Locus

In your last post, you touched on enlightenment. I wonder if you have some definition for it? How do we know what it means to be enlightened? Is it something we'll know when we see? I ask because I'm genuinely unsure if I have the vocabulary to discuss it.

In my own experience, the closest I've come to feeling what I'd considered "enlightened" was on the Camino de Santiago, as I walked to exhaustion each day in deliberate reflection. I attribute this feeling of enlightenment to attention, as again you touched on last time. Indeed, during the walk my locus of attention overlapped almost completely with my locus of control. I needed only to concern myself with the walk to the next town, all else dropped away. This entailed a reduction in ego, which I think allowed me to experience a deeper sense of connection with the world. As I sit here typing, struggling to find the words to describe the implications of this, I am led to that selfsame quote "The tao that can be told is not the true Tao". 

I wonder though, as I experience echoes of this every time I exhaust myself physically at a workout or in a sport. When you've laid it all out on the line, for a brief moment of respite, the circle of your attention and concern shrinks. Though, I am led to wonder then, if what I experience as enlightenment is so connected to physical exhaustion in each case, could it not be just some kind of endorphin or neurotransmitter? It is hard to disentangle. Hence, my question, what do you mean by enlightenment?

On the topic of exponential growth, I like your point about the multi-modal impact of improving ourselves. Another way in which we experience exponential growth, I think, are in those systems from which we can decouple ourselves as a driver. Our finances, if managed well, can grow exponentially because they do not rely on our active intervention. If you are on social media or a business, your followers and customers through their referrals can lead to exponential growth. In each case, there has to be some existing asset (money, followers, customers) which experiences a "viral loop" of self-referral. Yes, our own intervention can improve the rate of this loop, and there is always the change the loop falls away if we completely ignore the underlying process, but ideally these referrals are occuring without our active intervention. As I reflect, it's not clear to my which of my habits can lead to this kind of exponential growth except as a secondary effect. Perhaps just good habits aren't enough?