Unpolished
Tomorrow’s events:
Collective Journaling w/ Peter Limberg and Co-Hosts. Daily @ 8:00 AM ET. Patreon event. 90 mins.
Deep Philosophy w/ Ran Lahav. October 6th @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Ran Lahav, a philosophical practitioner and the creator of Deep Philosophy, visits The Stoa to discuss Deep Philosophy, a way to philosophize together from our inner depth. RSVP here.
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October 5th, 2021
I am called to write another short missive today, with the essence of being unpolished.
In today’s philosophical coaching session, my interlocutor said he saw my journal entries as a mix of being considered and unpolished, which he likes. I liked hearing this. I do not want my unpolishedness to detract from what I am considering. I’d rather be unpolished in a way that makes what is being considered more salient.
In one of yesterday’s philosophical coaching sessions, my interlocutor was talking about the dance between money, internet 2.0, and sensemaking, and how the incentive structure of the former two contaminates the latter. From my experience, this strikes me as true.
Sensing into this, I do feel contaminated when sensemaking in a broadcast way. My understandable desire to make a livelihood, and my fading desire of becoming hype for hype's sake, do feel like they interfere with my desire to sense into what is. Moreover, my desire to sense into what is only feels welcome when specific conditions are here...
A sense of timelessness
No guard-rails for emotional expression
An earnest effort to really “see” another
Being surprise-ready, without needing to arrive at a certain conclusion
A conscious co-venturing towards the good, true, and beautiful
The “container” for these things does not exist on any asynchronous “social” media platform. The Stoa does not have this container either, but is a place that affords glimpses at one.
I sense the best question for me to ask now is this: do I really want to sensemake in a broadcast way?
Well, I always want to be truthful, that much I know. When I am called to be truthful about something that is surrounded with tremendous collective intensity, hence has risks, I am confused about how I should show up, especially when my thoughts are often unpolished.
I do not want to be a coward, or foolish, or endlessly meta. I just want to speak the truth, or better said: allow the spirit of truth to speak through me. I am no slouch in the argumentative department, as my experience in “The Club” has taught me. I can easily take positions, attack positions, and play zero-sum games of right-and-wrong all day.
I find getting too good at argumentation, while flexing an argumentative prowess, encourages the world to be seen through a binary lens. This makes one a good culture warrior. I sense there is something greater than a culture war happening though.
Two people, each on opposite sides of the COVID culture war, recently told me that not taking sides is bullshit, gesturing towards the “you can’t be neutral on a moving train” sentiment. This was spoken in a way that suggested they thought I was being neutral, and hence I was tacitly encouraging the other side. When I get accused of the same thing by people on two sides of an issue, I tend to pause.
Of course, I am open to them being right, and perhaps the energy here will change soon, and you’ll see weird meta Pete turn into culture war Pete. I am also open to the possibility that their neutrality claim is not true. Perhaps I am just on a different train.
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