitation

• It may be that we think we walked our path as an organization "consciously" already.
• However we let ourselves be affected by what is happening in the world: We may see that somewhat stable path we have been walking is in question.
• We may see that some things are coming to an end: for the world, for our field, for us.
• This is a very good time to realize that we have the freedom to decide our story. We always had.

We are aware that we invent this narrative.

• Within limits (and some my be softer than others): We are free to decide.
• We do this with pains AND with joy.
• With our minds AND with our hearts.
• It is fully serious, we can make a difference, AND maybe it is fully useless, it does not depend on us.

Our Quest ;-)

• The calling we are hearing:
  We have heard a calling or more before.
  We decided not to follow because:
  Now we hear this calling and we decide to follow, because:
• We are in our core an organization which:
• Looking back we can see that our gift to the world has always been - in some form or other - to:
• There are things in our past that we can look at with more or less peace, which may be relevant for the future:
• There are things in our past that are in some form a burden for our future, and we will have to decide at a certain point if we want to clarify and solve things for us here:
• What we see in the world now is:
• What we assume for the near future is:
• This is how we tell ourselves the story how we as humanity got here:
• This is the area / domain where we are taking some responsibility. Maybe this is "just" the organization as a legal body, and that is enough. Maybe the owners, the employees, the clients, the partners, the field, our village / city, our region, our state, ...? We repeat that we are inventing this responsibility.
• With (at least bit) open eyes at the world and how it us unfolding: This is the best future we can see for this domain:
• This is how we see us in this good future:
• With (at least bit) open eyes at the world and how it us unfolding: This is a rather bad future we can see for this domain:
• This is how we see us in this rather bad future:
• This is what we can do "now" to make the good future more likely:
• This is what we will do in case x to make the good future more likely:
• This is what we can do "now" to make the rather bad future a bit less likely:
• This is what we will do in case x to make the rather bad future a bit less likely:
• Until that we will focus on:
• These are the companions, the partners that we see on our journey:
• This is how we have our eyes open and coordinate to update our strategic perspective:
• While this is also an outer journey in the world, this is the inner journey for the organization and for us as stewards:

integrate:

• the "body" of the organization" - infrastructure
• how/when to bring in the perspective of stakeholders?

Book 5: You need to Transform to stay yourself

• the book that mirrors the We need to talk (WNTT) process
• share different stories
• Case Studies - invite customers to collaborate
  • Business: Energy Provider, struggling with international energy prices, state owner who wants to extract money while making sure the whole country is supplied with energy
  • NGO: struggling with youth less interested in politics, with clash of logics: state wants only to financially support young people from "here", but engagement is digital and borderless; state money under pressure; organization asks where to stay "professional" and paid, and where to invest in volunteer work; political polarization - should be talk and involve the right and left borders? can we be neutral?
  • Religious Body: grappling with declining membership (and less money) and modernizing traditions; culture wars internally (blue/orange/green); Secularization; what is the essence? Community / individual Spirituality / handling difficult times / ...?
  • Non-Profit: Care for Families with children who struggle - abusive, psychological challenges of children
  • Municipality: Local government addressing housing shortages, aging population, and climate adaptation. Budget cuts, NIMBYism, refugee integration.
  • School: how to stay relevant when AI takes over education and the whole job market?
• define profile for each organization along the Transformational Canvas:
  • Essence and Gift
  • History: founding / fundamental phases
  • scenarios
• bring in poems / music / films
•  
• bring in funny, sad, frustrating, joyful stories / quotes