You’re in a flock – about starling intelligence, google and leadership

Lose control to get control. Seems like something a zen-master would say. Don’t credit me wrong, I’m not (yet).

So what’s about the losing control to get control then?

First things first: get back to now
I’ll get to that in a second. First things first. This evening I donated blood for the first time. Lamazone was there as well. Moral support was great, but what we talked about afterwards was even more rewarding.

Here’s what happened. As we walked home in the late evening sun we started talking about what it meant to let go and how shutting up your consciousness gets you back to the here and now.

How long before you realize you’re awake?
The latter, being a necessary condition to let your body (your whole body) do its job at its fullest extent, is easy to forget. This morning for instance I woke up and started planning from the moment I opened my eyes. It took me 45 minutes (!) to realize I was ‘here’, lying in a soft bed, beside a beautiful woman I love. Forty five minutes I was all getting nervous about stuff I had to do instead of being there and enjoying waking up.

Whatever.

Complexity is not consciously controlled. starlings know that.
So Lamazone and I talked about how most complex things aren’t built by conscious control but by strategic principles in movement.

You were saying?

A meaning of being. Life according to, well, me.

Descartes was wrong. Whatever you think: your reason is not you. There’s more to know than the rational part of your mind can tell you. And if you ever want to feel in control of your life, you’d better start to explore your other senses.

(if you’re a how-to-list-kind-of-person: scroll down, it’s at the end of this post)