BEYOND WRINKLE THINKING

I am having fun with this new term I just created, "Wrinkle Thinking". I recently posted a comment on Facebook in which I said, "Thinking outside the box is no longer where it's at. We need to go deep within the box, and be able to then bounce out to a place where the box is no longer even in sight." 

For me, wrinkle thinking is not only staying inside the box, but sealing the box with duct tape, and then burying it under a layer of old ideas and preconceived notions and cultural prejudices and misconceptions. As we saw in the recent election campaign, a lot of people are still stuck in that modality. A lot of books are coming out on how to use some of the new knowledge we are learning about the human brain. Robert Greene's MASTERY is one of the best of these. He refers to what I am now calling wrinkle thinking by saying that if someone is successful early in life (which certainly happens a lot in this digital era), he or she may tend to become more conservative, more interested in protecting what they have rather than being excited about what new they can create. Greene talks about the importance of opening our minds to serendipity. I have long railed against the over-scheduled, overworked aspect of many people's lives that prevent them from being open to surprises and new opportunities.

This is one of my primary reasons for moving to Panama in a little over two months. A lot of serendipity has led me in this direction, but my life has been filled with many transitions and transformations, while also having a consistency in terms of synergy and flowing in a forward direction. Going from being a writer to broadcasting to writing books to doing lectures and workshops to writing and performing stand-up comedy, all seems very organic a process to me. And moving to a place where I will be forced to learn my very first second language, with new energy and many new adventures and lots of room for serendipity, all seems to be part of a smoothing out of those wrinkled thoughts.

The gorgeous Latina women, varied and wonderful food, majestic and sweeping beaches, warm temperatures--all these I consider rewards for my willingness to take new risks, perks I deserve for being willing to start a new life and be open to whatever.

Jerry

This is my very personal blog, but I also have a lot of fun writing my prosperity blog based on my two million copy bestseller, Moneylove, at:  http://MoneyloveBlog.com

SURVIVAL OF THE TRUEST

The phrase appears in a passage in the book, The Stark Munro Letters, by Arthur Conan Doyle, written in 1895 and one of his many novels not featuring Sherlock Holmes. In it, a young doctor talks about his friend and partner who has quite a vivid fantasy life and comes up with some wildly unrealistic schemes. This passage immediately brought to mind the political campaign just ended three days ago. It also comes in the midst of a lot of Republican and conservative recrimination. 

Billionaire donors are complaining that the Romney campaign lied to them about his chances to win, and that Karl Rove--who as George W. Bush's famed "architect" certainly knew the trend and demographics were against a Republican victory for the presidency or the U.S. Senate, but took hundreds of millions of dollars from them under false pretenses. And ordinary voters are lambasting Fox News for skewing the truth in just about everything they said in the final weeks of the campaign. In other words, a huge "Liar, Liar, Pants of Fire!" to almost all Republican pundits and politicians.

Here's the passage as it was written over a hundred years ago:

The future wilt decide which of us is right. The survival of the truest is a constant law, I fancy, though it must be acknowledged that it is very slow in action.

In the spirit of compromise and conciliation, I offer this suggestion. Let all of us of a progressive and/or liberal persuasion, reach out to those we might perceive as being on the other side with understanding and empathy. We should all appreciate how tough it is to be lied to consistently and persistently by institutions you have come to trust just because they appear to be in political agreement with you. This has certainly happened in the past from the other side, though arguably the lies were much more flamboyantly blatant this time around. Or maybe not--a historian has pointed out that during his campaign, our 4th president, James Madison, was accused of pimping out Dolly in exchange for votes.

It's a good time for healing, forgiving and forgetting. Gullibility is not a crime--and if it were, most of us would be under arrest from time to time. 

So, my conservative friends, let me remind you that there are some pundits on your side who had it right, who understood the truth and told it. People like David Brooks, and Joe Scarborough, Kathleen Parker and Peggy Noonan were sometimes called Rinos by the far right prevarication machine, but "truth-tellers" would be more accurate. And Olympia Snow and even young Megan McCain. They may not be as sharp-tongued or occasionally witty as Krauthammer, Hannity, Coulter, et al--but neither did they lead vast numbers of believers into shocked humiliation, or make millions at the expense of the duped.

Jerry

Check out my other blog on prosperity:
http://MoneyloveBlog.com