Meme theory, idea inertia, and regeneration There are many wonderful ideas and many horrific ideas..

Many ideas that should propagate and replicate.. Many ideas that should be obliterated.. 'Meme theory' is an idea itself with interesting properties.. 'Free sex' is a great idea but horrible in practice; nothing is free; there's always a price: STDs, broken hearts, broken families, broken lives.. How can we all move toward healing collectively? Toward regeneration? Via morality? Regeneration cannot be imposed; it must be a choice.. What is regeneration? And the problem with morality is that everyone has a different frame and even that changes over time .. The main problem with regeneration is that it has attributes not shared with the common definition; we need to reeducate ourselves about the meaning of regeneration: 1. it means teamwork 2. it means self-sustaining 3. and it implies some form of positive synergy Synergy can be expressed in many diverse ways.. Another name for synergy is 'emergent behavior'; look that up and examine the diversity.. How do we capture those synergies in human endeavors? Good question.. Well, we follow the outline of the definition for regeneration: 1. we attempt teamwork 2. we attempt to find self-sustaining sets of behaviors and modes of living/interacting 3. we attempt to find the positive synergies in our interactions It sounds very simple but in practice it can be very very difficult. Case in point: I'm a member of a student team in a class about regenerative leadership with a group project. The particular project and client is almost immaterial. The fact is: we must perform as a team, utilize our individual talents and gifts, and combine them to (ideally) exceed the expectations of the client. As acting (and voted) facilitator, I feel we have failed miserably from the get-go. Why? Because the instructor has been forced to impose group-deadlines and explicit expectations about our individual product. It means we've missed the point of the class: regenerative (shared) leadership. It's an easy mistake to make for any team.. And forgivable.. But one that we should not repeat on any future team .. In San Jose, CA, I was on a software development student team with much simpler requirements. Again, we failed miserably to implement the systems approach toward software development. Oh, we came up with a product that performed the required task, but did we use the systems approach? Did we apply software development principles? No to both questions.. At least in this current situation, we are guided by an expert in regenerative leadership we at least have a 'fighting chance' to do it right the first time. In the process, I've become somewhat an expert on regenerative notions but still: we cannot function as an effective team unless every member fulfills their unique function as determined by their unique skillsets. If one link fails, the entire endeavor fails. This shows a fourth component not immediately obvious: 4. absolute interdependency So what does 'idea inertia' have to do with regeneration or meme theory? Good and bad ideas have collective social momentum: Armageddon, regeneration, wholeness, diversity, complacency, apathy,.. All ideas contribute toward regeneration xor its opposite: stagnation/death. I have a fairly strong argument that the notion of Armageddon is oriented toward stagnation/death. So is complacency and apathy.. Actually, very few notions are completely aligned with regeneration: wholeness, diversity, acceptance, nurturance,.. Fortunately/unfortunately, the list is quite finite.

Idea momentum/inertia is relevant because ideas have a tendency to take on a 'life of their own'.. As meme theory suggests, ideas can breed like viruses.. A parallel analogy is a video on YouTube going viral.. For an interesting/educational video, this idea is Wonderful; for an inane/meaningless video, it becomes a destructive distraction. From the regenerative standpoint, 'viral videos' are a loose-cannon: unpredictable and counterproductive unless they're associated with positive/constructive notions .. The idea of 'idea inertia' itself is useful only if we attend to positive, constructive, or regenerative sets of notions.. Regeneration becomes the core notion of our collective futures .. How do we achieve this fabled utopia? By force? By imposition? Again, those go against the core attributes of regeneration. No, only by backcasting a collective positive vision incorporating regeneration can we engineer utopia.