Crying Together
Hey friends,
What a full-day at The Stoa. We had two wise women, Bonnitta Roy and Ria Baeck, and then two wise men, Alexander Bard and Akira the Don. A beautiful day. :)
Saturdays Events:
Metagame Mastermind w/ Daniel Kazandjian. Every Saturday @ 6:00 PM ET. RSVP here: April 25th.
Freestyling Through a Pandemic w/ Tyson Wagner. Every Saturday @ 8:00 PM ET. RSVP here: April 25th.
Sundays Events:
Stoic Breath w/ Steve BeattieEvery Sunday @ 10:00 AM ET. RSVP here: April 26th.
The Good, the True, and the Beautiful w/ Jared Janes Every Sunday @ 12:30 PM ET. RSVP here: April 27th.
Mediation Campfire w/ Jason Snyder and Jared Janes Every Sunday @ 3:30 PM ET. RSVP here: April 27th.
Building The Stoa w/ Travis Mann April 26th @ 4:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Oxytocin Party w/ Raya Sun Every Sunday @ 8:00 PM ET. RSVP here: April 27th.
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April 24, 2020
I want to complain, but I will start with what I want to complain about.
Past guests have been messaging me about where to find their talks. There is a huge backlog of videos for me to upload to YouTube. I have not touched my podcast in weeks. I possibly have dyslexia, and it is flaring up and I am dropping tons of spelling mistakes into emails. I am messing up the times and dates for events. I have been marketing events at the last minute and the turnout is not as good because of it. I have 200+ unanswered emails in my inbox. I have not properly worked out for weeks. My sleep … what sleep? My relationship with the feminine, in multiple ways, is confusing as fuck. I am not spending enough time with my wife. I feel lonely, lonelier than I think I should. Oh, and I am going through some kind of spiritual crisis and I am afraid I will lose my mind forever and nobody will love me if I do.
I just want to say back off and fuck off to people right now. But I am a good Stoic, and good Stoics have manners. Now, I am going to practice my Stoicism and focus on what is under my control.
Past guests. They can wait: it is an opportunity for them to practice their Stoicism. They can get annoyed with me, which gives me an opportunity to practice mine.
YouTube Videos. Who cares? They will be posted eventually. I do not want this project to get too big, too fast. We have to filter out egoic noise, and then transmute it. And we will need a robust wisdom gym before we can do that.
Podcast. I do not have to upload things to my podcast. Put this on hold for now, and circle back to it when the air has cleared.
Spelling mistakes. Excellent. Mistakes are the aesthetics of a one-man operation going through a spiritual crisis.
Event mistakes. Same as above, and also an opportunity for those experiencing inconveniences to practice their Stoicism. You are welcome.
Marketing. Post fewer events for next week. Chill out, man. How much of this posting a lot of events all at once is about ego? Yeah, feel into that. Proceed slower in the upcoming week.
Emails. I recall asking Peterson why he was so curt in his responses to emails, often giving one word messages. He said it was triage. I will be inspired by this, but I will be lovingly curt.
Working out. Christoph, one of my favorite people in the world, who is also a fitness trainer in BC, is going to start Zooming with me in the mornings, so we can lift weights together. It is time to look good naked, physically and spiritually.
Sleep. I actually got decent sleep last night, and I think I will from here on out. What I wrote above about sleep was out of ego. I wanted to seem like a badass, which I am not, I am just a spiritual beta male.
Relationship with the feminine. Sigh. This one is confusing, and it does not feel right to process it here openly, since other people are involved. How can I be Stoical about this? I will follow my therapist's advice: do not try to engineer anything with your word. Be truthful to everyone and see what unfolds. I have already done my due diligence and done some negative visualizations.
My wife. Go on two walks with her a day, instead of one. Have proper downtimes, maybe read a good book with her. Go on a double Zoom date with Raya and Tyson. Go to the family cottage next weekend and do nothing. Encourage her to enter The Stoa.
Being lonely. Build a relationship with it, and continue to be public about your loneliness. Not in an egoic way, but in a way that courts communitas.
Losing your mind forever. Hmm. Well, living at the knife's edge is a risk, and what is a man without risk? I dipped my head into the abyss on Monday, and somehow managed to stumble back, but I did it with the help of my friends: Daniel, Lubomir, David, Jordan, John, Christoph, Camille, Raven … I got by with a little help from my friends, I heard the music, then I got a spiritual high.
If I keep staying at the knife's edge, where I am called to be, I am going to need friends. And yeah, my sense is that we will all be called to the knife's edge soon, so you are going to need friends as well. Not friends that comfortably nod their heads at all your well-crafted egoic machinations. No, you need friends who will call you out on your bullshit, as brother Daniel and Lubomir called me out on mine on Monday. But they will call you out on your bullshit because they love you.
Let us start finding out how to love each other, okay? We are going to need it. Camille and I Zoomed Raya last night, and she cried in front of us, and we cried with her. I wanted to punch through that fucking Zoom screen and give her a proper hug. I am starting to hate Zoom, and this whole situation, and I want to go to war for those tears. But maybe all that masculine shit is not needed, and maybe what is needed is that we cry together.
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