Reading List For Feb 18th
... Finding a better world.
As promised in my first weekly newsletter, I’m working on listening more in depth to those who are imagining new worlds. I recognized that while I’d become increasingly dissatisfied with the way the world currently works and what it’s doing to us - I didn’t have a clear picture of what “better” looks like. More so the more I thought about it I realized that very few people do - and that is part of the problem. Most of us know that something is very, very wrong with the structure of the world at the moment. But few people can clearly state what an alternative would be, and how to get there.
So I’ve been searching out the people who are leading the charge in defining what that would be. Some are academics, some indigenous thinkers, some leading communities and some cloistered. They speak in different ways to different groups. But they all have ideas beyond the norm. So I’m starting a second newsletter of the interesting ideas and people I’ve found. I hope you enjoy it, and would love if you shared what you have found in the week as well!
What I’ve Been Reading & Listening To:
Daniel Pinchbeck
I’ve been reading Daniel as part of a goal of exposing myself to people who are imagining different futures - especially those not based on the current assumptions of the present. So far I have an ambivalent relationship with Daniel. A combination of really great ideas that are masked within a lot of academic style language. It sometimes inspires me - and sometimes makes a small town part of me say - “Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do” (Mark Twain).
Regardless he paints a wonderful picture of a possibility of how we define a humanity based on consciousness, collaboration and mutual support. If that sounds appealing to you, here’s an article I enjoyed and a quote to give you inspiration.
“When we understand that the universe, in itself, expresses a unified field of nondual consciousness working through all of us, this opens up vast new frontiers of human possibility.”
Tyson Yunkaporta
Tyson wrote the book Sand Talk that revolutionized how I thought about wisdom in pre-western civilizations. I’ve been finding ways to follow his work as he made updates. While he doesn’t have a centralized podcast or blog you can follow, I’m tracking him on Google Alerts. Here’s a snippet of the kind of thinking he’s focusing on: “The only way to store data long term, like proper long term, is in intergenerational relationships, where data is stored in narratives, intergenerational narratives, that can last for forty, fifty, sixty thousand years. As long as relations continue, that data will last.”
If you find yourself interested, here’s a short talk by him advertising Sand Talk to pique your interest.
The Moth Podcast
I am a bad story teller. I never quite learned and I can’t blame my family because my brother became a good one. My skill has always been to take complex topics and simplify them to take action. That skill makes me a good teacher, but not a great story teller.
I would like to change that. My first foray into this, courtesy of a friend on a scholarship for storytelling, is The Moth podcast. For those unfamiliar they have people tell true stories about themselves on stage. They have different themes every time, but they’re all beautiful.
I highly recommend finding them wherever you get your podcasts because they never fail to make me laugh and cry - and learn how to tell a better story.
How meditation deconstructs your mind
The last ten years of meditation have felt like a never-ending deeper hole where "there's always another secret". I think meditation is one thing, then I discover more (and less). Trying to explain it to people shifts entirely on the person and their perspective. But I really enjoyed this article that explains many key things in plain language. Hope you enjoy it!
Burning Man 2025: Tomorrow, Today
We also made the big investment (for us) to get Burning Man 2025 tickets. I’ve had tickets only once before but sold them to go travelling the world. Burning Man at this point I have really mixed feelings. I’ve been going to regional burns, like my lovely Portalburn since 2016. I’ve since been to roughly 15 individual burns on 3 continents. But I’ve never been to what’s called in the regional community “The Big Burn”. It’s daunting and overwhelming. We’re still not sure where we’ll camp and what it will look like, but we’re planning to give it a go.
Regardless for those of you who haven’t burned or think of it from a couple of crappy news articles, I’ve been inspired by the theme for 2025 (Tomorrow, Today). The brief description of it here draws me in at the moment. Maybe it will make you think as well.
Alright, that’s all for now folks. I’ve read about 10 hours this week of random blogs and finding books and key people, with a lot of support. If you think you have a truly revolutionary thinker that could expand my horizons or perspectives, ideally reimagining society or forecasting decades into the future rather than election cycles, send them my way. Also please don’t forget to comment or share!