The Storytelling, Sensemaking Animal

Sep 12, 2018

How humans make sense of the world, how society makes sense of us, and the various tensions that arise between the two.  

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ABOUT THE GUEST 

Andrew Strenio is a mitigation specialist based out of New

Orleans, providing services to poor people charged with capital crimes in Louisiana. Alongside this work, he constantly interrogates the role of the criminal justice system in our society. He is dedicated to developing and advancing alternative approaches to growing safe, equitable, and compassionate communities.

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SHOW NOTES:

• virtual reality / gaming / technology as attempt at connection in a human-ly alienating world
• social media as showing so many versions of the life you could lead, but political and economic system limit that reality
• "the false choice of the aspirational"
• Re-thinking value in capitalistic system
• Corporate externalities and conscious capitalism
• Clancey shiny photo story
• Humans as storytelling, sensemaking animals
• Preservation and distribution of knowledge as an evolutionary tool
• Humans have survived and thrived (and dominated food chain) primarily through communication and dissemination of information.
• Learning to see beyond cultural narratives
• Categories as necessary to make decisions
• “To have categories, you need a line"

• Teasing apart inner psychological structures and re-integrating them
• intellect vs intuition vs instinct 

• Clancey Qigong story
• “Spirituality deals with the ultimate questions to which there are no provable answers"
• The religious hangover’s effect on modern spirituality
• “All conversation is therapy if you’re doing it the right way.” - 
• “Objectives are fine, but the process is really the important part." 
• Misconceptions around presence/mindfulness and being productive members of society
• Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Kierkegaard, Camus, Heidegger
• “You’re constantly learning patterns so you can ignore them..” -
• Objectivity and Subjectivity
• Sean Kelly
• Brain is in your head, but mind as socially constructed
• Fear and Shame
• "It’s difficult to be present when we aren’t addressing those fundamental spiritual questions..."
• "we’re all naked and afraid"
• Need for open communication and community. Where are the spaces to bring up existential questions?
• loss of ritual and integration opportunities
• Specialization has driven people away from core existential questions.  Walls now shield us from seeing the "other" side of life.
• With greater intimacy comes greater transmission of knowledge
• Re-tribalization as regressing in an attempt to reclaim intimacy…
• Clancey note:  "Monkey Hypothesis” Andrew references is the Dunbar Number
• Image based society leads to denial, fear, and shame. 
• Shame - The emotion that is felt when a social stigma is enforced upon you…
• Awareness of race, sexual orientation spectrums growing
• Idling vs presence
• Bringing intention to presence
• Immersioneer as “a space for exploration of modern spirituality...with a focus on the deepest things the move our lives...searching for answer to fear and shame..."
• The need to bring this conversation "down to earth" to make it practical and transform information into action.  
• Justice system
• How power works and is deployed
• Ideas as most powerful things moving consciousness/culture
• Relationship between consciousness shifts and structural changes within society
• Need multiple layers of engagement to make cultural change
• "the searching we’re doing, the vocabulary we’re building, the space we’re creating"
• direct action, non-violence as the proven playbook 

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THE IMMERSIONEER PROJECT |  With our political system in disarray, trust in media declining, cultural fractures deepening, and depression rates rising, many of us are turning inward to find some sanity in these chaotic times.  Whether we’re turning to mindfulness, meditation, or mind-expanding substances, our exploration of inner space is advancing rapidly and bringing with it profound questions about the nature of human identity and modern society. Blending insights from psychology, philosophy, science, and spirituality, The Immersioneer Project seeks to supercharge this exploration, hone our shared understanding of inner space, and deepen human dialogue in the process.  Basically, it’s as far from filtered selfies and fake news as you can get.

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