As a musician or other artist, you know, deep down, that your art matters. And yet, our society views the arts as mere luxury items, entertainment, or hobbies. This can make you wonder if what you do really makes a positive difference to the world.
In order to trust that the arts really do matter, it helps to know the underlying mechanism by which the positive energy in your art is spread to others. I call this mechanism your “system update”. Once you understand how system updates work, you can regain full confidence that your art matters.
This video features an excerpt from Chapter 2 “A New Way of Being” from my upcoming book, “Soulforce Arts: The Vital Role of Musicians & Other Artists in a World That’s Lost Its Mind” Read the full excerpt from this video below. Sign up for my email list to be among the first to know when it’s released!
Cheers!
Joseph
System Updates
“The same organizing forces that have shaped nature in all her forms are also responsible for the structure of our minds.”
– Werner Heisenberg
The answers to these questions can be found in nature and seeing how the lessons learned from nature connect to the arts. The communication patterns of birds is a beautiful example. It illustrates how your creative acts not only can influence the world around you, but also play a vital role in its evolution, growth, and healing.
It is well-known that birds call to one another to attract mates, announce their presence in their territory, warn each other of predators, and, it seems, to express the sheer joy of being alive. People who grow up close to forests and closely attuned to their environment often speak of a sort of “Wood Wide Web,” a communication network among birds that spans miles in all directions. This web appears to allow both birds (and humans in-the-know) to know exactly where the nearest hawk or fox is, when the weather might change, and what’s happening with their avian neighbors over the next hill.
This communication network exists in a state of dynamic equilibrium, in which there is a continuous hum of vocalization even in times of relative calm. The continuity of this hum allows birds to respond quickly and appropriately to changes in the environment so that the community as a whole can survive and thrive. This means that each individual bird has a particular responsibility: when it notices something new in the environment, its most important job at that moment is to broadcast a “system update” to the wider community so that all members can adapt to the change as appropriate.
A system update is the individual act of communication by which the ongoing survival and evolution of a community of individuals takes place. Each system update is a response to the individual’s own state of being within its environment, and has a potentially transformative effect on all community members.
A system update is the individual act of communication by which the ongoing survival and evolution of a community of individuals takes place. Each system update is a response to the individual’s own state of being within its environment, and has a potentially transformative effect on all community members.
The system in this example is a community of birds, and the update is a particular bird’s song that is sung in response to certain changes in the environment. When a hawk flies over, the song will change to help others avoid the predator; when the angle of the sun signals evening feeding time, the song will change again to reflect this need. Both help the community to survive threats and to thrive.
Each bird carries its own unique style of system updates, in its own uniquely recognizable voice. Each bird also responds to the events that it in particular is most attuned to, which might well be different to those of other birds. Over time, every change in the surrounding forest gets reflected in the content and subtleties of the community’s songs.
When all the birds are healthy and strong, well-attuned to their environments, and in communication with their community members, this system works exceedingly well. But this finely-tuned system could easily break down if some of or all of the members lost their ability to sing, hear each other, or see things in their environment. If this were to happen, the community of birds would disintegrate, leaving each individual vulnerable to all kinds of danger. Thus, the greatest threat to any community of birds isn’t actually a specific danger in their environment—it’s a lack of timely, accurate, and appropriate system updates.
The impact of these system updates is not limited to the community of birds. They are, after all, deeply interconnected with all other living beings in the forest. It is well known that other animals respond to predator calls from birds, thus making birds the eyes and ears of the whole forest. Directly or indirectly, bird song plays a vital role in the health of every living being in the forest.
Artists play a similar role in human society as birds do in a forest. Artists produce system updates in the form of works of art, performances, literature, new ideas, and fresh perspectives. Each creative act is a system update that originates in response to the artist’s own state of being within their environment, and has a potentially transformative effect on audiences. Artists can be regarded as the eyes and ears of society; artists who remain alert to changes in their cultural environment can communicate these changes through their works of art. Each artist’s system updates are uniquely shaped by their past experiences, present life circumstances, and what they are naturally most attuned to.
Sometimes a specific work of art can be considered an artist’s system update; for example, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. At other times, an artist’s system update might be a new technique or perspective like the cubism developed by Pablo Picasso and others. For performers, their system update might come in their unique interpretation of a specific piece of music or style of dance. Importantly, system updates are a reflection of the artists’ life as a whole, including their mental, emotional, and physical state, as well as what’s happening in society around them, either directly or indirectly.
System updates are a reflection of what’s going on inside and around you. If you as an artist or the society that you are part of is unwell, your system updates will tend to reflect that. If you are concerned with preserving the past or with advancing the cutting edge of culture, your system updates will tend to reflect that. If you are full of aliveness as you sing, or dance, or paint, or if you are just going through the motions, your system updates will reflect that also. It all gets transmitted in your system updates.
Given this interconnectedness you would do well to take responsibility for your system updates, especially if you are concerned with addressing societal ills. Since so many of these social and environmental problems are themselves symptoms of the Story of Separation, then you’ll want to make sure that your system updates are not also transmitting more of this separation signal. Instead, you may wish to align your creative process with the Story of Interbeing to ensure that your system updates transmit a new signal, one that imparts a felt understanding of interbeing. As you transmit this signal you’ll be supporting others to become attuned to this new understanding, just as a bird signals to its community members. The more our society gains this understanding, the more readily these challenges will be resolved.
Align your creative process with the Story of Interbeing to ensure that your system updates transmit a new signal, one that imparts a felt understanding of interbeing. As you transmit this signal you’ll be supporting others to become attuned to this new understanding, just as a bird signals to its community members.
Thus, your greatest contribution to society and to humanity’s relationship with our planet can, indeed, come through your art, via the same inner workings found in nature. Personally, I find great inspiration in knowing that the value of the arts is not, in fact, that they are uniquely human, but rather that they are a reflection of the inner workings of nature. What this means is that your creative energy, your Soulforce, is actually that of the universe as a whole, and as such it has an inherently life-giving quality. Given this perspective, you truly have a vital role as an artist in these times of change: to transmit your unique system updates via your creative potential to support the move towards the health and thriving of our world.
