After spending some significant time on a social networking site, Tribe, I began to weigh the pros and cons in terms of expansion and entropy and what a network taps from an individual as opposed to what it has to offer. I find the social network to be an egregore. Just what an “egregore” is the subject of debate. For this purpose, I use it to describe a group or collective “mind” that arises when two or more people combine their wills, thoughts and intent. This definition presupposes that we exist beyond our meat but the principal is still sound even if you are operating from a purely materialistic point of view if you think in psychological and/or sociological terms.

The benefits of the network might arise due to the innate harmony or stability of a network rather than from the mere sum of individual parts/talents/minds. Opposing or disruptive forces, such as those that arise from a lack of harmony/instability, can negate those benefits. The effectiveness of a group effort or the strength of the egregore is thus determined. Quite like we humans on an individual basis. The greater harmony one achieves with all of the various “selves” that make up the illusory construct that considers itself to be “I” the more effective one is as a human. Inharmonious people are labeled as schizophrenic and convinced to go on drugs by their loved ones. Anyway, I began to feel I was feeding the entity that was Tribe more than it was nourishing me and decided to take a break.

On a personal level, we all participate in innumerable egregores such as our family, groups of friends, clubs, workgroup, religious group, sporting teams, neighborhood, city, country, world, solar system, galaxy, universe and multiverse. Freeing oneself from the effects of these is not simple but begins with the realization that many of your ideas and much that you think of as “you” is merely the collected wisdom of these egregores played out in your mind. Finding “you” among all the programming and indoctrination is one of life’s greatest challenges.

A good example is your daily participation in the egregore of the country you live in. I have spent the greater portion of my adult life outside the US. I’ve found that as a foreigner, particularly in Asia, societal rules and expectations don’t apply as much, as they expect that you couldn’t possibly understand, and I’ve pretty much had carte blanche to do as I see fit. (Much more so in Japan than China, though, I must say. Chinese are more like Americans in thinking that if you come here you should do things their way and if you don’t know what that is, that’s your problem.) Not that I avoided petty bureaucracy and socially awkward situations, but I have felt the freedom to be ME. Of course, in my early twenties in Japan it seemed that my true purpose was to party non-stop and attempt to undo all of the indoctrination of my childhood by breaking every rule!

I recently spent about 7 years back in the states and I must say I had a harder time fitting into expected norms there, after 9 years in Japan. Frankly, I didn’t, in many ways. I found that people were always asking how come I didn’t know this TV show or that famous person. As tiresome as it can be explaining yourself again and again in a foreign country, to the tune of the same old questions, imagine having to do that in your own country!

Of course, defying expectations is one of my favorite hobbies! As is smashing stereotypes. Most people have no idea how many limits are placed on them by society. Of course, anyone kooky enough to practice reality manipulation (a.k.a. magic[k]) can certainly relate to being a star-shaped peg in a land of square holes.

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