So yeah, this is happening on November 3rd …
The line-up …
The Stoic Hustle w/ Peter Limberg @ 7:00-9:00 AM ET. RSVP here.
The Stoic Breath w/ Steve Beattie @ 9:00-10:00 AM ET. RSVP here.
Election Meditation w/ Jasna Seishin Todorović @ 10:30-11:30 AM ET. RSVP here.
Collective Presencing w/ Ria Baeck @ 12:00-1:30 PM ET. RSVP here.
Chapel Perilous w/ Rebecca Fox @ 1:30-2:30 PM ET. RSVP here.
Shame Breakthrough Bootcamp w/ A.J. Bond @ 3:00-4:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Election Redesign w/ Freyja and Joe Edelman @ 4:00-5:30 PM ET. RSVP here.
Socratic Speed Dating w/ Raven Connolly @ 6:00-7:30 PM ET. RSVP here.
Existential Dance Party w/ Collin Morris @ 8:00-9:30 PM ET. RSVP here.
Painting With Words w/ Tim Adalin @ 10:00-11:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Rap Unbattles w/ Tyson Wagner @ 11:00-12:30 AM. RSVP here.
Raw Sexuality w/ Maybe Gray @ 12:30-1:30 AM ET. RSVP here.
It is totally cool to get excited. 😉
A special thanks to Isaias Ardaya for making this project happen!
***
Tomorrow’s events:
MetaGame: A Game B of Sorts w/ Peth. October 27th @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Ephemeral Group Process w/ Forrest Landry. October 27th @ 3:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Newly posted event:
Practice Potluck w/ Joe Edelman. October 30, 2:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
***
October 26, 2020
35 was a pretty fun year for me.
It started with me being an ambassador for Letter in November, and I was tasked with making all of these awesome epistolary matches for their platform, then I flew out to San Francisco to support the co-founders for their Y Combinator interview. They did not get in, so we all went to the local grocery store after hearing the bad news and got some ice cream, which we sadly ate together.
In January I was in London, England for a week, sleeping over at David Fuller’s flat. While there I was bestowed the community manager title for Rebel Wisdom, which was a briefly held title. I took their awesome men's weekend retreat when I was there. It was a really well-designed experience, and we did a lot of cool things, including a holotropic breathwork exercise that was primed by reflecting on what you wish your father told you when you were young. I intensely cried like a huge baby.
Right after that, I was back in Canada, doing this grueling training to become a certified Dale Carnegie Trainer. I thought my public speaking was good before that, but it improved greatly after getting my butt socially kicked. I passed, top of the class. The master trainer actually said I was one of the better trainers-in-training he encountered, which was a huge confidence boost for me. This gave me permission to finally think after years of wrestling with feeling socially inadequate: yeah, I am pretty good at this social skill stuff.
Then COVID came, and The Stoa followed. It was a wild ride, and now we are here. 35 was probably the best year of my life, because it is the year I finally found my ikigai, not to mention connecting with many amazing people.
Today I am 36, and last night Camille asked me what I wanted from this upcoming year. I am not going to say something basic like: this year is going to be even better than last year guys. High five!
If anything, I am buckling up for some intensity, both personally and collectively. The cool thing about COVID world is that my life does not feel atomized anymore. I feel deeply connected to what is happening in the world, and I do not think I can go back pretending I am not.
When I answered Camille’s question, the first thing that came to mind was becoming a whole person, or to allow my Christian proclivities to show: to become a holy person. I am still going to be a good Stoic, and focus on becoming virtuous, while following the daemon; this will hopefully lead me to eudaimonia, but I do want to inch my way to theosis as well.
After my musings yesterday on being a metagamer, I was reflecting on what holistic gameplay would look like, and the types of games that were coming to mind were the ones that all those normie self-help books go on about: dieting, fitness, budgeting, investing, intimate relationships, productivity, etc.
I recall hearing something about how there are three main topical themes in the self-help industry: finances, health, and relationships. It makes sense why these would be a focus for people in late-stage capitalism.
Money is an obvious focus, as it is treated as the lifeblood of our society, a society where massive economic inequality exists. It also makes sense why health and relationships are a focus, as we are constantly being sold things that make our bodies unhealthy, along with living in an increasingly narcissistic world, which wants to keep us atomized, and actively works against us getting into communitas.
I think these three “games” that the self-help industry capitalize on—finances, health, and relationships—are games that a lot of people have shame around, and because there is shame around them, people do not want to play them. Feeling shame around a game does not make you want to play.
The image of a “shame bouncer” came to mind. This annoying guy that stands in front of the game that you want to play, or would be wise for you to play: like working out or eating better, but then the shame bouncer shames you when you try to play. I think it was Jung who said, “What you resist, persists.” Similarly, what you shame stays the same.
It is true that shame can serve as a motivator for change, that is if you can arrange your schema in such a way that uses shame as fuel. Sometimes these motivated-by-shame schemas are encouraged by the culture we are born in, and feel spiritually orphaned by, but sometimes these schemas are bespokely designed, as it is for a guy like David Goggins, who I sense has made the motivated-by-shame schema into an artform.
I do think this shaming yourself to do something “can work,” if achieving things is your main focus. Achieving things is not the game we should reduce all other games to though, especially if you are a fan of virtue ethics like I am. Shaming ourselves or others to do something is so “Game A.” It is a spiritual dead end, and if we keep playing that way, it will be game over for all of us.
Besides, we who are called to come to The Stoa would fail miserably at doing the motivated-by-shame strategy. We see through that game, and we are too “shame fatigued” to even try that strategy. This is why I dig the idea of reframing everything as a game, and I think we can view addressing our shame, both individually and collectively, as a game in itself.
And yeah, I am totally plugging our shame educator’s “Shame Breakthrough Bootcamp” here. A.J. Bond is on to something, and I sense the title of our previous podcast conversation is fundamentally correct: love thy shame.
Like status, power, and the primordial realm of the demons, I think shame is also a “language” we can learn. If we want to become holy players, we’ll need to play all the games the daemon is asking us to play. We’ll also need to know how to play with this shame bouncer that is getting in the way.
If you translate what he is saying to us, you’ll hear shit like: you are fucking worthless. Why are you even trying? It is wiser to give up now, before you embarrass yourself, you fucking loser.
Instead of us yelling back at him, or trying to reason with him, or attempting to prove him wrong, let us shine some love on him. He is just doing his job after all, and he probably really hates his job anyway, so let us help put him out of work.
I am not saying this is going to be an easy game to play, but I am very optimistic this can become a fun game to play. Just look at how much fun A.J. is having every Thursday; the guy is a genius at workshops. I do not think he has repeated a session yet.
Yeah, what you shame does stay the same, and it is time for us to change, and if we really do want to change, it is wise for us to stop shaming our shame.
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patreon.com/the_stoa
What comes to mind is the third of what T S Eliot called the "gifts reserved for age" in Little Gidding:
"And last, the rending pain of re-enactment
Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
Of things ill done and done to others' harm
Which once you took for exercise of virtue.
Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains.
From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit
Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire
Where you must move in measure, like a dancer."
I turn back to Four Quartets time and time again. Like you, Peter, Eliot was deeply connected with the Christian tradition, and at the same time had a very broad outlook.