In the Bible we notice very vividly how the Lion is the Lamb. The Lion is The Lord Jesus Christ in His Resurrected form and the Lamb is the sacrifice enduring death! It is One in Two forms!
The icheku (Dialium Guineense – velvet tamarind) is sweet and sour, in Igbo we would say o na tuto ma o na gbaka n’ti. It is One with Two tastes!
In leadership, the stick and carrot approach, elicit desired behaviours with pleasant rewards and punishing consequences. It is One with Two ways!
In its variables, life holds numerous opportunities to align seemingly conflicting tactics, roles, tastes and more. This tool has delivered salvation, provided unique taste sensations, and created sustained enterprises. They are true and tested and effective where they align.
The important thing about this balancing act, that can create a life changing or subtle experience; is that, to make something matter – it has to be allowed to permeate the atmosphere to which it is brought into-and must account for all the interactions to that environment.
Physics and practical engineering have some answers. In order for the Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Galileo to work well, they must take into account all relativistic effects including second order Doppler frequency shifts of clocks, gravitational frequency shifts, and the Sagnac effects. This is because they all impact the earth’s gravitational field and hence the accuracy of the GPS.
The important thing here is that in order, to engage the earth and leverage its super abilities to create the needed billions of connections useful to us, as in the case of a GPS satellite; there is a need to account for the delicate balance of many interactions! Deployers of GPS satellites have to care deeply for these qinteractions.
On a more personal note, when we place an icheku (tamarind) in our mouths our taste buds scurry to make the adjustments that allow us experience the combined effect of these differing flavours to create the taste sensations we experience. Our taste buds have to care deeply for these interactions.
In Christian religion our hearts in acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ have to care deeply for the interactions of the Lion and The Lamb. There is no Christianity without both!
Such also can be the foundation of the most fundamental of engagements, such as human to human and human to environment. To care for the interactions of all engagements even when those interactions appear negligible is key, because like with Asymptotic symmetries, the interactions determine the outcomes.
An asymptote is the near convergence of a straight line to a curve yet never touching all the way to infinity. Basically, they never become the same thing, yet have a very close interaction that influences each other.
Asymptotic symmetries come about when symmetry groups are at asymptotic infinity. Specifically, when gravitational fields decay at infinity, and result in the space- time asymptotically empty space and characterised by infinite dimensional symmetry, this same phenomenon also extends the finite-dimension due to special relativity!
Basically, what happens in one place affects other things in other places because there is a relational connection. The result is a multifaceted output that can produce many points of usefulness. (2)
So where am I going with all this math, personal, religion and physics influences? It is instructive that with close attention to everything we have reviewed so far, we realise the one common thread that runs through them is that the confluence of inputs, generate a differential output that is very closely interacting to produce a robust, adherence to the values of each input. This interacting outcome can have many good applications and must be properly cared for.
So how can we apply this to everyday interactions and why must we consider this?
Simple – Because of the need for us humans to care significantly about the interactions that contribute to our relatedness and outcomes. Too often we go straight to the outcomes, the output, the goal. We ignore the rich marinade of all the interactions. We forget that taking those interactions into the calculus of interpreting the end goal will make the difference.
For example, we make statements like “I stay away from so and so because they act this way or that way”. I don’t engage those types of people because of what I hear they do or how they live. What if we considered the interactions that led to those outcomes, what if we chose to care deeply about those interactions, would that make everything different and cause us to interpret the outcome differently?
Why we consider the micro and macro interactions to adjust our Human G.P.S. (Generations.Perspectives.Situations)
Because our human engagements are many and come in diverse forms and factors.
Because they can come in unchartered randomness and fixed dimensionality.
Because sometimes, they are plagued by opinions, propensities, and utter disillusionment.
Yet sometimes by unparalleled unity in diversity!
Because, for so many Generations, the Perspectives of many have affected and influenced the Situations of others.
So, if the elements of this our great universe, our earth, understands and considers the delicate interactions it faces so intimately; and our microvilli understands the interactions of taste to create the sensations we experience; and to achieve a fundamental goal, leaders can motivate with opposing tactics; then surely, areas of human engagements that facilitate many interactions must have similar throughput!
From all these lenses, the core thing that delivers the goods is to care deeply for the interactions!
In the physics and math concepts we reviewed earlier, we see how, when we touch the earth recruiting it to serve our needs, it responds by letting us engage it but with the requirement that we must account for shifts and changes and the gaps in our movements and activities relative to the earth’s.
So how do we port all this into deep caring? First, we must define something tangible in caring that we can hold on to. Caring comes with a values basis, regardless of form, differences, capacity, capabilities, status, race etc. There is an aptitude of care that engenders our participation or inactivity. Let us look at care in the context of interactions.
Caring Deeply about interactions – Human to environment engagements.
Our beautiful natural spaces give us an exchange too big to quantify. We interact with it in many ways good and bad. When our values basis go to minimus, then our view on the convergence in the interactions change and we no longer value the interactions. It becomes as though everything has lost all unique value and significance. We no longer think in relative terms, we think in the absolutes of our needs and wants and the subtle and bold interactions suffer becoming nondescript, we don’t care anymore, and the consequence at best is nil and at worst degradation!
The Sierra Nevada which accounted for 60% of California’s water supply encountered such an experience. By 2015 it had become so much drier with less rain and higher winter temperatures that depleted the snow /ice reserves. While the climate change deniers provided other reasons for the longer droughts, the lack of robust interaction on the issue by those who should have cared; delayed help, California gradually grew hotter and dryer.
Today as California resorts to a statewide water management scheme regulating water use to promote water security for the people, nature and wildlife. At the heart of this re-engagement is how meticulously they are interrogating the interactions of the earth, rain, vegetation, human and animal activities, because they know that understanding and considering these interactions is caring! The Alliance of Water Stewardship (AWS) is working on schemes to conserve, share and protect water resources through interactions with business organisations. Years ago, Bill Gates partnered with the state of California to demonstrate the repurposing its municipal wastewater for beneficial use, of which more than 13% of its water is generated from wastewater.
By comparison, in Israel, 90% of drinking water is generated from municipal wastewater.
Deforestation in the Cerrado (South America’s Savanah) in exchange for agriculture (beef and soy production) erodes 50% of native vegetation. Reforestation and simply by choosing plant-based meat alternatives reduce the need to undo these natural ecosystems.
There are countless examples from ocean pollution and the impact on the coral reefs, the cost-impact of a high carbon economy on climate change and the corrective methods poised to reverse them. Some replacement examples, include green energy generation, through wind, solar, hydro, biomass, geothermal and more. For example, the Block Island wind farm generates 125K MWh of electricity each year, thereby, meeting 90% of Block Island’s needs while simultaneously removing 40K tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere!
Caring deeply about interactions – Human to human engagements.
In the US, racial politics, classism, otherness etc. are the strongholds of engagement and simultaneously the cost of admission. As resources appear to decline, the unyielding push that squeezes people financially, emotionally, and physically grows in audacity. The result is that people run inwards, some without the desire to engage, others without the will to battle the barriers of engagement! Not too long ago, many people of colour protested police brutality and the systemic racism that has been allowed to fester for decades disenfranchising them. Instead of dialog, they were met with brute force and more violence by an administration that was determined to deepen the racial divide and cement and align the history and the future of the United States as one, that is for some and profoundly against others. The election of a new president has since dampened that activity, but the fresh legacy of its awfulness still reverberates in so many corners, its echoes are loud and clear as remnants swear and connive to return.
The US leads the world with a record 33M COVID cases and 586K deaths, this is a big departure for the US whose history on leadership is often connected to innovation, economics and research. The tides did turn!
The Israel – Palestine war has picked up again, now on the record for 54 long years of battle. Since the May 6, 2021 protests by the Palestinians, over 200 people have been killed by air strikes, fighting, protests and street confrontations. There is concern that this could turn into a full scaled war. These scenes while sad to see remind us of a world we are already too used to.
India, the software and to some extent pharmaceutical manufacturing capital of the world, in early May 2021, cried out for help, ravaged by the toll COVID 19 had taken on it. Today, India (that as of February looked like its Covid cases were in a rapid decline towards zero), now records 25M cases and 274K deaths.
In Nigeria, the #EndSars protests against police brutality appeared like a turning point and change of guards all at once. Many nameless and faceless youth were fully integrated, fully united, none appearing to be seeking their own or acting as an agent to some older group; but instead bringing down the gavel of unity at a fever pitch that was hard to ignore. It was as if they woke up to the realisation of their search for a country, robust and true, while simultaneously standing in the mirage of one!
The truth about deep caring……
The truth is this, caring is core to the actualisation of the success gained from considering all the interactions of our humanity. If we, do it well and care deeply for all of who we are, we can erect a Human GPS that is accurate in its ability to support the billions of connections we bring to it.
So like the leader, we can have opposite ways to our goals, like enjoying icheku, we can experience the interacting effect of differing tastes and like with The Lion who is The Lamb we can gain salvation from death. The requisite formular for stability and accuracy in any relational engagement, has as its main ingredient, a deep care for all the interactions that ensue! So do care for one another…. deeply!
Quick Terms:
Doppler frequency shifts happen because of the relative velocities of a moving source which impacts the frequency of light or sound waves produced by that moving source relative to an observer
Earth’s gravitational field and direction imparts to an object an acceleration (g, 9.78033m/s2) as a result of its combined gravitational and centrifugal forces
As the earth rotates, Sagnac effect happens when the GPS clock lags or leads relative to the earth’s equipotential surface or geoid
Geoid – the earth’s unique shape that coincides with the mean sea level and extends under and over land areas
About Ngozi Bell
Inspiration, Hard Work, Innovation. These three foundational elements anchor Ngozi’s core belief that manifesting the extraordinary is always within reach. Inspired by her mother A.C.Obikwere, a scientist and author, she learned the privilege of living at the edge of important encounters and dedicating herself to robust and perpetual learning. Ngozi’s background is a combination of Physics, Engineering, Venture Capital/Private Equity, regulations and business where she has managed over $1B in cumulative revenue. Ngozi is a speaker, storyteller and writer on a diverse set of topics including AI, iDLT, ML, Signal Processing, iOT, women, entrepreneurship and more. She contributes regularly to VOA, has been featured on TEDx and is published on tech and non-tech platforms. She is a champion of STEM, women, youth, art and the “Africa we must engage”. Ngozi is an adjunct professor of Physics with work experience in Asia, Europe, Africa, Middle East and North America. She is a founder of a number of enterprises and host of the podcast Stem, Stocks and Stews (https://anchor.fm/stemstocksstews-podcast).
