A classic teaching on learning, is observing what already is. A squirrel will gather supplies for winter-time, building up savings for when it gets cold. Once the temperature drops below the freezing-point, the available nourishment is increasingly limited, as is the capacity to gather it. The squirrel that does so successfully, is with the capacity to defend itself, maintain agility and starts the next "open" season without being depleted. The likelihood of the same squirrel making it through the following winter increases, as it is with the capacity to reach the deadline and meet future demands.
Listen to "Eternal Cycles" while reading for ambience
Years ago, I lived in a place frequently visited by squirrels. These, amongst other smaller animals, would stay at a distance, however as I began changing, these small beings dared come much closer. This was during a period when I was becoming more aware of the responsibilities I carried. I was told: "It’s not how much or what you have; it’s how you make use of what you have." This phrase embedded itself and turned into a kind of guideline. This was a while before I realized that there were factors, that would impact the capacity I was with, to administrate what I tucked away in a tree.
It was not many years into the vast changes I began undertaking, to how I lived. Up till this point I mostly adhered the heart, a sense of responsibility and - for better and worse - the "higher ups". However, an undesirable encounter with a very harmful endeavor left me in a state of disarray and with less than no surplus. Driven by despair, I endeavored to evaluate what factors impacted me negatively - despite the narration imposed on me, believing there was hope. I would, in a simple terminal editor, analyze exactly what was draining me of the capacity to exist. This low-consumption option, even amidst minimalistic tools, turned out a life-saver. Following up on that, I began contributing to various growths and flows, a practice I continue today. In doing so, I grew my capacity to keep giving. Principles such as "wholesomeness" and "non-superficiality," alongside the commitment to not wrong those who may be impacted, were central to the success I found.
Incremental accumulation exists in many forms. It starts today—with small, mindful actions that shape the trajectory of your growth. The first step is taking a brief look at your current accumulative practices—perhaps by opening a simple editor and reviewing them.
There is a wealth of information, know-how, ethics and so on, about accumulation. Love itself may be said to accumulate, if viewed as a kind of mutual agreement or alignment of energy between two or more beings (entities). It could even be described as synergistic. Think of particles positioned in a crystalline grid; it is incredible how tough a composite can result. Say humans can sense this "oneness", and represent it within, like we do the visual or auditive data gathered, as the sensation of love. Much love may lead to kindness, making it easier to be compassionate - inviting more of the same.
When it comes to the dynamics of accumulation, an ancient text, the Tao Te Ching, outlines three fundamental patterns:
- More craves more. This is the rule in the flow that, for millennia, relied on humanity. Those who struggle, oft find themselves in greater troubles.
- Balance is key in nature. The weakened become targets of predation or disease and often die out. Meanwhile, the strong must grow wise, lest conflict leave them weakened.
- The divine principle provides abundance to lack. This generosity flows naturally, harmonizing with the needs of the moment.
Resource Limitations
Consider this: you notice someone attractive versus someone neglected, wronged, and struggling in the deprivation deemed "unattractive." How do you think about them? With the latter, do you spend your limited capacity for attention and energy considering how to compliment them? Likely not. But how about those you find attractive?
Resources, when occupied, lose their potential for application elsewhere. Yet it may be worthwhile to create space for complimenting those who don’t immediately invite positive attention—breaking down the imprisoning walls of superficiality. The capacity to compliment and provide nourishing feedback is itself a resource. Failing to manage it wisely can leave one in a reactive, robotized state, losing opportunities and falling prey to shallow patterns of attraction. This loss can be significant for an individual life, while those receiving desirable energy may grow increasingly attractive, embedding themselves in social contexts, making connections and securing opportunities.
And so it is with other resources, including information. A human life has a limited capacity for processing information each day. When that capacity is dominated by one source, it leads to the loss of another. Consciously choosing how to nourish yourself with information can be more valuable than passively consuming whatever forcibly captures your attention. Failing to guard this capacity weakens decision-making and gradually erodes an individual’s desirability.
When life’s processing capacity is consumed—whether through fact-checking or integrating awareness—those who provide meaningful resources may grow their surplus. This surplus, in turn, can be reinvested to expand their capacity for further influence and contribution. This is how resources accumulate: a defined capacity is contributed, valued, and returned with an increase. Over time, this surplus forms the foundation for further growth and potential.
However, accumulation often requires an initial loss. For example, the loss of quantity of time, may yield an increase in relational standing. Similarly, the quality of time lowered by how it is spent, may yield an increase of quantity through the foundation it builds on. Social energy spent with those perhaps less superficially attractive, may lead one to be grounded in a wiser social context, in which connections evolve into some far more fulfilling than the initial traction by superficial desirability.
Conversely, producing a piece of work can involve vast costs, expenses and despite the initial surplus, the price-tag may weigh too heavy. This, as with all kinds of harm to other beings in deriving an outcome, can set off a chain-reaction of losses - one harm leading to another, uncontrollably requiring resources for mitigation, surplus the occupied thus unavailable in other contexts. This failure to address the residual damages, the growing damages, may burden with the need to align with what is sacrificed in the process - be it friendly relations neglected, imposed distress on supportive networks or lowered quality of work produced.
Another case is the attempt to avoid causing harm, but failing at levels leading to greater harm yet - or misusing the harm-reduction as an excuse to cause yet greater harm. Its a classic; subtle manipulations used to dominate while pretending kindness, or being a bit kind, seeming desirable and thus attaining dominance. The result is a loss of trust, and exclusion by those observing the loss it creates to a social context - losing surplus of kinds, needing to commit more harm to stay afloat. These cycles can trap individuals in a web they need to keep spinning, involving self-reinforcing harm, reliant on the same destructive methods to maintain their position. The predation on this by enabling or 'fixing', sustaining the self-violative ways and hindering a life arriving at the need to change, may similarly seem kind but lock the life into perpetual impoverishment.
Demand and Harm
The previous denotes a few methods employed in active accumulation, as well as how the cost to an approach may lead to a greater fulfillment-need when losses are unmitigated.
Consider an armed force that loses surplus by fostering conflict and hatred, seeding desires for vengeance and thus needing secure against retaliation. In compensating for this subsequent resource-lack, required to avoid weakening outcomes, it might attempt sustain it self by exploiting environments with low resilience, where resistance to harm is minimal. A dynamic may result of sourcing resources through low-cost labor, and in the reliance demanding secured access to the low-cost procurement, sustained by (transportation, up-skilling, loss-negation, ..) - giving of the energy it needs to drive growth.
Much of the effort exerted, may as such be to mitigate losses. Expenditure required to utilize value-creation processes, with a cost heavier than the power derived can lift. The systemic mismanagement leads to deepening impoverishment, degrading value-creation processes and worsening costs that does need be mitigated lest engulf the structure. Something occurring through flawed processes, decisions and superficiality - a dynamic similar to accumulation, only one of deprivation. A pattern, that may be perpetuated by environmental conditions, leaving processes prone to being with greater costs than gain.
Protecting the value you create requires thoughtful and deliberate approaches to accumulation, especially in some contexts - and depending on the life you lead. This process can be seen as an expression of ethics, selflessness, or wisdom. Yet the question remains: how does one develop the capacity to approach accumulation in ways that lead to success? Every being holds some form of surplus, capacity, or resource.
- An ant exists within a structured grid, much like a particle in a crystalline formation, operating seamlessly within its environment.
- A lone predator thrives independently, free from the need to synchronize or collaborate to sustain itself.
- An AI system, with its vast processing power, draws on immense resources to respond to prompts—bound by its design to fulfill requests.
- A butterfly, while sending out cascades of rippling energy with every wingbeat, enjoys the freedom to move through its environment effortlessly.
- A company that sustains a diversity of lives is nourished by the coherence of its contributors, each fulfilling a unique and essential role within the whole.
Wisely going about the surplus one enjoys, may be a fundamental responsibility.
Dispossession
Improving your capacity to administrate what you hold is a worthy pursuit. By refining this skill, you may align more deeply with life’s accumulative dynamics. If you are reading this, you likely have access to extraordinary opportunities and resources—whatever their form. Recognizing this privilege is not a burden but a gateway to uncovering your potential.
The question arises: How do you care for accumulation?
- Nourishment or depletion? Every choice shapes the flow. What you consume—be it information, relationships, or experiences—builds the foundation for your contributions.
- Safeguarding integrity. False lures and superficial gain can easily lead one astray. What safeguards do you use to protect against being shaped to mal-administrate?
The illusion of possession often binds the self; an entity that becomes but a consumed component within the broader occurrence of accumulation. Narrowing constraints can be released by regarding you, instead as a servant - as one in stewardship. Replacing the identification of "having" with a harmonious path, boundaries by territoriality and administrative responsibility.
It is like the formation of celestial bodies. Particles float freely, gather, and gain mass, increasing their gravitational pull. Unlike celestial bodies, humans can consciously improve the flow of what they draw in, choosing what nourishes their existence. Imagine a future where post-technological capacities seamlessly interface with planetary surfaces, like trees giving complex structure to ordinary matter. As AI advances, might it be possible to improve on the formation of celestial bodies? You can participate in this reality today by engaging with the accumulative patterns you encounter—building the very dynamics that may one day define galaxies.