Finding My Ikigai
Hey friends,
I hope everyone is doing well and I am hoping you all have a wonderful weekend.
This weekends event:
Metagame Mastermind w/ Daniel Kazandjian.Every Saturday @ 6:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Flowing With Unknowingness w/ Tyson Wagner. Every Saturday @ 8:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Stoic Breath w/ Steve Beattie.Every Sunday @ 10:00 AM ET. RSVP here.
Chapel Perilous w/ Rebecca Fox. June 7th @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Mediation Campfire w/ Jason Snyder and Jared Janes. Every Sunday @ 3:30 PM ET. RSVP here.
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June 5, 2020
I am turned on, spiritually.
I have so much fucking thumos right now, and I want to solve the meta-crisis.
The Stoa opened for spiritual business on March 21st with Jordan Hall’s first Situational Assessment. A week prior, on March 14th, I had a private conversation with Jordan about the COVID situation, and he gave me his assessment. A lot of what he said that day has come true, and this was when people were largely in denial about the situation.
Shortly before this conversation, I received bad news, which I mentioned in my very first entry:
What seems like months, but in reality was only a week or so ago, I received some personal bad news, which I won’t burden you with now. This was before COVID-19 received pandemic status and before the collective panic set in. I went through a mini existential crisis because of this and felt an inability to act on anything. A thought occurred to me: I do not know how to live my life. I have always felt this in some form or other, but never verbalized it in that way.
The news was that Camille and I might not be able to have children. We are talking to a fertility doctor, and there seems to be optimism now, but when I first heard the news and reflected on the possibility I was devastated.
I always wanted to have kids, and part of the story of Peter is that I am meant to have kids. Reflecting on the possibility that this might not happen threw a lot of my life goals and plans in the garbage. For example, the only reason Camille and I were working at soul-sucking normie office jobs, is so we could support a family. Yeah, a lack of originality was also at play with these decisions, and probably fear, and following dead scripts.
After I received this bad news, and hearing Jordan’s private assessment, I was filled with radical uncertainty of what to do. That is when tomorrow died for me, and it is when I came to terms with not knowing how to live my life. That is when I started listening to the daemon. Listening has taken me on a delicious adventure, which feels like it is just beginning.
Around this time I threw out all of my SMART goals and wrote down three aspirational declarations:
Help my wife and parents survive and thrive COVID-19 and other existential threats.
Start a family in a small town.
Discover (or create) my ikigai.
I think I did a good enough job with the first declaration. I went into prepper mode when COVID came online, and we have enough food, and we have a place to escape that is outside of the city. Camille and I just started getting serious about the second declaration, and we want to set some bold goals now, and try to move to a small town as soon as possible.
Now the last declaration is the most interesting. Ikigai is the Japanese word for “reason for being” and I first came across it through a self-help rendition of the concept. Basically your ikigai is that sweet-spot which encompasses what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.
When I wrote this declaration, I had no idea that I was going to launch the Stoa. Now that it has been in existence for about two and a half months, I feel confident to say this is my ikigai. I want to be Stoically indifferent to the Stoa's success or failure, but I sense it is very important for me to attempt to see it succeed, and realize its potential. If it does fail though, my sense is that it will fail in the right way. I am here to play the infinite game after all, not just a finite one.
Speaking of infinite games, James Carse, the author of Finite and Infinite Games has agreed to come to the Stoa in a few weeks. This is so fucking awesome, and I think the Stoa is so fucking awesome. Being a steward, and stewarding the Stoa, has been such an awesome gift for me. It feels more like being an artist, an artist of experience, more than anything else. I get so much joy creating beautiful experiences, and giving other people an opportunity to create a beautiful experience as well.
Beauty! This is about beauty, and community, and love. I have purpose, and so many fucking delicious ideas. I am not just spiritually turned on, I am spiritually horny, and I want to fuck and make love and create a new world with you all.
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