Celebrate your 5% /February 28, 2014

Celebrate your 5%

I can't remember where I found it, but written on the wall opposite this desk is a quote which states:

"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, surrounded by assholes."

The world's obsession with measurement and conformity has created the bizarre situation where success and happiness is measured against some normalised bell curve. 

Strangely the people I meet who appear most content in life are those who have abandoned any attempts to normalise. They accept their differences. In fact, they celebrate their differences and enjoy being the unique expression we are all meant to be. 

There is no great secret to their happiness, they have simply chosen to ignore the assholes!

Science wants conformity!

We live in the scientific age and we have become used to looking to the world of science to tell us what is possible and what is not. Experimental scientists use statistics to determine what is repeatable, probable and by way of their authority, what is possible. If a result meets a statistically significant threshold then something maybe stated as proven scientifically. The phrase scientifically proven is another way of saying accepted as truth.

In many respects this has proved a powerful way to move knowledge forward, but equally is a powerful way to keep us where we are. Science has, perhaps unwittingly, evolved to restrict our sense of possibility. Every experiment which produces a 95% certainty discards the remaining 5%, and perhaps the 5% is where the really interesting information is stored. An example of this is the dismissive term Junk DNA, which is now turning out to be where the really exciting research is heading. 

I feel the rejection of an experience because it is not scientifically proven or provable, or worse doesn't fit our existing or anticipated model, is one of the issues which causes so much suffering. I have never understood why more attention isn't paid to the 5% which falls outside the scientific certainty, and I feel that process of rationalisation may explain why so many are struggling. 

Just as science restricts itself by discarding the 5%, perhaps most of our presenting issues, be they physical, emotional or mental are simply a result of ignoring the 5%. We expend so much energy trying to squeeze into the fat part of the bell curve we ignore our differences, and maybe, just maybe, our true well-being lies in those differences. By definition, our uniqueness lies in that 5% and this where our possibility of growth and expansion lie.

love Bill