Readers of my blog have a greater and larger understanding of networking. Not a set of techniques used to advance personal agendas or selfish goals. Such networking is short term, short lived, and short on changing lives and the world around us.
Networking is a process of connecting people, their ideas, their dreams, and their synergistic power. Networking is a set of relationships that forms a web of love and support for the people in and around it. It is a way of life or a lifestyle. Research shows us this is not just a collection of good ideas for self improvement, this is about how the world works It is about our human potential and releasing that potential for the common good.
The scientific search for the basic building blocks of life has revealed a startling fact: there are none. The deeper that physicists peer into the nature of reality, the only thing they find is relationships. Even sub-atomic particles do not exist alone. One physicist described neutrons, electrons, etc. as “. . .a set of relationships that reach outward to other things.” Although physicists still name them as separate, these particles aren’t ever visible until they’re in relationship with other particles. Everything in the Universe is composed of these “bundles of potentiality” that only manifest their potential in relationship.
We live in a culture that does not acknowledge this scientific fact. We believe wholeheartedly in the individual and build organizations based on this erroneous idea. We create org charts of separate boxes, with lines connecting the boxes that indicate reporting relationships and alleged channels of communication. But our neatly drawn organizations are as fictitious as building blocks are to physicists. The only form of organization used on this planet is the network—webs of interconnected, interdependent relationships. This is true for human organizations as well. Whatever boxes we stuff staff into, people always reach out to those who will give them information, be their allies, offer support or cheer them up. Those lines and boxes are imaginary. The real organization is always a dense network of relationships. 
We are just "bundles of potentiality" that only manifest their potential in relationship.
In many ways we are like acorns with hundreds, perhaps thousands of oak trees within us. Seeds of potential that will sprout, grow and endure only under the right circumstances—-relationships. Most of us never know our true bundle of potentiality. We get caught up in our lives and we reap what we sow. We are afraid of our potentiality. And most potential is lost.
It is the many relationships and experiences in our networks that cause friction with our potentiality and sometimes sparks fly. Sparks of inspiration, understanding and meaning. When we connect to help, to learn, to support, and to explore our goodness and the goodness of others, we encounter our potentialities. We start to understand how interconnected we are. How intertwined our potentiality is. How much our destinies are tied together.
Funny thing is we can see the potentiality in others. It is often plain to us what others could or should do. Others see us that way too. What would happen if we helped one another to reach that potential? To work together to find our common interests and seek the common good.
We waste so much time on our differences.
As the physicist notes above, we need to reach outward and become visible, our potentiality becomes visible only through relationships.
If we don't connect and work together we will perish. We will not create, procreate or generate new solutions and ideas.
A network is a web of mutual obligations, of love, and caring of human expression. Nothing that lives and thrives is alone or not networked. To network is to be human. That's why we network. To pursue our common bundles of potentiality and make them visible.
Thanks for reading. John
