The Power of Human Development at All Levels

"We must be open to continual growth and development as individuals, communities and societies. Our shared ability to accept changing situations and create new responses is our greatest survival resource."
~ David Satterlee

Essay: Elephant metaphor for developmental levels of worldview

Information and comments on the essay:

Elephant metaphor for developmental levels of worldview

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

Find out more, including where to buy books and ebooks

Read or download this essay as a PDF file at: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4eNv8KtePyKNllwOXFUT2FiZ1E/edit?usp=sharing

Developmental levels of #worldview. #Integral stages #metaphor

Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Elephant metaphor for developmental levels of worldview

I was discussing the concept of “developmental levels of worldview” with a friend. She keep wanting to imagine that my description of a hierarchical, predictable sequence of developmental stages suggested increasing personal “smartness” or “betterness.” I was having trouble getting across the ideas that any worldview stage is perfectly fine so long as it serves the needs of a person’s or culture’s current circumstances (and does not oppress others.)

Eventually, I suggested that developmental levels were like a progressive experience of elephants:

[This does not accurately represent my belief system; it’s just an imaginary hierarchy of experience.]

• What’s an elberphunt? (simply has no clue)
• I have heard of elephants.
• I have read a story about elephants. (unable to independently anticipate the experience of an elephant’s subsonic rumbles)
• I have seen an elephant at the circus.
• I have watched elephants at the zoo. (the most common limit to likely developmental stages)
• I have lived with elephants in the wild. (few people would even imagine that anything more was possible)
• I have memories of being an elephant.
• I have always been an elephant. (few elephants would even imagine that anything more was possible)
• I am the race memory of all elephants.
• I Am that I Am. (God’s description of himself in Exodus)

Each stage is adequate for the needs of certain individuals in certain circumstances.

• At each stage, some greater [effort or] involvement has been achieved to have had a larger understanding.
• At each stage, it is difficult to explain the experience adequately to some who has not been there.
• At each stage, it is difficult to imagine the richness of knowing involved in additional stages.

I’m not suggesting that all of these stages are actually plausible for an individual but, then again, how could you actually be certain of that unless you were I Am?

Essay: Growing up with Ken Wilber

Information and comments on the essay:

Growing up with Ken Wilber

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

Find out more, including where to buy books and ebooks

Read or download this essay as a PDF file at: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4eNv8KtePyKdDE4UDdvR0JfdjQ/edit?usp=sharing

A personal journey through Integral levels.

Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Growing up with Ken Wilber

Growing up is all about existential angst. Yes, that’s where to start. Not with the spitting up, crawling, and preverbal babbling. The real issues of growing up are: What’s it all about? To be or not to be? What do you want to be when you grow up? What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything? As a crusty old man looking back, I can see that I repeatedly died to myself and was reborn in progressive and incremental stages. [Below, I will assign colors to these stages for later reference.]

I grew up as “young brother perfect” in an unconventional Christian fundamentalist faith. The angels were watching and God knew everything I did. I wanted a pony in the Kingdom. If I wasn’t good, I couldn’t live in the New World. [purple]

I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Life was a constant struggle with “worldly” people. I wouldn’t celebrate your pagan holidays, enter one of your churches, and would not