“Maverick Souls” determined to serve the world

I love Yanis Varoufakis. He is a thought-provoking economist, dissident, professor, whistle blower, politician, activist, and author of many best-selling books, including an explosive memoir named by The Guardian as one of the top 100 most important works of the 21st century. Business Insider calls him “The most interesting man in the world.”

Yanis Varoufakis embodies Shapership—the capacity to open meaningful, progress-generating paths to the future. It requires the courage

• to say a BIG NO to the“normal” way things are - radically challenging the dominant narratives that sustain it
• to say a BIG YES to radically different worldviews and to think boldly about possible futures
• to commit to make what seems  "impossible dreams" come true

As he says:

“Oligarchies remain powerful only to the extent that we privatize our dreams and we privatize our fears, and we get paralyzed by them, and we get stuck on the couch feeling that nothing is within our control.

If we stand any chance of personal emancipation, liberation, in the end, joy, fun, genuine happiness, that can only come to us the moment we say, 'No, I'm not going to sit here idly, lamenting my powerlessness. I'm going to go out there and try to change the world. I will fail in the same way that I know that one day I'll die. It doesn't stop me from trying to live every day to the fullest.'”

In our book, we call people like Yanis Varoufakis “Shapers.” They are often “Maverick Souls” determined to serve the world by bringing significant, seemingly impossible, and lasting change. Shapers frequently turn conventional approaches upside down, and their path is rarely easy.

The more a Shaper’s vision disrupts conventional models, the greater the resistance they often face. And the larger their influence, the stronger that resistance becomes. Therefore, the success of their journey isn’t measured by the ease of their path or by short-term, quantitative outcomes. Instead, it’s about the depth—sometimes the irreversibility—of the transformations they bring to society during their lifetime and beyond.

This is the story of Yanis Varoufakis. Celebrated by some and vilified by others, this former finance minister of Greece is a man committed to serving the world and make the impossible possible.

We cannot claim that any Shaper has incontrovertibly changed a situation for the better. Martin Luther King did not completely eradicate social injustice and racism; Judge Balthasar Garzón did not eliminate corruption, terrorism, or dictatorships, despite his lifelong dedication. But what we can say is that Society as a whole has changed. Even when Shapers have died or “accidentally” lost their reputation or freedom, their legacy belongs to Humanity. They ignite cultural revolutions.

Shapers are History Makers.

The remarkable documentary "In the Eye of the Storm — The Political Odyssey of Yanis Varoufakis" tells his story and much more. It helps us understand the collapsing global system and the many crises we face today, connecting the dots between the disintegration of the European Union, the failure of austerity, the rise of Donald Trump, attacks on democracy, the specter of fascism, the collapse of capitalism, and the historic challenge of climate change.

Much needed. Because the free person is the one who knows s-he is chained.

May this man and the concept of Shapership inspire you to get out of Plato's cave, i.e. challenging and escaping the “prisons” of our “taken for granted” representations - our familiar way of looking at things, the rules we obey, the practices we find “normal” - and daring to imagine and fight for radically different Futures (see our article here )

The movie https://eyeofthestorm.info/

Our book : The Art of Shapership