IS: The Practice of Why (and beyond)
Upcoming open events:
- Sunday, Mar 4th: Practice Series session #7 — Nine Whys
- Friday, Mar 8th: Open-to-all Office Hours
- Sunday, Mar 11th: Practice Series session #8 — Coaching
all start times 1pm Pacific Time (4pm Eastern) which means 9pm UTC moves to 8pm UTC on March 11th with Daylight Savings
"Why?" This Sunday, we'll simulate an incessantly curious hyper toddler asking their parent "why why why why" something in the world works as it does. Okay, maybe without the hyper energy. 😆 But Nine Whys contains that same "getting to the root of things" spirit that kids can embody. When we turn that towards ourselves and to considering what's important/valuable to us and the ways we operate, we can find some powerful material in our values to bring back to the daily surface of life!
James here — I have a lot of conversations with people, and in my last week or two of conversations I've been noticing a qualitative shift in how I/those are feeling to me. When I explain the theory-of-change (the "why"s, timely enough) of Intentional Society, it's sounding quite coherent now! Not just the "we think relational practices are underrated" seed, but the way that the whole of the vision connects to and integrates with an entire worldview across self-development, relationships, economics, life and livelihood design, culture, society, institutions, technology and power, in service of humanity surviving and thriving in facing metacrisis, meaning crisis, atomization, polarization, culture war, and existential risk.
I've had to some degree this "sense of the way" ever since and before starting Intentional Society, but my feel is that I couldn't have said half this stuff half as well three years ago. If you're looking into a fractal-scale theory-of-everything (while also avoiding the pitfalls of "theory" and "everything"), there's a great deal of zooming in and out again and again trying to see and solidify the connections!
Zoom out, and it all sums up in one question: Can we become wise enough, as a species, to handle the power we posses?
Zoom in, and it all boils down to one question: Can we let ourselves be who we want to be?
Getting to an answer for those (hint: they're the same question, just at different scales) depends on one question: Can we take perspective spacious enough to see what's true?
Personally I am shedding, more and more in these last few weeks, my shyness about drawing connections between the micro, meso, and macro worlds. I am noticing myself become more okay in the desires and the wisdom and the incompleteness and the wholeness of it all.
This has implications for the ever-evolving shape and path of Intentional Society. It doesn't mean that the whole path forward is clear — but feeling more oriented to the landscape enables bigger and bolder moves, one "right next step" at a time.
...starting with "What's next after this Practice Series finishes in March?" But I'll leave that to be explained soon. 😁
Cheers,
James