Living Between Worlds #2.7 — Four letter words

Welcome everybody. Glad to see you here. Thank you for joining us today. This is the seventh in our series called Living Between. Living between worlds with grace, dignity and power. Welcome to those of you who've been with us before on these calls. And I see a number of new faces. Let me just recap the framing of this conversation. We live between old worlds and new worlds. We're moving from the fossil age to the renewable age. From the linear take, make waste economies of the past to the circular economy of the future. From the post world global geopolitical economic order to something that is not yet known or defined or something we can't yet name. Between working inside and outside the structures of modern life as we are all doing in our various ways. Between working to help institutions adapt and working to reinvent them or replace them. Between tinkering at the margins and committing to reinventing everything in the world we live in between the worlds of fear and hope, resignation and ambition, despair and courage. So here we are for a deep and open conversation. So. We're going to wander a little bit in this call. I don't have a specific agenda where I want to take this to, but I want to talk about a few four letter words that have been popping up in my conversations and my surfing over the last few days. Prominent among them is hope. Actually, let me ask you, while I'm talking, just put in the chat what four letter words come to mind for you that reflect your mood or the mood in the world that you're in these days? Four letter words about mood, which is itself of course a four letter word. We don't have to dwell on that. Welcome newcomers. So you know, a lot of people talk about hope. I hope this will happen. I have hope for the future. I have been fond of saying for many years that hope is not a strategy, meaning not to hope is a bad thing. But that by itself doesn't get you much of anywhere. The Army War College says hope is the only strategy. So there's a difference of opinion there. Some say that hope is a strategy, but not the only one. Some say hope is an obligation. Some say hope is a distraction. Some say hope is the fuel that enables us to keep moving in difficult times. Some say that hope is a trap. The Quran says trust in Allah, but be sure to tie your camel. And there's long debate about if you do one or the other. And the conclusion is you really have to do both of those. If hope may be a trap. But despair, I would argue is a privilege. Only very fortunate people get to retreat into despair. Other people have to live their lives in the face of despair. I was with Meg Wheatley this week. I hope you're familiar with her work. If you're not, please look it up. Margaretjwheatley.com, prolific thinker and leader in this world. And Meg did a webinar on Monday morning about hope and fear. And she started out by saying that those are really the same thing. They're two sides of the same coin. You do not get one of them without the other. And from her perspective as a Buddhist and an activist, you're a trap. The question isn't about hoping for what will happen, hoping for good outcomes, fearing bad outcomes in your life or in the world. It's about doing what's needed. She said. The world is as it is. The world can't be changed. Which is an interesting point of debate we had. And what's called on us to do is to do what's needed without expectation or hope of change, but because that's what there is to do. It echoes for me the admonition that Moses gave to the Israelites late in his life, after 40 years of wandering in the desert, about to enter the promised land after handing down law after law, process and procedure, Instructions for Life, 613 different instructions about how to live in community. And at the end of his life, he said, look, it comes down to this. Do what is right and what is good. So for me, there's an echo for Megan that we talked about optimism and pessimism, which is a game I've given up lately, with the encouragement of my friend Flores I've talked about before, I've given up the expectation that I can predict the future. And that's something I'm going to invite you into. People spend a lot of time arguing about what is going to happen. And in fact, people argue fiercely with an utter determination that they are choosing what's going to happen in the 2020 election or the 2024 election or the 2030 climate situation. I always laugh and invite them to manage my investment portfolio if they're so positive about the future, or go to the track with me and bet the ponies we don't know what's coming. And optimism and pessimism are interpretations that we live in. And what may be more appropriate right now is being realistic, not being optimistic, not being pessimistic. Seeing that on the one hand we are headed into a world of trouble, and on the other hand we're entering into a world of phenomenal innovation and Interconnection across the planet at community level, corporate level, and so forth, we are. And there we are. On the bright side, for me, the stories that I've been telling, the challenges that I've been posing to my clients and companies and cities for the past 30 years, which used to get me laughed at or shown the door or thrown out the window, those are now on the table in every single boardroom on the planet. They're on the agenda in every single cabinet chamber on the planet. And that's stunning. It's just, you know, makes my head spin to realize that we never could have imagined this 30 years ago, but we never imagined the mess we're going to be in. We have the Paris Agreement, we're heading up to the COP26 in Scotland next month. But of the 190 some odd countries that signed the Paris Agreement some years ago, only one is meeting their commitments. That's a pretty bad record. If you look at the bold pronouncements from companies about their net zero goal, hardly any are on track. Thousands of cities have climate commitments, hardly any are on track. And so we're headed into trouble there. So what's, you know, do we be optimistic or pessimistic? On this call with us was a fellow who's a mountain climber and he said he doesn't climb mountains with optimism or pessimism. He climbs mountains prepared for what he might find there. And as much as his goal might be to reach the summit, his real goal is to come down with everybody alive. And I thought the mood of the mountain climber really captured this moment for me is how do we go in with that kind of seriousness, with that kind of preparation, commitment to certain results and an expectation that things may not play the way that we want, and yet we are fully alive and in the game anyway. So let me stop there for a moment and see what this is provoking for you, what you say and see what you're saying in the chat. Just either raise your hand, you can use the hand raised under the reaction button. That'll let me maintain the queue and make sure everybody gets heard. I have been.

This is about the fourth one of.

These meetings I've participated in. And I don't think I've ever mentioned the Transition Network or Transition us.

Some of you may be familiar with.

Transition, but I don't see familiar faces in this group that I see in my Transition meetings.

Hi, Mark. Yeah, I see you.

But the Transition Network has been working for at least a decade and a.

Half to try to do a lot.

Of the same things we talk about doing in this group.

And so this is just a promotional advertisement.

If you're really wanting to get into.

A find a local group that's working.

On trying to make your own town or neighborhood resilient to what's coming. I don't know of any better organization.

Than transition to being engaged with. So that's my share.

Thank you for that. Mark Roast. Hi. Okay.

Hi.

So there's a big what you just said, the last thing you said, Gil, about the mountaineer and prepared to go prepared for whatever happens. That includes being prepared to actually make it to the summit and knowing what it takes to get there. And this is where big, serious plans can make a huge difference. That is the preparation for the mountain we're facing. Also, I would add to what John, I would add to transitions, I would add the New Economy Coalition, and that's Garel Perovitz actually started that process and he's a really serious guy. And you know, I see it as we have to weave together the like the government grants, we have to weave together the technologists and the movement, all the different movements for social justice and for environment. And it's going to take all of us working together because the right wing.

And we're not going to save the planet by saying it's game over. But if we're all doing a little something, if we're all doing a little of what we can do, then that feeds hope and then we can maybe pull along the people who are really desperately sad or those who are just cynical.

It feeds hope and it feeds and it feeds presence and aliveness in whatever we're in. And I like what you said about not getting locked into the grief. By the same token, we need to not get locked away from the grief. I mean, I'll confess this is a, you know, this is a go to for me. I don't like going into grief. I would rather be in other kinds of moods. And, and yet when I let myself feel the reality of that, I'm feeling more fully alive. It's painful, it's terrifying, but it's more present and I feel more capacity to actually engage and connect and move. And like you say, we're, you know, we're in this dance across many moods. That will be the story of our lives. That's the story of everybody's life always, truth be told, but in very dramatic ways. Now, Randy, Ralph and then Christiana, welcome from Greece. And then Amos.

Yes, thank you.

I listened to one of your recordings.

But I'm new to this group and I thank dawn for telling me about it. Thank you. I really liked what Leslie said. I wanted to get back to hope and optimism, that I think that optimism is necessary to believe that we can take action. It's important to recognize risk and be careful, cautious, thoughtful, but fearless. Brave. Brave is when you know that you're in danger and you do it anyway. It also might be foolish, but I think that it's really important to look forward with determination and perseverance. I think hope is a very basic human emotion. I think that without the sense of possibility, we tend to shut down, we tend to give up. So I think hope is essential along with preparation and bravery.

Leslie, so how do you deal with the people who say it's game over already, we're doomed, we've lost, there's no recourse. Get ready for the demise of civilization, collapse of global populations. We hear this out of some of the voices in the deep adaptation world. Not, not by any means, everybody. But there is, you know, we've all heard that conversation. How do you, how do you, how do you feel with that? And how do you respond to people that you meet who say that.

Someone asked me not too long ago if I got depressed. I was being interviewed for something and do I get depressed? And I was like, well, that's another human emotion. Of course I get depressed about lots of things. And again, to your point about not knowing the future, it's sort of silly to get too depressed about stuff that we actually can do something about, even if we can't move all the levers and make all the changes that we wish to happen. But I think that when someone just sort of dumps that and says, yeah, it's game over. I think of Paul Hawkins comment, which he has repeated for years, which is, yeah, really bad odds, but I'll take them. It's not game over, it's game on. And you know, he says that with a smile and a bit of a chuckle and he's certainly been in the game for decades and decades and has the gravitas and has the, you know, the bona fides to say something like that. It's not, it's just not a one off. But I think that when people say that and I've. I did a VR project, a virtual reality sea level rise project near a high school about six years ago in Marin. And I was just kind of observing people come up to it and looking out and using it. And a kid from this middle school, maybe, you know, an Eighth grader looked through it and stepped away. And I asked him, how, what do you think? And he said, it's too little too late. It doesn't matter. And that broke my heart. I mean, it's just like, yeah, okay, so how do we, how do we grapple with that? How do we, how do we say it's not game over, it's game on? I think that it's really important to acknowledge the pain and the fear and the sadness, the grief, but then not get stuck there. I think it's really easy to get stuck there. I know a lot of people who want to talk a lot about climate grief, and it's like, yep, now can we do something? It's like, you know, so I hear. But I cherish the conversations. I'm trying to be very to the point and very.

We lost your video, we lost your audio. You're muted again.

Christiana, terribly sorry. Okay. Can you hear me now? I'm sorry. Okay. I'm moving on. I decide. I was in San Francisco a few years ago as a fellow and that's where I met Gil. And he liked my story. And I would like to say that we now have a community. We are also having a team and I've put a little thing in the chat. But what we are trying to do is a major shift in the people's head that we would like to see people working in and for nature. That's a big shift because people work for companies, they work for shareholders. How about if they worked for nature and if they did something wrong, they would get fired by her? That's major. I am inviting you to see what we are doing. And my company is called the Meraki People. And this is an open invitation for you to explore. Thank you very, very much. This is action speaking. Christiana from southern Greece.

I encourage you all to have a look. Christiana and her people are doing some beautiful work there on the ground. So thank you for sharing that. You know, working for nature. When we started natural logic 20, 22 years ago, we were very clear that our client was the planet. And that was the background idea. It hasn't always played as cleanly as that, but that's, you know, whenever, when in doubt, that's where we look. And you know, I've been talking for many years about our challenge to learn from the 3.8 billion years of open source research and development that's been done by Earth's living systems. Janine Benyus uses similar phrasing. We developed it both around the same time. It Seems. And my friend Chauncey Bell, who some of you know, challenged me a few weeks ago, he said, you're talking about living systems, but you're so anti mechanistic most of the time. Why are you talking about systems? And I started to debate the words and I thought, no, no, wait a minute, let me just shut up and listen here. And I listened and. And my language is shifting and I find myself talking now about the living world, not about living systems. And I talk about our challenge being to learn how to belong to the living world, which is a bit of a different story. And a few weeks ago I keynoted a conference in Mumbai of the Conference of Indian Industries. And one of the things I wrapped up with them, I said, you know, their theme was about esg, Environmental, Social, governance. This is sort of the term of art for sustainability in business and investment these days. And I said, you know, I said, I'm seeing the challenge of how do we move from the, from the vagueness of esg, from a world in which life is the servant of business to a world in which business is in the service of life. And I was pleasantly very surprised at just how that landed in the room, at least as best I could see through Zoom video, and as best I could see from how the chairman and different speakers grabbed that phrase and used that in their remarks in the rest of the conference. So, Christiana, this is my way of saying the same thing that you're saying. Who do we work for? What do we belong to? What do we think we are? Who do we think we are? The brilliant French philosopher Bruno Latour. So we can turn on the video here. There we go. The brilliant French philosopher Bruno Latour, in his book down to Earth, which I've mentioned to you a number of times, talks about the challenge of recognizing that we are Terrans, creatures of the planet Terra, living with the myriad other creatures on this planet in this tissue thin film of life that wraps around this ball of rock hurtling through space. It's a humbling vision, but it's also a very rich one because we are of life. And if there's a way to stop pretending that we're not, we might have a very interesting future together. Christiana, thank you. Amos, I've got you next. Randy, if you're done, put your hand down so I can keep track of who's in queue. Amos, thank you.

Yeah, thank you. And Christiana, thank you for that. I was just applauding. And thanks for amplifying that guilt. I also believe that we need to Be working more for nature and centering nature within, not just our conversations, but at the core of all our work, whether everybody's talking about centering voices of color and people of color. And I say we people of color are centering nature. We've been listening to our native brothers and sisters who have been, if you will, saying that we must protect nature, we must protect Mother Earth. And so again, I applaud that orientation and reorientation, bringing that forward. Gil, directly to your question. You know, how do we talk to others who say, basically, we're fine, it's over, you know, there is no hope. And two things. One, as I put in the chat, I do believe that we must act and do acts that inspire hope. As a movement worker in several different.

Movements.

So many people believe that it's about a conversation. Actions speak louder than words. Even as a poet, I do know that actions speak louder than such as art, poetry, words. And it's, it's really the ability to continue continuously inspire people in demonstrating and showing and publishing and publicizing each of those acts that do inspire hope. I'm mindful to recall that to accomplish great things, we must not only act, as I point out, not just not only act, but we must also dream. And we must not only plan as we're doing with all these systems work and climate work we're doing, but we also must believe. My definition of hope, as I'm long held dear to people, said, you know, what is hope to you? And I say hope is. It's physics. It's the distance between where I am and where I believe we're going to arrive. And it's where I believe. Without belief, there really is no transportation to dream myself from this position. If we're looking at things in 3D or in a physical sense, how do I move from even a state or status or condition from this condition? And I would say my literary colleagues and I talk about this a lot in our Afrofuturism group and in our black speculative arts group, all literary people and a couple thinkers, what do you call them, academics. But we hold very real conversations, believing that without the black imagination.

Literally our.

Worlds would be just so filled of trauma and suffering. If you look at the conditions unto which, as black people, even still now we're living in right here in this country, right here in the Bay Area, if you will. And it's not pointing it towards state sanctioned violence. It's just the condition. And without belief and the distance, knowing from where I am now that I actually can believe, I'm going to have a new and different future. Then there is hope. And that is the transportation belief. And so again, to specifically your question, how do you talk to other people? I would say briefly, we're not going to win people in conversation. And I just got up another work group, an equity work group of policymakers here in the San Francisco Bay Area. 98% white out of 24 people on this call. Decision makers, policymakers, staffers, municipal people.

And.

Again, an equity work group working on things to impact predominantly people of color. And so I would say again, how do you talk with people? I would say briefly. But we must demonstrate and act and believe and act as if we believe we are going to arrive at that future. I'll leave you with this. Everyone, Dr. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Everybody throws up memes about him. You know, I'll save you all my own stories. No, I'm not old. I am old enough personally to have known him, but he died the year I was born.

But.

My parents were movement workers back in the 60s. Someone asked Reverend King, you know, your people are being ledged, they're setting dogs on you, they're putting fire hoses on you. You've been here 400 years and you're still fighting for still your freedom, for equality. How can you get up every single day and still hold civil conversations and believe that you're going to make a change and that things are going to change and be different? And he said, you know what, and I know he was quoting a monk and I forget from the 16th century, but he said this. Even if I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would still go out today and plant my apple tree. So even if I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would still go out today and plant my apple tree. I would submit to you as both an African American, it's still a very black statement in terms of having to center hope. And belief is our transport that we will not overcome, change our condition and change literally our condition as we now collaboratively, collaboratively as Terrans, are trying to change the planets condition. But I would submit to you, we need to center nature and follow the ways of nature and follow those voices. In so doing there we are modeling hope for others.

Thanks Gil. Thank you Amos, very much. You know, belief is the transport is a stunning phrase. Beam me up, Aaron Amos. Beam me up. But I want to wrestle with you a little bit and can you come back on camera? Yeah, I want to see you. Thank you. Yeah, appreciate it. I want to wrestle with you a little bit. If that's okay. It's it. As a poet, I know that, you know, that words are action. Action is not just what I do with my physical body, but with my speech as well. It's action internally and in interaction with you. In fact, words are one of the most powerful forms of action we have. That's where the inspiration moves, right? It's in the words and the music and the movement. It's where we coordinate with each other to enable the physical actions that we do. And fundamentally. And this is to your. What you were saying about belief. It's where we create the worlds that we inhabit. We build the interpretations of the worlds we encounter. We build our interpretations of other people, what we think of them, what we think they can do, what we want to ask of them, what we'll commit to them. We do all that in words. And so I, you know, nothing personal here, but I want to push back because I often hear people contrast well enough words. We need action. And yes, of course, there's a reason to. There's a reason to say that, but there's also enormous power in the words that we use with each other and that we speak to ourselves all the time. That's where my moods live, is in my internal dialogue of my interpretations, engaging in the world. So there's a. There's an enormous richness there. And we see. Well, you know, go back to. Your parents were movement workers in the 1960s. You know, Bernice Reagan and the Freedom Singers. Bernice, who became the founder of Sweet Honey and the Rock, this magnificent a cappella group. But Bernice and other folks, as young teenagers were on the line singing during those demonstrations. And that was part of the work just as much as getting dragged off to jail and being arrested and anything else. So we live in many dimensions. And I would just add one thing. I know there's a lot of other people doing want to speak here. You said, how do we talk to other people? And you said, I heard two things. One is inspired them, and one is talk briefly. But the other component there. We've talked about this before. The great farm organizer Merle Hansen said to me decades ago, he said, you know, the good Lord gave people two ears and one mouth that we might listen twice as much as we speak. And I try to keep that very much in mind, in particular, when I'm engaging with people who I deeply disagree with or fear or hate to be open to hearing how they see the world and why they're showing up the way they do. Because ultimately we have to win people over to what we care about, if we're going to be able to have the actions that we want to have. So I would say, I would say.

That'S, that's not, what's it called in a, in a, in a logic, um, it's not a fault that you just put out there. The fallacy.

Fallacy.

I would say the last statement you said we, we must or we need to win people over. I, I submit to you, we don't. And that's my whole point. Again, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a white, It's a liberal, it's an intellectual, and it's a missionary. We can take care of you. Belief. Belief. Worldview. Worldview. As George Lakoff would say. It's, it's. And I don't use the word worldview. Most people really don't unpack that. And he unpacks it. He'll, he'll, he'll break it all the way down demographically, what that worldview consists of, who's within it. But I would say that is our altra disperse. This is our altruistic belief for others. Our job, in my opinion, is, as I said, as a movement worker on streets, whether it's civil rights organizing or organizing for youth groups 20 years ago or doing the climate work I'm doing now. And yes, as also a poet, words are powerful. But to the contrary of what you pointed out, you said words, our actions. I say, I say no. Words are media. They are transports, especially in poetry. And we poets know that the words are not actions themselves. Words are indicative, they represent, they are more signs, not signals, but signs that point to other things in our world that are different for each group of people or, and individually for each person. Which is why in the combination of the word choice we use in our poetry, we create imagery. Now, the image again, a picture is worth a thousand words. And that's why art is more impressionable than just straight conversation. People go to a sermon and take away the message of the image that a sermon or a rabbi or an iman somebody puts forward. It's the image of the story that is now, the transport is more potent in meaning for people.

It's the movement in my heart listening to that person.

Exactly, exactly. Which is why I said we must win over hearts and minds with hope and with acts of hope, because actions do speak louder than words. And if we're using words to quote, win people over, I would just say just speak briefly and do more actively. And as people see you in the community, they too will be inspired to either do more or join the movement.

Thank you for that. I'm going to move on to some other people. I want to come back and wrestle with you some more another time about words and actions. I think there are two kinds of speaking, but we'll save that for a little bit later. I've got a cue here, Felix and then David and then Jane and then Alan.

Well, thank you, Amos, for that story about planting the apple tree as a new grandparent. That speaks to me when I think about, you know, how we think about it, where we are now in our presence, our future, how to, how to process grief. And I want to mention a point of reference that for ourselves and maybe to talk about with other people, which is how many of you, how many of you heard about or saw the confrontation between the Shell executive and the young Scottish activists that TED Countdown last week? A bunch of you. So I'll put a link in the chat. It didn't get as much publicity as I thought it would, but it was basically the CEO of Shell accused by a young woman Scottish activist of basically being a murderer of the planet, a betrayer. And she basically said, I can't be on the stage with you anymore. So Christiana Figueres was the moderator there. And what happened after 10 minutes into this, when she refused to be on the stage and she left, was she basically started talking about how we should respond to this. She was on the spot and she basically said, let's take some time now, in silence, to think about the pain that this woman expressed when she was weeping and accusing, angry and so sad, and think about all of our pain. And it was really well done what she did, because she's been living for 30 years with what she knows and she somehow manages to stay active. I thought it helped me to think about, I do think about that issue of how to deal with grief and pain. For me, I have not found a way for it to fuel me. I find that if I want to be productive and active, I kind of need to leave that behind and go back to a different way of thinking. I feel more complete in recognizing that pain and loss, but I have not found a way, like some people say, that that keeps them going.

So just my thoughts, Felix. Thank you. David Schoenbrunn. Well, let me just. Before you speak, David, let me just add one thing to Felix. Your mention of Christina Figueras in the Paris negotiations. Apparently Christina and her team, before every meeting, before every negotiating meeting they would go into, would Go off into a side room and meditate together, sit in silence together as a team, sometimes for five minutes, sometimes for 20 minutes. I'm told this was before every meeting of them walking in and having global state conversations with powerful people. It's another perspective on action and has enabled, I think, contributed to her effectiveness and durability in this work. So thanks for mentioning her, David Shonbrun Europe thank you.

I. I'd like to tie together what you just said, what Felix just said, and push back against your characterization of deep adaptation. I believe that that was something of a cartoon version of deep adaptation.

And David, let me just interrupt to say I said some people from that world say this, not all of them. I was very clear to say I'm not characterizing the whole thing, but I've heard that voice from that universe.

Well, sure, but I want to point out that to me, the value of deep adaptation is to recognize that, yes, one can dive into the profundity of despair and come out the other end. And that's the piece that Felix is not familiar with at this point, that one has to have an inner process to allow one to deal with uncomfortable feelings and to work through them. It's a lifetime challenge. But that when one does do this, I went through two years, at least two years of pretty deep depression based on everything that I saw about climate. As somebody actively engaged in the climate affairs. I came out the other end. And as a result, I'm not operating out of hope, but I am doing what I see to do in each moment as it comes forward. And I have the potential of seeing the delight of human life and the exquisiteness of the beauty of, of life all becomes more available to me because I'm allowing a lot more feeling. So that's. I put that as a counter to what I heard earlier about adaptation.

Yeah, thank you, David, for that. Thank you for saying that.

I wanted to also point out there's a new book out that collects a whole bunch of material about deep diversity, deep adaptation. I haven't read it, but it's called Deep Navigating the Realities of Climate Chaos. And I think there's going to be a lot of emotional wisdom in it.

Great, David, thank you for saying that. And thank you for saying it so well. And that's why I acknowledged at the beginning my own fear of grief and my own personal avoidance of diving deep into those waters. But I recognize the power of what you're saying and I appreciate that. Let me read you something that I came across this morning that says maybe the same thing in a slightly different words. Despair naturally destroys courage and stops all effort, but may produce a new kind of courage and fierce activity founded upon the sense that there is nothing worse to be feared. In this, despair is akin to desperation, which is an active state and always tends to produce a furious struggle against adverse circumstances, even when the situation is utterly hopeless. That's from the Century Dictionary, 1897.

May I offer a small piece here?

Go ahead.

What really struck me about deep adaptation is that we are dealing here with a deep societal taboo against death.

And.

The really striking thing about the climate crisis is it brings each of us into a much more of a personal relationship to death and is calling on us to acknowledge the reality of death in our own lives. As such, it furthers the expansion of awareness and is fundamentally a good thing that we're also a profoundly pain avoidant culture. Despair is something that each of us is profoundly defended against. And again, climate is forcing us to deal with this in a much more real way. And so I personally believe that having a deep connection to both death and to grief means that we don't have to live with hope. We can then live out of inspiration.

Thank you. Thank you. Well said. Jane Bird, you're up next. Let me ask people if you've already spoken and you have your hand raised, take your hand down so I can keep track of the queue. Jane. And then Alan Haber next.

In my experience, grief is an experience of love. And if I push away the grief, I deny the experience of love. That's one thing. And it's instructive. That will be articulate in me, not just an inchoate grief. If I push away the grief, I deny the experience of love. That's one thing. And it's instructive. It will be articulate in me, not just an inchoate grief. But I wanted to say something particularly to Amos. I urge you to consider belief to be an act of respect, a state of regard. But I wanted to say something particularly to Amos. I urge you to consider belief to be an act of respect, a state of regard. That's it.

Thank you. Jane. Alan Haber.

Hello. Hello, all. I came a little late. I'm delighted to have come in.

That's it. Thank you. Jane. Alan Haber.

As Amos White was speaking, I had just been. Hello. Hello, all. I came a little late. I'm delighted to have come in as Amos White was speaking. I had just been part of AS, at least a witness the 60th anniversary of Art of AS. At least they witness the 60th anniversary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Celebration. An amazing Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Celebration. An amazing experience. To summarize, as was the theme throughout, we who believe in freedom cannot rest. That was the mantra throughout and also echoing Amos, a woman from Mississippi was quoted as saying, if you want to. Oh, he who says is no one. He who does, that's the man that the talk is fine, but the doing is what is needed. And if you want to help me, go away. If you want to join your struggle for liberation with my struggle for liberation, let's begin. Those were themes out of the sncc and it echoed with me. I was part of that from the beginning. And it was most rewarding to feel the resonance of the people from that time and the younger generation and the yet younger generation join. And we who believe in freedom cannot rest. And in some way that is independent of the observation of the state of the world, which is a mess. And there are many other things that could be said about cognitive dissonance. And when you see what's going on, you either have to deny what you see or you have to get engaged. And sometimes it's easier to deny, but once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Thanks a lot. I'm glad to be here. I missed what happened before Amos, but I was. Came in at a perfect spot for my consciousness at the time. Thanks.

Indeed it was Alan. Thank you for that. And the. The recording will be up in a few days so you can catch that beginning if you're so inclined. Dale. Dale. Byron, where are you? On my screen. Dale, take your mic open. Yeah. Okay. Is that working? Perfect.

Wow. I'm. I don't know if you all have this experience, but you're. You're. What you want to say starts changing every time somebody puts some delicious thing into the. Into the conversation. Wow.

I'm.

I don't know if you all have this experience but you're. You're. What you want to say starts changing every time somebody puts some delicious things. Thing into the. Into the conversation. I think the thing that I wanted to say was we were talking. I think the thing that I wanted to say was we were talking about how do you talk to people who.

Are.

Lacking in hope and courage and my. Lacking in hope and courage. Courage and my own work I think over the years has been about the idea of. At least for my own truth is that my. The half life of courage and hope for me is very short and sound work. I think over the years has been though I Find that I have to have re. I have to re up that I have to marinate myself constantly to try to replenish the supply. And I want to. I want to give you a quick little story that the. The favorite poet in my life is named William. About the idea of at least for my own truth is that my. The half life of courage and hope for me is very short. And Stafford he has a story he used to tell and it's a very quick one. If you imagine that there's a ship, massive ship that is going. I don't know how fast ships can go, let's say 30 knots. I think that's really fast for a ship. And that ship is barreling toward the harbor, the docks and. And you know that that ship. So I find that I have to have re. I have to re up. That requires. Let's say I'm making all this up, but let's say I think it requires something like two miles to turn and you're a half mile offshore going 30 knots. Some I have to marinate myself constantly to try to replenish this. One could hand you the steering wheel of the ship and say here Dale, you take it. Save us. But that would be a rather capricious now. And so while I could certainly turn the wheel of the ship apply. And I want to. I want to give you a quick little story that the. The favorite poet in my life is named William. Physics say that that ship is going to hit the land. It's going to crash into the. Into the harbor. So I want to introduce a quick little metaphor which is. Which I've recently recently found and I And I to overlay it on this story and make. Make my quick point here that is that if you. Stafford he has story he used to tell and it's a very quick one. If you imagine think of every human being or situation or especially conundrums that we face as being territories and that we are overlaying a map on that territory. And that usually people that we really imagine that there's a ship, massive ship that is going or at odds with have a different map, they've laid on that territory. And so what we do is we don't generally think about ours as being a map and theirs as being a map. We think of ours as being isness. I don't know how fast ships can go, let's say 30 knots. I think think that's really fast for a ship.

Yeah. Right.

And so my point that ship is barreling toward the point is. Is that if somebody who is in despair is imagining that story that William Stafford or that analogy that he tells, they are convinced that the ship, ship is a half mile off the coast. It's going 30 knots. And you've just said you need to recycle more and you need to do personal responsibility and you really should be hopeful harbor the docks and you know that that ship. The question is, is to find out what's the territory they're looking at. We know that, but what's the map they're looking at. And to be able to introduce another requires. Let's say I'm making all this up, but let's say I think a map that there may be some physics that I, that we don't understand. I hope there's some physics that we don't understand because I don't know about you, but I'm feeling like we're a half mile off the shore and we're going 30 knots. Requires something like two miles to turn, and you're a half mile. It feels like that to be on a lot of days. And yet I don't think that I have any, you know. And I do have an offshore going 30 knots. Some hope. And I do have a sense of it because I have a sense that all together we can maybe change the physics of this. But it's looking pretty decent him. So I guess my, my, my point is, is that, that I believe. You know, William Stafford used to say, I want to do what I don't. One could hand you the steering wheel of the ship and say, I'm not so interested in doing what works. I want to do what's right and so what's right and what works. You know, we hope those things rhyme. He also used to say, say, he says, I'm kind of addicted to the, to the forlorn cause here, Dale, you take it. Save us. But, and so, you know, I, I guess I, I, I know I'm, I'm, I'm putting a lot out into the field, but my, my thought is, is that that would be a rather capricious now. And so the metaphors and stories we use are really important. And I think it's really important to try to understand the map that somebody's using so that if we want to gather more hope for ourselves, we want to gather more courage and hope. While I could certainly turn the wheel of the ship for that person, that we can do so with a little more skill.

Dale, thank you. There's a lot there. Like you said. I'd like to respond To a couple of things before I go to the next hand in the room.

Physics say that that ship is going.

Yeah, it sure as hell feels like that. You know, I go through most days not thinking about it in that. In that dimension. And sometimes when I look at the evidence in front of me, I think.

Serious to hit the land. It's going to crash into the. Into the harbor.

Risk of being totally fucked. Yeah. On the other hand, you know, you talk about the physics of a ship moving through water over a certain distance and you know, we could think about billiard balls on a table. If I shoot the ball, it hits the other ball and it's going to go over there. But we're not billiard balls.

So I want to introduce a quick little metaphor which is. Which I've recently found and I and I to overlay.

And the laws of physics don't apply to human interaction unless you believe it on this story.

Make my quick point here that is.

That if you guys in the foundation trilogy, they don't. And there's a lot more emergent opportunity. Well, just like you said, you're what you were going to say kept changing based on what other people said. What's that? What's going on there? What's the boundary of I, Dale, speaking there? It's not, you know, just think of.

Every human being or situation or especially conundrums that we face as a bunch.

Of meat inside a brain case. It's something else in interaction with the rest of this world that is you and me listening to you and all of us listening to each other that I would argue is different than a ship hurtling toward land.

Not irrelevant being territories. And that we are overlaying a map.

On that territory to each other, but a different quality of possibility and change. And so, you know, Amos, another of our poets, Dale's a poet to a fine one.

Have been taught and that usually people that we really talk about metaphor and.

It'S enormously powerful in human experience. But a metaphor is a metaphor and it's not the same as the ship. It's not completely different. I'm gonna get into trouble here. You know, I was gonna use the example of the table. Well, this table that my computer is sitting on feels solid and is mostly empty space. And you know, we all of us live in an interpretation of the world that we encounter. Like you said, there is no isness there. There's how I encounter the isness and how you do and what we are.

At odds with have a different map. They've laid on that territory. And so what we do is we.

Don'T do with that, how we share that with each other, what we make of that together. So, you know, we live in metaphor. We can't not. We are incapable as beings of not living in metaphor anymore.

Generally think about ours as being a map and theirs as being a map. We think of ours as being isness.

We're incapable of not living with our emotions or our moods.

But.

Yeah, right. And so my point, you know, all of that lives in the language of interpretation and the internal conversation we have with each other. And we have some agency and some fluidity there. You think about, you know, think about a marathon athlete. There's apparently a point in the race, I think someone said, I think it's about 16 miles in, where the pain.

Is unbearable, is that if somebody who is in despair is imaginable and a.

Lot of people stop and the people who can get through that wall, that.

Story that William Stafford or that analogy.

That he takes, complete the race. It's not like it keeps getting worse and worse and worse. There's this, you know, there's psychological as well as physiological point at which somebody makes a decision in cells.

They are convinced that the ship is a half mile off the coast, some.

Way to reinterpret the agony. My physical therapist, brilliant fellow named Jamie Harrow, said to me, it's going 30.

Knots and you've just said you need to recycle.

Last year I was talking about I couldn't do an exercise because of the pain. He said, well, there's no pain, so what the fuck are you talking about? I'm feeling it. You don't know? He said, no, there's. What there is in your nervous system, there is the sensation of pressure and the sensation of temperature. That's all that your nerves are able to read. You then interpret that as pain, whereas a professional athlete interprets that as something else more.

And you need to do personal responsibility. And you really should be hopeful. The question is, is to find out what's the territory they're looking at.

We know that in a development process of muscles and physical capability. And that was really eye opening for me. Not that the sensation wasn't there, that.

But what's the map they're looking at. And to be able to introduce another.

Not that the grief isn't there, the despair, but I have the opportunity to make of that what I will not me as an isolated person because I'm map.

There may be some physics that I. That we don't understand here.

With all of my history and all of my relationships with all of you and everybody else in my life. But we have the opportunity to make of the signals, whatever we make of them. Certain things are determined and certain things are not. At least that's how I. That's how I'm able to stand in this story.

Of course. And just real quickly, you've just given what a gift. Because I think that what you've just. I hope there's some physics that we don't understand because I don't know. Said if you step somebody through the analogy, that little story that I told them that allowed about you. But I'm feeling like we're a half mile off the shore and we're going 30 knots. Them to actually say, okay, that's how I'm feeling, that we're a half mile off and going 30 knots. But just your point about the difference between a machine. It feels like that to be on a lot of days and yet. And a living human community. Just your saying that changed the metaphor a little bit for me. And there's hope embedded in that also. I don't think that I have any. You know, I do have. I want to mention, probably everybody has.

And I'll confess, Dale, that I'm at war with the machine metaphor.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

No, no, no, I get it. Yeah. That's dominated our world for the past few hundred years. And I'm in. I'm. I'm in battle with that. Go ahead.

No, I was just going to say that, you know, your own metaphor. I was going to say, I think metaphors are just our maps. That's what they are. And so your own metaphor of trim.

Hope.

And I do have a sense of it because I have a sense that all together we can maybe change. The tab is kind of perfect for my story.

Yeah, for sure. Thank you.

The physics of this. But it's looking pretty dim.

Thanks, Dale. Jane Byrd and then Christine Rosen. Jane, go off mute, please.

Oh, okay. Well, I've been listening to us.

And so I guess my point is.

That thinking that this is. I'm hearing conversations, I believe.

You know, William Stafford used to say, I want to do what I don't.

People who aren't recognizing or perhaps don't realize. We don't realize that reality. All realities vibrate. The universe is scintillating. There's vibration going on. And the fact that you can see me is a testament to the fact that I'm a standing wave. The probability of me equals the standing wave that enables you to see me. Because you have standing wave sensing equipment on board.

I'm not so interested in doing what works. I want to do what's right and so what's right and what works, you know, we hope those things rhyme. He also used to say, he says I'm kind of addicted to the.

To the forlorn cause and metaphor.

You say we live in metaphor. We live in vibration. We're in a soup of vibration. And our language has imprisoned us into a static kind of framework of reference that hides many wonderful things.

And so, you know, I. I guess.

I know I'm things from us and.

Many wonderful ways of relating and drawing strength and having impact and influence over realities. And a testament to what a lovely conversation people are having is that it makes one forget what one was going to say. Because each person speaking, I'm putting a.

Lot out into the field. But my thought is that resets the.

Pool of waves in the water and.

It.

Changes what I was going to say or think.

The metaphors and stories we use are really important. And I think it's really.

See, it's vibrating all the way down.

That's why I hope important to try.

To understand the map that somebody's using so that if we.

These things. Jane, for that. Yeah. Thank you. Christine Rosen.

Yeah, I just wanted to say I'm an historian and if we want to change the way we think about, want.

To gather more hope for ourselves, we want to gather more courage and hope things.

Often looking to the past. Well, I don't know about how often, but looking to the past can be empowering. I've been working on a book for a number of years on the history of America's early struggles with industrial pollution. And it's giving me hope in some ways because I see people struggling to.

Protect their communities for that person that we can do so with a little more skill.

From coal smoke and all the waste that businesses are discharging into their water supplies and their rivers and streams and struggling to figure out what to do about it. And, you know, having to.

Dale, thank you. There's a lot there, like you said, I'd like to recognize it at first.

That it's a problem because it isn't like automatic, that they respond to a.

Couple of things before I go to the next hand in the room.

Recognize that this is something they need to do something about. But once they do recognize it as a problem, it takes decades for them to get organized, to build movements, to invest in the abatement.

Yeah, it sure as hell feels like.

That equipment, the water filtration systems and the sewage treatment plants and they have to spend money and that, you know, it really goes against the grain of human nature to protect, you know, against what economists call market externalities. I mean, this is just the price of progress.

Right?

And to develop the abatement equipment that factory owners have to put in their.

Smokestacks and their, you know, I go through most days not thinking about it in that furnaces.

But there's a hopeful story there that I think that has been erased from our consciousness by. We just take for granted that we can, you know, go, go to the sink and you know, turn the faucet and clean water will come out. We won't poison ourselves unless we live in Flint, Michigan, where people were really awakened to the fact that that is an automatic. And you know, we're living on the.

In that dimension. And sometimes when I look at the evidence in front of me, I think serious risk of being totally fucked. Yeah. On the other hand, you know, you talk about the physics of a ship.

Moving sacrifices and the struggles and the political movements of our predecessors and they include business leaders, urban progressive business leaders, as well as public health reformers and so forth, and women reformers. And there's a. I'm hoping that once I finally finish this book and it comes out, it can somehow help inspire people to think past what we assume to be the case, which is we're doomed. I mean, people were feeling very, very doomed. This is just a price of progress.

You had to threw water over a certain distance and, you know, we could.

Think about, you know, choke on smoke and soot and ash and you had.

To, you know, billiard balls on a table. If I shoot the ball, it hits the other ball and it's going to go over there.

But we're not billiard people were worried about the water. They knew it was full of germs. The germ theory had been developed by that time and they knew they were poisoning themselves. They didn't know about the toxins in the water from the.

All the wastes.

And yeah, I'm hoping because what you're, you know, it's poetry. It's, you know, music. You think about the 60s, music was so important. We need to inspire people with hope. And one of the things I've realized is that the recognition, some of this is about technology. You have to innovate. And as these innovations became available, people.

And the laws of physics don't apply to human interaction. Unless you believe Isaac Asimov in the foundation trilogy, they don't. And there's a lot more emerging.

God hopeful. And then they started to organize so that they could receive the benefits of these abatement technologies and treatment technologies. And then they.

Opportunity. Well, just like you said, what you were going to say kept changing.

They would struggle for years and years and years and years. And it's not like they completely solved.

Their problems based on what other people said. What's that? What's going on there?

Struggles continued for decades. I mean, we're still struggling. It's the same struggle.

Yeah, it's the struggle. It's the same one. I hear. Where I hear your hope coming from is from the, you know, the recognition of that long history of committed struggle.

Right, right.

And that business.

And you've worked with business leaders for a long, long time, Gil, and you've helped to, you know, enable them to start to commit to reducing their environmental impacts. And that's amazing. And it's because the word has to get out.

Carrots and sticks, Christine.

Right.

Carrots and sticks.

Inspiration and vision.

Yeah. And judiciously applied fear, in that case. So good. What's the boundary of I, Dale, speaking there? It's not, you know, just. Thank you. Jane. Is your hand back up now? It's come down. Okay. We're about a bunch of meat inside a brain case. It's something else in interaction with the rest of this world that is you and me listening to you and all of us listening to each other. That I would argue. A little over 10 minutes left. Anybody who has not spoken yet would like to speak. Who is different than a ship hurtling toward land. Not irrelevant. And we can take a few minutes of quiet also. I'll speak for just a moment. I don't know if I can be heard. Eckhart, you can go ahead. Hi, my name is Eckhart.

And.

Somewhat of a long story, but I bumped into someone, one Rankhart. If I could ask you to keep it brief because we're in the closing 10 minutes and I wanted to give us a compact version of it.

Sure. Yeah.

I into each other, but a different quality of possibility and change. And so I'm going to make it very short.

I feel like I maybe naively don't.

Get it, but I feel like exciting.

People about the possibilities of the funness of what we can do is, you.

Know, Amos, another of our poets. Dale's a poet, too, a fine one. Have been talking about metaphor. And it's enormously powerful and human experience. But a metaphor is a metaphor. It kind of intersects with what some.

Other people have said.

But Taking a restoration and it's not the same as the ship effort and.

Making it into a game that becomes a huge playground that has a living, visitation worthy Disneyland, Uber Disneyland like feel is what I feel and what our next challenge is.

And there's so many places that are candidates for restoration parks.

We just got a huge one last.

Week right by the oil spill.

400 acres just waiting to be redeveloped. And this is like, this is coming and.

And I think it gives us a lot of opportunities.

I'm really excited about it.

You know, there's another. There's another version like that that's cooking. Kevin. Kevin Jones, who some of you know is a founder of the SOCAP conference. It's not completely different. I'm gonna get into trouble here. I was gonna use the example of the table. This has been working a lot in what we conveniently call disadvantaged communities table that my computer is sitting on feels solid and is mostly empty space. And he's looking at developing a kind of tourism tax where, you know, and you know, we all of us live in an interpretation of the world that we encounter. People who get to travel and be tourists, go to places where there are issues and struggles and restoration to be done and voluntarily tax themselves into that system to help develop it further. Like you said, there is no isness there. There's how I encounter the isness and how you do and what we. The economics of it look extremely interesting. A lot of leverage there. And so I hear an echo of your story in that. So you might want to check that out. Jane, were you flashing back on screen? No.

Well, I was. I was just seeing new reality TV shows involved there and having a lot of fun.

Yeah, very good. David. David Grossoff. Yeah, Very briefly, I was just wondering since most of these gatherings have people sort of smuggling in advertisements for things that. And activities that they're excited about that occasionally, yeah, seem pretty simpatico. Just throw out for people to comment on in the chat, whether it makes sense do with that, how we share that with each other, what we make of that together. To have a little shout out section where maybe at the end like this people. So, you know, we live in metaphor. We can't not. We are incapable as beings of not living in metaphor any more than, you know, projects that I think deserve a lot of attention or have made a little progress or that they're looking for expertise on a particular thing and that might add to the actual lived and experienced hopefulness rather than the discourse about hopefulness because we're incapable of not living with our emotions or our moods, but be simpatico for your. For your goals. Gil, very good. Thank you. Let's hold that off for just a moment or two. See if anybody else has any general comments before we go into the potlatch portion of the program. I do. Okay. Mark, I see your head. I thought your hand was before, but go ahead. It was. I spoke, but I came. I put it back up again because I have something else to say. If we resolutely face every negative reality we know that needs to be addressed, and we can be alert to the possibility of supporting those genius individuals who are addressing one of those realities for the long haul. You know, all of that lives in the language of interpretation and the internal conversation we have with each other. And we have some. And we can see the greater patterns of possibility when they reach success. Some fluidity there. You think about, you know, that becomes the highest form of plan. And that's what I do.

Hmm.

Cool. Are those your words? Those are my words. And think about a marathon athlete. There's apparently a point in the race, and that is what I do. So that's why I choose to work with genius inventors. Awesome. Why don't you put that in the chat so people can read? It's in the chat. It's way up at 12:05. So scroll back up, folks. Okay. Other last general discourse. Comments. Okay. Then to David's invitation. David, you get to go first, share what's going on. It's moving you. Sorry. As a shout out. I don't have a particular activity that I'm here to learn and recharge. And I was not pitching for myself. I was thinking of it. I think someone said, I think it's about 16 miles in where the pain is unbearable. Okay. Okay. So your shout out is call for shout outs. Got it. Thank you. Yes. And a lot of people stop and the people who can get through that wall complete the race. It's not like it keeps getting worse and worse and worse. There's this. You know. I know there's some amazing stuff going on in this room. Alan Haber. And let's keep these brief. We got about eight minutes left. So. Succinct. PSAs. Go, Alan.

Well, a very exciting thing. The Berkeley People's park is being considered as a national historic site on the historic registry. Wow. And it is a place of freedom, actually experienced after 50 years of struggle. But I'm most excited about. And what I'm doing is the creation of a community commons not owned by the government, not owned by the corporation, but actually owned by the people that this is in the center of Ann Arbor, Michigan. So anybody who has sense of the Commons, this is a worldwide movement and we're trying to bring it into the United States as bigger other places. So I'd be eager to have connection with anybody on the Commons.

And this is a big and important story. The commons, the enclosure of the Commons 300 years ago in the story of capitalism, how we share this world together and manage it together, critically important. Alan, thank you for that. Felix, let me call on you.

Well, thanks. A project that Gil encouraged me to talk about a month or two ago, three months ago, is now at a website, WeCantWait World. I'll post that in the chat also. And we're actually starting to find to look for some people. It's sort of a mashup of Scott McKenzie, Jeff Bezos's ex wife, saying I'm going to give away $50 billion as soon as possible. And patriotic millionaires saying we're 150 people who are not afraid to list our names on a website saying we're wealthy and we want the government to tax us more. So I'm now starting to go out to look for some people who are willing to step up and either say I'm wealthy and giving a lot of money at that level, a million dollars a year, or at a lower level, I'm not wealthy, but I realize this is a crucial time. So I'm going to give 10x more than I usually do this year to my favorite group and that would be maybe 25 or $50,000. And I'm hoping to get a group of people together and inspire the tens of thousands of people in the Bay Area who have assets over $10 million.

And don't be scared off by Felix's numbers. If the number free, if 10x number for you isn't 25 or 50 or a million, you have a 10x. And that's the core of the invitation. He's aiming it strategically at big dollars to make something move. But it's an invitation that all of us can consider. So Felix, thank you for that. Let's go real quickly. David, Heather, George.

I'm excited about litigation that I will be helping with to push back against vaccine mandates. I'm very concerned that these mandates are the camel's nose for future totalitarian control of all people. So I'm actively in that fight.

Thank you.

Thank you for that. Alan Haber has posted some contact in the links as as Amos Heather Tischbein and George Mokrae.

Yes, I'm having an anxiety attack today because tonight I'm hosting a forum on equity and land use planning, a listening session in my. And it was my idea to do this and I put it together and I'm moderating it and we're getting pushback because I live in a very conservative Republican community in which our county council chair has declared with ferociousness that systemic racism does not exist here where we live. We've had some of our members of this organization, Friends of Clark county, already say they are disappointed in us in bringing racist race and systemic racism into the conversation on land use planning. So I just, I want to ask everybody at 5:30 West Coast Time if, if it crosses your mind to say a little prayer for me and everybody in this virtual Zoom forum that on this full moon night when we address this topic, it's a listening session. So we're going to.

And Heather, where's it taking place?

It's here in Vancouver, Washington.

Vancouver, Washington. Okay.

A listening session. I've recruited four persons of color to share their direct experience on how systemic how land use planning has affected their community. And I know from talking to these people in preparation for this that it's going to be a lot of emotion and some people are not going to like hearing what they're going to be hearing. So just, just hold us all in the light as we say, because I'm really nervous about this and would like an army of supporters in the virtual world with me.

Okay. Not all of you know Heather. I know for a fact that Heather is somebody who has been, who has had anxiety about other things she's done before because she does the kind of things that are anxiety inducing and she's had remarkable results, anxiety notwithstanding. So. So my prayers are with you and my confidence. Heather, thanks for sharing that with us. George, please. Yeah, for a long time I've been working on two. Hang on just one second. We're almost at time. So if other people have things to share, by all means put them in the chat and you can download the chat using the three dots on the lower right. So let's make sure people make the connections they need to make. Go ahead, George. Sorry to cut you off. I have already posted in the chat. It's 17 minutes in. But there's two projects working on for a long time which seem to me to be really practical and doable but have no traction. One is the idea of solar civil defense that is doing things to prepare next weather emergency, whatever it may be as a platform for the transition that we need. And that has gotten absolutely no traction, even though small scale solar and other things are very affordable now and very practical now. The other thing is that for over 10 years I did a free listing of energy and other events around Cambridge, Massachusetts, which covered community events, but also the open events at Harvard, mit, bu, Tufts, blah blah blah. I stopped doing that last September because it wasn't floating my same time I realized that since everything now is online through Zoom, you could do a global listing of energy and climate events and speed the information flow. But I'm not going to do that alone as it would with my local listing. And I don't know if there's any audience out there for that because my local listings never made it into the local environmental groups. They were not interested at all. And so if anything, to add to that, to help me maybe take that one more step, my email is in the and I want to encourage you, George, for what you're doing and other people to take this invitation to heart. George, a failed campaign in the past, there's no proof of what's going to happen in the future. I think at a distance, I've relished what you've done, Eric. Corey Freed used to do a version of it in the Bay Area and it's something that would be very much needed here in this region as well nationally. So if anybody's got some jones for that, some energy for it, some tools for it, what have you, technology platforms, interns, high school students. This is something well worth mounting because it'll feed the confluence of all the efforts folks here have been talking about. So George, thank you for sharing that. Save the chat folks. To find that mark, did you have one more thing? Let's see, where's this concise question? Oh, and not me. Okay, okay, I'm on. Yeah, my company, the announcement, the plug is my company can multiply the investments that Felix talked about by thousands of times. When we get to scale by replacing, we have replacements for batteries, silicon films, neodymium motor. So. So instead of reading, instead of, instead of reading what you posted in the chat post, the contact information for you, I got that right below it. So people can get right below if you want to do that. Last but not least, before we close out, David Graeber, the late and lamented and sorely missed David Graeber, who wrote death the first 5,000 years, was one of the core people in the Occupy movement, et cetera. There's a book coming out posthumously from him, launches November 9th. I don't have the title right in front of me. Anybody know the title? But it's basically a recasting of 50,000 years of human history. Humble Undertaking. There's a review of it, Everything. What's it called?

The dawn of Everything.

The dawn of Everything. There's a review of it in the Atlantic this week. I encourage you to have a look at it and have your mind blown. I've pre ordered the book. It's something we'll talk about in a future call. The basic gist of the story is that human history is not a linear progression from primitive to advanced. But there have been choices back and forth all along the way over tens of thousands of years. Years of people choosing how to organize their societies, how to live, how to engage with the land, how to govern and on. I can't say much because I haven't seen the book. The book's not out, but it's gotten me very enthusiastic as real powerful food. There's a flurry of remarkable books that have just hit the streets. Someone mentioned Paul Hawking before Leslie, I think it was you. The Regeneration book in the business world. Net positive from Paul Polman, the former CEO of Unilever. And Andrew Winston. If you go to the blog site on the Natural Logic website, you can see a list of half a dozen of them that are very much in my sites right now. Have a look. If there's interest, we can do a reading group. Otherwise we will proceed as we do here with Living Between Worlds. Next month, third Wednesday of every month, I would invite you to invite other people who share our concerns but are different than us. That's, you know, the. To broaden the diversity of the voices and the experience and the actions of the people in this conversation. So each one, that's a kind of each one reach one sort of thing. Think about who might be a good addition to this conversation and would broaden the perspectives that are in the room for us together. With that, I want to thank you very much, those of you who've been coming many times. Thanks for staying with us. Those of you who are new, I hope you been valuable for you and we'll see you next month.