Why Conversation?
Nothing will change for the better until those of us interested in change for the better engage in informed conversations about how to bring about change for the better. No one is going to do it for us. Our own engagement in conversation must be at the heart of political change and personal change.
Besides the detriment to public health and the detriment to public wealth caused by the covid crisis and responses to it, societal isolation has been detrimental to our participation in public debate.
We are being informed or misinformed, governed or misgoverned by those who purport to be working for common good but whose efforts have steadily shifted wealth and agency from the many to the exclusive few.
It is not my intention or the purpose in any conversation to tell anyone what to think. Nor is my intention, even more arrogantly, to teach anyone how to think. I only wish, humbly, to invite anyone who cares enough to do so, to think with me.
We can think together without making thoughts our aim
And dream together without making dreams our aim.
I truly appreciate everyone who has accepted my invitation to be part of the Facebook Conversation Group and the Breathing Together Zoom conversations associated with it. I hope everyone will accept a further invitation, even challenge, say, share, something, personal, political, philosophical, practical, persuasive or playful that invites conversation. Make it a habit. Do it at least once a week. Link to or direct to conversations in other forums. Respond to what others post. Just do it. I’m going to do it – not as a habit but as an obsession.
I’m currently writing and regularly updating here:
Conscious Conversation
My MeWe page
On Sunday I will be hosting a Zoom conversation titled “The Greater Reset”. The title is one that I have ‘stolen’ from an online event of the same name, ‘The Greater Reset‘, that, in turn, references Klaus Schwab’s ‘Great Reset‘.
The central question this Sunday is ‘where do we go from here?’ Covid has thrown us into a new world, that some think will be the ‘new normal’ and there has been much talk about the ‘Great Reset’ being proposed by Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum. I’m not taking any position on Schwab’s Reset (some consider it sinister, others as a cause for hope) I’m more interested in how we reset our lives, relationships and communities.
Our Sunday ‘Breathing Together’ conversations are informal online gatherings for members of the Conscious Conversations Facebook Group and other invitees.
These conversations have no agenda apart from the agendas that participants bring along and share. They have themes/titles that I or anyone else can suggest and I or someone else might talk around that theme but they are usually quite general and the conversation that arises can go anywhere. The intentions of Breathing Together are:
1. To creating a space that is safe for the expression of ideas not a space that is safe from the expression of ideas nor safe from challenge to ideas.
2. To encourage challenge that is conscious, compassionate, creative, courageous and courteous.
3. To share our work and ideas. Understanding that there is only so much that can be shared in an informal 90 minute conversation participants are invited to share or reference, in document form, any information that they want others to consider.
4. To use these conversations to find potential collaborators for existing or proposed projects.
The Breathing Together conversations are informal and unrecorded but may lead to agreed ‘spin-offs’ that are more focused, that are recorded and that relate to particular projects.
Details for the Sunday 24th Breathing Together Conversation:
Topic: Breathing Together – The Greater Reset
Time: Jan 24, 2021 07:30 PM LondonJoin Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7932003341
Meeting ID: 793 200 3341