Intentional Society: Triple newsletter
The orientation call that was to be on the 10th has been postponed to Saturday, June 17th at 1:00-1:55pm Pacific Standard Time (4pm Eastern, 8pm UTC).
I had three live threads floating about today, so... I wrote short bits for all three. Perhaps that does none of them justice, but here, choose your own adventure:
Philosophy: Acceptance
The closest thing to enlightenment (undefinable) that I possess is something I label acceptance: Acceptance of the reality of the world and things that have happened, at a layer that's deep/integrated enough that my get-worked-up emotional defense systems just don't bother to get involved.
I noticed this three years ago working on a broken dishwasher, and I took note of it again this week as I've spent significant time dealing with three separate automobile repair-and-maintenance incidents. (This acceptance is most consistent for me re random/external/acts-of-god things, relative to person-to-person things.) This time, I noticed it more because other people sometimes want to demonstrate that they feel bad on my behalf! This slightly bothers the "minimize the suffering of all beings" part of me, but the "ownership boundaries of feelings" part says they get to do that if they want, and hey maybe they're enjoying the imagined solidarity of it.
IS Meta: Marketing
This morning in the Microsolidarity practice program I touched once again on the challenge of "marketing" and finding a way to reach out farther beyond our current collection of bubbles and find knobs to tune growth in integrity. (Why grow in general? To benefit our personal development and relationship-building through increased diversity, and to increase the health and matchmaking capacity of our internal ecosystem of relationships, crews, and projects.)
What stuck with me from the consulting practice time was the point about "branching out from trailheads" through specific seeking in knowable dimensions/directions. Following connections rather than making some undefined leap to unknown far away places. (Oh no, this just connected to the corporate sales phrase "land and expand" that's burned into my brain! 😆) This mode/move can honor the preserving-protecting instincts that activate when considering broadcast outreach, while still honoring the intentional side of finding the others (though letting others find you remains great).
IS Content: Doing?
What are we going to do in this Sunday's Community Session? This week's Meta Meeting concluded without a strong direction for the design/facilitation of this session, floating liminally between our multi-week thrust of fishbowls+observation+feedback and end-of-season activities. It's a turning point, but turn to what? World/doing/outward has been a direction of aliveness in the arcs of recent seasons. Crews are a form of doing, but also of the kind of being and capacity-building that is our bread and butter. Giving & Receiving is also on the schedule and a form of doing, and is also collective-interior rather than world-facing.
Huh I wonder about exploring the aliveness of the different flows/outlets of our doing? Invest vs impact, individual vs collective, within vs outside IS... it's almost a 2x2x2 where we could map our energy. Getting specific about our personal aliveness in this space would keep us concrete, I hope, while helping us compare and contrast all the potential (and kinetic, in action already) energy? It's a lead, at least — smelling like the right direction for further incubation.
Cheers,
James