Session One

Happy Thursday! I’m on the train to Fredericksburg VA with Ingrid. We listened to the first Wisdom Practice with Krista separately and at the same time. Lovely lovely. Feeling grateful for the opportunity to reflect and to share feedback.

Quick thoughts: I am journalling via keyboard and phone. I work remotely, communicate digitally, and journal offline. I’m liable to lose a though in the time between it arriving and my pencil catching up. This serves me and I will do it. My first thought was “I wish Krista didn’t say that” but then again I appreciate the challenge. If I was still writing regularly in a journal I would have appreciated the encouragement.

I love the image of Muscular hope. I mentioned it yesterday to some folks and they immediately got the picture. Wishful hope and muscular hope are unique breeds. Easily distinguished.

This idea of virtual as skill is my favorite thing right now. I’ve been listening to positive psychologists, monks, your guests, and your program for 10+ years. And even still the ramifications of this are presenting themselves everyday. And it’s the thing that (if I assume others agree) will lead to misunderstanding and disagreement. This idea is not yet mainstream (atleast not in many circles and in the lives of people I know). And even though I agree with the concept and want it to be true, I am so unpracticed in noticing it in my experience that I often fail to implement the wisdom. I am getting better, but still I think this point should not be assumed. I think the supporting quotes and journal prompts should emphasize it. And I think citations could be beneficial.

The idea of answering through the story of my life is resonant. Imagination as the key to unlocking new futures for ourselves and others is exactly where my brain has been at lately.

The quote below the audio file isn’t doing anything for me. I’ll recommend a few others and why I like them.

The quote about nothing new has ever entered the world without first being imagined quote. Something I have learned through starting a company and thinking about innovation is a concept I learned in a TED talk called the Pallet of Being. Essentially, we accumulate paints and techniques from the world, from our anscestors, and from our practice. The piano is a paint on the palette that did not exist 500 years ago. We have more colors than ever before.

I appreciate that you talk about answering these questions through the story of our lives. THIS is where we find the color.

Right now, today, what is filling you with despair? And what is filling you with hope?

Institutionalize, highly organized, and full funded hatred, greed, and confusion. Our political systems and news media are fueled by fear and hatred. Our banks, colleges, corporations are expected to grow month over month. And they often take advantage of people to meet that end. Many of the people who find “success” are so confused about “how much is enough” and what causes happiness that they put their resources back into the system of fear and confusion. When I see the above playing out in the lives of my parents, my friends, and the people around me I do feel quite a bit of dispair.

Hope. Hatred, fear, and confusions are skills. We can stop feeding into them. And we can nurture what we need in ourselves. I see how gyms have managed to become ubiquitous and I hope/expect/want to help to bring about their virtuous counterpart. I am hopeful that with awareness, education, training, social pressure, and the tools developed over the last 100 years we can institutionalize generosity, hope, love, and gratitude. That if given the option between what we have today and highly optimized opportunities for joy, we will choose joy. Economies of scale applied to the things that create peace (in our selves and others), well being, and happiness. Free market capitalism, marketing, and economies of scale are tools. They are not inherently good or bad (even though the effects are CLEARLY good and bad). They are tools that are currently wielded by first half of life institutions and people. If you use the tools to accumulate personal wealth, beat the competition, and scam suckers you will find them effective. BUT those same tools can be used to distribute wealth, increase access to wholesome and valuable resources, and to heal the world. THIS gives me hope.

What is Hope? Answer this question through the story of your life.

So fun! I love questions like this. I have never been asked before and I don’t know what’s about to happen.

When I was in middle school I wanted to join the military so I could fight terrorists and be a missionary. I wanted to hurt people to make the world a better place. I got really into prepping for over a year and was deeply nationalistic.

I could have done a lot of damage. But through my teachers, learning about WW2, the internet, music, and podcasts I was exposed other options. My initial influences were TED, Jack Johnson, the On Being Podcast, Steve Delaney (my high school religion teacher), sister Rose (nun at my school), Marietta and Bridget in Ecuador, and Buddhist teachers like Tich Naht Hahn and Bhante G.

Once I could imagine other ways of accomplishing my goals (i.e. stopping vs fighting a war) I was able to put my energy there. People shared my underlying goals and talked about/lived out solutions that seemed more effective than the alternatives that I had been exposed to. This comes back to my first answer. I was raised by the system that now fills me with despair. And I have hope because I was innately able to grow and choose better options once I was aware of them. If I can help to generate awareness then I can extend that gift to others.

Hope is an orientation to what has improved in my own life. A belief that others are just as capable of change if given enough time and opportunity. A commitment to hope is a commitment to creating those opportunities.

FEEDBACK / IDEA - would they consider creating a medium style website? Or a simple forum where people can share their journal posts? I’d love to find other people who live nearby to work with and support. New friends.