What does soul and ego have to do with science and innovation? That is from the spirit realm or a CEO.
However, it is something that relates to all of us in all aspects of our lives. We are all human, even scientists and academics that believe their feelings have nothing to do with the results. Which may be true; however, why are you studying a particular hypothesis, what is the agenda? why was the discovery not published and what did the paper say? And how will this change the world and our perceived knowledge of what is true based on published science.
We are born with an absence of knowledge based on experience and a whole world of discovery ahead of us. But initially we run on instinct. The battle of soul v ego starts early as we battle with stubbornness and tantrums from the ego and the unconditional love from the soul.
In many cases as we age and before we die, we may revert to these childlike tendencies as we lose certain capacities or desire to continually learn and investigate, dropping the knowledge acquired in this lifetime and going back to intuitive behaviours. Again, the battle of ego v soul is ever present as stubbornness and tantrums from the ego and the unconditional love from the soul.
At some point we may all believe it is possible to know everything or be an expert on a topic. To be an expert would mean you know most things, almost everything, there is to know about your chosen topic. You may even believe there are experts or even know a self-proclaimed expert that do know everything there is to know. You may believe and even have references to prove that a solution to a problem has been found and there is no further need for innovation or questions.
You may be an enthusiastic student or fan, a young researcher or you may be old and extremely experienced. During this phase you are full of passion and an extremely fast learner. Capable of remembering facts and references and passionate and excel in debate.
As we endeavour to gather more and more data on any topic we get to a point at the tip of the parabola when our learning slows down a little. Along with our gathered data and our perceived knowledge is increasing we get to a point where we realise there is a lot more to know. Like a lot more. There is so much already known and so many more discoveries making us question what we thought to be known to be true or fact. New scientific discoveries or technology that makes old data obsolete or need to be reviewed and perceived differently. Scientific fraud gets uncovered and references are discredited and suddenly everything we thought we knew may be wrong or at least not as convincing as we once believed.
At this point we have some really tough decisions to make. We may need to do some soul searching and check our ego. You are at that point when you know enough about a topic to realise how little you really know and just how much there is to know that is not possible to know everything and no one possibly could.
This is where ego can raise its ugly head. Some people are stuck around the top of the parabola somewhere near the peak but not yet at the point where they discover they cannot possibly know everything as their ego will not let that happen. They struggle to learn from others and do not look for ways to improve or innovate and do not question existing knowledge and experts and general scientific or public consensus. Often, they are offended by those that do question or look for new ways.
If ego takes hold than you may feel the need to stop researching, stop asking questions just in case you realise you were wrong or didn’t know everything after all.
You may choose to dedicate your life to spreading your word and continue to repeat the same information and references. You may feel offended when people question you or continue to look for new ways to interpret old data and opinions. You may suffer from “imposter syndrome” and feel like a fraud and either protect your personal brand to the death or be shattered and disappear.
Ego will hold you back from the wisdom that there is so much more. Once you realise how little we all know compared to what can possibly be known then you are free to explore and question and look at everything with fresh new eyes and innovate from the soul.
Innovating from the soul drops all fear, greed, jealousy and shame and allows you to be open to new possibilities. Innovating and learning from the soul allows you to see that there are so many ways to interpret the available data.
Soul allows you to also forgive a poor explanation, presentation, conclusion or a bad argument. Ego always wants to win and be right. Ego will jump on a shitty explanation of how something works or find fault in a fact just to be the smartest person in the room. Soul will understand no one knows everything but it is possible to learn something from everyone. If there is good solid data showing something does something than that data may be true even if someone cannot explain how or why it happened. That knowledge may come later with new scientific advances or discovery.
In the wisdom phase you learn very quickly as you get to look at old data with fresh eyes. You start looking at alternative viewpoints or new ways to explain your findings and explain your results.
In this phase you may be working in labs with scientists directly and academic institutions you realise that so much science is stuck in filing cabinets and not published. You may question why papers get published or do not? Acknowledge the history of fraud in science and industry and accept that history repeats and what we think we know is not all that there is to know. Having a great memory or recollection of convenient referenced “facts” that suit your rigid position is great to win a debate but that does not give the people what they really need. There is always a better way and new knowledge gained.
We can acknowledge that our environment is in a constant state of flux, food farming and processing changes things. In food and herbal material multiple active ingredients with multiple therapeutic targets are possible in so many substances. The chemical composition varies with season, location, time of harvest, processing, extraction type and there are so many variables possible in one substance before we consume it.
Then consider the new era of the intestinal microbiome and realising that they may be the reason why one man’s medicine is another man’s poison and the whole new world of discovery has emerged for foods and medicines. We had only just investigated the tip of the iceberg in research on our human genes before discovering that our microbiome gene pool is 100 times larger, and we are still learning new ways to measure it all. But then we realise it is how they interact together along with our environment, lifestyle and food that will determine how our genes will express.
And we are only just starting to get an understanding of any of this and there is so much is yet to learn. Of course, everything we thought we knew will change but that is good. This is exciting. Isn’t it? I love this stuff.
The world has moved from fibre to probiotics, prebiotics and symbiotics and already moved on to postbiotics and polyphenols which is the fermented foods and dirt where it all started so it is always possible to innovate. Even if you stay out of fashion long enough, fashion will catch up.
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