Harnessing the POWER of the INTELLIGENCE of the COMMUNITY

One of the things I have been trying to develop is a way to have an intelligent, rational discussion about health care in our society. I do not feel as the current national discussion is intelligent, rational or respectful. How can we expect to change this broken system if we are using broken thinking?

I want to start by addressing the inherent, yet hidden power of the innate intelligence of community. To do this I will relate a quick story from The Wisdom of Crowds by James Suroweicki. He opens his book with a story about the British anthropologist Francis Galton who was trying to prove how un-intelligent crowds were. What Galton learned from this experiment flew directly in the face of what he had spent his lifetime trying to prove. To make a long story shorter, in 1906 Galton was at a fair and one of the competitions was to guess how much a cow would weigh after it was butchered and dressed. The competitors included butchers, farmers and average citizens. What Galton did that is of interest to me was to take the actual guesses by all the competitors and to find the average mean weight from that, then to compare that to the actual weight. The averaged guessed weight was 1,197 pounds, only one pound off from the actual weight of 1,198 pounds!

What this shows, if we read between the lines, is that the intelligence of ALL OF US is greater than the intelligence of any ONE of us.

This applies to my desire to have a discussion about health care because I am convinced that if we could actually generate a format where we could all put in our thoughts of how to create, monitor and fund a working health care system it would have the intelligence of our society; not just the biased intelligence of the special interest groups.

To create a format like this would require several things that I am aware of right off.

First of all in order to participate I feel one would have to agree to not attack any one else’s ideas or person. It does not matter about the quality of their idea, their idea will sink or swim on its own merit if we let it. But the idea one wants to attack may spark someone else to have an idea that sparks someone else to have a genuinely good idea. If we stop that process by attacking the idea or the person we ALL loose.

Secondly I feel we would need to agree that the system we have is broken.

My thinking is that if we can address health care and start to develop healthier individuals within the community it will spread out and these individuals will develop a healthier community in all areas; the environment, the economy, our schools and homes.

I also feel that if we can create this format in a functional manner we could use this model to discuss the environment and reap incredible rewards from that, as well as practical solutions to a most pressing issue. We could also then turn our focus to the Military-Industrial Complex.

My thinking has been very strongly influenced by reading (and now re-reading immediately after finishing it the first time) “Spontaneous Evolution” by Bruce Lipton Ph.D. and Steve Bhaerman. This book is profound and I cannot find words to describe how enthusiastically I recommend it to everyone.

Respectfully,

Michael Clifford

A Great Job

I have a great job. It is a distinct change of directions from when I was an acupuncturist, but it fulfills many challenging aspects I seem to seek.

About two years ago I closed my clinic and moved back to New Mexico to get married and switch careers. I have managed to make both of them happen, and each one has it's own unique challenges.

My intention in this blog will be to seek a higher perspective from which to view my experiences. My job will help in a literal sense, and I am a very literal kind of guy.

My job is operating either a laser system, or a digital camera, or a hyperspectral scanner while flying in a plane to capture the data used to make topographical and other types of maps. It is fascinating work, very technical, very exciting and challenging. Every day is different.

But flying a mile or two above the earth gives me a HIGHER PERSPECTIVE, and I try to incorporate that concept into my life. I strive to have a higher Spiritual perspective in my observation of my day-to-day experiences.

About a week ago we were just getting ready to take off from Grand Junction Colorado to fly out to the California coast to start a project. Everything was great during the pre-flight check and run up. We pulled out on to the runway, the pilot started running the engines up to full power when the left engine (which was brand new, just out of the shop) quit.

We looked at each other and said, simultaneously, "That's not good!"

But in all truth we both thought it was much better then than it would have been ten minutes later; that would have been bad, we were fully loaded, right at the weight limit. At that weight the plane can fly on one engine, but it will be a controlled descent. Not what you want as you are leaving an airport.

We got a technician to come check the plane out. He has thirty plus years of testing new engines to tune them up after being built, before being put on the plane. He inspected things and finally concluded that the cause was air in the fuel lines. When this air bubble finally worked its way out of the fuel flow diaphragm it hit all six injectors at nearly the same time and that caused the engine to quit. Since then we have 16 hours of flying without any problem.

So how can I relate this to a higher perspective? Well, in my Spiritual journey I go through changes, challenges and rebuilds as well. If I am committed to this challenge there have been times when it was like a HUGE air bubble went through my fuel flow diaphragm. I lost all power and it took a while to re-start the engine.

This last 5 months of unemployment was a good example of that. I have never been unemployed for that length of time since I started working when I moved out of my parents house for the first time at 16 years old. It took the wind out of my sails and that seriously impacted my attitude and from that impact it took its toll on everything else.

But with perseverance and looking at my experiences from a little distance I have returned to flying high on full power.

As I said, I have a great job.