Over the past five weeks, I took part in a series of calls under the heading of “Warm Data Labs“. The participants, broken out into groups of 3 or 4 people at a time and shuffled three times per call, were asked to answer open ended questions such as: “how are you tending to …?”,… Continue reading The Truth in The Expanse
Category: Society
Reciprocal Openings
Earlier this week, I took part in an empathy circle practice organized by Rebel Wisdom together with Edwin Rutsch and a group of facilitators. I was part of a group of five people, and after we engaged in this practice, we all reported on the effect this had: each of us, in different words, experienced… Continue reading Reciprocal Openings
Bullshit’s Shadow
To avoid confusion, I will start with my own definition of bullshit: whenever I exert energy into efforts which are primarily meant to make others—and sometimes also myself—believe that I have something of value to contribute, or into efforts to shift attention away from my true motives, and a truthful disclosure of what I can… Continue reading Bullshit’s Shadow
Free-Energy in NVC
This post is a follow-up to my previous post, “Words as Windows or Walls“. I feel intuitively drawn to more deeply explore the connection between Nonviolent Communication—NVC for the remainder of this post, which is a process I learned about, together with some of the concepts described by it—and one particular way of describing (human)… Continue reading Free-Energy in NVC
Individual vs. Collective Value
Yesterday, I was listening to a panel discussion on academic freedom. Close to an end, I noticed a conflict arising in me: many practical situations require that I seek and find value or utility in the connection to other humans—anyone who has ever networked to get anything done can attest to that. If you know… Continue reading Individual vs. Collective Value
Joy or Accomplishment
As I start writing this post, I am becoming aware that much of what I will express is based primarily on my intuition. I feel a bit nervous about that. Will I be judged more harshly? Is it not likely that I will fail in some important way? And yet, I would not want to… Continue reading Joy or Accomplishment
Money, Credibility, and Bullshit
I know this topic may seem a bit of a departure from my usual venues—and yet I hope that mentioning the M-word in the title is not so unappealing that you feel like leaving already. Several experiences and events stimulated this post. I will briefly mention them and then do my best to provide a… Continue reading Money, Credibility, and Bullshit
Leaning into Discomfort
I recently came across the term “comfort addiction.” Unfortunately, I don’t remember exactly where—it might have been in Anne Helen Petersen’s recently published book “Can’t Even.” The image is very simple: through mostly technological, and partly sociological, innovation, we have become so used to our environment behaving in predictable, familiar ways that we feel overwhelmed… Continue reading Leaning into Discomfort
Escaping the Emotion Prison
Most of what goes on in our brains happens outside of our awareness. And while we typically have access to the end product of mental processes in the form of thoughts and feelings, it really is difficult to get a handle on how those products come about. We are, in a sense, prisoners. Just as… Continue reading Escaping the Emotion Prison
Conscious vs. Obedient
Please take everything I express as provisional: these are statements of a vision for how—by applying the principle of local intelligence in complex, living systems to our society—the experience of all people could be improved. A lot. The transformation I am describing would upgrade any institution or organization that (partially) runs on what I am… Continue reading Conscious vs. Obedient