Harmonizing Minds
Tomorrow’s events:
Design Leadership for an Emerging Future w/ Lisa Norton, Maria Giudice, and Greg Thomas. May 5th @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here. 90 mins.
The Rise of Doomer Optimism w/ Jason Snyder and Ashley Colby. May 5th @ 6:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
An event to get excited about:
The Philosopher Is Present w/ Andrew Taggart. May 13th @ 4:00 PM ET. Clubhouse event.
What does the philosophical version of Marina Abramovic’s "The Artist Is Present” look like? Join us on May 13th to find out. This event will take place on Clouthouse (as a loving act of social alchemy). Here is a photo from a pre-COVID Philosopher Is Present event in Toronto …
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May 4th, 2021
I am incredibly grateful for my coaching practice. It is not really coaching though. It probably falls under the conceptual umbrella of practical philosophy, or maybe what Pamela J Hobart calls philosophical life coaching.
I do not view myself as an epistemic authority on academic philosophy. Doing philosophy—especially when the starting point for inquiry is what is most existentially salient for someone—is a different skill than what most academic philosophers do.
I am being deeply nourished by these conversations, and I view them as a sacred space in which we can rediscover the foundations of what Aristotle calls friendships of virtue. The one-off conversations can be really good, but the ongoing conversations are delicious. It is rewarding for me to see what things are unfolding for my ongoing conversational partners, and how our engagements seem to been moving them in a more heavenly direction.
When Frank Yang came to The Stoa we were talking about beauty, and how symmetry is related to beauty. He went on to say that a beautiful mind is a symmetrical mind, while a suffering mind is an asymmetrical mind. This is similar to how I view doing philosophy. Doing philosophy well harmonizes your mind.
It is also pretty awesome that I am engaging in philosophical discussions with some pretty smart and impressive people, and a lot of these people are the ones who are creating really cool stuff in the “metatribe,” or in the wider “sensemaking web.” Given these are the people I am philosophizing with, I jokingly asked Camille the other day: Am I becoming the priest of the sensemaking web?
No, I am not becoming the priest of the sensemaking web, but it does feel like I am becoming a go-to person for a lot of awesome people when aporia strikes. This is really cool, and I am grateful to be in a position where I can help harmonize minds.
I would like my practice to stay in the spirit of the gift economy, and for people to give to me what they can, instead of having a fixed market economy rate. I sense this way will afford flexibility for most people, being considerate to the circumstances they are in. This practice might seem wild on the surface, and the amounts people are giving me do have a wide range, but on average I am receiving the same amount as if I were situated in the market economy.
I do have to scale back on this thing time-wise though. I have been doing two conversations a day sometimes, and that is too much, given everything else I am doing. Thinking this through now, the ideal situation for this practice would be this: one conversation a day, with only thirty ongoing conversational partners at a time.
This feels right. I would rather be in active conversation with thirty people than having one-off conversations with hundreds of people. I cannot be in conversation with everyone, nor do I want to be, nor should I be.
The cool thing is that this “sacred thirty” is already forming, and I imagine writing this here will further its manifestation.
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