The distortions we experience in our current world reflect how “out of balance” things have become.
By nature life strives for balance, our health depends on a balanced diet, some exercise, or movement, some reciprocity with our environment, social interaction, and some inward contemplation. As above so below, as within so without, and then the internal balance of the brain, the right vs the left brain. The left is considered the masculine, active, analytical side of language, and the right brain, the intuitive, visual, metaphoric mind. Leonard Shlain, a well-known author, and surgeon explores in his book “The Alphabet vs the Goddess” how literacy changed our world, social contracts, and our outlook, as he writes; “For now, I propose that a holistic, simultaneous, synthetic, and concrete view of the world are the essential characteristics of a feminine outlook; linear, sequential, reductionist, and abstract thinking defines the masculine.”
Shlain explains when glyphs were read, the reader first grasped the whole, integrating the parts into a gestalt of an all-at-once understanding, a right-brain process, and then the parts were analyzed, whereas when the alphabet was invented the reading process was reversed and became a left-brain activity, The eye scans individual letters in a linear sequence to form words, and the meaning of sentences progresses word by word. The process is so rapid it is below awareness as words emerge in a one-at-a-time fashion. With this change, our patriarchal, hierarchical thinking became dominant.
The right brain expresses being, while the left brain is about doing and controls the vital act of the will. He further explains the evolution of the human brain from gathering to hunting. Hunting takes focus on a single task and remains without emotion. The detached subject/object split allows the hunter to separate himself from the hunted. This dualism is indispensable for killing and is the opposite of a mother’s love for her offspring.
Humanity has been developing the left-brain processes for centuries now and has explored the doing of many willful things, but seems to have sacrificed the ability to see the bigger picture in the process. Shlain further suggests that there is a natural progression taking place as we become more “icon” aware through the use of symbols and pictures in our interactions on the web, we are becoming more right-brained again. It is not as if it is a competition between the feminine and masculine modus operandi and no amount of “woman’s libbing” can change the state of imbalance. It is more a case of our brains evolving to a place where these two hemispheres can work in tandem and bring a whole new understanding and reality to mind.
It was believed that some individuals are more left, or right-brained in the past but it is now proved that categorizing people as right- or left-brained is bunk.
The ability to shift rapidly between divergent and convergent thinking, which is the key to innovation, can be sharpened and improved. The method to do so is through intellectual stimulation.
Here is where working in the emerging Web3 space of Decentralization ticks all the boxes:
Capture New Ideas.
Every day new ideas get proposed, developed, and executed. The rate at which new technologies on Blockchain get birthed is actually alarming and quite difficult to keep up with.
Engage in challenging tasks.
The very industry sets a challenge to anyone who is prepared to venture down the “rabbit hole” and discover the invertedness of building a new society on transparency, immutability, consensus validation, and meritocracy.
Broaden knowledge.
Oftentimes what was considered knowledgeable in the past is outdated and stuck in this innovative space, knowledge, when shared, can easily become more of an intuitive impulse felt as the right way to go by a group of individuals, thus the consensus of reality shifts to value intuition more.
Interact with stimulating people and places.
There is definitely no lack of stimulation in this space people from every culture, country, age, or ethnicity come together on a daily basis and exchange thoughts and ideas as they work together on projects that inspire them. The sense of accomplishment when a task is ticked is much greater than the monitory value of the task. So individuals ‘earn’ reputation as well as money.
The funny thing is reputation doesn’t become a bragging right, like the latest phone or sports car but adds a sense of greater responsibility. What is the meaning of responsibility? It means the ability to respond. In the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) it translates to response via voting rights.
Back to balance, so it seems like we humans have been lop-sided both ways through matriarchal and patriarchal eras in our history, and that perhaps now we are ready to strike the balance and not lose our sense of identity as female or male. Maybe when we strike the balance between the heartfelt (emotional) and the analytical (will of mind) we will discover a whole new place to operate from.
BTW as you probably already know: "tipping earns for you and me' free to you for reading, free to me for writing! Paid by Publish Ox. As good as it gets!
