Wayseeing

Deep down something has bothered me for years, from education onwards I have felt like I am being programmed to conform to a set way of life that does not feel right. At the age of 15 I discovered Bill Hicks, perfect timing for formative years which further confirmed my feelings. A few years later with grunge music and in particular Rage Against The Machine I felt I had found the right theme tune and just the right T shirt to wear for school.

Skip forward a number of years and reading Sir Ken Robinson's The Element helped me realise why I had felt like this, something I was lucky enough to have a personal conversation with him about over lunch one day. I started to realise there were lots of people like me who felt this way and it was obvious what was happening, our process of education was indoctrinating people into a very slim model of humanity:



I was lucky enough to have a parent that encouraged me to go with my flow rather than try to conform despite how painful that would sometimes be, but not all parents do this to the detriment of their children; as is beautifully summed up in the concept of "The Back Up Plan".

But it does not stop at education, so much of the programming of society now is based on a flawed concept and is slightly more sinister than we suspect, that sense of why we feel anxious about ourselves - our status and our security, this has been programmed into us, as explained in Alain De Botton's Status Anxiety and further explained in Adam Curtis' The Century of the Self (I strongly urge you to take time out to follow some of these links and read/ watch)

All of this approach to life and programming people was okay for the industrial age, but in a new connected age, the wheels are starting to come off as Seth Godin explains in his book The Icarus Deception



When you start to understand how we got here and how some of the thought processes were deeply flawed (as explained in The Lonely Robot) you will start to realise it is not you that is at fault, but the logic of the system that is trying to get you to play it's rules. As Professor Falken in War Games explained, "The only way to win the game, is to not play the game"



In this connected age, our programmed way of working isn't going to work anymore, we need to sense make more as explained in the Cynefin Framework. You need "Wayseers" to do this, you need positive deviance.

I now understand why as a kid I was such a fan of Chaplin's "The Great Dictator", the final speech spoke volumes to me:



I know there are others who feel the same, so spread the words and stand up for a different way.

Wayseer FF from Jon Harman on Vimeo.

ATTENTION: All you rule-breakers, you misfits and troublemakers - all you free spirits and pioneers - all you visionaries and non-conformists ...

Everything that the establishment has told you is wrong with you - is actually what's right with you.

You see things others don't. You are hardwired to change the world. Unlike 9 out of 10 people - your mind is irrepressible - and this threatens authority. You were born to be a revolutionary.

You can't stand rules because in your heart you know there's a better way.

You have strengths dangerous to the establishment - and it wants them eliminated, So your whole life you've been told your strengths were weaknesses - Now I'm telling you otherwise.

Your impulsivity is a gift - impulses are your key to the miraculous,

Your distractibility - is an artifact of your inspired creativity,

Your mood swings - reflect the natural pulse of life, they give you unstoppable energy when you're high and deep soulful insight when you're low,

Been diagnosed with a "disorder"? That's society's latest way to deny it's own illness by pointing the finger at you. Your addictive personality is just a symptom of your vast underused capacity for heroic, creative expression and spiritual connection. your utter lack of repression, your wide eyed idealism, your unmitigated open mind - didn't anyone ever tell you?! these are the traits shared by the greatest pioneers and visionaries and innovators, revolutionaries, procrastinators and drama queens, activists on the social scene, space cadets and mavericks, philosophers and derelicts, business suits flying fighter jets, football stars and sex addicts, celebrities with ADD, alcoholics who seek novelty, first responders - prophets and saints, mystics and change agents.

We are - all - the same - you know
'cuz we're all affected by the way -
We are - all - the same - you know
'cuz we're all attracted to the flame -

You know in your heart that there's a natural order to life,
something more sovereign than any man-made rules or laws could ever express.

This natural order is called "the Way."

The Way is the eternal substrate of the cosmos. It guides the very current of time and space. The Way is known by some as the Will of God, Divine Providence, the Holy Spirit, the implicate order, the Tao, reverse-entropy, life-force, but for now we'll simply call it "the Way." The Way is reflected in you as the source of your inspiration, the source of your passions, your wisdom, your enthusiasm, your intuition, your spiritual fire - love. The Way takes the chaos out of the Universe and breathes life into it by reflecting divine order. The Way, when experienced by the mind, is genius, when perceived through the eyes is beauty, when felt with the senses is grace, when allowed into the heart ... is love.

Most people cannot sense the Way directly. ... But then there are the Wayseers. The keepers of the flame. Wayseers have an unexplainable knack for just knowing the Way. They sense it in their very being. They can't tell you why or how they arrived at the right answer. They just know it in their core. They can't show their work. So don't ask. Their minds simply resonate with the Way. When the Way is present, so are they.

While others are blind to it, and society begs you to ignore it, "the Way" stirs you inside. Neurological repression blocks most people's awareness of the Way - censoring all thoughts and impulses from the unconscious is their prefrontal cortex - the gestapo of the brain -  nothing which violates its socialized programming even gets through; but your mind is different. your mind has been cracked wide open to the Way - by some miraculous genetic trait, some psychotropic chemical or maybe even by the will of your very soul, your brain's reward pathways have been hijacked - dopamine employed to overthrow the fascist dictatorship of your prefrontal cortex - now your brain is free of repression, your mind free of censorship, your awareness exposed to the turbulent seas of the unconscious - through this open doorway divine light shines into your consciousness showing you the Way. This is what makes you a Wayseer.

90% of human civilization is populated with those who's brains are blocked to the Way.  Their brains are hardwired to enforce the social programming indoctrinated since birth. Unlike you they cannot break out of this programming, because they have not yet experienced the necessary revolution of mind. These programmed people take social institutions and rules very seriously. Society is full of games programmed to keep peoples' minds occupied so they will not revolt. These games often cause sick fixations on peculiar protocols, power structures, taboos and domination - all subtle forms of human bondage - This distinct form of madness is not only tolerated by the masses but insisted upon. The programmed ones believe in rules so forcefully they become willing to destroy anyone who violates them.

Wayseers are the ones who call their bluff.  Since Wayseer minds are free to reject social programming, Wayseers readily see social institutions for what they are - imaginary games.  Wayseers comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Helping those who are lost in these games and refuse to help themselves is a calling of many Wayseers. Since Wayseers are the ones who keep contact with the original source of reality - they are able to disrupt societal conventions and even governments to realign humanity with the Way.

The Wayseers are an ancient lineage. A kind of priesthood - carriers of the flame - ones "in the know."  There must always be Wayseers to reform the dizzying psychotic spinning gears of society - giant mindless hamster wheels obscuring the pure blue sky, keeping humanity shackled in a darkened cage - so Wayseers are called - to shed light on the madness of society - to continually resurrect the timeless transcendent Spirit of Truth -

Wayseers reveal this divine truth by devoting themselves to the birth of some creative or disruptive act expressed through art or philosophy, innovations to shake up industry, revolutions for democracy, coups that topple hypocrisy, movements of solidarity, changes that leave a legacy, rebellions against policy, spirit infused technology, moments of clarity, things that challenge barbarity, watersheds of sincerity, momentous drives for charity

We are - all - the same - you know
'cuz we're all affected by the way -
We are - all - the same - you know
'cuz we're all attracted to the flame -

This is your calling, Wayseer.
You've found your tribe.
Welcome home.>