Finding Stability in Fluidity

Naomi, thanks so much for your reflections here and in the other thread you started about embodying values. You use so many useful expressions, and trace a path that sounds so familiar in many ways (learning though yoga, therapy, listening...), but is populated with your own inspirations and findings.

There are so many thinkers and ideas and movements that it often feels daunting and confusing, so Ken Wilber's quotation is a helpful place to leave us! But one mood or concept that seems important to you that I don't understand is 'fractal'. What is that stage or approach that you have reached? The word is still kind of 'empty' of meaning for me.

Hi Alfie, great to hear that you have found some use in my ramblings. Can I tempt you in to doing some ramblings of your own?

Your question about fractal makes me panic a bit because I feel like I am only just starting to 'fill up the meaning' for myself. (hence the question mark at the end of my first post) I guess this is the space where new learning emerges though....so here we go. 

My understanding is that fractals are patterns that repeat smaller and smaller copies of themselves. So in social terms, this could mean that the interplay of systems in a global society, (such as education, economy, politics), and the priorities and patterns that these encourage (perhaps profit, growth, win-lose interactions) would be replicated as you scale down, from national societies, to communities in cities and towns, to businesses, social groups, families, then right down to the individual where you find an embodied and complex interplay of all these systems that produces similar patterns to the larger scales...perhaps an individual who prioritises material wealth and getting to the top of her game no matter the price for others. This is extremely simplistic, but just an illustration... 

What makes this idea exciting for me is that (in my understanding) it can work in all directions and constantly is doing so. So on a smaller scale, let's say an individual starts to find more harmony within herself (through whatever technique). She then takes this more 'harmonious way of being with herself' in to a group she is a member of and encourages a different style of communication. Perhaps this then triggers other members of the group to work on there 'inner communication', this in turn strengthens the harmony within the group and perhaps they are then able to start communication with other groups in the same way. The other groups might then review their communication style and the pattern repeats itself. Again, extremely simplistic...and maybe idealistic and terribly obvious...

Can you tell I'm feeling insecure about this? :) Trying to explain it makes me suspicious that I am using it as a fancy word for something that is already very apparent OR a justification for the amount of time I spend 'working on myself' OR I've misunderstood it completely :) Thanks for making me look more closely at this!

I would really love to hear other people's understanding of this concept! 

...after writing this, I had a sudden realisation that (in this contaxt) perhaps'fractal' isn't a fact that needs to be explained. It is more a way of thinking and seeing that can be very generative I think...

Love the way you describe that as a realisation, rather than an abstract idea. Very much echoes my experience. You make the embodied part of this very easy to understand. Seeing internal patterns of emotion and responses moving into harmony. I often talk to my therapy clients about their internal soap opera - multiple characters within the one personality, coming into relationship with each other.

Looking outwards, I see patterns in ways of working that are replicated around the world. You may see something happening first in one country but then it springs up in another without any direct relation. Like the common dynamics on the leading edge of development. I rarely think any more about scaling: I think more about working on good prototypes - e.g. citizen action networks. If they can be copied easily, it's because the same conditions / dynamics occur in different parts of the world.

I really like this idea of 'the internal soap opera' because it also allows there to be an observer as well, who doesn't have to get too involved with one particular character. For me, it could also invite humour and lightness into the 'show' that is our lives. I think I might have some fun with that, thank you :)

Thank you both for continuing the conversation and sorry it has taken me some time to respond. Your reflections on what a fractal sort of development or growth would look like are certainly enlightening. I recognise what I think I have perceived in good things, projects that sustain themselves out of some sort of intrinsic energy, as opposed to heavy arrangements that need some unspecified outside agent to 'scale' them, or whatever. Conditions, empathy and a natural human kind of mimesis...?

I also definitely identify with the sense of manifesting or embodying a changed attitude or will - one which is sometimes even obscure in its origins in me (or you) - and feeling its outward effect; or not feeling its effect on others, but feeling the experience of a social or practical situation transformed by this slightly new-feeling outlook. Maybe I haven't fully integrated this sensation or realisation personally, in the way it seems to have formed a new stage in a sort of personal development for you, Naomi. For various reasons, I'm a bit less socially embedded than I have been in the past - or rather, I was anyway, before we were all confined to our homes! Perhaps this work is more productive when negotiating community dynamics.

Anyway, I can see nothing for you to feel insecure about. If it was easy to explain, it would be easier to come by!