Your Savant Formula

Excerpt from The Encore: A Transformational Thriller from Chapter 11, Heroes in the Making by Lauren Holmes (2018)

Connor addressed the class. “Good morning, everyone!”  Audience members responded in kind.  “Over the last few days,  you’ve all been working hard to assimilate a new modus operandi for breakthroughs and creativity that we want you to use to solve the planet’s crises. 

“School is ending.  Our time to begin implementation is at hand.  We need to finalize a savant formula for each of you and identify the projects to which you will apply it.  Think carefully about your selections as we step through a final review this morning.  Let’s begin. 

“What is a savant formula?”

 Sibylla Lund called out, “It’s your maximum operation around the application of your strongest most rewarding talents.  Your own maximization allows you to merge with the bioflow’s maximization process.  This enables your capabilities to be extended by those of the bioflow – its evolutionary direction, forces, information, and the capabilities of the living systems it orchestrates.  This gives you the means to operate beyond your internal potential.” 

Sibylla was an unemployed electrical engineer from the shutdown of power plants due to the xenoforming and the switch to fossil fuels.  She was referred to his Breakthru Mission by Axl Dahl’s wife, Freya.  She’s a Varunian Freya met through her charity work. 

“What else does bioflow integration give you, Sibylla?”

“It’s also the means to access spontaneous knowledge as coincidences externally or as breakthroughs and epiphanies internally,” continued Sibylla.  “The more information fuel you have, the more easily, quickly, and frequently you can re-combine existing information systems to create a novel system or breakthrough that will get you to your goal more quickly. 

“One breakthrough could bypass hundreds of steps requisite to achieving a goal.  Our goal is to have serial breakthroughs driving our projects.  Speed plus invention breakthroughs are of the essence.  They are the key thrust of this Breakthru Mission since the normal modi operandi have failed to yield the necessary solutions to our crises.  We’re a world weak in creativity.”

“Sibylla, I like how you’ve synthesized multiple lectures in a very net way,” Connor responded, obviously impressed.  “Well done. 

“Why did I name your bioflow integration prescription your ‘savant formula’ and the new modus operandi ‘savanting?’”

“It’s the best explanation for how savants with no working left brains and thus no ability to access, retain, and process large quantities of data, nevertheless demonstrate that ability,” explained Sibylla.  “Their access must be external from information databases underlying the bioflow and all of its living information systems including the human species.”  Connor nodded.

“What is the generic formula for immersing oneself into the bioflow, Dania?  Dania Lind suddenly became a deer in headlights.  He hadn’t meant to catch her off-guard.  She had a Ph.D. in astrobiology after all and Sibylla had already given the high-level answer. 

Oh.  Connor suddenly realized that she was sitting next to Mikael Matsen again, the microbiologist.  There was a romance forming between them, so she’d undoubtedly not heard his question. 

“Anyone?” asked Connor as he tried to quickly take the spotlight off Dania.  “What is the generic formula for immersing oneself into the bioflow?”

Gregor Stinar stood up.  He was a lucky find assessed Connor.  He’d just graduated top of his class with a master’s degree in bioscience engineering and was an expert in environmental technology, rare for his and Annalise’s tribe, the Azurites.  Gregor had planned to take a year off to travel before settling into a career job.  I suspect we wouldn’t have acquired him otherwise Connor speculated. 

Connor had had to ask Axl to get Azurite Chief of State Einar Nyhus to wine and dine Gregor to impress upon him that his planet needed him.  Connor had heard something about a promise of first-class global travel that apparently sealed the deal.

“In its simplest form,” began Gregor, “the bioflow is a machinery or set of mechanisms for maximizing living systems for survival.  It promotes synergy among living systems.  It orchestrates all living systems synchronously into the ideal evolutionary direction for all.  Therefore, to integrate into it, one must be moving in the same direction or complying with its goals.  One must be operating at one’s maximum.  Or at least doing activities which will eventually maximize you,” Gregor added as an afterthought. 

“Maximizing inside means you’ll relink with the maximizing machinery outside since they are a single system.  When you’re complying with the direction and intent of the bioflow, you’re letting nature maneuver you into your most advantageous position vis-à-vis other living systems, information, and resources.”

“Extremely comprehensive answer, Greg.  You’re seeing the big picture – how all of the pieces fit together.  You’re understanding nature’s goals and how to exploit them to accelerate your own goals.  Thank you for an excellent overview. 

“Greg tells us we need to be compliant with our internal maximizing mechanisms to merge with the external maximizing machinery.  What then is our maximum?

Dania decided to respond.  Connor was pleased that her head was back in the game.  She was extremely talented and well-educated.  Connor expected great things from her.  He wanted to ensure she didn’t waste her talents and opportunity for greatness on the distractions of a romance.

“Savantflow.  And, before you ask,” laughed Dania, “that’s the flow state that arises when we’re applying our strongest most rewarding talents to the most meaningful and gratifying tasks for an audience that values that work.  The biochemistry and electromagnetics of our most desirable emotions, the constellation of our drives for achievement and creation, our maximization instincts and genes have all evolved to pull us to this maximum to ensure the survival of the individual and the species.  Savantflow is our automatic mechanism for flicking us into our maximum.”

“A very complete answer, Dania.  Thank you.  So how does one get into savantflow within the bioflow, Dania?”

“This is because your maximum is a constant and how the bioflow maximizes your system and indeed all living systems is also a constant.  Suddenly you can seem to operate as if you have psychic abilities because you know which projects the bioflow will and will not support.  Which projects will and will not succeed.  Yet it’s simply a matter of knowing nature’s historical logic, goals, and directions.”

“Yes, thank you, Dania,” exclaimed Connor enthusiastically.  He nodded at her with a proud grin to tell her that she had redeemed herself.  “How does one discover one’s savant formula?”

Olivia Ohlson stood up.  She and Kellin’s son Rolland were the youngest of the creatives at age 20.  “To identify one’s savant formula, we simply need to look at our past pattern of events and activities that launched our savantflows. 

“Whatever the theme of the activities causing our savantflows was in the past – our savantflows theme – will predict how you can move into savantflow in the future.  Your savantflows theme will be your savant formula for moving into future savantflows.

“Or, uh, I guess you could call it your savantflow-bioflow theme.  It’s this theme which will tell each of us precisely which projects to choose for success with Annutia’s Breakthru Mission. 

“Right you are, Olivia,” confirmed Connor to validate both to Liv and the group that he respected how talented she was.  She was another KahlDahr like Kellin and Rolland who was brilliant and inventive despite having been deprived of a formal education. 

“Savantflow-bioflow theme captures our goal perfectly, doesn’t it?  Thank you, Olivia.”  Connor was pleased that he’d been right about Liv.  Despite being so young she was excelling at savanting. 

He had recruited her from the Programming Department after recruiting Kellin.  Like Kellin, Liv had been overlooked as all KahlDahr are.  Their protruding brows make them appear both menacing and primitive.  Also, she was female, beautiful, poor, confident, creative, and self-educated, all of which increased the discrimination she had endured over her short life. 

The ruling castes had missed that, with Liv’s unity consciousness, she could see how massive computer systems fit together.  She had an executive perspective.  Yet she could also work brilliantly on all the tiny details composing that larger picture. 

He and Annalise had been waiting for the elevator for the Council Chamber when he watched her flowchart all of the systems for a bullying, condescending executive.  He was obviously very much her senior, yet he was having great difficulty grasping the breadth of her thinking. 

“What if you can’t identify the pattern in your past savantflow events.  How else might you determine your savant formula?”

 “Your spontaneous-knowledge theme,” called someone from the audience but Connor couldn’t see whom it was.  “Determine the theme of the activities you were doing when you experienced breakthroughs, epiphanies, coincidences and other spontaneous knowledge events. 

“Exactly,” said Connor.  Other ways of determining your savant formula?

Kellin stood up, “Your unpaid-work theme.  This entails an examination of the events in your past when you’ve done work that you crave so much that you’d do it for free.  You love it that much.  Whereas, others would charge for it because they consider it work.  You should be able to trace this theme in patterns of events in your past. 

“You’ll have emotional highs when you’re doing this kind of work so the positive-emotions theme will also apply.  When you do it, there’ll also be the expected occurrences of spontaneous knowledge, flashes of genius, breakthroughs, and clusters of coincidences. 

“This is exactly right, Kellin.  You’ve lived your savant formula, haven’t you – since you made the car that died on your front lawn operational in your pre-teen years.”  Kellin nodded.

“What’s the difference between breakthroughs, coincidences, spontaneous knowledge and epiphanies,” Connor continued.

Kellin, still standing, responded.  “Nothing.  They’re all re-combinations of information systems inside of you or outside of you to invent a new information system.  They’re all part of the larger scheme of the creative evolutionary advance of the bioflow.  Nature can’t always solve evolutionary challenges in a gradual incremental way.  It must use quantum leaps to create a human eye for example.  We want to harness the bioflow’s creativity production line to solve the crises of our world.”

“Excellent, Kellin,” Connor beamed.  I never specifically stated that they were all part of the same continuum that connects our inner systems and brain to the bioflow or that they are simply an extension of nature’s own universal creative, adaptive, evolutionary process, but you figured it out.

“You’re obviously going to excel at exploiting the bioflow for your projects, Kellin.  Just as you see how the systems of this huge Government Complex run, you have the expanded consciousness to grasp how the systems of the universe interconnect and operate.” 

Connor wanted to ensure that KahlDahr Kellin, Rolland, Olivia and others were not intimidated by those with multiple degrees or from more elevated castes.  He wanted them free to create and achieve at the maximum of their significant talents. 

Connor was a big Kellin fan.  The KahlDahr was so incredibly talented.  He was also good people.  The two had a special bond.  They both shared a wisdom that comes from living from unity consciousness and seeing how everything is connected, even the two of them.  He had a warm spot in his heart for Olivia and Kellin’s son, Rolland, for the same reason.  

Rolland was still working on his biology degree, yet his expansive brilliance was more insightful than mature professionals in that field.  He could see biological systems as ingeniously as his father could see mechanical systems or Liv could see programming systems.  All three had effortlessly absorbed the systems thinking underlying savanting. 

 “You’ve created a quantum leap for everyone, Kellin.  In savantflow, your concentration is simply on the creative act you are doing.  You become pure creation.  This is our natural state.  This is nature’s natural state.  This is my process of savanting in a nutshell. 

“Let’s say you’ve never been free during your life to discover your unpaid work theme.  What other patterns of events in your past could you track to determine your savant formula?”  No one responded.  “How else could you get into savantflow within the bioflow?”  No one responded.  “What other themes could you follow?”  No one responded. 

He had told them that all of the themes point to the same savant formula, so perhaps they thought learning only one or two would be enough.  However, being fluent in them all means that you’ll be able to action incoming events in your life more quickly.  You’ll make directional decisions faster. 

“We’ve identified the savantflows theme or savantflow-bioflow theme, the spontaneous-knowledge theme, the unpaid-work theme, and the positive-emotions theme.  What else?”

Finally, Henerik Halderson posited an answer. “You can look at the events of new knowledge that you naturally pursued since childhood.” 

When they recruited him, Henerik was a biochemistry degree dropout seeking to find himself and his purpose.  Henerik had blossomed with the Breakthru Mission and School.  He had found his purpose. 

“Yes, good,” reinforced Connor.  “You want to assess the common thread of any new learning that you voluntarily sought.  Your learning-pursuit theme or knowledge-pursuit theme. 

Henerik nodded before continuing, “What growth have you sought historically?  Your growth theme or growth-pursuit theme.  What is the theme that runs through the times in your past when you were creative or inventive?  And what is the common territory of new creations that you’ve historically sought?  Your creativity theme or creation theme?  Also, in what fields did you choose to be creative?  What is your creativity-pursuit theme?

“And what is the commonality of the new territories of knowledge or new frontiers that you’ve historically penetrated?  Your frontier-pursuit theme.  These are all likely to also generate emotional highs so, as Kellin indicated, you could also track what work or activities generated passion, excitement, and enthusiasm.  Your positive-emotions theme.”

“Good work, Henerik!  You’ve added a number of categories of past events to our list for assessment.  There are a couple more that offer alternative means to identify your savant formula.  Anyone?  Yes, Marta.”

Marta Kaase was a Varunian electrical engineer also laid off from the power plants like fellow-Varunian Sibylla.  Connor had learned that in the Annutia caste system, Varunians were one step above the KahlDahr and one rung below the Azurites.

“Your successful-projects theme,” suggested Marta.  “I think we could pick our future projects based on our past successful projects – ones with the tell-tale arrows that everyone has been identifying.” 

“You’re exactly right, Marta.  When you’re choosing your projects for the Breakthru Mission, you’ll want to ensure you capitalize on the formula that has created successful projects in your past.  Now that you know about the bioflow, you don’t want to see those projects as isolated events.  There is a pattern.  If you can dig for it, there is no need to ever pursue a project that will not succeed again.  Never again will you swim upstream against the bioflow to try to make a project work. 

“We know if it’s a right project for us that we will see clusters of coincidences, breakthroughs and other spontaneous knowledge events, facilitating events and gates, emotional highs, and serial savantflows.  Marta, what will we see if we choose projects not on the yellow-brick road, so to speak?” 

“Blocks,” said Marta.  “Setbacks.  Negative emotions.  The absence of any arrows or signposts.  Hard work step-by-step instead of coincidences and facilitating events catapulting you forward hundreds of steps at a time. 

“You’ll have to use discipline to push yourself to keep going instead of being pulled forward by compelling drives.  The formula of past failed projects will continue in the future.  There is now a predictability that never existed for me before.  There appears to be an incredible order to reality where we assumed chaos.”

“Precisely,” said Connor.  “Well done, Marta.  I’ve asked you all to start developing hypotheses as to what projects you want to pursue to solve the planet’s crises.  When you test them out, if they’re wrong for you or the planet or the evolutionary bioflow of the planet, Marta has described precisely what you’ll experience.  You’ll then need to quickly replace those projects. 

“We can do your first test right now.  When you think of doing the project you have selected, are you excited or does your energy nosedive?  That is your first indication.  Are you going to have to push yourself to do the wrong project rather than being joyfully excited by the right project?  Excellent work, Marta.”

“Who has remembered the last two themes or patterns of past events that you can evaluate?” probed Connor further. 

Sven Steensen called out, “Your historical meaning theme or meaning-pursuit theme.  What projects, work, or contributions have historically given your life meaning.  What contributions do you crave to make?” 

Sven was a mechanical engineer.  Like Sibylla Lund and Marta Kaase, he was also laid off from a hydropower company as they had to return to burning fossil fuels. 

“Thank you, Sven.  Obviously, we need everyone doing work that is meaningful to them.  This is part of the positive-emotions theme when you’re on the right path to maximization and immersion into the bioflow. 

What is the last theme to identify one’s savant formula?  Jordaan, what is the one we’re missing?  The most elusive one until you develop this skill?”

“Resonance.  Your pattern or theme of resonance events,” exclaimed Jordaan Jostad after a moment of pensive reflection.  An astrophysicist, Jordaan is adept at applying the laws of physics and chemistry to explain the birth, life and death of stars, planets, galaxies, nebulae and other objects in the universe.

This was the perfect direction for someone who’d been addicted to the pursuit of astronomy and cosmology since his childhood years with his Dad, a world-renowned astronomer.  Much to his surprise, his Dad was all in favor of Jordaan participating in the Breakthru Mission.  Connor learned why at a social event at Axl’s home. 

Apparently, Dad attributes his own success to an incredible memory and the logic to apply that knowledge.  While they were both passionate about the same fields, these were not Jordaan’s strengths.  He showed signs of being much more inventive, imaginative, and creative.  Jordaan had a gift for inventing new scientific equipment and designing unprecedented computer software to analyze data and such.  Dad’s strengths were left-brain; his son’s were right-brain. 

Dad had realized when Connor selected his son that he’d recruited the right strengths for the Annutia Breakthru Mission.  He felt Commander Kane could teach Jordaan things that he could not.  That Kane could cultivate in his son strengths that he himself did not possess. 

Because Jostad Sr, believed so much in Connor, he had secured additional funding for the program to ensure its success.  Connor was pleased to have a creative as talented as Jordaan in the group. 

“You are exactly right,” confirmed Connor.  “Tell us about resonance and how to use it, Jordaan.” 

 “This is our frequency-sensing ability.  You are one tuning fork.  When you concentrate on a direction option which is the right one to take towards maximization within the maximization direction of the bioflow, it’s like a second tuning fork starts to tone in resonance with you, the first tuning fork.  This is how you can proceed quickly and safely into unknown territory. 

“You look at your list of possible directions and choose the one where you feel the surge of a second tuning fork beginning to cause vibration within you in resonance.”

“Is resonance the same as gut feel or intuition, Jordaan? 

“No, sir.  It has no additional information other than two things having the same frequency.”

“Precisely.  Well done.  Thank you, Jordaan.”  Connor went to turn away and then turned back to ask as an afterthought, “Have you ever used your resonance, Jordaan?”

“No, sir.” 

“Raise your hands.  Who has used resonance or thinks they have?  About 20%.  I suspect that within a couple of months, most of you will raise your hands.  Resonance or frequency-sensing is faster in determining direction.  It means you won’t have to test various direction hypotheses to look for other indicator events in your reality before you can determine your best direction in which to proceed. 

 “Now, what if you don’t have the patterns of events of any of these themes in your past.  A no-themes situation.  What does that mean?  What should you do?  Yes, Mikael?”

 “This means you’ve lived your life directed by external elements – you’ve been externally referenced – rather than complying with your natural addictive drives internally – or been internally referenced.  Consequently, you haven’t maximized.  Therefore, you haven’t merged with the bioflow.  As a result, you’ll have less consistent patterns or fewer of them to help you to determine direction to achieve your goals.  You won’t be able to recruit the power of the bioflow.” 

Connor was pleased that Mikael had taken his attention off Dania long enough to participate.  Mikael was brilliantly creative, perhaps the best after Kellin.  Connor knew when he recruited him that he was going to excel at using savanting to solve the crises.  Since then he’d proven even better than expected. 

Mikael was another brilliant Varunian bench-pressing out of his caste.  That he should have had difficulty finding work was such a waste of extraordinary talent.  Connor was grateful for his availability to contribute to the Breakthru Mission. 

“So, what do you need to do, Mikael?”

“Start savanting with serial savantflows so that the indicators will emerge.  Then you can use them to predict your future and your ideal direction.” 

“Exactly, Mikael.  However, I’ll give you all a hint.  None of you are in this ‘no-themes’ category.  You were recruited based on your themes of past events in your life and their match to the planetary crises.

 “Good work, everyone!” Connor praised.  I’m going to give you the rest of today to analyze your past patterns of events to help you to pick out at least one project that has the greatest chance of success.  Know your savant formula.  Then use that formula to select the projects that you would be most excited to pursue to save Annutia.”