Invert that process and you’ll have something approximating an appropriate way of coming to Indigenous Knowledge and working towards sustainable solutions. The first step of Respect is aligned with values and protocols of introduction, setting rules and boundaries. This is the work of your spirit, your gut. The second step, Connect, is about

Now choose four elements from that system to represent the protocols of a complexity agent—connectedness, diversity, interaction and adaptation.

Ninety per cent of the world’s wealth is owned by men. Most of the wages in the world go to men, while women do about two thirds of all the work, most of which is underpaid or not paid at all. Sustainability is an impossible dream in this unevenly gendered system, so it is worth revisiting the idea of liberating ourselves from it.

Children raised in low-context cultures are exposed from day one to reasoning based on conceptual cues and structures determined by an unknown authority controlling time and space in their reality.

Narrative is the most powerful mechanism for memory. While isolated facts go only to short-term memory, or to mid-term memory with repetition (as with study for exams), story goes immediately to long-term memory. If you can make up a story connecting metaphors, locations and language triggers to help you remember something you are studying, it will

The control group is asked to memorise the spelling. The second group is asked to look up the meaning of the words. Every time, the second group does better on the spelling test.

Connectedness balances the excesses of individualism in the diversity principle. The first step in connectedness is forming pairs (like kinship pairs) with multiple other agents who also pair with others. The next step is creating or expanding networks of these connections. The final step is making sure these networks are interacting with the

The flag is interesting, though. It is understood by most of us as a symbol of defiance rather than compliance, as demonstrated by its proliferation in the cheeky graffiti of Aboriginal children.

Everybody follows the pattern, even if they openly oppose the tenets of liberalism or the system of nationhood in general. The most roguish of nations still must maintain their status as a nation, and to do so they must follow the blueprint. No matter where you go in the world, you will recognise elements from this template—if you chance upon a