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essay

pointing at intentional society

James

• 2 min read
pointing at intentional society

<meta: drafting/distilling bits of copy for a homepage>

It starts with intention and awareness. Intention is the will to cause something to change. Awareness is the means to see what really is, see why it is so, and see what is changeable.

Awareness brings capacity and capability by busting through the frames that limit our perspective, opening space for us to become our biggest selves. Intention brings fluid motion within non-coercion by accepting and holding the current world alongside our desire to steer its future path, opening space for us to move fluidly through complexity.

I have discovered that "growing up" connects to spaces much bigger than conventional modern adulthood. I see a path that was once invisible to me, and delight in the freedom to dance on in its discovery.

I, along with so many others, see the existential risks facing our society and our species. Our (and I speak in the USA context here) political landscape and our response to an epidemic have both demonstrated the woeful inadequacy of our collective capacity for sensemaking and coordination. We'll have to do much better to survive climate change, inequity and autocracy, superintelligent AI, and the relentless distribution of greater technological power in nano-, bio-, and other domains.

The complex system of society must develop rapidly its capacity for awareness and intentionality. At least, if we are to experience a path of thriving humanity more than one of suffering. I am one person, and I am a part of that system. So are you.

Most people flinch away at this point. They shrug their shoulders, and slip back into doing whatever makes sense in the normal conventional frame. There is no conventional solution - but there is a much bigger one out there, waiting for us. It starts in me and in you: we can embody that shift in our own growth and development. Seeking our own thriving as individuals contributes directly and indirectly to our collective potential to meet the existential challenges facing humanity as a whole.

A bigger, better mode of being ourselves and of being together is possible if we can practice inhabiting it together. Operating from this stance results in increased capacity, greater awareness, higher agency, bigger perspective, meaningful contribution, and deeper peace.

We must do this work inside ourselves as individuals. But we can't do it on our own, either - we have to borrow each others' eyes in order to see ourselves from a big enough perspective. And only our collective efforts can establish the new cultural code required to support our society in expanding its collective intelligence.

There are many fractal layers of this journey, each containing their own successes and challenges. I'm looking for allies right now: pioneers of co-creation as we seek to grow a coherent... something. I can't define it yet. All I can do is point in the direction of the moon, and hope to find the others that can also see it.

<fill in details re info session, how to RSVP, email list signup> iterative deepening of learning more and converging.

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