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Coronavirus, Covid-19, Health, News, UK
An elderly couple's experience of the Covid pandemic and lockdown Britain
Written by Ethan Aaron Banks on 11th May 2021
More in Coronavirus:
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How Covid-19 has affected the life of a university disability support worker 12th May 2021
AN elderly couple from Essex give an insight into what their experience of living through the coronavirus pandemic and a country on lockdown has been like.
Mr and Mrs Chandler and their little companion living through the coronavirus pandemic and a country on lockdown
Mrs Hazel Chandler, 81, and Mr Victor Chandler, 82, from Essex, have given a clear insight into their "new normal" life since the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK, which resulted in the country going into a national lockdown on March 23, 2020.
With this being a very challenging time for many people up and down the UK, the coronavirus pandemic and the national lockdown has hit hard for the elderly, especially as they are more at risk of catching the deadly virus and, of course, not being able to see their loved ones.
Speaking to Mr and Mrs Chandler about how the pandemic and the lockdown has affected them, Mr Chandler pointed out that he had to shield due to receiving letters from the NHS requiring him to do so because of underlying medical reasons.
Mr Chandler said: "I've had three letters from the NHS saying that due to past medical reasons, I've had to stay in and not come out at all.
"That has been a down moment."
Mrs Chandler has used some of her time during lockdown by putting her creative skills to the test by making facemasks for her family and friends.
Both Mr and Mrs Chandler have been fully vaccinated by the Pfizer vaccine and said that they had "no problems" in getting the vaccine and only experienced "an ache on the day of getting the vaccination, but it did not affect us in any other way."
"We strongly recommend that everyone should get their vaccine."
Ethan Aaron Banks

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Posts Tagged 'scale'
Deze blog bevat een presentatie over de Community of Practice (CoP). Een CoP is een verzameling mensen die ervaring delen.
Opvallend is dat de zuivere Community of Practice niet voorkomt. Dat komt omdat men Kennis (Theorie) en Ervaring (Praktijk) door elkaar haalt.
De verwarring ontstaat omdat men de theorie als "dwingende" ervaring ziet. De theorie is foutloos. De gebruikers van de theorie maken fouten die worden veroorzaakt door tekortkomingen bij de gebruiker en niet in de theorie.
Doordat de gebruiker volgens de regels werkt en het mislukken van de regels door de gebruiker komt en niet door de regels wordt de theorie niet aangepast en worden de mislukkingen geaccepteerd totdat het systeem zich volledig volgens de regels gedraagt.
Het idee dat de praktijk ondergeschikt is aan de theorie is ontstaan in de Verlichting, een periode die samenvalt met de 18de eeuw.
In die tijd werd de verbeelding (het creatieve) teruggebracht tot de fantasie en werden de emoties (die waarderen) gezien als een geestelijk probleem ("hysterie"). Het enige wat telde was de ratio die werd vertaald in logisch redeneren.
In de verlichting ontstond de conduit-metafoor, een model waarbij communicatie een proces is waarbij conduits (objecten, containers) worden uitgewisseld die door iedereen te begrijpen kennis bevatten.
Dit in tegenstelling tot de toolmaker-metafoor waarin de mens zijn waarheid toont in zijn handelen ("The Truth of the Pudding is in the Eating", (Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1615))).
Er zijn vier uitspraken over Waarheid mogelijk:
(1) De waarheid van een theorie is objectief.
(2) De waarheid van een theorie is gebaseerd op de waarneming van dat wat gebeurt (een feit is een gebeurtenis (een geboorte)).
(3) De waarheid van een theorie is een mening, een waardering: "If we have Analyzed Judgment, we have solved the problem of Truth" (F.P. Ramsey, Fact and Propositions, 1927). Wat (belangrijke) mensen vinden (zoals de Paus of een Hoogleraar) is waar.
(4) De waarheid van een theorie is het gevolg van een persoonlijk inzicht. Vaak het resultaat van een waarom-vraag. Wat ik geloof is waar.
De vier kijken op de waarheid kunnen worden ondergebracht in een vierluik wat door Jung een Quaternio werd genoemd. Een Quaternio bestaat uit twee tegendelen en twee complementen.
Een Inzicht is het gevolg van een uitzicht, een waarneming die in een waargeving resulteert (Waar -> Weer, Beeld, Idee).
De waarheid is objectief (context-vrij) en subjectief (wat anderen er van vinden, context-afhankelijk).
Ervaring is wat de mens al doende in de werkelijkheid als afwijking van zijn eigen theorie, zijn Verwachting (Overtuiging), meemaakt. Ervaring is een persoonlijke reflectie op het persoonlijk handelen.
Een Community of Practice (CoP) lijkt erg veel op het Middeleeuwse Gilde met als groot verschil dat lokatie geen rol meer speelt zodat een Gilde niet meer bij een Stad hoeft te horen maar in theorie wereldwijd kan opereren.
Door de enorme schaal die nu optreedt is het vrijwel onmogelijk om een eenduidig definitie voor een gilde te formuleren waardoor er veel communities zijn die min of meer hetzelfde gebied betreffen.
Dit is voor een deel opgelost door de gildes om te zetten in Internationale Standaard/Beroeps Organisaties die zich bezig houden met het ontwikkelen van Normen. Normen zijn theorieen die door een groep mensen worden geaccepteerd.
De belangrijkste factor in een Gilde is het Delen van Fouten waardoor de Theorie van de Gezellen kan worden verbeterd. In de huidige tijd hebben mensen erg veel moeite met het delen van Fouten omdat Fouten maken wordt gezien als Falen.
De werkwijze om een eerste versie van een CoP op te zetten lijkt erg veel op het ontwikkelen van een Expert-Systeem, waarbij de Meesters en Gezellen de Experts zijn en de Fouten (Failures) door de leerlingen worden geleverd.
Aangezien iedereen een leerling is geweest kan iedereen een relatie leggen tussen een veelgemaakte fout en een oplossing van de fout.
In het algemeen maken mensen steeds weer dezelfde fouten als ze met een beroep beginnen behalve als de fout structureel in het ontwerp- en bouwproces is geadresseerd.
Op dit moment bestaan er miljoenen communities die kunnen worden getypeerd door de Menselijke Persoonlijkheid die een combinatie is van Kennis (Wikipedia), Ervaring (Praktijk), Relaties (Sociaal, Facebook) en Creatief (Inzicht, Interesse, Linkedin).
Wat nu volgt zijn de sheets van de presentatie met toelichting in presentatievorm.
Waarom de theorie altijd klopt en gebruikers die het niet snappen dom zijn.
Over de relatie theorie & praktijk
Over de Community of Practice met betrekking tot Verslaving en Burn-Out
Over Gilden (in de Gezondheidszorg)
Over Schalen (Constructal Law)
Over Schalen (Perspectief)
Over Schaal-vrij (Scale-Free)
Over Onkwetsbaarheid (Anti-Fragility)
Over Magie en Onkwetsbaarheid (Anti-Fragility)
Over Vitaliteit
Tags: guilds, scale, scale invariance, Theory
Posted in Completed, History, Learning | No Comments »
How to Benefit from Disorder
Anti-fragile (a term coined by Nassim Taleb) systems are resilient systems that benefit and grow from shocks and stress. A body benefits from training (= stress) but too much training destroys the body. Even anti-fragile systems have boundaries.
The term "Resilience" comes from Latin resiliere, "to spring back, start back, rebound, recoil, retreat", and is often intended and defined as the ability to cope with or recover from change.
Fragile systems are destroyed by a low level of stress or a small crash. Fragile systems have to be protected by resilient systems otherwise they break.
Resilience is defined as: "the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks" (Brian Walker).
Resilience corresponds to the Aristotelian concept of entelechy "exercising activity in order to guarantee one's identity".
Resilience shows the boundaries to sustainability. It shows what type of systems are able to survive a long time of low/medium stress or a short duration of high stress.
The resilience of a system is influenced by the level of outside disorder the system has to cope with and the internal state of the system itself.If you increase the size of a fragile system, it becomes more fragile. If you increase the size of an anti-fragile system, it becomes more anti-fragile.
For the fragile, the cumulative effect of small shocks is smaller than the single effect of an equivalent a single large shock. A fragile entity is hurt a lot more by extreme events than by a succession of intermediate ones.
Big systems are almost always anti-fragile unless they are one-sided. In this case they are an easy target for a one-sided big calamity.
Agile systems are many sided. They are able to react and adapt to different situations all the time. They have no robust structure that connects their components. Agile Systems are fluent.
Anti-Agile systems resist change. They protect their interior with huge boundaries.
Resilience resolves the opposition between internal order (stable) and external disorder (volatile, not stable).
In the end the disorder (entropy) always wins. It wins by making every thing the same.
1. Resume
Humans are forward foragers with a bilateral circular brain.
This brain creates paradoxes by constantly uniting (zoom-in) and not-uniting (zoom-out).
Humans want to protect themselves for what could happen in the future.
Humans need social structures to become resilient. In these structures they have to balance the paradox of selflessness and not-selflessnes (selfishness).
Humans want to be a wHole and part of a wHole.
In the first part of this blog we explore human resilience. Human resilience has a lot to do with Maslow's Pyramid of Human Needs.
Resilience happens when we actualize our Self (our wHole), when body, mind, spirit and soul are in balance.
Paths of Change (PoC) is the name of a theory about Change. PoC is used in this blog as a general scale-free reference model.
PoC is based on four Worldviews that show themselves on every scale with different names. Body, mind, spirit and soul are used on the human scale. What happens on the human scale happens on every scale. As Above so Below.
As Above So Below
Humans have bodily mechanisms that keep them from growing boundlessly. Social structures tend to expand beyond the limit.
Nature uses positive (increase) and negative (decrease) feed-back to control growth. When too much growth is measured by the bodily sensors the not-growth system is activated.
The anthropologist Alan Fiske has created a model that classifies human relations. The model of Fiske is compatible with PoC.
Fiske explains his model with measurement theory and structure preserving mappings. We measure others the same way we measure objects and situations.
The most flexible structure preserving mapping, the symmetric groep (combinations), explains the most selfless human relation, Communal Sharing.
Communal Sharing is Agile. Every time when the environment changes new combinations can be made. A sharing community looks like a living system and achieves resilience by repeating the same proven functionality in a different way.
The less flexible mapping is standardization. In this case we are focused on efficiency. By reducing the complexity of our reality (analytics) we are preparing the way for the machines to take over.
Standardization and the related Market-Pricing Social Structure is anti-agile.
Hierarchic analytic structures (Authority Ranking Social Structure) have big problems with adapting. That is why they want to control everything. They become fragile (and die) when they are disconnected from the rest of the social structures.
Anti-fragility is related to Equality Matching, the social structure of the Creators. The creators are needed to make sure that the diversity of the system is not going down to the level of Collapse.
Resilience has to do with Category Theory, Combinatorics, Fractals, Symmetry-Breaking and Scaling.
A combination of highly stable flexible structures is repeated on every Level of Scale.
2. About 5P-Systems
Systems are a structure preserving mapping from physical space to mental space.
Systems have Potential (Components/Resources/Connections), Possibility (Mental State Space, Combinations), Plan (One Occurrence of a Possible Combination of Components), Practice (Physical World, Flow, Input, Process, Output) and Protection (Boundary).
The output of a System is the Input of another System.
Boundaries are not walls. They are semi-permeable filters. Just like the walls of a city they contain gates to let the good things in and throw the bad things (waste) out. When you destroy the boundary, the system falls apart.
Sensors are the gates in de wall of the boundary. They determine what the system is able to perceive. Sensors are selectors. They divide the outside world in two parts, the perceived world and the not-perceived world.
Cell Membranes are Filters
Systems produce cascades of events. Events are reactions of other systems to events of other systems. The resilience of a system is dependent on the resilience of its parts and the whole, the ecology, it is part of.
The behavior of a system and the environmental demands upon it are related. This relationship is established through the selection of systems that continue to survive in the environment. A system is a mirror of its environment.
After a destructive event a system can be repaired or restore itself in a certain timeframe. Pushed to the extreme, a system may also transform itself into a completely different structure because the components are put into another Order.
This order is functional or not-functional. In the last situation the structure is left behind and will deteriorate because everything deteriorates on the long term.
Another Order can be caused by a new shuffle of the cards or a new principle that defines why a component has more value than others.
At the End of Time called the Big Freeze everything will be the same. That's why there is a constant fight between diversity and equality.
Diversity moves against the flow of the Universe and is therefore always a temporary state.
3. About Evolution
Extreme stress kills a system but stimulates a new evolutionary path.
'"In fact, the most interesting aspect of evolution is that it only works because of its antifragility; it is in love with stressors, randomness, uncertainty, and disorder — while individual organisms are relatively fragile, the gene pool takes advantage of shocks to enhance its fitness". (Nassim N. Taleb)
Nassim Taleb's body of work on uncertainty reminds us that we should focus on the non-perishable and avoid some of the pitfalls of modernity, like our constant desire to fetishize the 'new'.
Bicycles, kitchens and cars are all very similar to what they were thirty years ago. "Once in a while you have a breakthrough like the computer but otherwise, it pretty much stayed the same. If anything, we use technologies to produce old goods in a cheaper manner".
Evolution is a combinatorial game that tries to improve the whole. Evolution reuses parts of the old structure and adds something new by creating new connections.
4. About the Dual Brain
In the beginning the chemical soup generated self-reproducing chemical factories. These factories combined into bigger factories by exchanging and combining their factory-designs (DNA-parts).
Bacteria exchange their DNA
Every time when the factories fused they became more efficient, bigger, stronger, older and therefore more competitive. When the factories became more competitive they started to protect themselves against the other factories.
To protect themselves the multi-cellular systems began to sense in many directions and became better and better in predicting the future.
Humans are clusters of bacteria. In the first stage of our evolution, the Sponge, the cluster was static. In the next stage the cluster began to move in circels and developed a radial brain (a nerve net).
Humans are part of the Bilateria, organisms that forage forward. We make use of a radial connected dual brain in which one part is synthetic and the other part is analytic.
The dual brain is a paradox. It unites and not-unites.
Nerve Net vs Bilateral Brain
Humans use a combination of three bilateral brains: the brain of the reptiles, the social brain of the mammals, and the neocortex, our own calculating talking mind.
This triple brain is a good example of an evolutionary process in which old structures were reused and new parts were added.
The reptile brain of the body gathers data by its sensors and reacts (Stimulus/Response) with the motor-system.
The social brain looks for a partner (to create children), friends, family and competitors to fight/flight or to freeze with (enemies). The enemy is something the social brain shares with the reptile brain.
The neo-cortex is the computer. It is able to reason about the causal chains that are sensed by the social and body brain.
The imagination (spirit) controls the whole of the brain and the body and is situated in the thalamus. The thalamus projects the calculations of the neocortex on our internal screen.
5. About Human Civilization
In our earliest societies humans lived as hunter-gatherers.
The first step towards civilization is the move from hunter-gatherer to agriculture with the domestication and farming of wild crops and animals.
Agricultural production leads to food surpluses and this in turn supports sedentary societies, rapid population growth, and specialization of labor.
Large societies tend to develop ruling classes and supporting bureaucracies, which leads to larger organizations that want to control the world.
For a very long time the hierarchy was the most important control-system in use.
Currently the center of the system is moving from the top to the bottom because of the rise of communication technology (Internet).
6. About Human Needs
Maslow's famous Hierarchy of Needs included five motivational needs divided into basic (or deficiency) needs (e.g. physiological, safety, love, and esteem) and growth needs (self-actualization).
A violation of a need motivates a human into action. When the violation is too big (a disaster) most humans get into violent action (fight), flight the disaster zone or freeze and don't do anything. The fight/flight/freeze-respons is related to the reptile brain.
The needs can be divided into four independent categories: (1) The needs of the body, (2) The social needs, (3) The needs of the mind and (4) the needs of the spirit (growth, creativity, insight, idea, identity, whole).
The spirit is the power that stimulates us to reach the Top of the Pyramid of Maslow, to become a whole, realize our potential and find self-fulfillment. With the imagination humans get insight about the future and make plans to prevent calamities.
The mind expands to its ultimate potential by training. It needs to find patterns to control and predict its environment. This has to do with the so called "Illusion of Control". Too much control (paranoid) generates the fear to lose control.
The body expands to its ultimate potential by physical exercise (but not too much exercise).
The spirit (or self) grows by exploring every thing and keeping the good.
The soul needs many others to praise him/her. To much praise creates the state of narcissism, the soul is in love with its self (spirit).
Human needs are constant through all human cultures and across historical time periods. What changes over time and between cultures is the way these needs are satisfied.
Human needs are interrelated and interactive. Some needs are conflicting. Others are synergic.
An attempt to satisfy one need can inhibit or destroy others. For example, an Arms Race satisfies the need for protection, while destroying the need for subsistence, freedom or participation.
Humans feel happy when the four conflicting and synergic needs are in balance. When their needs are in balance they are able to handle small and big, positive and negative events.
7. About Holmes Life Event Scale
In 1967, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe examined the medical records of over 5,000 medical patients as a way to determine whether stressful events might cause illnesses. He found that a disturbance of social needs has the highest impact in life.
8. About the Kubler Ross Transition Curve
The Kubler Ross Transition Curve shows how people react when a mostly social (loss of partner) life event becomes too big to handle.
In this case the resilience of the human fails. The first step in the transition is controlled by the Fight, Flight, Freeze Respons of the Sensory-Motor System.
9. About the Human Set-Point
Set Point Theory predicts that wellbeing tends to fluctuate around a level that generally remains uniform over time.
An event of which the pulse is bigger than the bandwidth of the fluctuation around the set-point triggers the FFF-respons of the reptile brain.
After sometimes a very long time of grieve eventually a human returns to his personal fluctuating path.
Set Point Theory shows that Life is a Cyclic Proces that always tries to restore it self. The stability of wellbeing can be ascribed to a dynamic equilibrium model, a homeostasis.
The tangible mechanisms that underpin homeostasis (resilience) are wealth (potential) and relationships (connectedness).
If individuals experience negative events, compromising their immediate wellbeing, they can utilize some of their wealth to purchase resources that can be utilized to defend these problems.
Similarly, they can utilize the support and intimacy of other people in their life, especially partners and children.
The other mechanisms are cognitive processes. For example, individuals can reconceptualize their goals to accommodate negative events.
If debilitated by age or disease, they can derive meaning from other pursuits. They can trivialize the importance of adversities.
People who respond rapidly to a threat with a surge of the stress hormones adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol and recover quickly cope better with stressful situations.
Resilient people are better at using the hormone dopamine to keep them positive. They have a healthily large hippocampus which as well as enabling the formation of new memories also helps regulate the release of the fight-or-flight hormone adrenalin and have a strongly active prefrontal cortex, the brain region dubbed 'the seat of rational thinking'.
This inhibits the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes negative emotions such as fear and anger, allowing the prefrontal cortex to come up with a sensible plan to cope with a threat.
The Set-Point Theory of Happiness
The Human Set-Point moves up when you are young & down when you are old and is highly influenced by extreme life-events.
Such an event triggers the Sensory Motor System and almost stops the other Systems (Emotions, Imagination, Rationality) until the Pulse has dampened.
10. About Human Resilience
Psychological resilience is defined as an individual's ability to properly adapt to stress and adversity.
Stress and adversity can come in the shape of family or relationship problems, health problems, or workplace and financial stressors, among others.
The primary factor in resilience is having positive relationships inside or outside one's family.
There are several other factors which develop and sustain a person`s resilience:
(1) The ability to make realistic plans and being capable of taking the steps necessary to follow through with them.
(2) A positive self-concept and confidence in one's strengths and abilities.
(3) Communication and problem-solving skills.
(4) The ability to manage strong impulses and feelings.
Ultimately resilience is a process of connectedness, of linking to people, to interests, and ultimately to life itself.
The seven aspects of Resilience are:
Access to material resources (Availability of financial, educational, medical and employment assistance and/or opportunities, as well as access to food, clothing and shelter).
Access to supportive relationships (Relationships with significant others, peers and adults within one's family and community).
Development of a desirable personal identity (Desirable sense of one's self as having a personal and collective sense of purpose, ability for self-appraisal of strengths and weaknesses, aspirations, beliefs and values, including spiritual and religious identification).
Experiences of power and control (Experiences of caring for one's self and others, the ability to effect change in one's social and physical environment in order to access health resources).
Adherence to cultural traditions (Adherence to, or knowledge of, one's local and/or global cultural practices, values and beliefs).
Experiences of social justice (Experiences related to finding a meaningful role in one's community that brings with it acceptance and social equality)
Experiences of a sense of cohesion with others (Balancing one's personal interests with a sense of responsibility to the greater good; feeling a part of something larger than one's self socially and spiritually).
11. About the Sense of Coherence
Sense of Coherence
Antonovsky (1979) researched the human ability of being able to integrate extremely stressful life events in one's own worldview.
He proposed an approach to the origins of health based on the assumption that the human environment causes strain. The stressors responsible for this may be genetic, microbiological, personal, economic, social, cultural or geo-political.
The normal state of the human organism is one of disorder and conflict rather than stability and homeostasis. Antonovsky focused on making order out of chaos, and emphasized the importance of coping resources in dealing with stress.
He sought a construct that would characterize the shared components of a wide variety of generalized resistance resources, such as childhood living circumstances, social support, cultural stability, education and income, and that might explain how they facilitate coping with stressors and promoting health.
Consequently, he found that what these various generalized resistance resources have in common is a life orientation, which he called sense of coherence (SOC). SOC has three main components: comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness.
12. About Human Resilience – Forces in Balance
Human Resilience is accomplished when the four parts of the human are in balance. The four parts are synergetic and conflicting. The best way to describe them is to see them as forces that are represented by vectors.
The vectors of the human powers point in different directions (Up, Down, Forward, Backward) just like the Forward Forager of Ken Wilber.
In a balanced situation they cancel each other out.
Resilience is possible when the Sum of the four Forces of the Human: Mind (Up, Abstraction), Body (Right, Forwards to the Future, Cause/Effect), Spirit (Left, Back to the Whole, the Source) and Soul (Down to Earth) is close to zero.
To handle a big Event there has to be enough surplus Potential (Components/Resources/Connections) available to act.
Forces in Balance
The most important Support System for humans is their social network.
Humans Need Humans is a recursive (Fractal) statement.
13. About Paths of Change
Paths of Change (PoC) is a general theory about Change developed by Will McWhinney. PoC is used in this blog to compare all kinds of theories and find the best of all worlds.
Will McWhinney based Paths of Change on the ancient wisdom of the Navajo Pollen Path.
Path of Change is based on the Navajo Pollen Path
PoC makes use of the concept of World Views. A World View is an independent way to look at the world.
The term View is perhaps confusing because some people don't look at the world at all. They feel, imagine or think about the World.
There are four basic World Views that Will McWhinney named Unity ("I know there is only one Truth"), Sensory ("The World is a Network of Causal Chains"), Mythic ("I Imagine my own World") and Social ("The World is what the Network of Others value").
"Normal" people are able to play with two (or more) world views. Pathological People use only one Worldview.
The four World Views are described by two variables called Agency and Communion.
Agency emphasises the Self as a distinct unit; it focuses on the persons own individual Influence. Agency has two states (1) I am in Control or (2) Something (or Somebody) is Controlling me.
Path of Change & Cultural Theory
Communion is a motive for the Connection with an Other; it is a motive to participate in a larger Union. Communion has also two states (3) I am alone (4) I am connected.
Bilateral Brain
Behind the two variables lies a 1D model, the model of the Bilateral Brain, Left-Expansion/Analytic (0->) and Righ-Compression/Synthetic (0<-).
Path of Change uses a 2D-model in which the two states are combined: 0->0->, <-o<-0, 0-><-0, <-00->.
The four combinations of PoC are:
(1,3) Mythic (Self, Identity, Whole, Individual, Imagination, Creativity, Culture, Innovation, Inventor, Ideas, Insight, Being, (->->0), Histrionic, Static Equilibrium),
(1,4) Social (We, Emotions, Choice, Classify, Priority, Values, Motivation, Group, Interacting, Conflict, (->0<-), Dependent, Egalitarian, Dynamic Equilibrium),
(2,3) Unity (It, Thinking, Patterns, Models. Laws, Rules, Control, Theory, Having, Compression, (0<-<-), Paranoid, Hierarchy, Polystable),
(2,4) Sensory (They, Sensory-Motor-System, Perceive, Act, Stimulus-Respons, Desire, Practice, Doing, Expansion, (0->->), Schizophrenic, Fatalism, Neutral Equilibrium).
There is a Fifth Worldview that is outside the 2×2-matrix in 3D. It represents the Observer/Consciousness. In 2D is shows itself in the Cross in the middle of the matrix.
The Eye of the Observer
Path of Change is a Fractal Theory
Worldviews can be connected. Controlling (Unity) a human who wants to commune (Social) is called Politics. It is also possible to apply a worldview to another worldview. Abstracting (Unity) Human Relations becomes a Social Network.
Path of Change is an Ancient Theory
Path of Change is an ancient theory. It was known and used all over the world with different names and implementations. The worldviews were translated into visible Star Systems (Zodiac), People ("Gods" (India, Egypt,..)), Animals (Medicine Wheel), Games (Chess, Cards (TARO-T)) or Regulations (Laws (China), Religions).
Nataraja dances the Four Stages of the Cycle of Path of Change ((Drums, Unity), Elephant (Emotions), Protector (Mythic) & Passion (Fire, Sensory))
A good example is China. In China Paths of Change was called the Sheng Cycle. In the Sheng Cycle the Observer was projected in the 2D-matrix by introducing a fifth view.
The Sheng Cycle was used to model the body (Acupuncture), the material context (buildings, city, ecology) (Feng Shui) and the state & society (Sun Tsu (the Art of War)).
The organs, the body, the community, the state and the universe were seen as Flow Systems of Energy (Chi) that get into trouble when the flow is disrupted.
This disruption can be caused by blockages or by an input (an event) that is too big or too small to handle. The solution to a problem is to open one channel without causing too much overflow at another point in the system. The diagnosis is done on a place in the system (the pulse) where all the systems get together.
Old Chinese Scientists have developed all kinds of correspondence-tables between worldviews and situations. This makes it possible to reuse a theory by changing the semantics.
About Path of Change and Life Events
Path of Change describes the Paths along people (or organizations, or societies) change.
This change is triggered by an external or internal Event. Events are handled by the Sensory-Motor-System.
From the Sensory-Motor-System, the Event can bounce back to the Sensory-Motor-System which reacts with the Fight, Flight, Freeze Respons (FFFR, "I am Afraid").
The event can propagate further to the Emotions (I Feel what Matters in this Situation), The Imagination (I See What has happened) or the Pattern-Recognition State of Thinking (I know what happened).
The event moves further in the Network until the pulse of the Event comes back to the Sensory-Motor System that Reacts.
Paths of Change are Feed-Back-Systems that try to adapt the human Body (Sensory-Motor), Mind (Patterns, Memory), Emotions or Identity (Imagination) to the current situation.
The possible amount of steps and Time an event travels in the Internal Network cannot be calculated. There are sixteen (4×4) possible paths of length two and many more when the path rotates (with- or against the Clock) and loops through the network. It can take many years before the body acts upon an event.
The FFFR-respons offers a very fast-reaction mechanism which uses predefined scripts when the system evaluates that the Event will be fatal.
The way Events are handled is determinated by the combination of the Worldviews of the Person (his Personality) at stake and his experience (Memory). Almost fatal events are stored in memory.
14. About Resilience – Homeostasis
A Homeostatis is a System that determinates what action(s) will compensate an Event and keep the total System in balance.
Our Mind (Unity, Neocortex) is a Homeostasis that controls the Homeostasis of Our (Social, Limbic) Emotions that controls the Homeostasis of the Sensory Reptilian Brain. This part of the brain is concerned with survival.
The thinking Mind, the social Emotions (Soul), the active Sensory-Motor System (Body) and the creative Imagination (Spirit) are coordinated by the thalamus. The thalamus could be the fourth and most ancient brain.
The System ("the whole", Mythic) has to react to an Event in the Environment but it also has to keep its state of Homeostasis ("Balance") on all levels.
Last but not least the system has to replace every part that is not able to play its role in the system. This process is called autopoiesis.
Cells are killed (apoptosis) when they don't fit in the overall picture. Between 50 and 70 billion cells die each day due to apoptosis in the average human adult. For an average child between the ages of 8 and 14, approximately 20 billion to 30 billion cells die a day.
The Four Worldview's are (Fractal sub-)Systems that keep their own balance and act as sensors for the other sub-systems.
The sub-systems contain sub-sub-systems (Body, Organ, Cell, …) that all have to stay in balance (or die) and send their signals on their own level (electro-magnetic, chemical, ..) using their own communication-infrastructure to their own control center that is monitored by a higher level control center (etc. etc).
The systems are also part of super(-super-super-systems) (Family, Social Group, Organization, …Universe).
The System of Systems (of Systems, …) develops itself in the same pattern as the system itself. Mind (Unity) moves Up, Body/Matter mover Right (Causal), Social/Soul moves Down and Mythic (Imagination) moves Left (back to the Source).
If the four forces are in balance the total system expands and compresses in a Spiral Pattern. The same pattern as we see in the Ancient Cathedrals.
The Spiraling Spiral in Chartres Cathedral
The nice thing is that on every level you look (or analyze, or evaluate, or sense, or see) the same structure comes back so you don't have to create a new structure to get a better insight.
When you believe PoC is a self-referencing ("fractal") system you can apply what you know if you are able to distinguish the right level/scale of the many scales there are. If you mix up scales the whole system looks like a big mess.
Just like the five elements in the generating (with-the-clock) Sheng Cycle (or the against-the clock destructing Wu Cycle) every Worldview is connected to the others views and compensates (is a Homeostasis for) another Worldview and vice-versa.
There are twelve connections possible between different views and four with the same view which brings the total amount of possible connection on 16 (4×4).
Examples are:
Unity (Control/Compression) compensates Sensory (Action/Expansion).
Mythic, the Interest of the Self compensates the Interest of the Group (Social).
Social (Emotions, Down, Earth) compensates Unity (Abstraction, Up, Sky, Mind).
Sensory (Sense & React, Forwards to the Outside) compensates Mythic (Imagination, Insight, Backwards to Inside).
The Consciousness ("the fifth worldview") monitors the four Worldview's and triggers a worldview that brings the system in another state that triggers a new worldview that brings the system in another state (etc etc).
Worldview's trigger other Worldview's directly or move to a higher state of abstraction (Mind) that is able to move to a higher abstraction until it has to move back to Earth (Soul/Social).
The system is constantly adapting its adaptions until it dies.
Adaption can only happen when the transport/communication-channels are not blocked and the system is able to remove the blockages in the channels.
15. About Flow Systems
The old Chinese scientists believed that every level of our universe is a Flow System that consists of five connected parts. Disturbances in the system are resolved by opening the channels between the parts that are disconnected.
The cosmic dance-cycle of Nataraja (Shiva) is controlled by a drum.
The Scientists of our time see an ecology (and a body and an organization and a city and…..) as a material transport network (an Infrastructure) which distributes energy, information and matter between big macroscopic reservoirs (f.i. Lungs/Air/UP) and small microscopic sites (f.i. Alveoli/Blood/Water/Flow) on many "rhythmic" levels.
The Lungs end in the Alveoli. In the Alveoli Oxygen is dissolved in the Blood Flow System.
The macroscopic reservoirs are filled by repeating macroscopic processes ("weather", "breath", "market") that are controlled by a macroscopic time-giver, the Drum of Shiva, a Clock, our Sun or our Heart.
When a flow system (Bloodvessels, Artery) is disturbed (Arteriosclerosis) it solves its problems by creating a "bypass". Bypasses create bypasses (create bypasses, …) until it is impossible to change the physical environment (f.i. granite). Bypasses generate a repeating (fractal) structure.
This structure looks like a hierarchy when you look Top-Down and like a Flow-System when you look with an Input (From)/Output (To)-view. In essence it brings the Many (Sensory)-to-the One (Unity).
Fractal Distribution Networks in Humans (Lungs, Air) and Nature (Rivers, Water)
Nature solves its scaling problems by evolving fractal networks. The Law of Kleiber shows that big fractal flow-structures live longer (are more resilient) and are more efficient than small structures. Cities grow because of their shared fysical infrastructures.
Big Cities are also more creative than small cities because of the amount of possible contacts between creative minds. It is clear that the Internet is taking over this function.
16. About Human Networks
Human networks are an organism capable of behaviors that are of greater complexity than those of an individual human being.
Humans networks are an abstraction (Unity) of human relations. They are the most important support structure for a human to become resilient.
Humans are two-sided. Human Networks are 12-sided. They are a combination of the 4-fold-Cycle X 4-Cycle without repetition (4**2-4).
That is why there are 12 Star-Systems in the Zodiac (12 + the Sun = 13), 12 Suns of Jacob, 12 Tribes of Israel, 12 Disciples of Jesus (12+the One = 13) and 12 Knights of the Round Table (12 + Arthur = 13).
Knights of the Round (= Cycle) Table
The anthropologist Alan Fiske created a 4-fold model that describes how groups of people cooperate.
The four relational models correspond perfectly with the four World-Views of PoC.
The fact that you can use PoC to classify a part of PoC (Social) proves that PoC is a fractal theory.
Social Structures are just like PoC nested combinations of the elementary relationship models:
(1) Communal Sharing (Social, Soul, Share, Values, Egalitarianism, We, Emotions, Choice, Classify, Priority, Values, Motivation, Group, Interacting, Conflict, (->0<-), Dependent, Egalitarian, Dynamic Equilibrium):
People live together and share things. People are treated as equivalent and undifferentiated. "What's mine is thine; what's thine is mine".
Fairness is important in such groups and appealing to values may be the best way to persuade. Conflict may be dealt with through mediation and others methods that seek consensus.
(2) Equality Matching (Mythic, Spirit, Altruism, Long-Term, Balance, Reciprocity, Self, Identity, Whole, Individual, Imagination, Creativity, Culture, Innovation, Inventor, Ideas, Insight, Being, (->->0), Histrionic, Static Equilibrium):
In equality relationships there is no authority between people nor is there the deeper responsibility towards one another as in the communal sharing model. Social relationships are long-term and monitored for balance.
Equality matched relationships generally collaborate around shared goals and help one another. Relationships are reciprocal and have equal value. People treat fairly those who treat them fairly.
(3) Authority Ranking (Unity, Mind, Order, Rank, Command, Hierarchism, It, Thinking, Patterns, Models. Laws, Rules, Control, Theory, Having, Compression, (0<-<-), Paranoid, Hierarchy, Polystable):
Social groups are arranged with a hierarchy of power. The top of the pyramid protects the lower layers. It starts with parent and child and then progresses to schools, workplaces and other groupings.
Whilst communal sharing groups are based on trust and fair play, authority relationships are based on command and control where the inferior person has little option but to obey the superior person.
(4) Market Pricing (Sensory, Individualism, Trans-Action, Direct, Exchange, Egoism, They, Sensory-Motor-System, Perceive, Act, Stimulus-Respons, Desire, Practice, Doing, Expansion, (0->->), Schizophrenic, Fatalism, Neutral Equilibrium):
Relationships are structured by proportions. In the market pricing model, the relationship is based around a transaction, where the parties exchange substantive items, often with money being a part of the transaction. Such relationships may be shorter than others and more formal, even with an explicit or implied contract to formalize the exchange.
Alan Fiske, Structure of Social Life
17. About Resilience – How to Preserve Structure in a Social Network
Alan Fiske found out that each of the relationship models resembles one of the classic scale types from measurement theory. We measure others the same way we measure objects and situations.
Measurement starts in de Sensory-mode. Measurement captures information about a system. A system consists of objects, processes, and phenomenon. The system is measured through the attributes of the system also known as characteristics, features, or properties.
Measurement does not directly represent the system. It only addresses the attributes selected to represent it.
All measurement is carried out within a context. This context is shaped by a purpose, existing knowledge, capabilities, and resources; all of which influence the measurement process.
Measurements can be made through the human senses or made through use of a measurement instrument, which is an apparatus or construct used for measurement.
Measurement is the assignment of numerals to a system according to a set of rules. These rules are called a theory.
Our senses or the instruments that are used to measure the system also represent a theory. This theory has a sometimes unknown impact on our measurement.
A theory has to be a structure preserving mapping, a homomorphism. The structure of the system has to stay the same when the rules are applied.
If the theory does not preserve structure the theory introduces its own theory and we are not measuring the original system.
Not only the primary theory has to be a homomorphism. The complete chain of theories we use has to preserve the structure (The Uniqueness Axioma) of the original system.
If a system has to be a resilient system its transformations have to be structure-preserving.
The Hierarchy of Scales
(1) Communal Sharing (Social, Soul, Mammal Brain) resembles a Nominal Scale.
A nominal scale distinguishes Sets. Sets contain Points. Every point is the same as the other points. Points that are the same can be connected by a line.
Sets are split by a distinction made by the filters of the senses. A distinction puts things into non-overlapping categories such as smokers versus non-smokers. There are zero smokers in the class of non-smokers and zero non-smokers in the class of smokers. You can count the amount of points in a class. The zero point of the class is the not-class.
A nominal scale classifies things into categories. The classes are equal. The process of division starts with a whole (One) and divides the whole in parts (Many) after which the parts become a new Whole. Repeated application of a distinction generates a Set of Sets.
A nominal scale defines Sets. Sets contain the same elements. When we want to preserve this structure we have to satisfy the constraint If s1 = s2 ⇔ f(s1) = f(s2) ("the Same stays the Same"). This is called the Symmetric group, the group of all permutations of the objects in the Set.
Living systems achieve resilience by repeating (redundancy) the same functionality in a different way (diversity) and on a different location (distribution). This all is an example of symmetry. Humans are bilateral symmetric. We have two eyes, legs, arms, kidneys, lungs and brain-halves.
Communal Sharing (Social) is the most resilient/symmetric group there is. Every new order (a permutation) of the objects has the same value. New combinations are created all the time and time will tell what their value will be.
If combinations are valued we as a human are creative enough to imagine a reason ("a new selection-mechanism, a distinction") why the new combination is important.
Communal Sharing is Agile.
Interval Scale
(2) Authority Ranking (Unity, Mind, Human Brain) is called an Ordinal Scale. This scale is used when we want to express Comparative Judgement about the observed system.
In nature, all things we observe are nominal. It is we who choose to order (i.e., count) them, in some way according to some theory we propose.
A further step is to transform these orderings into linear measures which are more useful to us. If we construct a theory with a useful "zero" location (as opposed to zero difference), then we can measure away from that zero point.
The members of a class are ordered from the One to Many by a rule that defines what greater (or less) means. It permits the measurement of degrees of difference, but not the specific amount of difference.
The step Sensory -> Social is called Evaluate. Evaluation is putting members of a Set in a favorite (like) or non-favorite (don't like) permutation. In the Unity-mode like and don't like are mapped to high and low (or important & not-important).
This is only possible when we are able to find a difference that we can count. Smoking can be defined by the amount of cigarettes a person smokes or the amount of nicotine he inhales.
Sometimes it is impossible to find an amount (what is the amount of "Love"?) and we have to change the distinction and the attribute we want to measure or stop measuring and accept what we observe the way it is.
The ordinal scale is part of the nominal scale. The relational structure preserved during the measurement process preserves equality and order. The set of admissible transformations are relations that satisfy the constraint If s1 < or >s2 ⇔ f(s1) < or >f(s2).
This is called the Order-Preserving Group and is the group of monotonic increasing functions. A monotonic function does not contain Ups AND Downs. It contains Ups or Downs (= not-Ups).
The step Social (Many) -> Unity ((One) is called Seeking Consensus about a Rule. Because this mapping has to be a monotonic function Social (Down (to Earth)) has to be lower than Unity (Up).
In this scale we can Count (Y) the people that smoke an amount of cigarettes (X) and can produce a bar-graph.
Autority Ranking is Fragile.
(3) Equality Matching (Mythic, Spirit, Whole) is called an Interval Scale. This scale is used when we want to measure a distance between pairs of items.
The step Unity -> Mythic is called Insight. We move from the Outside World of the Rules of Unity to the Inside World of the View on the Whole of Mythic and find Insight. In this case we balance the One of the outside with the One of the Inside. We compare our Whole with the Whole we find outside.
When we define an Interval Scale we look for the resonance of the Outside World with our own Inside World. We look for our own Image outside and can find peace and balance in looking at our child or partner, a sleeping cat, a wood in autumn, mountains or a sailing ship.
With this scale people can create balance and specify who owes what to whom but also how much they owe. It is a relationship in which people keep track of differences, with reference to an even balance.
The set of admissible transformations has to preserve equality (nominal), the equality of order (ordinal) and the equality of difference/distance and has to satisfy the constraint If s1−s2 = s3−s4 ⇔ f(s1)−f(s2)=f(s3)−f(s4).
This is called the General Linear Group (or Affine Group). Differences can only be preserved when the transformation is a linear transformation Ax + B where A is a rotation and B is translation.
When you take the difference between two points you create the concepts More/Less and Mean/Middle. More/Less can be associate with Better/Worse.
In our example of the smokers we can subtract the lowest count of cigarettes of all the other counts. In this case the lowest count becomes an arbitrary zero. We can also calculate the Mean of the amount of cigarettes smoked and define this as a Middle.
Equality Matching is Anti-Fragile.
(4) Market Pricing (Sensory, Action, Reptile Brain) resembles a Ratio Scale.
A ratio scale preserves the equality of equality, order, difference and ratio. Most measurement in the physical sciences and engineering is done on ratio scales. Mass, length, time, plane angle, energy and electric charge are examples.
A Ratio Scale relates a measurement to a standardized unit (of time (Sec), distance (Meters), weight (Kg), …). This unit is a physical object.
The set of admissible transformations has to satisfy the constraint If s1/s2 = s3/s4 ⇔ f(s1)/f(s2) = f(s3)/f(s4). This is called the Linear Group.
The only transformation that satisfies this constraint is the functions f(x) = Ax. This scale supports Multiplication (and its opposite Division).
Ratio Scale
In this scale we are able to relate a Part to the Whole.
The amount of people who smoke an amount of cigarettes can be divided by the total amount of smokers. This produces a percentage (and a chance).
Market Pricing is Anti-Agile.
18. About Scales, Brains and Social Networks
The scales are Equal and Ordered in a Hierarchy in which the Nominal Scale (Social) has the highest symmetry ("All Points are Equal") and therefore has the highest potential and is the most resilient. The Ratio Scale is the most restricted and less flexibel.
The Hierarchy follows the Path Sensory/Measure (Anti-Agile) ->Evaluate-> Social (Equality, Agile) -> Consensus -> Unity (Ordering, Fragile) -> Insight-> Mythic (Difference, Anti-Fragile) -> Invent-> Sensory (Proportion). We call this the Path of Measurement.
The Path of Measurement is the same path our Bilateral Brain is moving through.
During Evolution the Triple Brain developed itself according to the same pattern: (1) Reptile Brain (Sensory) , Measure, Survival Brain, Body, Ratio Scale, (2) Limbic Brain (Social), Soul, Social Brain, Nominal Scale (3) Neo Cortex (Unity), Mind, Thinking Brain, Ordinal Scale (4) Whole (Mythic), Thalamus, Spirit, Interval Scale -> Sensory.
If this correlation is true Market Pricing is the Social Structure of the Reptiles, Communal Sharing of the Mammals, Authority Ranking of the Humans and Equality Matching the social Structure of the Creators.
Currently we are highly focused on Market Pricing which is the structure with the lowest flexibility/resilience (Anti-Agile).
Because of our focus on numbers, measurement and standardization we are creating reptile structures that are highly vulnerable to external events.
19. About Resilience – Viable Systems
The word "government" comes from the Greek "kybernan" which means "to steer a ship". The word "kyberman" is used to name the science of "cybernetics".
A system is a black-box, an Input/Output-relation. Systems become (Value)Chains/Networks when we connect the output to the input of another system.
Stafford Beer developed a cybernetic model of the Human called the Stafford Beer Viable System Model (VSM). VSM can be used to model an organization.
Viability means the survival or preservation of identity in a changing environment. A viable system is a resilient system. The Identity is the Whole (Mythic/Imagination) of a System.
For a system to remain viable, it has to maintain its existence within a changing environment. Systems are not perfect and may experience internal defects and deficiencies. Change can happen slowly or suddenly.
Therefore the internal parts of the system must provide both a mutually supportive internal environment and achieve the desired external effects.
The system has to detect and react to threads (survive), be and keep in balance (homeostatis), be maintained, keep up with its environment (innovation, evolution) and be tolerant to damage (redundant).
VSM uses four nested systems to "steer a ship": (1) the Boundary of the Whole (Mythic) (2) the Environment of the Ship (Social) which contains (3) the ship itself (Object/Body/Action/Operation/Sensory) which contains (4) the Steering System, the Meta-System (Brain/Unity).
The model can be applied to itself by looking again at four "parts" related to Mythic (Whole, Identity), Unity (Models, Research), Materials (Sensory) and Resources (Social).
The Viable Systems Model
The Brain/Body as a Viable System
20. About Resilience – Panarchy
According to the theory (the Model) of Panarchy the Resilience of an Ecology is related to the Potential (Communion) and the Connectedness of a System (Agency). Potential shows what is possible in an ecology. Connectedness shows the control an ecology has over its own future.
In the Exploitation/Conservation phase of the Cycle the ecology becomes more efficient (producing more Potential) and Connected.
The amount of possible paths (the Redundancy) is reduced and the system becomes highly efficient and vulnerable (Fragile) to outside changes.
A stable, resilient system can cope with shocks and disturbances and keep its identity.
In an unstable system, a small disturbance can push the ball over a threshold.
Environmental and social changes can make a system less resilient.
At the state of maximum production and maximum connection (conservation) the system is spending all its potential at self-reproduction. At a certain moment the system collapses (release).
The Adaptive Cycle is the same cycle our Bilateral Brain and the previous mention Path of Measurement of Alan Fiske is moving through.
It moves on many levels with a different cycle time. The levels are connected in two ways. A big calamity can destroy a lot of lower level ecologies or a small calamity (a wildfire) can start a major calamity (revolt).
A system to moves to lower level of Periodicity remembers its previous Cycle to start again.
A Cycle moves up when it revolts. Revolt connects Creativity to Order (called Design in Path of Change) and fuses the diversity of the Cycles to a higher level.
Creativity (fusing the opposites) is the source of Anti-Fragility. In the end it all comes down to Spirit.
Panarchy Theory is by far the most interesting theory about resilience. It shows that resilience is the result of a cyclic proces. Resilience is low when the components of the system have a high level of connectedness. There is only one way to reach the goal.
When a system is highly efficient it is also highly vulnerable.
Redundant systems are able to resist a calamity if and only if one of the possible paths of the system is not affected.
Robust, Resilient, Agile
If we don't know what will happen we need an unknown path to save us. This path is part of an unknown phase space that we are able to calculate if we know more about predictability in general. This issue is covered by Combinatorics a part of mathematics.
Nature has generated a highly redundant system in which it is possible that one of the lines of evolution is able to resist a worldwide calamity.
If we want to destroy resilience we have to destroy the diversity of life-forms on earth.
About Feeling (Damasio)
Presentation Over Uitvinden, Groeien en Maat Houden (in Dutch)
Why Life is a Dissipative System
About the Square of Opposition
About Constructal Law, a new law of Thermodynamics
A short history of human civilizzation
About Community Resilience
About Evolution
About the Evolution of the Brain
About Life and Category Theory
About Category Theory and the Brain
About Combining the Combinations
About Darwins Super-Organism
About Boundaries
About the Infinite Game
About Paths of Change
About Psychopathology
Over de mentaliteitenleer
Why is City is an Organism
About the Sheng Cycle
About the Bilateral Brain and Category Theory
About the 5P's: Potential, Possibility, Plan, Practice & Protection (In Dutch)
About Flow Systems
About Cooperation
About the Delta Pulse
About the Law of Kleiber
About Alan Fiske
About Relational Models Theory
About Panarchy
About Cybernetics
Why a System is an Event
About Hawks and Doves
The Structure of World History by Kojin Katarani
Tags: allan fiske, authority ranking, chi, communal sharing, cybernetics, Cycle, equality matching, fractal, market pricing, maslow, measurement, ordinal, panarchy, pollen path, resilience, scale, sheng, sheng cycle, stafford beer, viable systems, will mcwhinney
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A power law relates one variable to another raised to a constant power. The general form takes y = xa, where y and x are variables, and a is a constant exponent.
A power law exhibits the property of scale invariance. When you multiply the Scale (x) with a factor b the function (y = baxa) does not change its Shape.
In 1817 Goethe wrote his book "Zur Morphologie". This book was the start of a new science called Morphology, the Science of the Shapes.
In his book Goethe describes the so called Uhrplant, the Primal Plant, which is based on the shape of the Leaf. Goethe believed that every Plant was a Leaf within a Leaf within a Leaf.
At the time of Goethe the concept of the fractal was not known. It was developed in 1975 by Benois Mandelbrot ("The Fractal Geometry of Nature").
A fractal is a self-similar structure. It's shape repeats itself on every level of expansion. Some fractals are scale-invariant.
The scale invariant fractal structure of the Leaf
About Kleiber's Law
Metabolism is the process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into energy. During this complex biochemical process, calories in food and beverages are combined with oxygen to release the energy your body needs to function.
The oldest and best known Power Law is Kleiber's law devised by the Swiss-American zoologist Max Kleiber in 1932.
Kleiber's Law, MR = W3/4, describes the relationship of the metabolic rate (MR) to the biomass W, raised to an exponent.
Kleiber's law means that a cat's metabolic rate is not a hundred or 21.5 times greater than a mouse's, but about 31.6 — 100 to the three-quarter power.
This relationship seems to hold across the animal kingdom and it has since been extended all the way down to single-celled organisms, and possibly within the cells themselves to the internal structures called mitochondria, the cellular powerplants, that turn nutrients into energy. Mitochondria have many features in common with bacteria.
The law of Kleiber is also applicable to "super-organisms" like ant colonies, Cities and Eco-Systems.
Because of Economies of Scale, larger and more complex forms of organisms need less energy for each individual cell. They grow and reproduce more slowly and they live longer.
About Fractals and Kleiber's Law
Kleiber's law can be explained from a general model that describes how essentialmaterials are transported through Space-Filling Fractal Networks of Branching Tubes.
Goethe was right. The leaf is a one of the fundamental structures of Nature.
The factor 3/4 (3/3+1) is a consequence of the fact that a Fractal Structure has to incorporate a not-Fractal Structure, 3-Dimensional Space.
One of our fellow Bilaterians: The Octopus
About Bilateria
About 590 million years ago, the Central Nervous System (CNS), the Brain, appeared.
The organisms with a CNS (including the Humans), the Bilateria, are able to Act and React to a Possible Harmful Stimulus.
The CNS of the Bilateria is a result of an Increase in Competition between the Life Forms that came out of the Continuing Fusion of the Cooperative Life Forms, the Bacteria. The first step in this proces was the Tube of the Sponge.
The fundamental Bilaterian Body Shape is a Tube running from Mouth to Anus, and a second Tube called the Notochord, with an especially large Sphere at the front, called the "Brain".
The Bilateria have Five Body Spheres (1) the Brain; (2) the Spinal Cord; (3) the Heart and Lungs; (4) the Digestive Organs and Kidneys; (5) the Bladder and Reproductive organs.
About the Tiny Spheres of the Lungs
When we look at the Lungs, one of the Fractal Tube-like branching-structures of the human organism, we can see that the Branches end in Nodes called the alveoli ("little cavities"). The end-nodes of the branching system are tiny Spheres.
The Alveoli use another basic structure of Nature: The Sphere
In the tiny Spheres the Exchange takes place of Carbon Dioxide and Oxygen between the Lungs and the Blood-Vessels. Each human lung contains about 600 million alveoli.
Water diffuses from the alveoli cells into the alveoli so that they are constantly moist. Oxygen dissolves in this water before diffusing through the cells into the blood.
The Oxygen-rich blood returns to the Heart via the pulmonary veins to be pumped back into circulation. The Carbon Dioxide is pumped out by the Lungs.
In the many million Small Spherical End-Nodes Two Circulatory Systems, the Cardiovascular System (Heart) and Pulmonary System (Lungs), are Connected.
The Big Structures of Nature are able to Scale because the Connection-Points of the Networks are Very Small.
They are reusable on Every Scale that is Bigger than the Scale of the Connection Points.
We will see that all the other Fractal Systems in our Body are based on the Same Principle.
About the Tube of the Digestive System
The Tube contains the Digestive System. It breaks-down larger food molecules into smaller ones that can be absorbed into the blood stream. This happens in the Small Intestine in the vili and microvilli.
The villi ("shaggy hair") are tiny, finger-like projections that are approximately 0.5-1mm in length. The microvilli are mechanosensors and have a lot in common with the flagellum ("the roter") of a bacterium. Microvilli appear in many places in the body. They are also of importance on the cell surface of white blood cells, as they aid in the migration of white blood cells.
The Tube of our Digestive System is highly similar to the Tube of the Sponge, the first fusion of the Bacteria in a more efficient metabolic structure.
The Output part of the Tube is called the Large Intestine (Colon). Its function is to absorb water from the remaining indigestible food matter, and then to pass Useless Waste Material from the body. The large intestine houses over 700 species of bacteria that perform a variety of functions.
The Liver Fractal
About the Chemical Factory of the Liver Cell.
The Liver is a Fractal Branching System that detoxifies harmful substances absorbed via the Small Intestines. It's basic structure is the Liver Cell.
The Chemical reactions in the liver cells produces a lot of waste heat. This is carried round the body in the blood and warms less active regions.
The Liver regulates the amount of Blood Sugar, Lipids, Amino Acids. The Liver is the Storage House of Blood, Iron, Vitamine A, D, B12 and Clycogen, the Source of Energy of the Body.
The Liver produces Bile that is stored in the Gall Bladder. Bile is used to dissolve fat.
The White Blood Cell
About the Spleen and the Immune System
Another Fractal Branching System, the Lymphatic System ( "The Immune System", Spleen), maintains the health of the body by protecting it from invasions by harmful pathogens, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. These pathogens are the cause of many diseases, so it is necessary to detect and eliminate them rapidly.
The Lymphatic System is connected to the Blood System and produces the White Blood Cells (Lymphocites). The Lymphocites are the Basic Unit of the Human Defense System. They look like Bacteria.
A lymphocite fits with a pathogen
The surface of a lymphocyte is covered with a large number of identical receptors. Recognition and destruction occurs when the receptors of the lymphocyte fit like a key into the surface of the pathogen.
The Immune System is a Highly Adaptive System. It is able to generate new types of Lymphocites out of a Library of DNA-components.
About the Kidneys and the Bladder
The Kidneys serve the body as a natural filter of the blood, and remove wastes which are diverted to the urinary bladder. The Nephron is the basic structural and functional unit of the kidney. In humans, a normal kidney contains 800,000 to 1.5 million nephrons. Nephrons are wave-like structures. Its chief function is to regulate the concentration of water and soluble substances like sodium salts by filtering the blood.
About the Electro Magnetic System
The last Fractal Branching System, the Meridians, is a Fast Electro-Magnetic Channel that connects to Organs to the Spine and the CNS.
The Ancient Chinese Scientists believed that this System pumps its Energy, the Chi Force, out of the Earth Magnetic Field.
The Ancient Egyptian Scientists believed the same thing. They named the Four Cavities the Four Suns of Horus and the Spine, the Djed Pillar (Dj means "Snake").
The Five Systems of Acupuncture
About the number Five
The number Five (4 +1 ) plays an important role in Ancient Chinese Medicine.
The Central Fractal System, the One (1), the Fire System, the Blood System, with its Center the Heart, contains Four (4) Links to the Other Systems.
The Four Systems are combinations of Two Forces, Expansion and Compression.
The Two Forces came out of One Force ("The Void").
Two Systems contain the same combination (Expansion x Expansion (Wood, Gall Bladder, Liver, Three Heater), Compression x Compression (Metal, Lungs)).
Two Systems combine Expansion and Compression in a different order (Expansion x Compression, Compression x Expansion). They create a Wave (Water, Bladder, Kidney) or Spiral -like (Earth, Immune System) structures.
The Five Spheres of the Body are incorporated in one Super Protective Sphere, the Coelum, the Skin.
In the Human Embryo the First step of Division of the Cells is between the Coelum,the Multi-Cellar Body, and the Brain, the CNS. In the first step the One was divided into the Two, the Actor and the Monitor.
The CNS "mirrors" the activities of the Body and acts as a "predictive simulator".
The Shape of the CNS is a mirror (Up-Side-Down) of the Shape of the Multic-Cellular Body.
The Bilateria are a Fuse of two Organisms in which one organism changed into the Body and the other changed into the Brain.
These two structures are always competing in the Human Being.
The Brain is Looking Up at the Sky. The Body is Looking Down at Mother Earth, it's Creator.
The Brain and the Body are United in the Heart, the Balancer of Body and Soul and the Keeper of the Rhythm (The Pericardium).
Sponge, The Tube
About Bacteria
The Body Shape of the Tube was inherited from the first Multi-Cellular Organism, the Sponge. The Sponge is a Static Cluster of Amoeba, free moving bacteria, that are propelled by their flagellum (a Roter).
The Basic Building Block of the Body, the Bacterium
Bacteria are small chemical factories that are able to share and combine their production processes by exchanging DNA.
With their flagellum the Bacteria Explore the environment to find the chemical food they need. When they have found food the Circulation of the Flagellum moves into the Opposite Direction.
The bacterium integrates incoming chemical signals during a few-second period of its travels, and adjusts its direction of advance accordingly.
The integration is achieved through temporary chemical modifications to molecules located in the bounding membrane, which transfer nutrients to the cytoplasm, and also through changes to certain other molecules in the interior of the cell. Such integration is essentially a short-term memory mechanism.
At a certain moment the Bacteria got together because the Sponge is a much more Efficient Metabolic Structure than a group of Free Moving Bacteria.
Strangely enough the DNA of the Sponge already contains the complete Bleuprint of the Humans.
Scientists now believe that most species on earth are a result of a loss of DNA from the original Bleuprint that was created when the Bacteria finally fused into one Organism.
About the Nano-Level
Recently scientists have found Electric Fields as strong as 15 million volts per meter in the Nano-Parts of the Cells. These fields are as strong as those produced in lightning bolts.
It's not clear what causes these strong fields or what they might mean but they could account for a until now unknown (by Science) or well-known (by the Old Scientists, Chi) Source of Bodily Energy.
The nano-parts of the Cell could be the very very very small universal building blocks of Nature.
In the beginning the Chemical Soup generated Self-Reproducing Chemical Factories.
These Factories combined into bigger Factories by exchanging and combining their factory-designs.
Every time when the Factories fused they became more Efficient, Bigger, Stronger, Older and therefore more Competitive.
When the Factories became more competitive they had to Protect themselves against the other Factories.
To Protect themselves the Multi-Cellular Systems started to Sense in Many Directions.
In the first step a Nerve-Net was created.
In the second step one part of the Organism turned Upside-Down and became a Specialized Predictive System (the CNS).
This part fused with the Bodily Part creating one Organism that contained Two Organisms.
The Bilateria, the Organisms with Two Complementary Parts, Body and Mind, were born.
Some of the Bilateria called Humans fused in Social Structures and the Social Structures fused and fused and became more efficient, bigger, stronger, older and therefore more competitive.
In due time they will Rule the Earth and will start to create bigger and bigger systems until they will rule the complete Universe.
To make this possible the Humans need every other part of Nature to Sustain their Growth. This will certainly result in a huge Collapse of their own Eco-System.
The main reason this is happening is that the Humans forgot to Copy the Designs of Mother Nature.
The Brain (Thinking and Sensing, Left Brain), Looking Up at the Sky, believed it could do a much Better Job than it's counterpart the Multi-Cellular Body (Emotions and Imagination, Right Brain), Looking Down at the Earth, the Source of All Creation.
Kleiber's Law shows that we are now using 122 times more Energy per Person than we really would need if we would Scale in the right way.
What can we learn from Kleiber's Law?
All organisms including the humans depend for their maintenance and reproduction on the close integration of numerous subunits.
These components need to be serviced in a relatively `democratic' and efficient fashionto supply energy, remove waste and regulate activity.
Natural Selection solved this problem byevolving hierarchical fractal-like branching networks, whichdistribute Energy, Information and Materials between Big Reservoirs ("Lungs") and Small Connection Points ("Alveoli") of other Circulatory Systems ("Blood").
This Fractal Bottum-Up approach is highly effective and efficient.
The not-fractal, Top-Down, machinery designed by the Humans is Scaled with a factor 1 so we can improve a lot by copying Mother Nature.
About Goethe and Morphology
About the Heart Chakra or Why the Heart connects the Brain and the Body
How to use the Heart to find Balance
About the Heart and Ethics
Why Humans look a lot like Bacteria
About Kleibers Law and the Rain Forest
About the Five Worldviews
A movie about Fractal Structures in Nature
About the Fusion of Water in the Cell
About the Number Five in Chinese Medicine
Why Humans are part of Super Organisms
How the Humans evolved out of the Bacteria
About the Left and the Right Brain
About the Void
How the Heart synchronizes the Body
About the Fast Transmisson Channel in the Body
A general model to explain Kleiber's Law
About Kleiber's Law and the Growth of Cities
About the Immune System
About the Law of Kleiber and Ant Colonies
The terrestrial evolution of metabolism and life
A movie about the origin of vertebrates
Tags: acupuncture, alveoli, amoebe, B, bacteria, bacterium, Bilateria, Blood, Bo, body, brain, caption, Central Fractal, Central Nervous, Central System, Chi Force, China, CNS, coelum, Colon, D, djed, Ecology, Egypt, flagellum, fractal, fractal geometry of nature, heart, johann wolfgang von goethe, kleibers law, Law, Leaf, lungs, mandelbrot, Max Kleiber, Metabolism, morphology, Nano-Level, notochord, power, power law, scale, scale invariance, Shape, sponge, super organism, system, Transmission Channel, tubes, Wood
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LITHUANIAN ASSOCIATION OF ACCOUNTANTS AND AUDITORS (LAAA) IS THE BIGGEST ORGANIZATION UNITING PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTANTS, AUDITORS, ACCOUNTING AND AUDITING COMPANIES IN LITHUANIA!
Full members – LAAA members that have a professional LAAA's accountant's name.
LAAA's members – natural and legal persons interested in LAAA's activity and who pay a membership fee.
Growth of members during 2016 and 2017.
Membership fee: paid once a year for a calendar year (for natural persons – 30 €, for legal persons – 100 €). Since 2017 a one-off payment is applied (for natural persons – 60 €, for legal persons – 200 €).
LAAA's strategy – to implement its objectives in order to achieve the mission and the vision.


The ZTS and ZTTS single shaft shredders are specially designed for the processing of complete or pre shred tires.Both machines machines feature a 750 mm diameter rotor ranging in width from 1500 to 3000 mm with oversized outboard bearings and twin gear drives.The tangential infeed ensures a optimal feeding of the input materials while eliminating the need for a hydraulic feeding system.All tire shredders are equipped with a complete wear package including hard facing, special knives and wear plates made from highly wear resistant steel.The two model ranges differ in the amount of stator knives and the screen sizes used. The modular design makes it easy to integrate either machine into existing installations.
The ZTS with its single row of stator knives is used to pre shred complete car tires or large chunks of pre processed tires down to a size of about 150 mm.The twin rows of stator knives and screen in the ZTTS enable it to take the tire shreds down to a any required size > 20 mmThe unique machine design combined with the variable cutting gap create an optimal separation of rubber and steel fractions when the machine is used with a 20 mm screen. Therefore steel can be removed easily in the following process with magnetic separation equipment. Beside tires the machines are also used in the conditioning of RDF and other alternative fuel applications.
The ZTS and ZTTS shredders are equipped with a large diameter flat rotors with weld on hard facing. The knives are fixed in special knife holders fitted in machined pockets.


The segways are useful for travelling and not walking at all, because you can show off and go to Sainsburys.
Plus the segways don't use petrol, even though scooters used to be the worst vehicle in old days.
The segways today have electric motors, but the scooters in the past didn't have electric motors.
Lots of children today have segways but in the past, only rich children had segways.
of the segways exploded, so I sold my mine.


Website performance heavily relies on the speed of page stacking and picture advancement is one super imperative factor.
Today the web is about speed and statistics show that people can wait only for 3 seconds for a website to load on desktop and 5 on mobile devices. Keeping in mind the end goal to draw in clients and to influence them to remain for minimal longer, you have to possess a site that heaps rapidly which additionally encourages you to change them. In addition, Google's positioning calculation underlines on lessening page stack time, so speed is essential to accomplish great rankings as well.
The following is the rundown of a couple of essential tips that can build a powerful site with nicely optimized and fast loading pictures.
Picture pressure is vital as far as streamlining as it can decrease the picture measure drastically.
Lossless pressure – It takes into consideration recuperation of every single unique datum when the document is uncompressed.
Lossy pressure – It implies that some data can be lost amid pressure.
For web utilize, the Lossy pressure is far viable.
ImageRecycle – It offers the scope of CMS mixes (Magento, WordPress, Joomla, Shopify) with Lossy and Lossless pressure, PDF pressure and resizing.
Kraken – It was the primary apparatus in the market to pack and resize pictures. It is accessible as WordPress module too.
TinyPNG – A Magento and WordPress module.
Gulp smush it – A free module to upgrade PNG and JPG pictures utilizing reSmush.it.
Raster Images – Raster pictures sparkle with rich visual resources and it can be in a type of GIF, PNG, JPEG or JPEG-XR and WebP are best for photo realistic pictures. Since raster pictures are not determination free in this manner when you scale up a raster document, the picture may get obscured and rugged. Spare the adaptations at different resolutions for the best look.
Vector Graphics – Such documents utilize focuses, polygons and lines to speak to a picture. These pictures are best for geographic shapes like symbols, logos, and foundations and as it is created by programming so the records are little. These pictures can be scaled here and there without mutilation or loss of data. They are effectively editable.
You ought to stay away from the utilization of SVG records for confused pictures, for example, photographs. For more photo realistic impact, raster pictures are ideal.
In the event that you have picture display, utilize Lazy loading. There are such a large number of sites that utilization this systems to enhance page stacking. You can utilize Plug-Ins, for example, Lazyload 2.0, Lazy Load module for jQuery, by utilizing these you can without much of a stretch enhance the UX of your site with lethargic stacking impact you require.
On the off chance that Photoshop used to assemble the site, finding the best organization and pressure to apply to pictures is urgent. You have to adjust the quality and weight. Since Photoshop applies a worldwide pressure to pictures so locate the sweet spot amongst size and quality.
On the off chance that you don't have Photoshop?
On the off chance that you don't have Adobe Photoshop, there are different instruments accessible on the web. Adobe even offers a web-based altering application at photoshop.com that covers every one of the essentials of picture altering and doesn't cost much.
PicMonkey – truly outstanding and awesome photograph altering devices.
Pixlr – is easy to understand and furthermore accompanies 100% free application for your cell phone.
FotoFlexer – another progress online picture supervisor and it enables you to work with layers.
Also, you can utilize GIMP, an open source free picture altering programming that can keep running on Windows, Linux and Mac effectively.


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Penguins picked up by police after pair reported missing from zoo
Following a two-month investigation the Humboldt penguins were reunited with their keepers after cops found them on Wednesday
Martin Fricker
The penguins were reported stolen from a zoo (Image: SWNS)
Police were left in a flap when they found two penguins which had been stolen from a zoo.
The flightless birds were snatched from a zoo in November.
Following a two-month investigation the Humboldt penguins were reunited with their keepers after cops found them on Wednesday.
Nottinghamshire Police discovered the birds in the village of Strelley after officers received a tip-off about their whereabouts.
Sergeant Andrew Browning, who worked on the investigation, said: "My first thought was this is one for the books, and one to tell the grandkids, because there's no way we thought we would go down there and actually find two penguins.
Police discovered the birds in the village of Strelley (Image: David Lally/Geograph)
Cat dubbed 'fattest stray in Britain' returns to shelter despite shedding weight
"It was an unusual one. Even when we went down to custody it made everyone laugh, particularly the custody sergeant who was booking us in.
"It was a real off-the-wall find."
The force posted pictures of the pair on Facebook.
They said: "Rather than let it turn into a cold case, we acted quickly on a tip-off that the pair of Humboldt penguins had been taken in November and were now believed to be residing in Notts.
"After putting our beak in and making enquiries we recovered the birds safe and well on Wednesday afternoon and returned to the zoo."
A 23-year man was arrested on suspicion of burglary and theft.
Humboldt penguins are native to South America and are named after the current of water they swim in, which takes its name from Prussian explorer Alexander von Humboldt.
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Grimsby Town will be ready despite their long journey to Exeter City, says Paul Wilkinson
The Mariners assistant is confident his players have made the ideal preparations for their latest trip to Devon
Boss Russell Slade and assistant Paul Wilkinson
Paul Wilkinson is adamant Grimsby Town will be ready for their return to League Two action today, despite facing another huge journey.
The Mariners make the long trip to Exeter City this afternoon, just a week on from their FA Cup defeat at Plymouth.
It means Town, who had to make the trip back up to Cleethorpes for their final Checkatrade Trophy outing in midweek, will have to travel over 600 miles once again as they go to and from Devon again.
But, having just missed out on securing a replay against the Pilgrims seven days ago, Wilkinson feels confident his side will be ready for their second test in the south west.
"It only feels like two minutes since we were last on the bus!" Wilkinson said.
How will Grimsby Town's players pass the time on their long trip to Exeter City?
"That is what football throws at you. With the FA Cup draw, that served-up a tough draw with us going down to Plymouth, and we go back down to Exeter again this week.
"The lads are ready for it. We have prepared well as we always do.
"I think Exeter will be a big test for us. Plymouth was also a test last weekend, but we gave a really good account of ourselves and we were probably unlucky not to come away with at least with a draw.
"We go down there with confidence. We need to make sure that we are well organised and that we prepare well for the game."
Sam Jones in action for Grimsby Town against Plymouth Argyle last weekend. (Image: Micah Crook/PPAUK)
Town, unbeaten in their last seven league games, take on a side this afternoon looking for their first win in five in League Two.
After leading the way early on thanks to a blistering start to their campaign, Exeter now find themselves outside the automatic promotion places after picking up just two points from their last four games.
But Wilkinson isn't taking anything for granted as Town look to continue their recent form against the Grecians.
"Hopefully we can go there and get another positive result.
Exeter City style may suit Grimsby Town as they bid to continue unbeaten league run
"Exeter have changed things up a little bit this season. They play some good football, but they also go direct at times.
"It's going to be a test for us, as always.
"Paul (Tisdale) gets his teams playing in a good way and they have had a terrific start to the season.
"It hasn't quite gone as well in the past four or five games but, again, they are a dangerous team and they had a good result last weekend in the cup."


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'I took a job as a fairy in a panto': Self Esteem interviewed at Glastonbury
Laura Snapes
Saturday, 25 Jun 2022
In the second of the Guardian's onstage interviews from the festival, Rebecca Lucy Taylor reflects on her journey from one half of indie outfit Slow Club to red-hot pop phenomenon
For Self Esteem – AKA Rebecca Lucy Taylor – Glastonbury is where it all began, sort of. "It was Gary Lightbody!" she told Alexis Petridis in the second of the Guardian's onstage interviews with musicians on the William's Green stage. "I was at school, he was in some of the [Glastonbury] footage and he did a Bright Eyes cover." She made a new musical discovery and was inspired to set off down her own path as a musician.
It's been a long one: after a decade in the indie duo Slow Club, Taylor quit to start Self Esteem. She released her debut solo album, Compliments Please, in 2019 to quiet acclaim, but it wasn't until last year's bold, ruthlessly self-examining Prioritise Pleasure that the Self Esteem phenomenon truly kicked off. It was the Guardian's album of the year, and her live shows – which she describes, brilliantly, as "a kind of horrible church" – have near enough become sites of pilgrimages, particularly for adult pop fans who want to hear their real-life experiences reflected back at them.
At first, though, said Taylor, she was "too scared to say I was gonna go solo. I started an Instagram under the name Self Esteem and started posting paintings and poems. It felt massive to me." She spoke candidly about her ongoing work to attempt to shed the self-consciousness and people-pleasing that characterised her first band experience, in order to be truer to her own desires. "Being a woman, I feel like I'm asking too much, I'm attention-seeking," she said. "It's easy to go, 'I'm gonna keep it safe and easy and that will keep me liked'."
If you can't be yourself, you go crazy, in any facet of life
As an ardent pop fan, life in an indie band became stifling, she explained. "If you can't be yourself, you go crazy, in any facet of life. I know it was just a band but I went crazy, I couldn't be myself. It's hard being from Rotherham and saying this but I'm an artist, I wake up every day and want to make art. I was having to make art through someone else's lens."
It was a series of ruptures that had kickstarted the Self Esteem project, she explained. She had split from a long-term partner, left London and would work any job going. "I took a job as a fairy in a panto," she explained. "It was very unenjoyable. I liked getting paid but it was two shows a day, six days a week. I was breaking up with my partner and I'd put the phone down and pick up my wand." Meanwhile, she approached her new music as if it was "like a full-time job. The goal was just to exist at all and it's fucking lovely. It's become a right laugh."
It was important to her that Self Esteem had a distinct style, she said. "In Slow Club I used to struggle with the fact there was no manifesto, aesthetic – it was just two people's opinions. It's not a good way to make art, I don't think." Part of that trademark comes from Taylor's frank lyricism about her own flaws – and the things that men have told her she is.
Self Esteem with Alexis Petridis at William's Green stage, Glastonbury festival. Photograph: Alicia Canter/the Guardian
"People are like, 'It must be cathartic?' And I don't think it is," she said. "It's hard but I get exhilarated, I get so high off it. And I think it's because in my life, I never say what I mean … In songs, people don't ask me what it's about, and that safety makes me say what I mean and that's what I get out of it. I wonder if one day I'll just get to write songs about being in love, you know how Ed Sheeran just writes a song about his girlfriend."
When Taylor wrote her breakout single, last year's I Do This All the Time, she knew she had "nailed it", she admitted. In Slow Club, she had always tried to write hits and failed. When she first went solo, she investigated the world of cowriting with other songwriters and hated it. "With Prioritise Pleasure, forcibly, because of the pandemic, I was on my own. I wrote it with no end in sight, and that's how this album happened. And, of course, as soon as you stop trying, the universe [hands you a gift]. Not to be all 'live laugh love' but … 'live laugh love' is important, isn't it."
Music gave Taylor an outlet for the full-throated expression she had always sought, and struggled with in her personal life, she said. "It's more me than I am making a cup of tea."
Related: 'I think I might love myself, finally': Self Esteem on 2021's album of the year
She also spoke honestly about the realities of being a musician and what needs to change in the music industry. Negative experiences with sound engineers had prompted her to hire her own technicians, "which means I take home less money … It's so unregulated and you have to spend a lot of money to make sure you're gonna be alright. That's the main thing for me. It's not a well-paid job, you have to need to do it. But there could be changes made so I'm not paying to not have a terrible time."
Taylor was floating ideas for her third solo album, she said. "It's interesting going into the next bit – this is my day in the sun where there will be more yesses than noes and I need to make the most of that. I want to execute it to its full potential."
Though not quite yet, she stressed. "I want to milk Prioritise Pleasure dry!"
• The final Guardian live interview is with Angélique Kidjo at 10.20am on the William's Green stage on Sunday.
Laura Snapes is the Guardian's acting music editor
Post your questions for Self Esteem at Glastonbury
The singer, who made our favourite album and song of 2021, will be in conversation with Alexis Petridis at Glastonbury – tell us what you want to know below
Olivia Rodrigo review – a thrilling, furious Glastonbury moment
The Drivers License singer relishes the energy of the festival crowd for her pop-punk set, electrified by guest Lily Allen for a rendition of Fuck You dedicated to the US supreme court
Self Esteem: Compliments Please review – sly, covetous pop
Ex-Slow Club singer Rebecca Taylor brings indignation, heft and cold drama to her debut solo album
01, Mar, 2019 @10:30 AM
Billie Eilish at Glastonbury 2022: pyrotechnic pop packs a punch
The Pyramid stage's youngest ever headliner looks entirely at home, giving an imperious, hugely engaging performance
Post your questions for Sleaford Mods at Glastonbury
This year, the Guardian is interviewing artists live on stage – and we want your questions for them, beginning with the acerbic, chart-bothering Nottingham duo
14, Jun, 2022 @11:50 AM
'When I gave up drink it was a hallelujah moment': Sleaford Mods interviewed at Glastonbury
In the first of the Guardian's onstage talks with musicians at the festival, frontman Jason Williamson and producer Andrew Fearn talk candidly about substance abuse, class and turning 50
Paul McCartney at Glastonbury 2022 review: Springsteen, Grohl and a euphoric trip through time
Playing well over two hours at the age of 80, McCartney visits some curious corners of his back catalogue – but the big hits are about as thrilling as live pop music gets


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Download the Amwell: Doctor Visits 24/7 app on the App Store (Apple devices) or Google Play Store (Android devices).
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The Wine Spectator FINALLY Discovers the Secret to a Successful Facebook Post.
Bonny Doon Labeling Efforts go Unnoticed by Consumers and Wineries.
Syrah the Biggest Loser, Red Blends Occupy #1 Spot.
French Winemakers Fear New "Chateau" Label Law Could Ruin Reputation.
Should You Lose Sleep Over Food-Wine Pairings?
M. Chapoutier Wine Name Stolen by Chinese Clothing Manufacturer.
Is Weight Watchers "Diet Wine" The Next Big Thing in Weight Loss?
What will Vineyards of the Future Look Like?
Prince Harry Getting Naked Helps Sales of Rose Wine.
The Curious Disappearance of New Zealand Pinot Noir.


Is this the worst crematorium in Britain?
Every year we celebrate the best of the funeral industry with the Good Funeral Awards. There isn't a 'Worst Crematorium of the Year" award but if there was such an accolade, we have a strong contender. Introducing our readers to West London Crematorium, as photographed on Thursday 30th June 2016.
You are currently browsing the The Good Funeral Guide blog archives for July, 2016.