Thrown Together
Tomorrow’s events:
Verbal Aikido w/ Luke Archer. December 17th @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Healing Collective Trauma w/ Thomas Hübl. December 17th @ 2:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Cultural Somatics w/ Tada Hozumi. December 17th @ 5:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Shame Breakthrough Bootcamp w/ A.J. Bond. Every Thursday @ 6:00 PM ET. RSVP here. 60 mins.
Newly posted events:
Verbal Aikido w/ Luke Archer. December 17th @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Polyamory vs Monogamy: A Discussion w/ Janet Bennion. December 23rd @ 4:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
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December 16th, 2020
When Daniel Christian Wahl visited The Stoa he mentioned that the dual role needed during the transition is to be hospice workers of the old system, while being midwives of the new system, and when Jim Rutt last visited he talked about how “Game B” needs to parasitize “Game A” in order to extract resources from it.
These distinct metaphors are gesturing towards a distinct competency, a competency that is in-between worlds, one that I will refer to as a “liminal competency.”
A lot of people who are interested in creating a new world do not have a motivational schema to succeed in the old one. The game is rigged, ugly, and full of fakers, so why play such a game? Why can’t we just play a new game, and hangout in communitas, while we listen to the daemon all day?
Well, it does not work like that. We have to get good enough at certain things, while not getting seduced by the devious incentive structures when doing those things. We also have to do this while having our eyes towards a world that we cannot yet see.
I like Heidegger’s notion of “thrownness,” we are thrown into the world without having any choice in our circumstances, and yeah, for most of us, our circumstances feel really annoying and wildly unfair. We have already been thrown though, and it is foolish to rebel against what has already been done. Instead, Stoically accepting our conditions, in the spirit of amor fati, while moving forward to change them, is the wisest way forward.
We are thrown into a time of transition, which contains both the horrors of the dying world, and the birthing pains of a new one. We cannot escape the pain, and it will manifest differently for each one of us. I also sense this liminal competency will manifest differently, and cannot be learned in the traditional way.
It is partly uninspiring, developing this competency, because it may feel like a throw-away skill, but sometimes you need to throw away an old skill in order to catch a new one. This is what the upcoming “Unsuccess Symposium: Let Us Get Successful So We Can Stop Giving a Shit About Getting Successful” will be in service towards.
There is a certain success literacy that we’ll need in order to develop this liminal competency. While the high-minded galaxy brains might scoff at the words of Napoleon Hill or Tony Robbins, we can take the best of what they have to offer while using our discernment to filter out any of the “you are either successful or you are a loser” scripts that often get smuggled with success literature.
If you are reading this, and struggling with inspiration, muddling your way to get things done, know you are not alone. Not everyone admits it, but most of us are uncertain, scared, and lugging around the shame of not being more productive, effective, successful, smart, happy, or whatever.
This is okay. This is all a part of the thrownness. At least we have been thrown together, and I am optimistic that we can figure this out together.
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