OKIC extrapolates a nexus of interrelated parts that can be difficult to grasp. Separately not so much, but as an interrelated whole it’s a formidable challenge. It cuts across disciplines, generations, socioeconomics, and types of intelligence.
To help make it more interesting than confusing, I’m peppering Everyman’s Essay Collection with three socio-cultural frameworks, like scaffolding that we can hang something meaningful on. As we tackled in the first essay, there’s the heliocentrism timeline framework. As introduced in the previous essay and expanded on in this one, there’s the I’m okay You’re okay framework. And in the next section, the third framework of mischief and mayhem will be introduced. The intriguging issues raised with these particular frameworks is not, I’m afraid, meant to “solve” the difficult parts of OKIC for you. You have to do that through experiencing in depth its unusual written and figurative content. The ways in which I am framing the issues here, for the purposes of introduction, are essentially to provide you key angles, important perspectives to orient you, as you work through the rest.
For instance, I’m okay You’re okay can be examined in numerous ways. To generalize, people commonly apply the structure known in information theory as a 2-bit matrix. That’s a basic breakdown for any complex phenomena that can be represented as two bits combined in all possible ways, that is, four ways.
In the matrix above, the combined two “bits” are self and other (subjective experiences as “I” and “you”) which have two forms each (okay + , not okay - ). Such an analysis is based on absurdly limited and yet precise parameters. Loop it to the heliocentric timeline, and what the I’m okay You’re okay matrix does is render succinctly the logic that confines humanity to the common assumption and experience that “relating revolves around humans.”
Narrative and behavioral therapies developed precisely because the quintessential issue of the limits of human subjectivity become self-contained given the I and You matrix effect. First most obvious thing to notice is the mirror effect, a phenomenon you will come to understand deeply (and not without confronting plenty of paradoxes) in exploring OKIC. What OKIC shares with the I’m okay You’re okay matrix is that it can be understood as a thermodynamically open system.
In I’m okay You’re okay the “I”s and “You”s are interchangeable. However their relational contexts… not so easily. Which is where OKIC comes in. For purposes of understanding more deeply then, open system “I”s and “You”s are best articulated in a generalized fashion as “self” and “other” (as the axis labels in the matrix above indicate). With that, the complexities of relating, even starting from a simple model, show themselves as a Rorschach test rather than a Venn diagram.
Relatedness functions more like this…
than this…
Look at self and other as combinations of positive and negative attributes and anything can be applied meaningfully to the same formulation. Just as without energy and mass there is no universe, without I-ness and You-ness, there is somehow no fundamentally meaningful relating. But how can that be?
Since the Rorschach-relatedness in I’m okay You’re okay is subjective, it cannot stand alone as a meaningful psycho-social formulation. In the same way mass and energy are interchangeable, ambiguity of meanings is an essential feature of relating meaningfully. Part 1 (Inner Compass) begins on the topic of ambiguity, using the most pervasive form, linguistic. Moral ambiguity comes later, in Part 2 (Outer Kaleidoscope), after the dynamics between ambiguity and timelessness are keenly established.
OKIC has the added dimension that instead of 2-bit relatedness, akin to 0s and 1s in computing and resulting matrices of information, it is expressible through geometric representation. First though, we weave it in with the geocentrism → heliocentrism timeline with the aim of establishing how representational reality has latent within it the massive psycho-social reorientation humanity needs right now. This is because humanity’s shift in solar system-level centrism has interesting parallels to I’m okay You’re okay psycho-social richness.
Representational complexities tend to get disorienting, especially when you come at it lacking the ability or interest to orient to what is timeless. Similarly, there’s almost no reason for the average person to challenge the direct experience, often accompanied by beautiful light displays in the sky at sun-up and sun-down, that the sun goes around the earth. And yet, when despair is present upon the rising of the sun, something’s amiss, and OKIC addresses that disconnect.
You will learn in a later essay that timelines play out around three directions. Intent, logic, and perspective, which integrate in open systems through impetus, potential and source. This helps establish the function of centering (as opposed to revolving) introduced early in Part 1 [insert linked page]. In short, established reasoning and patterns, such as the earth is the center of the solar system, dominate through being in lockstep. Real change requires mass scale revelatory changes in logic and/or perspective such that intent is conducive to next-level patterning, establishing a relevant statement and related timeline, rather than a disruption… a new statement without real context yet. We established early on that telescopy did that for cosmology. OKIC reveals a different perspective on the relatedness of all things. Its source is the nature of all things, upcoming in the essay “The Mystery Behind It All.” Its potential is massive reorientation.
The effect of changes like heliocentrism is to undistort subjective reality; we’ve begun to establish though that undistorting necessarily happens by a position distinct from human conditioning. Soul is the term used in OKIC to point to the part of individual self-awareness that grants to capacity to undistort [insert linked page]. Grace is the term used in OKIC to point to the part of reality- or system- awareness that grants to the capacity to undistort.
Geometric symbolisms can be helpful when the underlying concepts are disorienting. Below, the image on the right is the intuitive view wherein the Earth that we are standing on is the center of the universe. From that view, compared to the image on the left, we observe the exact nature of the distortion. An important point this brings up is that distortions are not a vague or useless to understand; they are as exacting as undistorted views, when understood in terms of the underlying, timeless patterns.
Heliocentric and geocentric models. The first (left) is Sun-constrained; the second (right) is Earth-constrained. Notice that each geometry carries distinct information, has a distinct vibe.
Consider any observer (self) who wishes to characterize a two-body planetary system and is oriented (fixed) to a given planetary body like Earth. The observable system (planetary bodies not fixed to the self) can be reasonably represented in two ways:
- Geocentric (right). Oriented around the observer being in a sense disconnected from (artifactually oriented to) the two-body system. Fixed observer is immovable, and the complexity of the same two-body system arises because relating to the fixed object (self + earth) as immovable distorts within a reasoning observer the Sun’s central position in the observer’s relationship to the system.
- Heliocentric (left). Oriented around the shared fixed point between the observer and one of the bodies. Fixed observer is moveable and an observer on earth experiences cyclic phenomena related to the two-body system comprised of the Sun and Mars. It results in an objectively simpler view, yet is objectively, one might argue inherently, confusing!
Distorted does not mean anything about the objectively real relationships mediating the two-body system. Distorted refers to one’s prior and/or perceptual understanding when presented with the simpler, more objectively oriented representation (left). This is a big reason why relating that revolves around human inter-subjectivity is not only wrong but increasingly dangerous. Through OKIC you will learn the nature of distortions and thus how to navigate effectively regardless.
If you’ve made it this far you understand, this book is not for the “faint at heart”. Keep in mind, you are reading as an individual something intended to be generalizable to any and all. One way to approach the contents then is to imagine it available to individuals in their journeys in life, informed through simple searches. For example, a statement or inquiry about something personally, organizationally, culturally, or existentially meaningful, relevant, or useful, entered into a digital tool that is able to navigate a new relational perspective through the dynamic logic from which OKIC has been constructed for you – here, as a psychosocial window to viewing the world. The book is on offer simply so people curious about how it works can have access to the “bird’s eye” view. To search and effectively reorient moment to moment, situation to situation, in a way that is coherent and shareable is the timeless goal.
Distortion is a demonstrative term. It’s useful too in the beginning to grasp how humanity’s relationship to representation (undistorting reality) stands to foundationally shift understanding. Through relationally-neutral representation, an observer’s perspective can be understood as updateable literally and figuratively through re-presentation. The automatic update serves as a catalyst to new, reasoned understanding. At the most basic level, human relations have meanings beyond what they seem and beyond what can be understood from a fixed (true to me or untrue to me) perspective.
Yet relating according to OKIC – a figurative language based in representations that are generative – does not center around specific others but rather self and system in a complex dance. This is what it means to represent reality, or said differently, to meaningfully re-present in new circumstances. Below, I have taken the I’m okay You’re okay 2-bit matrix and applied a shift critical to OKIC: from self-other to self-system. Through this we can start to appreciate, as introduced in the example of the Copernican Revolution as well, that humans center through relating and yet self-as-center is not the central truth of all-encompassed relating. Add to that the Self-System Modification shown below and the mirroring in I’m okay You’re okay can actually yield to individuals more relational prowess.
With unlocking the capacity for this shift to self-system awareness, the stuckness precipitated by a simple formulation of “humans revolve around relating” inter-subjectively starts to be visible. Still, the part of us that prefers to concentrate on what we can control tends to get in a kink with this innocent but profound invitation.
The cracks in perceived control start to show when carried out logically as a big picture solution to relational complexity. What shines through the cracks is an inevitable structure to things that, when not put in a wider perspective, looks like a merry-go-round of people-pleasing and/or agenda-setting. People manipulating each other, and resulting in cycles of self-defeating conflicts, strife, and disappointment.
The main point is this. While an individual’s psycho-social condition might be improved by methods stuck in I’m okay You’re okay, the collective condition is worse. To which I would specify, the human condition is being rendered, under such conditions and due to the tendency for reactive imagination and lack of integration in an increasingly complex world, overly complicated for its own good.
Whole collection What OKIC has to offer should both puzzle and intrigue you