Author Geir Isene

From Wog to Scientologist and back to one’s own path

Geir Isene 26 Comments
  1. This Scientology thing may be interesting. But there is a lot of bad press about this. I will give it a try.
  2. Wow! This communications course really works. Scientology makes a lot of sense. The media has got this one wrong.
  3. Scientology really has got the answers! Hubbard was a genius. I am a Scientologist.
  4. Everything I have experienced so far is 100% right. The rest of Scientology must surely also be right
  5. Scientology is the One True Path to Total Freedom, the only hope for Man.
  6. The Church of Scientology is saving Mankind. David Miscavige is the most dedicated, brilliant leader there is. I follow Command Intention to the letter.
  7. There is something wrong in the Church that I can’t quite put my finger on.
  8. The Church is not applying Hubbard’s policy correctly. And there is out-tech. This is a local phenomenon.
  9. There seem to be global issues with the Church. It is not expanding even though Miscavige says it is expanding like never before.
  10. Scientology is the Only True Path, but the current management is not on that path. It has betrayed Hubbard.
  11. I am a dedicated Scientologist, and I can no longer support a suppressive Church. I’m out!
  12. I am an Independent Scientologist. I practice my religion outside of the confinement of the CoS.
  13. There sure are lots of diverging viewpoints among independent Scientologists. But I have my own unassailable trust in Hubbard.
  14. Maybe the insanities in the Church did not start with Miscavige. Maybe, just maybe some of the problems originated with Hubbard.
  15. Hmm… maybe Hubbard wasn’t right about everything. Maybe there actually are other valid spiritual paths
  16. Heck, Hubbard was wrong about a lot of things. Crap! My stable data are experiencing an earthquake.
  17. Scientology is a tool like so many tools out there. It’s got its good and its bad. I will use whatever works.
  18. I don’t really care one way or the other. I am on my own path toward my own goals.

Not exactly my journey, but close. Although some flip to the opposite and go from fanatic to anti-fanatic, I see most people go through a similar list to the above. It may serve as a useful prediction.

http://ergocakes.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/the-path/

Brendan & Geir does the US

Geir Isene 14 Comments

Å (the company of Brendan and myself) is looking at a US Tour from June 15th through the 22nd.

We’ll be visiting NY, LA and a stop-over at Chris’ somewhere in the middle to see the Grand Canyon and discuss the universe and stuff.

We’d like our tour to matter. We’d like to meet with interesting people, be inspired, make new friends and have a blast.

If you’ve got some cool or crazy ideas, want to have a coffee with us, set up a seminar, do a fun project or just exchange jokes, please let us know. We’re open for anything.

Brendan Geir

What can you control?

Geir Isene 139 Comments

Spend your time and energy on what you can control rather than what you cannot control. Far too much effort is spent on elements beyond a person’s control. It may be unproductive to spend time and energy on the weather, world politics or your mother-in-law unless you can actually control or influence these. It is futile to spend energy trying to change the past. Life can be divided into three categories:

  • That which you can control
  • That which you can influence
  • That which you cannot control

In the quest for a better life, the above serves well as a priority list.

control1

Category 1 should include your own thoughts and emotions, your own actions and how you treat others. These are elements you can gain control over. Category 0.5 would include your family and friends, your workplace and your teammates in any sport you engage in. These are elements you can half-control or influence to a greater or lesser degree. Although Category 0 often steals attention, it deserves none. It serves best as an energy void. You should not spend attention on what you cannot control. It is valuable to learn from past incidents, but being stuck in past incidents is essentially an effort to change the past and results in energy wasted. It is good advice to first gain sufficient control of category 1 before too much energy is spent on category 0.5 all the while no energy is spent on category 0. Top athletes spend most of their energy on category 1. Politicians spend most of their energy on category 0.5. Some politicians, like in Northern Ireland, spend too much time on category 0. You cannot change the past. And you can only influence the future. But you can control what you think, feel and do right now. A great soccer player like Lionel Messi of Barcelona FC has achieved an amazing control of his own actions on the field. He has awesome skills and abilities as a soccer player. He also manages to positively influence his team mates, he “lifts” the whole team whenever he plays. And unlike most players, he doesn’t spend much energy on what he cannot control, like protesting a referee decision. If you never spent energy on category 0, you would be more in control of your life and influencing your environment more. In the start of a relationship there are two people hopefully in good control of themselves and without any control or much influence over the other. As the dating commences, they gradually influence the other person. If the influence is good and agreeable, they may end up as a couple. If one of them doesn’t settle for influencing his partner, but instead tries to control her, you end up with an abusive relationship. The attempt to “mold” or “over-influence” you partner is an effort to move your partner in under your control. Category 1 should be reserved for yourself. You should never try to control another person. You should instead try to influence others in a good way. You can be fully in control of your own performance at work. This includes the limiting of bad influences from others, and the acceptance of good influences and help. You can positively influence your colleagues and customers by focusing on category 0.5. You can “hit the wall” by drooling and complaining over stuff beyond your control. If all of your job resides in category 1, you probably don’t have colleagues or customers and the job would be boring unless you don’t like company. If your focus is mostly on complaining about factors in category 0, you should quit your job now. Category 0 is always huge. What matters is how much you can be in control of yourself and how much you can positively influence others.

control2

A life of struggle with very little control of self and little influence over the environment

A path to a better life can be:

  1. Achieve control of you – your thoughts, emotions and actions – especially those actions in the fields that matters the most to you
  2. Increase your positive influence where it matters the most
  3. Spend little to no energy on matters outside of your control
control3

An interesting life of with good control of self and good influence on the environment

It may sound simple to say and hard to practice. True. Practice may not make you perfect, but it will make you steadily better.

Happiness is a vector, not a state

Geir Isene 26 Comments

Rich and unhappy. Poor and unhappy. Great marriage and still unhappy. Famous, on drugs and depressed. Bored to death while successful.

In the slum and energetic. In the jungle and happy. No money, no job, new girlfriend and erupting with happiness.

What’s going on?

Happiness is a vector (def. #1), not a state (def. #3).

Happiness doesn’t seem to be a matter of what you have or where you are at, but rather where you are heading. You can be depressed or happy whether you are poor or rich, famous or a nobody. The level where you are at does not determine your happiness. It is instead determined by the amount of progress toward a goal that you have set. And apparently it matters less what the goal is. The goal may be small or large in an absolute sense – what matters is how much you value that goal.

I have noticed in my own life that whenever I feel down, I simply pull myself up to complete some tasks – any tasks – and my mood is resurged. And the more the tasks is forwarding an important goal (for me), the more my mood rebounds.

All this is the reason why you hear talks about “the journey is the goal”. Because if the the goal is happiness, then progress toward a goal you set determines the happiness you gain.

Reaching a goal makes you happy for a short while. At that time it is important to set a new goal and milk it for all the happiness you can get by progressing toward it. Enjoy the road, the trip, the quest.

Overconfidence

Geir Isene 105 Comments

Having started and run several companies and a few IT companies in particular, this latest story from Slashdot particularly grabbed my attention. The point of the story, “overconfidence” is applicable is many fields and situations besides that of estimating IT project. First a copy-paste from Slashdot:

“Dan Milstein from Hut 8 Labs has written a lengthy post about why software developers often struggle to estimate the time required to implement their projects. Drawing on lessons from a book called Thinking Fast and Slow by Dan Kahneman, he explains how overconfidence frequently leads to underestimations of a project’s complexity. Unfortunately, the nature of overconfidence makes it tough to compensate. Quoting:

Specifically, in many, many situations, the following three things hold true: 1- ‘Expert’ predictions about some future event are so completely unreliable as to be basically meaningless 2- Nonetheless, the experts in question are extremely confident about the accuracy of their predictions. 3- And, best of all: absolutely nothing seems to be able to diminish the confidence that experts feel. The last one is truly remarkable: even if experts try to honestly face evidence of their own past failures, even if they deeply understand this flaw in human cognition they will still feel a deep sense of confidence in the accuracy of their predictions. As Kahneman explains it, after telling an amazing story about his own failing on this front: ‘The confidence you will experience in your future judgments will not be diminished by what you just read, even if you believe every word.’”

And then quoting Laurens van der Post: “Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond any doubt that they are right.”

And when people are convinced about their conviction, things tend to go south pretty fast. This is seen also during Internet discussions as well as real life discussions. People seek certainty. And the quest for certainty is the real value, not the attainment of it. Quoting Voltaire: “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”

Thinking back to my childhood, I remember with fondness how I cherished the mysteries and uncertainties of life. I loved how I didn’t know, how I wanted to know, and my quest for new knowledge. But as time went by and I grew up, I unfortunately became more certain, less fondly in awe about life’s mysteries and less inquiring.

I am currently trying to find ways to kill my own certainties, be more open for new views and uncertainties and to bring more awe back into life.

Hugs.

Hubbard would recommend Eastern Philosophy

Geir Isene 66 Comments

Looking at the current scene of Scientology, I see no one reaching a high level of spiritualistic serenity. I see bankruptcies, torn families, even suicides. People enter Scientology with some idea or hope of more spiritual freedom or serenity. Had it been possible to reach such a state in, let’s say fourteen or eighteen years, I think most would jump at the possibility. But no, in fourteen or eighteen years in the Church of Scientology, you’re most probably sucked dry for both time and money.

Hubbard should have torn out whatever hair was left had he seen what the Church of Scientology was accomplishing these days. And I believe he would have recommended that people moved to India for their spiritual progress.

In the book “Dianetics 55!”, he wrote about his travels to the East and of people studying Eastern Philosophies:

“..I saw individuals taking fourteen or eighteen years in order to get up to a high level of spiritualistic serenity.”

That would be quite something. I will take Hubbard’s hint and check it out myself. Besides practicing hug-ology, of course.

Hugs!

Geir Isene 33 Comments

We can protest. We can rally against an irrelevant cult. We can debate lots of what-ifs and rail against gun control laws. Or we can do something effective right here and now.

We can start by giving hugs. Lots of hugs. Hug those closest to you. Then some friends. Then some strangers.

Try this: Hug two strangers tomorrow. Let me know how it worked out. I will report back on my hugging adventure. In the meantime:

Why ideologies can make you stupid

Geir Isene 380 Comments

I planned to write a blog post titled “Why Scientology makes you stupid”, but then one of the contributors on my blog beat me to it. I am honored to be blessed with many very intelligent people commenting here – it makes my job real easy. I was planning to write the blog post and release it today, but Alanzo did a better job at it than I would have done. While I planned to center my post on Scientology, Al broadened the scope to ideologies or belief systems in general:


A “belief system” is a cognitive structure, a way to see the world where your moral choices, your attitudes, and your feelings, are all pre-wired and structured ahead of time for you.

Here’s a made-up example of a belief system I will create for you as an example: “Reaganism”.

The Axioms of “Reaganism”:

  1. The government destroys everything it touches. Any time the government gets involved, whatever activity was supposed to happen that was useful becomes corrupted, over-priced and useless after the government gets done with it.
  2. Private enterprise can always do a better job of anything than the government can. The attempt to turn a profit always makes an activity more efficient and productive for everyone.
  3. Therefore, government should be run by businesses because businesses can always do a better job at anything than the government can.

So when you adopt Reaganism as your belief system and become a Reaganologist, you look out onto the infinitely big, wide world that actually exists out there, and you have the pre-wiring and the cognitive structures of Reaganism interpret and categorize the infinity of all you see into simple little chunks for you.

Government run road projects are filled with people who just stand around all day and never get any work done. Even though you are driving on a road ( a road built by a government run road project) you never notice that. You sneer and become resentful at all these lazy bums working on this road. Your belief structure has filtered out some things that do not conform to it and accepted others that do conform to it, and given you attitudes and emotions to feel per its dictates.

The Titans of Industry are heros to you, because they embody all the values that you have adopted as a Reaganologist, You swell with pride every time you see a CEO of Goldmann Sachs on TV and you can’t believe that any government bureaucrat at the SEC would ever question his business practices. Government oversight is criminal in your mind, and suppressive to the upstats in society.

As a Reaganologist, you see the world in the way that Reaganism dictates.

The advantage of a belief system, or an ideology, is that it takes the infinite world around you and breaks it up into bite-size chunks, with all of it pre-understood ahead of time. It makes things simpler.

This, once you have adopted a belief system, is also its disadvantage. You don’t see the world as it is any more. You see it only as your ideology dictates that you see it.

No ideology can match the infinity of life, or the infinity of you. The stronger you hold on to an ideology, the smaller, and more fixed, you become.

As more and more of the infinities of life hit you that do not fit into your ideological helmet, the more tightly you pull it down onto your self. Until at last, you become fixed and pinheaded.

This is the problem with belief systems.