Independents of the World Unite!

FLOW is a living activist philosophy for Independents whose benefits are best shown in a contrast of two golf swings. Please view the following; it doesn’t matter if you don’t know or play golf:*

Before FLOW: Joe Shlabotnik

After FLOW: Fred Couples

Yes, embracing 'the FLOW' will transform anyone’s life from some version of Shlabotnik’s tension and violence to PGA champion Freddie Couples’ embodiment of fluidity and power. The price: learn to let go of inner obstacles. Interested?

Good, I have been developing my FLOW philosophy and fellowship for quite a while. For fundraising at this point, I’m seeking is a many-hands-make-light-work donation of ~$5 by 2500 individuals to get the ball truly rolling for "Independents of the World" by the mid-2020s.

“The dream’s the thing.” — Preston Tucker

Please join with me to bring the dream to life.

* I’m treating the above videos as if they’re public domain (YouTube). As FLOW matures, I’ll provide any appropriate royalties’ payments, especially to Fred Couples who is a well-known professional golfer (I don’t know the golfer I’m calling Joe Shlabotnik.)#

# Joe Shlabotnik is a Peanuts’ comic strip baseball player whom Charlie Brown idolizes.

###

Summary

As I continue to grow with new ideas and projects, I'm rewriting the Story for the FLOW philosophy and fellowship. I look back at the original writeup with some misgivings, but not too many—the Three Pillars haven't changed appreciably and I still hold out ambitions for "a religion for Independents" of global reach. I see
FLOW as a complement to the popular Thrive movement.

That's on the intellectual and philosophical level, however. What I want is to bring 'the FLOW' into people's lives as a nourishing fellowship of kindred souls. [My ideal is actually expressed in the barn-building scene of the Amish in the movie Witness. And in recapturing the feeling of how it was in the smalltown Lutheran church where my dad inadvertently fermented the kool-aid for a youth group gathering one summer. :) ]

FLOW Creed

We are, individually and together, the Divine Purpose of the universe unfolding. We rise to the Source through truth, tolerance, and compassion. We embrace our fellow sentient beings in the spirit and practice of the Sacred Nonaggression Principle. Daily we flow with the effortless power of our Authentic Swings.

We shed the inner collar of noise-mind.

From Presence we think with our own brains and see thru our own eyes; we join with kindred souls of Independent consciousness, above all to heal humanity of collective-brain syndrome (CBS). We nourish conceptual tools of reason and logic to dispel propaganda and CBS feelings that sanction deceptive, deadly global-cabal power.

We shed the outer collar of herd-mind.

Rejecting “superiority” doctrine, we stand for First Principles’ individual rights of the Declaration of Independence, which America’s founders won a war to effect, with people’s independent grand juries directly to hold public officials to their oaths… stopping the corruption of First Principles for personal, special, business, or foreign interests.  

As Independents united we rise to peace and liberty in joy, ease, and lightness (JEL).

The Three Pillars of FLOW

In the original Story, I had spelled out the three central behaviors or concepts of the FLOW philosophy in considerable detail. And that was a mistake; people lose interest in a detailed architecture that only its author, really, grasps (they see no clear way to apply it to their own lives). I had violated the KISS Principle: keep it simple, stupid. So what follows now are my brief observations of what makes FLOW distinct as a "system of thought."

Pillar 1: Consciousness

The central spiritual teaching for FLOW as I see it, is simply dog (consciousness and Being) wags tail (mind), not the other way around. The world at this point is probably 95-99% tail (compulsive mind) wags dog. If we fix this inner quality, the outer world will take care of itself. In other words, reverse the condition displayed in the image, and we're home free:

Dog wags tail = consciousness. Tail wags dog = unconsciousness. This analogy is, so far as I know, my own creation. My main spiritual teacher in the development of Pillar 1 has been Eckhart Tolle and his 1999 watershed book, The Power of Now. [Note: Eckhart is NOT the final word, and one must never be complacent in developing one's own unique spiritual path... continuous improvement is part of the paradigm shift, including 'Tolleism.']

PIllar 2: Reason

The FLOW Pillars are complementary to one another. Without reason, logic, and common sense, no one stands a chance at living a good life. What I mean here is that in order to succeed (at anything) one must become proficient at the art of noncontradictory identification. Basically, pigs do not fly out of your butt just because you believe or have faith that they do.  

Reason is the tie into basic metaphysics that reality is objective, that wishing you made birdie on a golf hole doesn't change seven strokes into three... or that the votes that corrupt public officials enable to be counted jibe with the actual votes cast. Note: objectivity doesn't mean that how we conceive or perceive the external world has no effect on it or us... only that reality adheres to logic. [Despite anyone's misrepresentations.]

The FLOW Pillar of Reason has a deep background, mostly in the work of Ayn Rand, yet also in the writings of independent journalist and columnist Jon Rappoport. I recommend the following works:

• Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology by Ayn Rand—monograph dealing with the fundamentals of concept formation, mainly.
• Jon's course Logic and Analysis from his The Matrix Revealed Volume, available from his site http://nomorefakenews.com —an especially useful classroom format and will require purchase of the Matrix volume.

The above works provide a minimal understanding of the art of logic, especially in the modern world where mainstream media and academia push sophisticated deception. As a practical tool for, the following chart of logical fallacies will be helpful as a shortcut:

Pillar 3: First Principles and People's Grand Juries

Here is where FLOW gets political. It's a matter of integrity (loyalty to values): If one is committed to taking actions for one's life, one must be, as well, committed to a social system in which you have a right to do so—to quote Ayn Rand, "Rights are freedom of action in a social context." "First Principles" is the name applied to the fundamental five rights spelled out in the American Declaration of Independence.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident:

1. that all men are created equal,
2. that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
3. that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
4. that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
5. that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”[1]

…which place the responsibility for monitoring and maintaining the government systems that would later be created squarely where it should be: upon ‘THE PEOPLE’ of America.

[1] Declaration of Independence, The Pennsylvania Packet, July 8, 1776.

First Principle #5 essentially states it is an unalienable right of the PEOPLE to 'monitor and discipline' public officials [and their accomplices]—the colonists obviously did not want to initiate a revolution for every public official infraction—when they become "destructive of these ends" of securing our unalienable rights.

And the institution for doing that always has been, in the custom of English law, a GRAND JURY of one's nongovernment peers—which, upon citizen complaint of corruption, investigates a public official, and, by majority vote, makes a presentment (indictment) if there is probable cause to bind over the official for a trial jury.

[This was the practice in all the American colonies at the time that the Declaration was written (and in fact what was convened as a special grand jury among the population to seek probable cause for prosecuting the British soldiers in the Boston Massacre).] Grand juries give the PEOPLE a sword and a shield, RECOURSE, against corrupt government officials

The people's grand jury, effectively becoming 'the people' in between elections, was and is still a fourth branch of government... yet it is NOT and never has been a formal institution of the government; rather it is 'the PEOPLE' directly exercising their responsibility to watch officials of the government like hawks and ruthlessly eliminate the slightest hint of corruption.

The FLOW philosophy includes the relentless pursuit of justice—there are many ways to state it: inviolate supremacy of individual rights, the nonaggression principle, application of First Principles—in society. Accordingly, our philosophy endorses the practice of people's independent grand juries as an essential tool for keeping government officials accountable, liable, and honest. The core explanatory document that integrates First Principles and grand juries is Diane McGilvery's monograph, What is the Foundation?.

 Another useful link in explaining the role of proper grand juries comes from Roger Root, "If It's Not a Runaway Grand Jury it's not a Grand jury." The essential point here is that our First Principles and grand juries offer the sole means of rescuing any sanity from the existing government system... and will be the principal means of securing justice whether or not we decide to let the current system die and build a new one based on First Principles. 

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”  — Buckminster Fuller

Are You Interested?

Those of you who are aware of the first FLOW Story can see I've pared down the description of FLOW considerably. There remains much to flesh out, and what I would like to build from is a small body of enthusiasts who understand and SEE the potential of the philosophy thus defined. Also who share my vision of a new global "religion" for Independents—people who "see thru their own eyes and think with their own brains," to put it simply. And who wish to join together in benevolence and presence.

So, if you, as a minimum, understand the three Pillars and how they work together, if you see that FLOW founds a philosophy of consciousness, reason, and freedom—that real people can live with day to day—then please sign up here. Tentatively become a FLOWer (rhymes with GROWer) until it doesn't make sense or doesn't "scratch the itch" for you anymore. I'll get back with you to discuss future FLOW work.

I plan to build by doing... and in a relatively open source-manner—once my envelope sketch of basic ideas is finished. You can see what I mean with Project 1, the Great Decollaring, which, as serendipity would have it, constitutes an ideal beginning. Check the first update to this FundRazr.