There. I've said it.

So, I have recommended that we broaden our modeling vision to look beyond excellence to embrace the vital mundane. I also recommended that we deepen our modeling vision by applying it to fundamental human experiential processes, such as the process of explanation. And I suggested that, by doing that, we will move ourselves into Learning III, a level at which there are suddenly available to us choices about how to get out of Level II self-perpetuating problems. And finally, I suggested that the Yellow meme of Spiral Dynamics - the "life is a kaleidoscope of natural hierarchies" meme - describes a future worth pursuing, and that the spread of modeling - even as an idea - will help bring that about.

Well isn't this going to make everything more complex and difficult to understand and make choices about and deal with? This is, of course, how we see it from THIS side of the mirror. When Alice knelt on the mantelpiece and gazed into the mirror, she did not see the different world that was waiting inside it; she saw only herself. It was not until she pressed her hand against what had always been solid before, that she slipped through into the other world. Trying to unravel and follow the threads of complexity of another world with our current ways of perceiving Is, of course, formidable, staggering even. But for those of us who cross over, it may not be - in fact, I am confident will not be - overwhelming, once we are "there." Then it will just be "here".

These things do not happen on their own, however.

Beck and Cowan's Spiral road makes the journey to Yellow and beyond seem Inevitable. But I think this is not so. All of the previous levels are operating simultaneously in the world, with one or another of them holding sway among different groups of people. And all of the previous levels are alive in each of us as well. And again, one or another currently holds sway over each of us. It Is not written how for each of us will go. Nor is it written how far a society will go. But perhaps the path itself is written. Remember the people we were watching read earlier? What was written on the pops of their books did not live until those people read it. Similarly, the path of the future does not exist until it is walked. Francisco Varela captured this notion beautifully in the title to one of his papers: "Laying down a path In walking." Exactly so. Like any path, the Yellow Meme path must be walked in order to come into existence. The Learning III path must be walked to come Into existence. And the modeling path must be walked to come into existence. And it is folks who do the walking. Remarkably, collective change Is brought about by individuals.

Are our societies, cultures, histories rivers in which each of us is but a drop? Yes.

Does that mean we are at their mercy? No, I don't think so. All of us have ample evidence that experience does change as underlying structures change, and that these changes In the structure of experience do occur, even In the face of societal and cultural torrents. This is not speculation. All of us know -or at least know of - folks whose experiential world is Yellow (or chartreuse or mauve). And probably most of us have dipped a toe or two into the next color. There is plenty of evidence that the possibility space is much larger than the experiential space most of us currently hang out In. Can we make a difference In the river? Well... ... Several years ago I clipped a wonderful - If a bit macabre - little article out of the newspaper. It told of a Slovenian fisherman who had hooked a huge fish at his favorite lake. He was a passionate fisherman. He couldn't seem to land that fish, and he wouldn't let go. Eventually, it pulled him under and he still wouldn't let go, and he drowned. His last words were, "Now I've got him!" I sometimes feel like that Slovenian, angling for understanding with my little modeling pole It may pull me under, too, That would NOT be a tragedy! I don't consider that fisherman's death a tragedy, at least not for him. He went down doing what he loved - at least that's the story I will make up for him. He'd hooked the fish of his dreams, and I imagine a very lusty, "Now I've got him!" - Not pathetic, not fearful... but joyful.

The snowball of modeling may have a snowball's chance in hell of getting rolling, let alone starting an avalanche. The obstacles are great. It will take time. It will be a lot of work. But for me, for what I know, to not pursue that would be, in a real sense, to give up on...us.