Symbiotic Behavior

Symbiotic Behavior

I think that there are no individuals who developed a high level of symbiotic behavior, because this behavior is impossible to be developed individually, in our capitalist world, but only in a community of people that consciously decide together to use it.

Symbiosis – through definition – is the relation between multiple symbionts.

Anyway, there are now more and more people that are on the way of developing a Yellow consciousness that could, at least analytically, grasp what could be a symbiotic behavior and what could be its consequences (what kind of society could be brought forth by this behavior (Yellow-Turquoise society).

In the world as we know, informed by a metaphysics of separation, conducive to conflict and competition, we are struggling to fulfill our needs individually. Symbiotic Behavior engages life from a metaphysics of cooperation and symbiosis where, instead of fighting each-other to fulfill our needs, we can cooperate. Why not to fulfill each other needs through reciprocity?

Developing such a behavior is truly a step further in our evolution as individuals and as a species. For this achievement, we have to consciously organize ourselves differently, in new communities conducive to cooperation, fairness and inter-dependency. This is what Butterfly Communities open-project is all about.

The Principles of Life

The Principles of Life are pointing toward symbiosis.

Direction of evolution is toward increasingly larger scale of symbiosis.

A symbiotic behavior is totally aligned with Life principles and the next step in human evolutionary journey toward a fair and ecological civilization.

In this day, the exercises will help us to become even more aware of the Symbiosis principle.

Nonviolent Communication

We already know that any aggressive language and behavior is the cry of an unfulfilled need. We try – through aggressive language and behavior – to force others to meet our needs or conform to our point of view. On this day, the exercises will help us to express our needs in a nonviolent way and to let others communicate their needs.

Stigmergic Correlation

We engage – ideally – the course after we already have passed through all other seminars and previous courses. So, we know already a lot about stigmergic correlation.

Today we will use our knowledge to sense and fulfill each-other needs.

The most important unfulfilled needs – for which we fight so much with others – are the needs related with our social acceptance and status: respect, validation, appreciation, tolerance for our differences, acceptance, support, love, loyalty, honesty, trust etc. These needs actually could be fulfilled only by others. Together we are more powerful!

The story we tell ourselves about the how the world works

It is important to understand that we engage our relations, make our decisions and choose our behaviors informed by the stories we tell ourselves about how the world works.

So, in this day everyone will present her/his story about the others. At the end, I will present mine.

From all our presentations and discussions, will emerge a space of insights, meanings and choices from where we can change/improve our stories about others in order to change/improve our behaviors.

Mutual-Consistency

As always, it is a problem of the stories we that we let ourselves be informed. Are we individuals that suppose to compete in a capitalistic arena for better status and greater income or are we part of a Great Circle of Life that suppose to cooperate together?

We have to be aware of the necessity of Mutual-Consistency in our relations. Mutual-Consistency is the basis of a fair and ecological human society.

Mutual-Consistency, as a fabric of social organization, is an important evolutionary step further and could be developed only in a community purposely designed to be conducive to it.

In today games and exercises, we will play a game especially design to show the value of mutual-consistency.

Inter-dependency

The principles of Life are pointing toward symbiosis. The symbiosis is a cooperation that is so functional that the symbionts became a new organism (so called super-organism). As an outcome of evolution, many living entities that once lived independently, have learned how to cooperate and became inter-dependent parts of a high-level organism-like system. We can see this pattern repeating itself few times along Life history.

Today we will speak about inter-dependency and the games and exercises will help us understand better three important aspects of inter-dependency: autonomy, liberty and responsibility.

 

How to build a social super-organism?

A super-organism, although made up of many individuals, acts as a single entity. Today we will talk about the main features that members of a community should share so that that community can act as a single entity: shared worldview, shared vision, shared purpose, shared space (co-living, co-working, co-parenting etc) and even shared fate.

 

What will we learn?

I hope that the course will give us the rare chance to have a glimpse of what could be a social space brought forth by a symbiotic behavior (a Yellow-Turquoise society).

Almost all our history as a species we lived in symbiotic/ inter-dependent groups – smaller (clans) or bigger (tribes). The modern and post-modern way of life broke our tribes, and then our clans and even the nuclear family is under the threat of dismemberment. We are now fiercely independent, while we are actually extremely dependent of many many things. We are far away from being autonomous and this gives us a sense of powerlessness and insignificance.

Very soon our society will collapse. What we are going to do when the food from supermarkets or the water from the tap will disappear? In this course we will understand – again – the vital importance of cooperation in human-scale communities.

As every evolutionary step further is inextricable linked with an innovative behavior, in our case this should be the symbiotic behavior.

Be a Collaborator!

Anyone can become our collaborator!

We are searching for artists, trainers, film-makers, web-designers and for everyone that is inspired by the same vision as us.

Whatever the challenges of the future, cooperators will have a clear evolutionary advantage compared to non-cooperators.

In the new VUCA world, we will have to survive and thrive in new ways, different from those that have been successful so far. As a multicellular organism is smarter and has better capacities to deal with its environment than a cell alone, as an ant-hill is smarter and has better capacities to deal with its environment than an ant alone, the cooperative groups will be smarter and better equipped to deal with future challenges than single individuals.

Educators, trainers or artists – those who aim to have a social impact, to spread an idea – have to cooperate, if they want to succeed. However, the evolution of Life has a clear direction: towards ever-increasing scales of cooperation.

Those who want to move forward must learn to cooperate in mutually enhancing ways.

The open project “Butterfly Communities” is an emerging community that is searching for young artists, trainers, filmmakers, etc. that have understood that we have to help each other to have a stronger social impact.