Leap into the Second Tier
When I was about to leave the office after lunch, the one thing reminded me -- the nameplate competition. There was the note from HR to tell us that we can submit your own creative, handcraft nameplate and if your nameplate is creative with minimum cost, then you might get a certain modest reward. That is lovely.
I had no idea as to what kind of nameplate I can make, but when I was gazing at the monitor of my computer, one good idea had inspired me. There was the logo appeared in the frame of the monitor – IBM. This is called eight-bar IBM logo. Then, I just had thought that if I try to change "I" into "T" and "B" into "O" then IBM becomes TOM. This is a kind of silly idea, but suddenly I felt like making my nameplate by using the eight-bar IBM log font.
I got a piece of paper where the eight-bar IBM logo was printed and enlarged it by the photocopier. The size of the nameplate should be around 7 x 2 inches; I enlarged until the letters could fit within this size. And carefully I put another piece of paper below, and removed each line of letters by using a cutter, not as IBM but as TOM, so that the letter part of "TOM" could be removed and looked through as the eight-bar "TOM" logo. After that, I put the blue colored paper on the back and pasted it on the 7 x 2 inches, green cardboard (I got it from the used folder). Then at last, a very nice nameplate (at least for me) was made with zero cost.
Though it is so simple, sometimes we can enjoy such crafts in the office just like making the party decorations. One good thing is that while you are doing crafts, you can enjoy doing it (though starting is a bit reluctant) and can even forget anything that makes you worried. In other words, even in a moment, you can forget all other things, but just can enjoy being here and now with your total concentration in the midst of your craftwork.
Psychologically speaking it is called the state of "flow" -- the term proposed by Csikszentmihalyi. Since you are totally absorbed in your present activities, a kind of fusion between subject and object takes place. You feel as if you and your activity are united. In this moment, even the consciousness that you think of yourself has been almost diminished, so that you can stay in the state as if you do not have any consciousness. It seems as if you have been back to the state when you did not have your consciousness – in the Beige meme it seems as if you are again the inhabitant in the Garden of Eden.
Strictly speaking, however, from the point of view of Spiral Dynamics, it is not really the Beige meme, but rather should be considered as something similar to the Yellow or Turquoise meme of the Second Tier. Or, it is the state of true transpersonal. Although I have not clearly explained what the state of the Second Tier (Yellow, Turquoise or Coral) could be in my blog entries here, in my understanding, that would be the state that we could overcome the problem of the separate self, the ego, or the conflict between ourselves and our environment, others and God.
In the Beige meme when we were still in the Garden of Eden, we were just like the other animals, so that we did never ask who we are, where we come from and will go, and who or what God could be described or understood on earth, etc. Only when we had lost the Garden of Eden, we had come to have our consciousness, the concept of time, the separate self, the ego, and the fear of the death, etc. And these are the source of our problems in the First Tier.
Indeed, the First Tier from Purple to Red to Blue to Orange to Green is our history (both individually and collectively) of how to mange the illusion that we feel we had been separated from our environment, others and God. This, however, is the necessary or even indispensable step so as to lead us to the true enlightenment in which we will be finally able to resolve all such First Tier problems and conflicts, and re-discover and re-encounter our true self and our true God in a non-dual way.
We can finally see God in such a way that God has been no-where, therefore, everywhere and now-here with us. We used to know God unconsciously just like the other animals, but in such enlightened state we can know God "trans-consciously" that is neither unconscious (Beige / prepersonal) nor conscious (the First Tier / personal), but as including them something beyond such dichotomy – the true integration.
The state of flow is that which we can achieve not only by doing craftwork but also by doing many other artistic and/or athletic activities such as painting, drawing, writing, playing the music instruments, singing, dancing, running, even weight-lifting, and meditating and praying. Probably we can say that these activities are derived from our deep desire to go back to God, since in the state of flow, though it is only a moment, we can visit the Garden of Eden. We, people in the First Tier, can be "trans-conscious" only temporarily via such flow-related activities.
And yet someday, we will be able to have it more continuously and then eventually become the part of our ordinary state – that will be the moment that,we can finally say, we have leapt into the Second Tier...
I had no idea as to what kind of nameplate I can make, but when I was gazing at the monitor of my computer, one good idea had inspired me. There was the logo appeared in the frame of the monitor – IBM. This is called eight-bar IBM logo. Then, I just had thought that if I try to change "I" into "T" and "B" into "O" then IBM becomes TOM. This is a kind of silly idea, but suddenly I felt like making my nameplate by using the eight-bar IBM log font.
I got a piece of paper where the eight-bar IBM logo was printed and enlarged it by the photocopier. The size of the nameplate should be around 7 x 2 inches; I enlarged until the letters could fit within this size. And carefully I put another piece of paper below, and removed each line of letters by using a cutter, not as IBM but as TOM, so that the letter part of "TOM" could be removed and looked through as the eight-bar "TOM" logo. After that, I put the blue colored paper on the back and pasted it on the 7 x 2 inches, green cardboard (I got it from the used folder). Then at last, a very nice nameplate (at least for me) was made with zero cost.
Though it is so simple, sometimes we can enjoy such crafts in the office just like making the party decorations. One good thing is that while you are doing crafts, you can enjoy doing it (though starting is a bit reluctant) and can even forget anything that makes you worried. In other words, even in a moment, you can forget all other things, but just can enjoy being here and now with your total concentration in the midst of your craftwork.
Psychologically speaking it is called the state of "flow" -- the term proposed by Csikszentmihalyi. Since you are totally absorbed in your present activities, a kind of fusion between subject and object takes place. You feel as if you and your activity are united. In this moment, even the consciousness that you think of yourself has been almost diminished, so that you can stay in the state as if you do not have any consciousness. It seems as if you have been back to the state when you did not have your consciousness – in the Beige meme it seems as if you are again the inhabitant in the Garden of Eden.
Strictly speaking, however, from the point of view of Spiral Dynamics, it is not really the Beige meme, but rather should be considered as something similar to the Yellow or Turquoise meme of the Second Tier. Or, it is the state of true transpersonal. Although I have not clearly explained what the state of the Second Tier (Yellow, Turquoise or Coral) could be in my blog entries here, in my understanding, that would be the state that we could overcome the problem of the separate self, the ego, or the conflict between ourselves and our environment, others and God.
In the Beige meme when we were still in the Garden of Eden, we were just like the other animals, so that we did never ask who we are, where we come from and will go, and who or what God could be described or understood on earth, etc. Only when we had lost the Garden of Eden, we had come to have our consciousness, the concept of time, the separate self, the ego, and the fear of the death, etc. And these are the source of our problems in the First Tier.
Indeed, the First Tier from Purple to Red to Blue to Orange to Green is our history (both individually and collectively) of how to mange the illusion that we feel we had been separated from our environment, others and God. This, however, is the necessary or even indispensable step so as to lead us to the true enlightenment in which we will be finally able to resolve all such First Tier problems and conflicts, and re-discover and re-encounter our true self and our true God in a non-dual way.
We can finally see God in such a way that God has been no-where, therefore, everywhere and now-here with us. We used to know God unconsciously just like the other animals, but in such enlightened state we can know God "trans-consciously" that is neither unconscious (Beige / prepersonal) nor conscious (the First Tier / personal), but as including them something beyond such dichotomy – the true integration.
The state of flow is that which we can achieve not only by doing craftwork but also by doing many other artistic and/or athletic activities such as painting, drawing, writing, playing the music instruments, singing, dancing, running, even weight-lifting, and meditating and praying. Probably we can say that these activities are derived from our deep desire to go back to God, since in the state of flow, though it is only a moment, we can visit the Garden of Eden. We, people in the First Tier, can be "trans-conscious" only temporarily via such flow-related activities.
And yet someday, we will be able to have it more continuously and then eventually become the part of our ordinary state – that will be the moment that,we can finally say, we have leapt into the Second Tier...
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