Adam, thanks for this. I started reading your notes a few weeks ago and have come to look forward to their arrival in my inbox. It is always a delight to learn about people trying hard to find a better way to be decent human beings.
Community is key to civilization and survival but it is vulnerable to group think and can run off the rails fast in the face of amorphous adversity. Our reliance on community runs deep. The physical danger and psychic pain of being excluded has been and remains life threatening. We gravitate towards it instinctively as a key to survival. Unfortunately, the drive towards it is vulnerable to being triggered and co-opted by ideas indifferent to our personal well-being and antithetical to the foundations of healthy community. A hallmark of the industrialized market economy is that there will always be a material subsection of the population that finds itself at any given time in a place of economic and social uncertainty that it has no concrete explanation for or real control over. This scenario elevates non productive stress and narrows our ability to reason. Blaming an “other”, presented as a simple solution to a complex problem, becomes hard for us to resist. Finding a “community” that purports to share our pain and that has identified (been manipulatively directed toward) an “other” to blame is a click away online. Unfortunately, these morally impoverished “communities” are bonded primarily by their anger or hatred toward the selected other, offer no real solutions and are an unstable foundation on which to build a better tomorrow.
When the world was for all intents and purposes an infinite space full of infinite resources we could simply run from our chosen “other” and start anew. That time is gone. Time now to stop running, look in the mirror and acknowledge that the “other” is us and then to search together for real solutions. You seem to be trying. Godspeed.
I too have been inspired - and I'm finding, more empowered - by reading Adam's writings. He is one of the true leaders now emerging and able to reach out to a following through the internet. With Adam and his colleagues it's not just words of theory and aspiration, he's reporting and reflecting on their lived experience. We live in bodies and it makes all the sense in the world to me that their foundational action is growing and giving away food. Human to human. Drawing of what what I've learned, may I suggest something: take a walk around your neighbourhood and give a genuine smile, from your longing heart, at whoever you see. It's not as much as a jug of soup, but it's something. A journey of a thousand miles can begin if we risk taking a single step towards the distant goal.
I often say the simplest way that anyone can begin is to notice with whom you might dare to stop keeping track. Food is just one form of sustenance. Unearned kindness is another, especially in a time of such dearth. Thank you for your kind reflections Pauline.
Thank you for this, Arthur. Have you read The Dawn of Everything? There's a lot in there about the ability of people to leave historically, and such leaving requires some assurance of hospitality somewhere else, which also seems to have been a practice. Hence the wandering beggar arriving in the peasant village.
If you want to have your book translated to German - man, I would really want to do that ( so I dont have to write one ... Your writing is better anyway. ) Thanks Adam . Sooo necessary what you do.
This is so kind. I've just been editing a chapter this morning that tells of my formative early trip to Germany as a young, aspiring farmer. I'll send some bits to you by email so that you can see that Europe looks glossy from over here. Best, Adam
Brene describes, "If the bond we share with others is simply that we hate the same people, the intimacy we experience is often intense, immediately gratifying, and an easy way to discharge outrage and pain. It is not, however, fuel for real connection. It’s fuel that runs hot, burns fast, and leaves a trail of polluted emotion. And if we live with any level of self-awareness, it’s also the kind of intimacy that can leave us with the intense regrets of an integrity hangover. Did I really participate in that? Is that moving us forward? Am I engaging in, quite literally, the exact same behavior that I find loathsome in others?"
Ahh, thanks for the added explanation. An application of intimacy out of my expected context. And I appreciate the weight that word carries in this instance with the intensity and gratification that can come from that antimonious othering for an enemy.
Adam, I really enjoyed this discussion of the loss of agency in the adoption of the Nation-state and modern economy. The fact that grieving has more power than grievance lands on me strongly, that we need to grieve the enormous losses of modernity if we are to come together in anything like livable communities capable of bringing us back from the lip of insanity. God bless you Adam for what you’re doing, your vision, and your insight.
"Grief begets a very different sort of action plan than grievance, one that builds bridges rather than burning them down."
When I read this, I felt it so deeply in my heart. It opened space inside me. The more I rest here, and breathe into it, the more space opens out.
It is obvious, but it is so pervasive and never ceases to stop me in my tracks- how grievance is the go-to. And the grief is the next layer under. The other side of the piece of gold, the beautiful rock that calls our name as we are on our walks, and we pick it up and hold it, put it in our pocket and carry it. Layers and layers of what being alive has brought, formed into and held by this gorgeous rock.
Grievance has such energy and can feel like a motivator. Certainly, it is energizing. (Fuse has been lit...) And grief... we are taught it is best avoided or at least hidden. There is shame and weakness associated with it, at least that is the message I got when I was young and throughout my life. Grief can feel like a weight, AND we are scared of it, which adds to the difficulty. But as I welcome it and feel it until it moves through me, slow and steady, slow and steady....I have come to receive the gift of the slowness it asks of me. There is a depth and thoroughness to the feeling that indeed, could build a very solid and long-standing bridge. Thanks again for your heartfelt words and intricate expression of your experiences.
I find myself so aligned with your insights, Adam. One among many of the things your post brings to mind is Wendell Berry's latest book The Need to Be Whole in which he differentiates between patriotism (love of homeland and neighbor) and nationalism (love of the State, of power, which is of course, not true love). It's a way of thinking about it that I hadn't considered in that way before (in the circles I often find myself in "patriotism" isn't often brought up as a virtue). Berry broke open for me a new understanding of our country's Civil War and has led me to accept that we/I haven't even appropriately understood, nor grieved, that momentous and divisive/extractive event. We have some grieving to do, yes.
This is BOLD!
Busting up through the papery covering of our complacent delusions like a jack-in-the-box.
I just laughed out loud Kathryn. I could hear you saying this. Bless you.
Adam, thanks for this. I started reading your notes a few weeks ago and have come to look forward to their arrival in my inbox. It is always a delight to learn about people trying hard to find a better way to be decent human beings.
Community is key to civilization and survival but it is vulnerable to group think and can run off the rails fast in the face of amorphous adversity. Our reliance on community runs deep. The physical danger and psychic pain of being excluded has been and remains life threatening. We gravitate towards it instinctively as a key to survival. Unfortunately, the drive towards it is vulnerable to being triggered and co-opted by ideas indifferent to our personal well-being and antithetical to the foundations of healthy community. A hallmark of the industrialized market economy is that there will always be a material subsection of the population that finds itself at any given time in a place of economic and social uncertainty that it has no concrete explanation for or real control over. This scenario elevates non productive stress and narrows our ability to reason. Blaming an “other”, presented as a simple solution to a complex problem, becomes hard for us to resist. Finding a “community” that purports to share our pain and that has identified (been manipulatively directed toward) an “other” to blame is a click away online. Unfortunately, these morally impoverished “communities” are bonded primarily by their anger or hatred toward the selected other, offer no real solutions and are an unstable foundation on which to build a better tomorrow.
When the world was for all intents and purposes an infinite space full of infinite resources we could simply run from our chosen “other” and start anew. That time is gone. Time now to stop running, look in the mirror and acknowledge that the “other” is us and then to search together for real solutions. You seem to be trying. Godspeed.
I too have been inspired - and I'm finding, more empowered - by reading Adam's writings. He is one of the true leaders now emerging and able to reach out to a following through the internet. With Adam and his colleagues it's not just words of theory and aspiration, he's reporting and reflecting on their lived experience. We live in bodies and it makes all the sense in the world to me that their foundational action is growing and giving away food. Human to human. Drawing of what what I've learned, may I suggest something: take a walk around your neighbourhood and give a genuine smile, from your longing heart, at whoever you see. It's not as much as a jug of soup, but it's something. A journey of a thousand miles can begin if we risk taking a single step towards the distant goal.
I often say the simplest way that anyone can begin is to notice with whom you might dare to stop keeping track. Food is just one form of sustenance. Unearned kindness is another, especially in a time of such dearth. Thank you for your kind reflections Pauline.
Thank you for this, Arthur. Have you read The Dawn of Everything? There's a lot in there about the ability of people to leave historically, and such leaving requires some assurance of hospitality somewhere else, which also seems to have been a practice. Hence the wandering beggar arriving in the peasant village.
I have not but I will check it out.
If you want to have your book translated to German - man, I would really want to do that ( so I dont have to write one ... Your writing is better anyway. ) Thanks Adam . Sooo necessary what you do.
Hi Marko,
This is so kind. I've just been editing a chapter this morning that tells of my formative early trip to Germany as a young, aspiring farmer. I'll send some bits to you by email so that you can see that Europe looks glossy from over here. Best, Adam
I’m a bit stuck on the “common enemy intimacy”. and in an effort to connect would anyone be able to offer some examples or a bit more explanation?
Brene describes, "If the bond we share with others is simply that we hate the same people, the intimacy we experience is often intense, immediately gratifying, and an easy way to discharge outrage and pain. It is not, however, fuel for real connection. It’s fuel that runs hot, burns fast, and leaves a trail of polluted emotion. And if we live with any level of self-awareness, it’s also the kind of intimacy that can leave us with the intense regrets of an integrity hangover. Did I really participate in that? Is that moving us forward? Am I engaging in, quite literally, the exact same behavior that I find loathsome in others?"
Ahh, thanks for the added explanation. An application of intimacy out of my expected context. And I appreciate the weight that word carries in this instance with the intensity and gratification that can come from that antimonious othering for an enemy.
Well put.
Adam, I really enjoyed this discussion of the loss of agency in the adoption of the Nation-state and modern economy. The fact that grieving has more power than grievance lands on me strongly, that we need to grieve the enormous losses of modernity if we are to come together in anything like livable communities capable of bringing us back from the lip of insanity. God bless you Adam for what you’re doing, your vision, and your insight.
"Grief begets a very different sort of action plan than grievance, one that builds bridges rather than burning them down."
When I read this, I felt it so deeply in my heart. It opened space inside me. The more I rest here, and breathe into it, the more space opens out.
It is obvious, but it is so pervasive and never ceases to stop me in my tracks- how grievance is the go-to. And the grief is the next layer under. The other side of the piece of gold, the beautiful rock that calls our name as we are on our walks, and we pick it up and hold it, put it in our pocket and carry it. Layers and layers of what being alive has brought, formed into and held by this gorgeous rock.
Grievance has such energy and can feel like a motivator. Certainly, it is energizing. (Fuse has been lit...) And grief... we are taught it is best avoided or at least hidden. There is shame and weakness associated with it, at least that is the message I got when I was young and throughout my life. Grief can feel like a weight, AND we are scared of it, which adds to the difficulty. But as I welcome it and feel it until it moves through me, slow and steady, slow and steady....I have come to receive the gift of the slowness it asks of me. There is a depth and thoroughness to the feeling that indeed, could build a very solid and long-standing bridge. Thanks again for your heartfelt words and intricate expression of your experiences.
I find myself so aligned with your insights, Adam. One among many of the things your post brings to mind is Wendell Berry's latest book The Need to Be Whole in which he differentiates between patriotism (love of homeland and neighbor) and nationalism (love of the State, of power, which is of course, not true love). It's a way of thinking about it that I hadn't considered in that way before (in the circles I often find myself in "patriotism" isn't often brought up as a virtue). Berry broke open for me a new understanding of our country's Civil War and has led me to accept that we/I haven't even appropriately understood, nor grieved, that momentous and divisive/extractive event. We have some grieving to do, yes.
Thank you Adam. This is so necessary. Pointing the way, learning what once was and what can be done... how we could be. I really thank you.
I often have really big difficulty being more like this.