My sense is that this transition in the age of network information has been enabled by a number of factors including a massive shift in online circling, authentic listening, dialogos, and generative empathic collaboration. Those regularly participating in trusted information and empathy networks end up intuitively drawn to patterns of murmuration. These murmurations are amazing to watch but even more thrilling to participate in. Listening to those named individuals in practice with each other can lead to memetic biomimicry among those who are sensitive and attentive to patterns and reverberations.
Jasen, thank you for this generous and thought-provoking addition. I loved your article, especially the surfing analogy. That concept of the surfer, not resisting the wave but attuning to it, was shared during my recent retreat as a metaphor for equanimity. It reflects so much of what spiritual wisdom requires. Not rigidity, but responsive balance. Not dominance, but dance.
And the way you connect that individual awareness to collective murmurations — yes! You articulate something I’m seeing more and more clearly in real time: how presence, empathy, and attuned participation in trusted spaces can ripple outward into coherent, emergent intelligence. The murmuration doesn’t need a leader. It needs sensitivity, relational trust, and enough stillness to feel the pattern just beneath the noise.
Your introduction of negentropy as a way of thinking about community formation is also compelling. What a powerful reframe of vitality. Not as something to extract, but as something continually created. It makes me wonder how this principle might be intentionally designed into more of our systems. Especially those related to commerce, education, and governance. There’s so much here to keep exploring.
Deep appreciation for sharing your work and for extending this conversation so meaningfully. It feels like we’re all catching the same wave together.
Thank you very much for that post. It becomes obvious from this and from the way that you respond to others' posts that you are genuinely attentive to the world around you. I want to repeat that --"genuinely attentive". Because this is not common. It is not something most people are. We scroll past looking for that which interests us. You are not looking for specific things that fill your agenda book for the day. You are open. And that's what makes this post important. Earthstar One's comment on the brazen individual voices that stand out in the beauty of a murmuration's swirling storm, was valid until you realise that there are leader birds and follower birds even within the murmuration. Individuals can tilt the frame, ever so slightly, with a way of seeing the world, that can in fact start the slide; tip the scales in favour of achieving critical mass. I do not know if we are in an age of transition just yet. But, that YOU are not here, responding to these comments--instead choosing to be elsewhere for a higher purpose--shows that you just might be that individual.
Sudipto, thank you. Your words reached me at just the right depth and pace. Especially your comment about being “genuinely attentive.” That moved me more than I can say. It’s something I strive for. Not just as a writer, but as a way of living. To have that seen, and named, means the world.
Being away on retreat this past week has only deepened that desire. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call it a “higher purpose” (though I appreciate your framing), but I do think the essence of it, like so many meaningful things, is presence. Attention. To be awake and aware to what is actually happening in front of us. To not turn away. To feel life as it unfolds, not only in ourselves but in others too.
And then, from that awareness, to act. To respond rather than react. To choose rather than drift. To offer something, not because we’re trying to lead or influence, but because we are paying close enough attention to sense where something wants to move, and we’re willing to tilt just enough to help it shift.
You naming that possibility, that even the most subtle shift in attention can ripple out into a larger pattern, feels like a deep truth. Maybe that is how it all begins. Not with grand gestures, but with quiet attunement. Not with answers, but with care.
I’m still walking around with a bit of what they call “yogi mind” from retreat. A widened attention that brings a kind of disorientation, yes, but also a gentleness I hope to keep. A felt sense that, as you so often remind me, insight is less about arrival and more about how we stay with what’s already here.
Thank you for your ongoing presence in these conversations. They sharpen and soften me at once.
Thank you so much, Nicola. That encouragement lands warmly and serendipitously. Since returning from retreat, I’ve been spending more time with these thoughts and sensations. And you’re right, it may become something more. I’ve been slowly gathering notes that could take shape as a second book, one circling this swirl of realization and presence. We’ll see where it leads, but your reflection feels like a gentle nudge in just the right direction. Grateful, as always, for the way you listen, and what you mirror back. 🙏
Fantastic piece. I just turned 68 and have been feeling this over the past year or two. I have felt we are moving from the old industrial age into the new age of technology. Existential threats everywhere to my known way of life. Being flexible and going with the flow. Or trying to.
Thank you for reading and sharing this, Jill. I can feel the honesty and thoughtfulness in what you wrote... that sense of noticing something shifting, both personally and collectively. And yes, the existential edge of it all is so real.
While many are calling this next chapter the age of technology, I find myself wondering whether something deeper is trying to emerge. Perhaps not just a new “age,” but a new way of tending. Of planting seeds with more care. Of recognizing that what we cultivate now will shape the world that blooms next — for ourselves and for those who come after us.
Your words about trying to stay flexible and flow with it all feel like wisdom hard-earned. I’m grateful you’re part of this conversation, and this moment.
This transition piece has been a companion piece since its emergence on that Friday.
Multiple listenings fostering inner conversations begun, and lingering…
Hopeful. Bridges. Presence rather than performance. Echos of the exploration everywhere. Many comments pursuing the conversation; expanding, challenging, provocative, all underline the relevance and excitement of this moment in time. May a united, connected, purposeful murmuration occur….
Thank you, Mom. It means a lot to know this piece has stayed with you and sparked such thoughtful reflection. And you’re right, the comments have opened up the conversation in such rich and unexpected ways. I’m grateful you’ve been reading along, listening, and sensing the echoes too.
Love you! Thank you for always being part of the journey, and for encouraging me every step of the way.
As always, beautifully eloquent. It is the zeitgeist of us all being asked to respond to new minimal differences in the universe:to decide if the flocking pattern will be recognized and followed or if they want the flock to move on without them: for people to remember what has only been causally invented just now from one another perspective but which has always been for them in their way. These are not metaphors.
Thank you, cousin. Your words always shimmer with depth. I love that framing: of minimal differences in the universe nudging us toward choice. Those ever present causes and conditions that influence our moment to moment intentions. The murmuration metaphor has always moved me, but you’re right: it’s not metaphor alone. These shifts are real, relational, emergent. A dance of presence, perception, and pattern. Grateful to be in this unfolding with you.
Thank you so much, Paul. I really appreciate the recommendation—and your work, which helped shape much of the thinking in this piece. 'The Pathless Path' gave language to a feeling I struggled to name when I first stepped away from my former career. I’ve just downloaded Feiler’s 'Life Is in the Transitions' and added it to my Audible queue. Looking forward to diving in. Grateful for the nudge, and the resonance.
I have resistance to The Great Murmuration section. What makes a mumuration a murmuration is that identities are irrelevant. Why then list people-ideal complexes? Any time ideas are listed in association with individuals (as if the individuals are somehow their penultimate source), we reinforce systems that derive power from personal refusal to re-comprehend. Since I see that at the root of collective misconception, I mention it as a concern here.
Thank you, Earthstar. I deeply appreciate you bringing this perspective forward, and I’m especially grateful for the thoughtful tone you bring to the critique. It’s sparked reflection in the best kind of way.
Your point about murmuration and the irrelevance of identity is well taken. The beauty of that metaphor lies in how it transcends individual ego. A movement arises not from control, but from sensitivity. A collective rhythm that emerges without a center. I resonate with that.
At the same time, what I hoped to offer in naming individuals wasn’t an elevation of source, but a gesture of pattern recognition. These aren’t monuments, but markers. They are people whose stories echo the larger shift, and seem highly attuned to the wider shift. Not necessarily heroes, but signals of a deeper turning. The details may differ, but the cadence is familiar. They're part of the pattern.
Each story is a thread in the greater weave. While no single voice defines the whole, stories help us trace its shape. Sometimes naming a few helps others locate themselves. Not through imitation, but through resonance.
It’s also, for me, about honoring agency. A murmuration depends on response. Not to direction, but to nuance. The subtle flick of a wing nearby. Each gesture, each micro-choice, affects the shape of the whole. If we lose sight of that, I think we risk either nihilism or a kind of unconscious drift into despair.
So yes, the system transcends the individual. But each gesture still matters. That’s the paradox I’m drawn to: the individual as both essential and dissolvable. Both particle and wave.
Thank you for lifting this layer of the conversation. I’m grateful to be in this unfolding with you.
Interesting take. I have had this conversation with myself about the hivemind vs. the genius. And to my mind, the genius pales every time in the presence of a hivemind. But the hivemind is still made up off individual minds, some brighter than others--guiding, leading...But to your point, once the hivemind, the murmuration, has been established, to spotlight the individuals seems unnecessary and even counterproductive. It is however, an esoteric point and I wonder if your own work has more insights into the operations of systems vs. individuals. Please do share if it does. Most interested.
So grateful you perceive an esoteric point and not just "sour grapes" (if MY name isn't special enough to be highlighted no one's should be!) lol. Indeed, you well see the snag -- there seems to be a need for genius. Without genius (brighter minds), hivemind would lack needed leadership and guidance.
Consider that, from the perspective of murmuration (hivemind), need-for-genius is an insufferable, if fundamental, misperception about reality. One way to characterize it, as I do, is by looking at fundamental Reality Myths, the Second Myths being Me First and I Am Right. Genius's shadow if you will. (The First Myths speak to the shadow of hivemind -- Feel It All, Have It All, Be It All, and Comprehend It All.)
What the two types of reality myths point to are contrasting forms of enaction. Enaction from individuality v enaction from real or perceived collectivity. So here we are full circle. As you say Sudipto, re-comprehension with such misperceptions has to do with our view of the relationship of systems to individuals.
Genius would be great, if not for distorted future sense, and thus a functionally mythic reality to correct. Hivemind would be great, if not for the axis of ambiguity, and thus a functionally mutable reality to correct. And like two wrongs don't make a right, two reality "corrections" don't make a favorably co-created reality.
When we recognize and relate through objective systems of repair rather than subjectively "correct" this and that, the genius and hive bring ease to each other and natural generativity prevails.
Its a bit clearer now where you are coming from. Your website is super interesting. Those diagrams of kaleidoscopic colour wheels are mesmerising (read: couldn't get them, but my subconscious hopefully has taken a screenshot and will return an understanding to me in the, hopefully not too distant, future.) :p
Sudipto, Earthstar… I’m deeply moved by this unfolding conversation. This is the kind of inquiry that makes writing feel worthwhile. Not just to be read, but to be wrestled with. Not just appreciated, but extended. Thank you both for bringing such depth, nuance, and generosity of thought.
Sudipto, your attentiveness always astonishes me. You read not only what is written, but what gestures just beyond it. And Earthstar, your metaphors carry that rare kind of layered wisdom that both puzzles and reveals. It’s a joy to witness your diagrams, your framing of myths, and your willingness to meet complexity with clarity and color.
There’s something powerful in the way you’ve both approached the tension between individual and collective. The particle and the wave. The genius and the murmuration. The ephemeral and the mythic.
Your naming of “me first” and “I am right” as myths is particularly resonant. Each of those words carries its own quiet illusion. “Me” and “I” may not be what we think they are. “Am,” as Huxley suggests, denies the impermanence at the heart of all experience. “First” forgets the cyclical nature of becoming. And “right” may be the most stubborn fiction of all.
In that sense, I find myself aligning with both of you. Systems matter. So do individuals. But neither holds clarity alone. Meaning arises not at the poles, but in the meeting place between them. Not as resolution, but as resonance. Not control, but co-creation.
And if I had to name the reason I write, or at least what keeps me writing, it’s this. Conversations like this. Shared remembering. No one owns the truth, but everyone brings a piece of it to light.
With deep gratitude to you both. For the challenge, the insight, and the joy of this shared unfolding.
May our myths keep softening. And our murmuration, evolving.
Great piece! I started my Substack precisely because of this something stirring within me. It feels very real. Glad to have found your work through Allie!
Thank you so much, Eric. I’m really glad you felt the resonance, and even more grateful that the thread from Allie brought you here. That stirring you mentioned… yes, I know it well. It’s such a powerful thing when it starts to take shape, and I’m glad to know you’re following it through your own writing. Looking forward to reading more of your work and continuing the conversation. Welcome. :)
My sense is that this transition in the age of network information has been enabled by a number of factors including a massive shift in online circling, authentic listening, dialogos, and generative empathic collaboration. Those regularly participating in trusted information and empathy networks end up intuitively drawn to patterns of murmuration. These murmurations are amazing to watch but even more thrilling to participate in. Listening to those named individuals in practice with each other can lead to memetic biomimicry among those who are sensitive and attentive to patterns and reverberations.
https://open.substack.com/pub/releasingthemuse/p/murmurations-in-communities-of-practice?r=8fury&utm_medium=ios
Jasen, thank you for this generous and thought-provoking addition. I loved your article, especially the surfing analogy. That concept of the surfer, not resisting the wave but attuning to it, was shared during my recent retreat as a metaphor for equanimity. It reflects so much of what spiritual wisdom requires. Not rigidity, but responsive balance. Not dominance, but dance.
And the way you connect that individual awareness to collective murmurations — yes! You articulate something I’m seeing more and more clearly in real time: how presence, empathy, and attuned participation in trusted spaces can ripple outward into coherent, emergent intelligence. The murmuration doesn’t need a leader. It needs sensitivity, relational trust, and enough stillness to feel the pattern just beneath the noise.
Your introduction of negentropy as a way of thinking about community formation is also compelling. What a powerful reframe of vitality. Not as something to extract, but as something continually created. It makes me wonder how this principle might be intentionally designed into more of our systems. Especially those related to commerce, education, and governance. There’s so much here to keep exploring.
Deep appreciation for sharing your work and for extending this conversation so meaningfully. It feels like we’re all catching the same wave together.
Thank you very much for that post. It becomes obvious from this and from the way that you respond to others' posts that you are genuinely attentive to the world around you. I want to repeat that --"genuinely attentive". Because this is not common. It is not something most people are. We scroll past looking for that which interests us. You are not looking for specific things that fill your agenda book for the day. You are open. And that's what makes this post important. Earthstar One's comment on the brazen individual voices that stand out in the beauty of a murmuration's swirling storm, was valid until you realise that there are leader birds and follower birds even within the murmuration. Individuals can tilt the frame, ever so slightly, with a way of seeing the world, that can in fact start the slide; tip the scales in favour of achieving critical mass. I do not know if we are in an age of transition just yet. But, that YOU are not here, responding to these comments--instead choosing to be elsewhere for a higher purpose--shows that you just might be that individual.
Sudipto, thank you. Your words reached me at just the right depth and pace. Especially your comment about being “genuinely attentive.” That moved me more than I can say. It’s something I strive for. Not just as a writer, but as a way of living. To have that seen, and named, means the world.
Being away on retreat this past week has only deepened that desire. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call it a “higher purpose” (though I appreciate your framing), but I do think the essence of it, like so many meaningful things, is presence. Attention. To be awake and aware to what is actually happening in front of us. To not turn away. To feel life as it unfolds, not only in ourselves but in others too.
And then, from that awareness, to act. To respond rather than react. To choose rather than drift. To offer something, not because we’re trying to lead or influence, but because we are paying close enough attention to sense where something wants to move, and we’re willing to tilt just enough to help it shift.
You naming that possibility, that even the most subtle shift in attention can ripple out into a larger pattern, feels like a deep truth. Maybe that is how it all begins. Not with grand gestures, but with quiet attunement. Not with answers, but with care.
I’m still walking around with a bit of what they call “yogi mind” from retreat. A widened attention that brings a kind of disorientation, yes, but also a gentleness I hope to keep. A felt sense that, as you so often remind me, insight is less about arrival and more about how we stay with what’s already here.
Thank you for your ongoing presence in these conversations. They sharpen and soften me at once.
The body of this reply could be expanded into a full post 😊
Thank you so much, Nicola. That encouragement lands warmly and serendipitously. Since returning from retreat, I’ve been spending more time with these thoughts and sensations. And you’re right, it may become something more. I’ve been slowly gathering notes that could take shape as a second book, one circling this swirl of realization and presence. We’ll see where it leads, but your reflection feels like a gentle nudge in just the right direction. Grateful, as always, for the way you listen, and what you mirror back. 🙏
Fantastic piece. I just turned 68 and have been feeling this over the past year or two. I have felt we are moving from the old industrial age into the new age of technology. Existential threats everywhere to my known way of life. Being flexible and going with the flow. Or trying to.
Thank you for reading and sharing this, Jill. I can feel the honesty and thoughtfulness in what you wrote... that sense of noticing something shifting, both personally and collectively. And yes, the existential edge of it all is so real.
While many are calling this next chapter the age of technology, I find myself wondering whether something deeper is trying to emerge. Perhaps not just a new “age,” but a new way of tending. Of planting seeds with more care. Of recognizing that what we cultivate now will shape the world that blooms next — for ourselves and for those who come after us.
Your words about trying to stay flexible and flow with it all feel like wisdom hard-earned. I’m grateful you’re part of this conversation, and this moment.
Thank you. We all have to learn to adapt to this brave new world.
This transition piece has been a companion piece since its emergence on that Friday.
Multiple listenings fostering inner conversations begun, and lingering…
Hopeful. Bridges. Presence rather than performance. Echos of the exploration everywhere. Many comments pursuing the conversation; expanding, challenging, provocative, all underline the relevance and excitement of this moment in time. May a united, connected, purposeful murmuration occur….
Thank you, Mom. It means a lot to know this piece has stayed with you and sparked such thoughtful reflection. And you’re right, the comments have opened up the conversation in such rich and unexpected ways. I’m grateful you’ve been reading along, listening, and sensing the echoes too.
Love you! Thank you for always being part of the journey, and for encouraging me every step of the way.
As always, beautifully eloquent. It is the zeitgeist of us all being asked to respond to new minimal differences in the universe:to decide if the flocking pattern will be recognized and followed or if they want the flock to move on without them: for people to remember what has only been causally invented just now from one another perspective but which has always been for them in their way. These are not metaphors.
Thank you sharing our wisdom, sibling.
Thank you, cousin. Your words always shimmer with depth. I love that framing: of minimal differences in the universe nudging us toward choice. Those ever present causes and conditions that influence our moment to moment intentions. The murmuration metaphor has always moved me, but you’re right: it’s not metaphor alone. These shifts are real, relational, emergent. A dance of presence, perception, and pattern. Grateful to be in this unfolding with you.
Me too, cousin (I will try to remember your preferred relation, sorry, busy epoch)
you might like a book "life is in the transitions" by feiler - really good on this too
Thank you so much, Paul. I really appreciate the recommendation—and your work, which helped shape much of the thinking in this piece. 'The Pathless Path' gave language to a feeling I struggled to name when I first stepped away from my former career. I’ve just downloaded Feiler’s 'Life Is in the Transitions' and added it to my Audible queue. Looking forward to diving in. Grateful for the nudge, and the resonance.
Looks interesting. Thanks, Paul.
I have resistance to The Great Murmuration section. What makes a mumuration a murmuration is that identities are irrelevant. Why then list people-ideal complexes? Any time ideas are listed in association with individuals (as if the individuals are somehow their penultimate source), we reinforce systems that derive power from personal refusal to re-comprehend. Since I see that at the root of collective misconception, I mention it as a concern here.
Thank you, Earthstar. I deeply appreciate you bringing this perspective forward, and I’m especially grateful for the thoughtful tone you bring to the critique. It’s sparked reflection in the best kind of way.
Your point about murmuration and the irrelevance of identity is well taken. The beauty of that metaphor lies in how it transcends individual ego. A movement arises not from control, but from sensitivity. A collective rhythm that emerges without a center. I resonate with that.
At the same time, what I hoped to offer in naming individuals wasn’t an elevation of source, but a gesture of pattern recognition. These aren’t monuments, but markers. They are people whose stories echo the larger shift, and seem highly attuned to the wider shift. Not necessarily heroes, but signals of a deeper turning. The details may differ, but the cadence is familiar. They're part of the pattern.
Each story is a thread in the greater weave. While no single voice defines the whole, stories help us trace its shape. Sometimes naming a few helps others locate themselves. Not through imitation, but through resonance.
It’s also, for me, about honoring agency. A murmuration depends on response. Not to direction, but to nuance. The subtle flick of a wing nearby. Each gesture, each micro-choice, affects the shape of the whole. If we lose sight of that, I think we risk either nihilism or a kind of unconscious drift into despair.
So yes, the system transcends the individual. But each gesture still matters. That’s the paradox I’m drawn to: the individual as both essential and dissolvable. Both particle and wave.
Thank you for lifting this layer of the conversation. I’m grateful to be in this unfolding with you.
Interesting take. I have had this conversation with myself about the hivemind vs. the genius. And to my mind, the genius pales every time in the presence of a hivemind. But the hivemind is still made up off individual minds, some brighter than others--guiding, leading...But to your point, once the hivemind, the murmuration, has been established, to spotlight the individuals seems unnecessary and even counterproductive. It is however, an esoteric point and I wonder if your own work has more insights into the operations of systems vs. individuals. Please do share if it does. Most interested.
So grateful you perceive an esoteric point and not just "sour grapes" (if MY name isn't special enough to be highlighted no one's should be!) lol. Indeed, you well see the snag -- there seems to be a need for genius. Without genius (brighter minds), hivemind would lack needed leadership and guidance.
Consider that, from the perspective of murmuration (hivemind), need-for-genius is an insufferable, if fundamental, misperception about reality. One way to characterize it, as I do, is by looking at fundamental Reality Myths, the Second Myths being Me First and I Am Right. Genius's shadow if you will. (The First Myths speak to the shadow of hivemind -- Feel It All, Have It All, Be It All, and Comprehend It All.)
What the two types of reality myths point to are contrasting forms of enaction. Enaction from individuality v enaction from real or perceived collectivity. So here we are full circle. As you say Sudipto, re-comprehension with such misperceptions has to do with our view of the relationship of systems to individuals.
Genius would be great, if not for distorted future sense, and thus a functionally mythic reality to correct. Hivemind would be great, if not for the axis of ambiguity, and thus a functionally mutable reality to correct. And like two wrongs don't make a right, two reality "corrections" don't make a favorably co-created reality.
When we recognize and relate through objective systems of repair rather than subjectively "correct" this and that, the genius and hive bring ease to each other and natural generativity prevails.
Where hero is genius and ephemeral is hivemind, I analyze further at https://ephemeraljourney.com
Its a bit clearer now where you are coming from. Your website is super interesting. Those diagrams of kaleidoscopic colour wheels are mesmerising (read: couldn't get them, but my subconscious hopefully has taken a screenshot and will return an understanding to me in the, hopefully not too distant, future.) :p
One might usefully lump what's listed out in the Murmuration section as efforts at objective systems repair!
Sudipto, Earthstar… I’m deeply moved by this unfolding conversation. This is the kind of inquiry that makes writing feel worthwhile. Not just to be read, but to be wrestled with. Not just appreciated, but extended. Thank you both for bringing such depth, nuance, and generosity of thought.
Sudipto, your attentiveness always astonishes me. You read not only what is written, but what gestures just beyond it. And Earthstar, your metaphors carry that rare kind of layered wisdom that both puzzles and reveals. It’s a joy to witness your diagrams, your framing of myths, and your willingness to meet complexity with clarity and color.
There’s something powerful in the way you’ve both approached the tension between individual and collective. The particle and the wave. The genius and the murmuration. The ephemeral and the mythic.
Your naming of “me first” and “I am right” as myths is particularly resonant. Each of those words carries its own quiet illusion. “Me” and “I” may not be what we think they are. “Am,” as Huxley suggests, denies the impermanence at the heart of all experience. “First” forgets the cyclical nature of becoming. And “right” may be the most stubborn fiction of all.
In that sense, I find myself aligning with both of you. Systems matter. So do individuals. But neither holds clarity alone. Meaning arises not at the poles, but in the meeting place between them. Not as resolution, but as resonance. Not control, but co-creation.
And if I had to name the reason I write, or at least what keeps me writing, it’s this. Conversations like this. Shared remembering. No one owns the truth, but everyone brings a piece of it to light.
With deep gratitude to you both. For the challenge, the insight, and the joy of this shared unfolding.
May our myths keep softening. And our murmuration, evolving.
Great piece! I started my Substack precisely because of this something stirring within me. It feels very real. Glad to have found your work through Allie!
Thank you so much, Eric. I’m really glad you felt the resonance, and even more grateful that the thread from Allie brought you here. That stirring you mentioned… yes, I know it well. It’s such a powerful thing when it starts to take shape, and I’m glad to know you’re following it through your own writing. Looking forward to reading more of your work and continuing the conversation. Welcome. :)
Thanks, Glenn, and likewise- looking forward to reading more of your work!