The Empathetic Civilisation

While looking around the (Un)Occupy Albuquerque Facebook page yesterday I stumbled across an RSA Animate, The Empathetic Civilization. I recommend watching it, it's only ten minutes and forty seconds:

RSA Animate – Empathic Civilisation

I'm wondering if it's possible to start a conversation on the blog that is completely unrelated to what we're discussing in Sunday BS gatherings. So I'm going to suggest we give it a go with "The Empathetic Civilization" because I'm curious what you all think about it. I'll save my opinions for the comments.

Community Meeting

400Lb Monkey: Thank you for opening your window onto the world for us last night. I especially appreciated seeing your teaching materials at work. Sometimes I think I should sit in on your class and relearn some things based on the materials. I think my work journal would include works in math and geography especially. I am small and your room is bustling, maybe no one would notice.

Next week, that is right, next f'n week, we will be meeting again to hear from another BS'er- as they try to answer life's pressing questions from their perspective. More info to follow.

I also want to add that my silver tooth is distracting me from my work today.

Hello Smartie-Pants. I will answer the call and volunteer to address some of our questions about life and vocation this coming Sunday, September 25th at my house, 7pm sharp. And, in the interest of putting the Beer back in Beer Salon, I will supply some Beer and we will brainstorm ways to get Beer to subsequent Beer Salons in an efficient and equitable manner. Be well, Arrogant Bastard

Our Examined Lives

Last night's Beer Salon brainstorming session seemed to provide just the kick in the pants that was needed to get the ball of BS rolling again. For those not there: we decided to do a series on telling about our life's work/passion. This will be followed by a series where we have guests come answer similar questions. We came up with a list of questions to guide these salons, feel free to answer them all or to pick and choose. Field trips are encouraged.

The questions:

What ethical dissonance do you see in your life? How do you try to minimize it?
What are your highest values?
Why do you work where you work?
Outside of work, how do you spend the majority of your time?
Where does your mind wander?
Who do you want to be/what do you aspire towards?
What is yours to do/what do you see as your life's work?
If money/obligations were no object, how would you spend your time?

Hello smarty pants. What say? Beer Salon, this Sunday, 7pm? Where? Good question. In a park would be nice, wouldn't it? I guess it depends on our topic and media.

I have 2 suggestions:
Mark Maron's WTF podcast episode 189. I listened to this gem in my studio the other day and it blew my mind. Mark Maron is a very smart comedian who hosts other comedians for some serious conversation. It gets to the heart of some of foundational BS talks. In this episode Maron interviews a comic, Nick Thune, who is a Christian. Maron is an agnostic with Judaic roots. He starts the podcast with a provocative monologue about faith and the two comedians commence a challenging, stereotype busting, and thoughtful conversation about the human condition and Jesus. This could be hard to swing in a park but we could figure something out.

Otherwise, a general BS brainstorm could be helpful. We could bring our notebooks and pencils or books or electronic devices and calendars and all throw in to get BS rolling again. This would be easier in a park.

Plus, covert beer drinking in a park! what fun.

Summer Blues

I have a summer in my memory when we all stayed home. Drank beer. Fought off the cock roaches while we talked late into the night. But it's been several years now since summer has become a time when our paths all diverge. Our BS'ers are spread far and wide right now: Haiti, Pennsylvania, Nebraska and of coarse, some of us remain in the smoldering city- standing watch for the monsoons.

I've been reading Gerald May's essay on Space- on the emptiness within us. I wish I had read this my last year of graduate school, or even after when teaching adjunct and working in my studio still made my life feel full and buzzing. Now, I spend way to much of my time in Ken Wilbur's "interior I" quadrant. I feel too much space in my life. It makes me feel unimportant. May talks about our addiction to productivity. I've always thought of it as necessary distraction at worst, at best- a living example of Wendell Berry's thought that people need productive work. But lately I am realizing that a cluttered inbox, a day that rushes past, a never ending to do list- all helped give me a sense of worth.

Now that I am done teaching art camp for the summer my time feels vacuous. Without perimeters. I find a tendency to fight this free fall with a list of distractions (and give in: The Hunger games trilogy, thank God Albuquerque still has a dollar theatre!, who is up for some games?). May suggests something else. Falling into the space. Feeling the emptiness. He also makes several references to having a drink.

So on that note- do we have quorum? I am counting 5 of us in town. Sunday? I'll bring beer.

Transcend and Include

This morning's CAC webcast, "Falling Upward: Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life" felt like a continuation of Wednesday's discussion on Ken Wilber, identity, and levels of consciousness; it was as if someone asked Richard Rohr to comment and expand on our BS. Since many of you weren't there, I'll try to briefly summarize (although mr. schlitz would be a more appropriate person for the task since he has read the book). But anyway, here it goes:

In the first half of life we build our "containers" by establishing our identities and figuring out what we are good at. We construct our own identities by defining who we are not; "who am I?" always implies the question, "who am I not?" In doing so we align ourselves with groups that we come to think of as the best. This stage of life is egocentric and is characterized by dualistic thinking and a desire to understand the rules. Going through this first half of life is necessary. A higher level of consciousness marks the second half of life, it is less egocentric and more worldcentric. In order to move into the second half of life we have to fall, which often involves suffering. We have to challenge and break the rules we have learned. You will not wake up one day and discover you have arrived in the second half of life, rather it is a journey, with steps forward as well as backward along the way.

All of this meshes well with the question posed in the last post (in different words): once we criticize and want to distance ourselves from the groups we are part of, what happens to our identity? I would like to return my membership to certain groups because of the unearned privileges that membership has given me, but this isn't possible. My position in this world was predetermined, I was born white and middle class and I will always reap benefits from these groups and I feel guilty about it. Albert Memmi, who wrote The Colonizer and the Colonized, says that this guilt is inevitable once you become conscious of your privilege in the world. While guilt is a necessary part of the transformation, it is also necessary to move beyond guilt. It seems to me that this is a between the two halves dilemma. Once we move beyond guilt, (not by justifying our privilege, but by giving it up as best we can) we've entered a more worldcentric stage. But, as Rohr (and Paulo Freire) state very clearly, the process is going to be a little painful. Damn. I'm rambling. And I think I got off topic.

A link to the webcast if you're interested (it will be available for your viewing pleasure on Wednesday):
(http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/programs/webcasts/2011webcasts/fallingupward)

Folcrum-5

Beer Salon update for Wednesday May 18th: Ken Wilber's critique of multiculturalism and growing into a worldcentric (universal pluralism) consciousness. "Once you start to go worldcentric, once you begin scrutinizing your culture, and perhaps distnacing yourself from its sociocentric or ethnocentric prejudice, and you strike our on your own-- once you do that, then who, exactly are you?"
I will keep throwing that question out there, for myself and my esteemed fellow BS'ers.

Oh, and here is a link you might enjoy for a future Salon, http://feeds.wnyc.org/radiolab episode The Good Show.

A History of BS

Beer Salon began in February 2010. It was born out of the recognition that while we had all been friends for a number of years, we had failed to enter into more intentional, in-depth conversation. Our first beer salons were a disaster, best summed up by the terms posturing, ego, and pretentious tom foolery. We decided there was a need to step back and discuss the way we discuss, so we brought Theodore Zeldin's, Art of Conversation to the table. With the help of Zeldin we came to the conclusion that it is necessary to come to BS with a willingness to be changed and commitment to collectively seeking truth instead of winning the argument. To help us achieve those goals we borrowed the idea of a conversational midwife from Socrates via Zeldin. The midwife is charged with guiding the conversation. Practically this takes the form of ensuring the contribution of all, monitoring when a conversation is no longer constructive, and keeping time.


A list of what we have discussed thus far:
film: Princess and the Frog
author/historian: Theodore Zeldin: Art of Conversation
film: Examined Life (in 6 separate meetings)
philosopher/poet: John O'Donohue
film: Farm for the Future
Personal Stories: BSers
author/naturalist: Barry Lopez