Subject: Lifescope TIPs & QUIPs [36] "Navigating the Future, part two"

TIPs & QUIPs, the free occasional email of helpful hints and quotes (and
sometimes challenging suggestions) for getting the most from life.

In this issue:
     *** WiseWords
     *** This Issue's Theme
     *** Suggested Resources
     *** Thrive On! Recommended Site


*** WiseWords ***                                     [TOP]
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   "Some are so very studious of learning what was done by 
    the ancients that they know not how to live with the moderns."
      --William Penn
    
   "Those who live to the future 
    must always appear selfish to those who live to the present." 
      --Ralph Waldo Emerson
    
   "Time is just the space between our memories. 
    When we cease perceiving this space, time has vanished." 
      --Henri Frédéric Amiel

(For a collection of some of our favorite WiseWords, see our web page at
<http://www.lifescope.com/pages/WiseWords.html>.)

*** This issue's theme: Navigating the Future, part two     [TOP]
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Dear Reader:

Once again I have been gently chastised for the text length of
these issues. Most of you have come to accept that to fully grasp
a TIPs & QUIPs issue takes a bit of time -- which just over half
of you actually get around to doing (according to my last survey).
The rest of you skim the text and never quite get back to reading
it in earnest.

Two reasons for the length are:

 1) The concepts I put forth are not usually "sound bite" sized
    ideas. Believe it or not, I exhibit considerable restraint in
    my selections. I feel (and hope you find) that the topics in
    TIPs & QUIPs are important (if not urgent) enough to merit at
    least a thorough scan.
    
 2) A miniscule number of readers actually buy the book I am
    summarizing and/or extracting the pertinent content from. While
    TIPs & QUIPs has been a labor of love for me rather than a
    profit center, I am being hard pressed to justify the half-day
    it takes me to source, read, edit and publish each issue of
    TIPs & QUIPs. I therefore try to make them worthwhile as
    stand-alone texts. Also, as Mark Twain once observed: "If you
    want me to speak for five minutes, give me a week to prepare.
    But if you want me to speak for an hour, I can start right now."

So, with this in mind, I have shortened this issue. Rather than
describe "the eight tools to better help us navigate the future,"
as I stated in the last issue -- I will describe only one of the
tools. If you want to know more, you'll have to buy the book.
(Preferably from us -- or borrow it from a friend!)

                                     Regards, --Lee Lukehart

To bring us back up to speed from the last issue...
[from "Navigating the Future" by Mikela Tarlow, with Philip Tarlow.
 Copyright © 1999 by Mikela Tarlow, Reprinted by permission of
 from The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Authors'
 words are indented and in quotes, to distinguish them from mine.]

Our current culture has already advanced technologically beyond
our psychological capabilities. Metaphorically, we have put
chainsaws in the hands of babes. We need skills for catching up.

Latin has words for two different types of knowledge: Lexis, which
refers to the knowledge within language; and Praxis, which refers
to the knowledge gained through action. The most complete way of
learning is to combine thinking with doing, utilizing more of the
senses to reinforce the experience.

This book offers eight navigational tools as the substance of the
Tarlow's program, presenting them conceptually and with exercises
to immediately apply the knowledge in practice.

One of the first tools provides Seven Sensory Adaptations which
will be necessary to deal with the quickening glut and speed of
information. They are:
  1) Edging - to detect changes at the periphery
  2) Blurring, Fields and Flows - see the forest for the trees
  3) Precision of Attention - selectivity of heightened focus
  4) New Priorities - perceiving our internal messages
  5) Paranormalization - stretching our receptivity
  6) Remasking - changing mindsets; WHO you are is WHAT you see
  7) Passion - when we're involved, we profoundly see more.

Observations about our situation:
 - The future is actually arriving faster.
 - The amount of available information has become so massive that
     it becomes background rather than foreground.
 - The pace of life has made our window of attention much narrower.
 - A glut of information screams at us around every bend.
 - Speed itself alters perception.
 - Our new sensory environment requires we have fluid identities
     in order to be able to comprehend its multi-layered nature.
 - In order to see ahead, we must discover new sources of passion.

 1) Edging    [sensory menu]
    "The future always lurks at the edges, among those who are
    least locked into the system. People sometimes think the edge
    lies in cultural taboos, so they seek to push the limits of
    what is acceptable. [But] the edge now lives in a far more
    subtle place. The new thresholds will be found in envisioning
    new dimensions. Some experts call this 'vertical vision,' the
    capacity to see through and beyond obvious images.
    
    "If the future is showing up faster, then whatever is brewing
    at the circumference will enter our lives before we know it.
    Therefore, we need a keener eye for developing this peripheral
    vision. The future demands a powerful commitment to this
    perceptual style of edging."
    
 2) Blurring, Fields and Flows    [sensory menu]
    "Much of the sensation of speed we experience in our culture
    has to do with the volume of information that assails us. When
    faced with such abundance, we tune out and become numb to the
    details. By knowing this dilemma we can begin to develop two
    sensory modes, hyperspeed and hyperdepth. Hyperspeed requires
    that we focus on broad sweeps of information rather than
    specifics. You let your mind relax and your reflexes lead. You
    consciously work at having fewer mental images of how things
    should unfold. The next adaptation deals with the second
    perceptual style, hyperdepth."
    
 3) Precision of Attention    [sensory menu]
    "To balance out those fuzzy broad sweeps, we need heightened
    focus. The looser the rules, the more refined our skills need
    to be. Markets continue to splinter into ever narrower fields
    addressed by individuals with more personalized areas of
    expertise. One of the liabilities of having things fast and
    loose is that the capacity to endure suffers. Enduring is the
    ability to persist through multiple layers, which is why
    Shakespeare is so difficult to hear."

 4) New Priorities    [sensory menu]
    "Every increase in speed requires resetting priorities. At 
    40 mph street signs are important. At 100 mph signs can barely
    be read and staying on the road is all that counts. An almost
    unlimited availability of information can be addictive. Great
    graphics and catchy titles tease you into reading one more
    article that you won't remember. The most serious aspect of an
    information-rich diet and a seductive landscape is that our
    senses become focused outward and we lose the ability to
    perceive internal messages. Setting priorities may be the only
    way to ensure that you think your own thoughts."
    
 5) Paranormalization    [sensory menu]
    "There is a reason people become race car drivers; speed is a
    rush. Beyond the adrenaline rushes that expand our senses, we
    are also dwelling in a more complex environment which is 
    stretching our receptivity. The way our sensory system operates
    is that receptors create the nature of the sensation. If we
    are being subjected to a new range and speed of cognitive
    stimuli, then we may be developing entirely new receptors.
    
    "New words are a powerful way of creating receptors and 
    identifying previously unrecognized phenomena in ways that can
    make them visible. Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow,
    seeing distinctions we wouldn't care about. We have become the
    Eskimos of marketing, having hundreds of words for social
    forces that people in the past didn't know or care about."
    
 6) Remasking    [sensory menu]
    "One of the most interesting features of the increasing speed
    of information flow is that it alters our sense of self. The 
    way we refer to ourselves becomes less tied to stories and past
    events and more focused on what lies ahead. An atmosphere of
    continuously changing rules and priorities requires being able
    to change mindsets at will.
    
    "Since the Net allows us to assume constructed identities, we
    are all gaining some practice. The fluidity of persona is an
    extraordinary cultural development. Shifting identities (role
    playing, effectively) is one of the most powerful ways to allow
    new perceptions to emerge. A workplace and culture in flux
    tilts advantage to those who can look through ever-shifting
    sets of eyes. And WHAT you see depends upon WHO you are."
    
 7) Passion and Perception    [sensory menu]
    "When you are in love, your lover sometimes seems to move in 
    slow motion, because you are willing to see him or her so 
    deeply. There is an intensity about what you notice. The 
    reverse may also be true; expanding perception may in turn
    increase passion. Passion is probably the most powerful tool
    for breaking out of the three-dimensional boundaries of 
    ordinary perceptual experience. When we feel passion, we are
    compelled to break down walls and see past the ordinary. When
    we are passionate about what we do, we want to see more. And
    when we allow ourselves to see more, we feel more passion."
    
  FORESIGHT
    "Although each has its own twist, these seven sensory
    adaptations rest essentially on the same dynamic. They 
    involve locating information you have previously ignored.
    
    "In Greek, the word for prophecy is 'profitia.' The literal
    translation is 'before you take a position.' All that is
    necessary for allowing foresight, or prophecy, is to practice
    operating from a perceptual stance that does not involve
    already having a position. Every time you perceive without 
    any prior bias, you are beginning to sense the future.
    
     - When you practice 'edging,' or peripheral viewing, you are
    less biased because the habitual or the status quo is less
    dominant, and ignored information comes to the fore.
    
     - When you look at the world as streams, flows, and fields,
    the loss of detail allows predispositions to drop away.
    
     - When you become more precise, individualized, and unique in
    your views, programmed responses begin to disappear.
    
     - When you establish new sensory priorities and take
    information breaks, complete with daydreams, then new data can
    inch its way in.
    
     - When you allow yourself to be 'paranormal' and stretch your
    senses, you see beyond the preexisting boundaries.
    
     - When you modify your identity, you begin to see through
    different eyes, and therefore tap into previously unavailable
    perspectives.
    
     - When you add passion to your vision, you awaken the drive to
    seek out a longer view and naturally attend to more subtleties.
    
    "Every time we engage any of these strategies, we experience
    'prophecy.' By seeing dimensions of information that were
    previously missed, we begin to see through the barrier of time."

[from "Navigating the Future" by Mikela Tarlow. 
 Author's words appear indented and in quotes.]


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NAVIGATING THE FUTURE - Achieving Success in the new Millennium
   by Mikela Tarlow M.A., M.Ed., with Philip Tarlow
Embark on a journey into the future, a journey beyond the familiar
world into a realm of unprecedented personal transformation.
Popular personal-growth workshop leaders Mikela and Philip Tarlow
are your guides as you awaken your sense of what is to come by
developing ways to feel, sense, and think in entirely new
patterns. As Navigating the Future makes clear, going somewhere
new always requires finding an entrance never before taken.

The Tarlows are less concerned with how technology will affect
your life than with how you will respond to the unknown shape of
the future. Based on their consulting and seminars over the last
two decades, the Tarlows have built a  "psychological futurism"
that everyone can adapt to their own needs. They go on to show you
how to develop a personalized system for capitalizing on what lies
ahead rather than shutting down with "time sickness" -- a feeling
that everything is changing so rapidly that the world is spinning
out of control.

The heart of this enriching guidebook consists of eight
navigational tools through which you can build new self awareness,
break out of limiting behavior patterns, and create a future for
yourself that is filled with new possibilities. Each of these
eight tools is presented along with a series of exercises designed
to help you tap into your hidden resources. You will:

 1. Cultivate your ability to enter the "Zone."
 2. Develop a heightened perception.
 3. Transform your propensity to resist change.
 4. Master the art of "mythmaking" in order to reinvent yourself.
 5. Bring submerged aspects of your consciousness into full view.
 6. Construct rites of passage that will continually add meaning
    to your life.
 7. Harness the power of intimacy.
 8. Accelerate results and decrease the time it takes to move 
    from an idea stage to its manifestation.

These tools alone are not the solution to facing the future;
rather, they are a compass, offering a reference point by which
you can navigate the future and develop a greater sense of purpose
that will center you in the midst of accelerated change.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
For over 20 years, husband-and-wife team Mikela Tarlow and Philip
Tarlow have led seminars around the world, including the popular
"Accelerating Results" which has attracted thousands of people
seeking new models for taking action in today's world. Mikela has
a social science and organizational analysis background while
Philip is an internationally recognized artist with works in major
collections throughout the world. Together they bring a unique
blend of the visionary and practical to their work.

   (softcover book, 336pp) Item# D1356-BK
      SRP$16.95 -- Your Price $13.50, You Save 20%!
     
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*** Thrive On! Recommended Site ***                              [TOP]
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NAVIGATING THE FUTURE Tour Schedule - Meet the Authors!
<http://www.navigatingthefuture.com/navschedule.html>
If you live close to one of the following geographic areas, I highly
encourage you to see the authors in person...
   Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Wyoming, 
   San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego Area,
   Greater LA, Santa Barbara, Long Branch, Ojai
   Greater NYC Area & Connecticut, South Florida


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validity or accuracy. Lifescope therefore assumes no responsibility for injury
and specifically disclaims any warranty, express or implied, of fitness or 
merchantability for a particular purpose. Besides, actual mileage may vary.

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