As I’m writing this now, I have no idea what to title this post, even though I am quite clear on what this post will be about. For a while I’ve been contemplating how inner systems effect outer systems, and vice versa. Every outer system is mirrored internally by our conceptualization of it, in some way. That seems like a pretty heady description, so let’s try using an example of a specific system to get our heads (and eventually our hearts) around what I’m talking about, and why it matters.

I live in the United States, and our system of government here can be conceived of as having three “branches”. These are the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Now, this isn’t a systems of government blog (not directly anyway…) so I won’t go into detail about what exactly these do. If you live in the US or have some familiarity with the US system of government, though, my brief mentioning of the branches probably brought concepts and ideas about those branches into mind. Maybe some symbols, such as the American flag, the White House, or a Judge came up internally. And most likely, some feelings arose around those symbols. As you’ll hopefully understand a bit more later, it’s important to note which symbols and feelings are attached to concepts and systems. These are likely powerful, and intentional for a system as vast as the US government. If you do not live in the US, you may not have much of a conception of these, so feel free to substitute what I’m talking about with whatever governmental system you want. Respective symbols will likely arise for those. And, finally, bear with me as this ultimately goes way beyond governmental systems.

Now, there’s a pretty good chance that your mental conception of how the system operates is aligned fairly well with how the system operates in reality. You probably don’t believe that the executive branch, for instance, is comprised of a group of blue foxes whose sole job is to execute rabbits and construct an almighty “Rabbit God of Death” from the corpses. On the flip side, you also probably could not write a ten thousand page essay on the intricacies of the duties of the Department of Transportation, unless you happen to be an expert on that, in which case your mental conception probably maps almost exactly on to the functions of that specific part of the Executive branch.

The idea I’m trying to get across is that your mental concept of the US government, and the physical manifestation of the US government are closely linked. This is true of any phenomenon you can think of. You have a concept of a “pink Bic lighter” that maps pretty well on to existing pink Bic lighters. And if someone serves you a cheeseburger, you have a mental conception of what a cheeseburger should look like, taste like, feel like, smell like, and so on. If someone serves you a bowl full of rice and beans and claims that is a cheeseburger, it’s this mismatch between your cheeseburger concept and reality that tells you to have a discussion with your server.

So why does this matter, and when am I going to stop over-analyzing the concept of concepts? Probably never, but that doesn’t mean I won’t get to the point shortly.

I hopefully have, at this point, decently explained that the inner maps to the outer, and the outer to the inner, and these maps are linked together. One key thing to note is that most of these links were created. You weren’t born knowing how the US government operates, or what a cheeseburger is. If, throughout your life, you, and only you, were served bowls of beans and rice and it was called “cheeseburgers”, you would associate that word with that meal, and you would have a vastly different idea as to what a cheeseburger is to everyone else. It’s also this concept that allows you to bring the inner into the outer. You can’t make a cheeseburger without knowing what a cheeseburger is, and what it consists of, and what cooking it entails. The outer creates and can correct the inner, and the inner can create and correct the outer

This brings me to my first idea of a title of this post, “The Homeostatis of Systems”. If you were raised with the idea that a cheeseburger is beans and rice, the world at large would waste no time in correcting that “incorrect” mapping, and your system will then be in sync with everyone else’s. Same thing with the fox led rabbit-murdering executive branch. The outer system “corrects” the inner.

What I find extremely important though, and why I’m writing about this at all, is that the process clearly works in reverse as well. Our inner concepts change the outer world. If you’re having trouble believing this, think about the fact that not one single man-made object, process, hierarchy, or system in this world existed before someone conceived of it. Not a single one. Slow down with this one, because I think this is way more important than a simple sentence on a blog can describe. The US governmental system must have been conceived internally before it could exist externally. So too with cheeseburgers. We did not find a cheeseburger in nature and copy it. One day, a person conceived (the fact that this word also relates to physical birth is telling, too) of the idea of ground beef between two buns with a slice of cheese involved. Thus, a new concept was birthed, and this was required before the first cheeseburger came into physical existence. An inner concept must be created before an outer form is created.

And birth is a fantastic metaphor here. Unsurprisingly, the etymology of “Create” gives us some clues about what I’m discussing here. It actually comes from an ancient root, “ker“, meaning to “grow”, or “bring forth”. Interestingly, this root also was what gave the Roman goddess of agriculture, fertility, and birth, Ceres, her name. A creation is quite literally the outgrowth or birth of an inner concept into the physical world.

Bringing it back to governments, when revolutions happen, the people who are revolting have a different idea about how the government should run than how it actually runs. The revolution is, in one sense, and attempt of one concept to overthrow another. If the revolution succeeds, the new concept can then be brought into physical reality by the people who possess the concept. If it fails, the concept may disappear, or it might be transmitted between individuals and spread elsewhere, or return in time as a natural evolution of the current system. Either way, the concept necessarily has to exist internally before it existed externally.

The inner influences the outer, and the outer influences the inner. So on, and so on.

Our inner visions and concepts truly change the world. This is one of the major reasons why turning inwards, knowing ourselves, and finding who we truly are is so crucial. Our hearts are the creative entities behind all things, and it all starts from within. I truly believe that we all have something new to bring forth into this world. It may not be cheeseburgers or governments, but it matters. I mean hell, I might’ve been the first person to conceive of an executive branch of murderous foxes!

But I would like, in the blog, to go beyond concepts and words, as I’ve previously noted, and so far, I feel that I’ve failed to do that. So after reflecting for a bit, I realized I still had one important question to ponder, and I think might be worth it for you, dear reader, to ponder as well. If we accept that everything humans have created started from an internal concept, then where did that internal concept come from? From where did the first idea to combine beef and bun spring from? What is the soil that the creation was grown in? And, to quote the (excellent) movie Emily, “Where do the stories come from?” For me, thinking about this opens up a window to a sense of mystery and wonder, and I hope it will for you as well.