IS: Big dreams
Upcoming events:
- Sunday August 24: Community Hub Call 19.8 for members
- Tuesday August 26: The Oasis
- Friday August 29: IS Connection Call
Last week's newsletter was "The power of wondering" and the Community Hub session was titled "Practicing IS-ness".
In the last three days, three conversations have reminded and reconnected me with big dreams I've been holding in three domains. That seems to be what the universe wants me to share with you today so, let's see what comes out. I've tended to hide and hold back a bit from broadcasting visions of this magnitude, but I feel like that's untangling (still) for me so here goes: my dreams of development, economics, and coordination.
development
Psychological development aka personal growth has been a huge expander-and-improver of my life, and I'm convinced the world is desperately hungry (even most folks don't consciously know it) so much more of it. These doorways of perspectival expansion, emotional maturity, and relational capacity — I really didn't know they existed until I stumbled through some post-conventional ones, and now I want the same opportunity for everyone.
I dream of a world where growth in wisdom is a cherished part of every stage of life in every powerful culture across the globe, as part of the ever-advancing spiral of cultural evolution which this chaotic technological age is calling us to accelerate. Our power must be matched by our wisdom. (Must: We can keep our high power society if our wisdom can increase to hold onto it, or we can collapse and see our power lower down to our low wisdom.)
I have seen enough people (other than myself) light up with discovery and practice that I'm convinced that these are transmissible transformations that can be culturally cultivated. I don't expect that we can effect enough human development "ahead of time" to avoid severe societal disruptions in our next decade or few... but I believe we have the potential to make a difference in-and-to the coming tumult.
economics
The values of the market economy, as generally practiced by "late stage capitalism", are not aligned with human values. We have abundant wealth collectively, yet we have rampant scarcity individually. Even the basic model is teetering on the edge, with software eating the world and AI poised to eat both software and the world at superlinearly-increasing velocity. The scope of this mismatch, and the "Game B" dream to solve it, has seemed like such a vast gulf!
I dream of a world where we grow pockets of a relational economy built on a fabric of high trust. I believe that these huddles-clans-villages of wise humans can "beat Game A" at the interface-boundary while operating on a new culture aligned with human thriving. The resilience of those supported by this new economy can then lead to a tipping point transformation of the entire monetary system.
I think we can find enough wise and loving humans to create and stabilize some of these economic pockets, though it's not an easy path even to build the one we're building now. I believe we can find a path to demonstrating a viable and stable proof of this economic evolution where money flows atop relationship for those able to embody that way of being.
coordination
How do we actually get from here to there? It's going to take quite a movement of people and resources and energy! Right now I notice that a few weeks ago I portrayed coordination as the convergent outcome of the combination of both (inner) development and (outer) economics, wisdom and resources. Yet we also need coordination to grow these prerequisites of coordination!
But the thing about change is, it doesn't just work or not-work — it operates up and down a whole fractal dimension of different scopes. The chicken-and-egg problem is dissolved by evolution itself, as small change enables further change and so on. So whatever our capacity is to, right now, utilize the wisdom and resources of the (relatively rare, all things considered) people we find already equipped to coordinate with, that's the springboard to growing a system that grows its capacity by expanding itself.
I dream of a future where I am a tiny part of a vast organism of coordinating humans, operating at a multitude of scales in harmonious pluralism, operating intentionally and industriously, transforming our society by both being and spreading the more beautiful world, robust and resilient to tumult, self-transforming on every scale, the universe unfolding itself through us.
All of these dreams... we must hold them so, so lightly, in order to meet the reality of each moment as it really is. And we can live them now in lives of love and caring: inside of ourselves personally, when we're together with each other, and at whatever scale our coherence and capacity can hold.
Your humble servant,
James