Greeting the new, together

January 2000 Dear Friends, Time is an inexorable. "Process" always making it's presence felt when larger influences catch us up in performances grander than ourselves.  So: Welcome to the next temporal plateau, welcome to the next millennium, the next phases of days. Like younglife breaking from the womb or egg sac, our random calendar has thrust us into a new cognitive environment. The roll of digits to a clean slate really doesn't make this transition any different than number shifting from 23,974 to 23,975 for example but psychologically we are transfixed by the return to a 'purity'. With all the activity and complexity of a burgeoning planet, simply having the sense that 'life is simple again, easy to comprehend and handle', is a refreshing moment. We suck in the breath of fresh new air, symbolically renewed to face the future with optimism and positive anticipation. All the universe is in front of us, with all the promise that options and potential allow. How absolutely wonderful. How marvelous. I can tell you for a fact that you are simultaneously more in control of your lives and less in control of your lives than you have ever been before. (That's a strange notion, isn't it ?!?!) What I mean is, you are more competent in your independence and yet more involved with the rest of this Gaian globe than you have ever been before. No paradox here, simply good fact, good experiences - on many levels, in the many facets, of your life. Be good to each other. Be good to yourselves. Be a world of dreamers, knowing that your neighbors and friends dream just like you, though the dreams be varied.  Respect that. EXPECT that.  Nurture and encourage THAT.  Diversity is as important as unity. Its the very key to Life. ceptualinstitute.com/new.htm#2000   is Ceptual Institute's effort to step boldly, lovingly and wisely into the years ahead. No great changes, just renewed momentum. New Mindways links, new Essays and conversations, new papers and holistic perspectives. And waiting just in the wings are a large group of new GENRE WORKS by authors from many lands and studies and accomplishments, to be added online during the coming months of this year. I'd personally like to thank so many of you for your patience during CI's quiescent months of 1999.    At conferences and through online dialogues I've had the chance to meet some extraordinary people, vibrant and alive with enthusiasm and concern for the future and for the welfare of human existence. That means you, who are reading these words right now.   I hope that CI does you justice and reflects your ideas and aspirations and perceptions, as much as I hope to share those of my own with you. I think of myself as a Ceptual Philosopher, and now, as an advocate and proponent of General Systems and Gaian thinking as well. Life is not simply performance mechanism but "style" - integrated in experiential ways as well as maneuverable ones. We are evolving, terraforming human existence. From the inside out and the outside in. Becoming Homo Globalis. Sapien sapiensis globalis. People. Competent compassionate living beings.          I applaud you.                      Ceptual Institute                  Planet Earth