I came across two very different pieces of content that have been looping in my mind.
Not because they say the same thing, but because they point to the same blind spot.
The first, a spoken word piece by Skyscraper Stan.
It’s an ode to the deep connection and interconnected systems allowing all nature, including humans, to flourish.
The idea that we’re in this alone, that it’s a “dog eat dog” world of competition, is fundamentally at odds with how life actually works.
In short, we only thrive because we’re in this together.
It ends with this line:
“Sure, competition may help determine which trees grow and which trees fall, but cooperation is the reason there are trees on earth at all.”
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The second is a piece from The New York Times, All the Worst People Seem to Want to Be ‘High Agency.’
It questions the modern obsession with “high agency,” celebrated as the bold, independent action of startups and risk takers.
At first, “high agency” sounds empowering – you can do anything, just go ahead and do it.
But the article suggests that simply acting without a compass creates more problems than it solves.
“You can just do things, sure, but what will you do?”
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Two different domains pointing to the same pattern.
We’ve been taught to trust force.
Compete harder. Act faster. Push further.
These pieces point us somewhere else. One through poetry. The other through an op-ed piece.
What does the evidence show us in real life?
Life doesn’t happen through individual effort. It works through cooperative relationship.
Action by itself isn’t intelligence. It’s just motion.
So the real question isn’t, “How do I do more?”
It’s, “What’s actually true here?”
Most people skip the real question. They inherit assumptions about how life works and then build on top of them. A shaky foundation at best.
You won’t discover the answer by following a guru or reading a great think piece.
You only discover it by looking within to the quiet space when you can actually see:
What’s true?
What’s mine to do?
“What everybody searches for lies within their own self. It’s an identity that you’ve lost. That’s what it is – it’s an identity that you’ve lost. It’s you – you’re lost. Not you the body; not you the little mind; but the energy – the true you – the true self…The true reality lies within. And if you can go within, from here – and only from here – only from here can the troubles and the problems of the universe be solved.” – Sydney Banks
How many decades (lifetimes) have I searched for the answers outside of myself?
Only to discover, and rediscover, that what I’m searching for is already mine. It’s already…me.
It’s a strange thing to be a guide for people, by guiding them back to themselves and what they already know.
And yet, here I am.
And yet, this is what I do.
If you want a space to look at this directly to find out what’s actually true for you…
Book a DragonHeart Portal session.
Yours in love and play,
Steph 🐲❤️🔥
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