A Dangerous Game
Hey everyone,
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. :)
I had a really great conversation with Diane Musho Hamilton on Rebel Wisdom recently, where we discussed the possibility of making mediation sexy. I was also on Arran Rogerson’s The Torch today, and we had a wide-ranging conversation about brother hunger, crafting communitas, developing a power literacy, learning the language of the daemon, and the future of The Stoa. You can watch both videos here …
Tomorrow’s events:
Stoic Breath w/ Steve Beattie. Everyday Sunday @ 10:00 AM ET. RSVP here.
Flowing With Unknowingness w/ Tyson Wagner. Every Sunday @ 8:30 PM ET. RSVP here. 60 mins.
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December 26th, 2020
We can become successful and have enemies, or we can become unsuccessful and have friends.
That is the line from the movie American Gangster, which I never watched. It is a good line. I seem to be at a crossroads right now with this success stuff. I am at the knife’s edge of what to do now. As my girl Bonnitta likes to say, a choice point.
I have crossed a certain threshold of being an “internet person,” where shittiness starts kicking in: having my motives uncharitably analyzed, weirdos messaging me, and people getting emotionally upset with me, for not wanting a Discord server, or not having YouTube comments enabled, or whatever.
The honeymoon phase of being an internet person is over. I will be getting more of this now. My “internet skin” will have to thicken, and I will become harder to reach. I want to become harder to reach. I do not want unnecessary enemies. Nor do I want to pretend to be friends with people who do not deserve my friendship.
I am going to deactivate my Facebook account and leave my Twitter account largely unattended. I do not want them. I only want to write here, and hold space at The Stoa. I aim to become blissfully unaware. I do not do internet drama. I choose serenity instead.
I will be returning to reading the Stoics as well. I miss reading the Stoics. It will be like visiting old friends. To quote Seneca:
To consort with the crowd is harmful; there is no person who does not make some vice attractive to us, or stamp it upon us, or taint us unconsciously therewith. Certainly, the greater the mob with which we mingle, the greater the danger.
I have not given up on communitas though. It is something that requires great care. I am aware of other practitioners, and they are all underground. Communitas is the game of love, and that is a dangerous game to play.
A beacon has been shone, the sand is almost in place, and love is in the process of being reinvented. Things are now set in motion.
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