 This is the OGM weekly call for Thursday, September 8th, 2022. And we are gathered here first to pick a topic for today's conversation. Ken, why don't you try saying something again, see if it's better. Can you hear me now? Yeah, yeah, you like the Verizon guy. All right, yes. So I was asking how far does April walk in a single day on this. So today's walk was 14 kilometers, which is not bad at all. And I think I think max day is maybe 20 some kilometers or something like that. It's not none of the days is terrible. And I was just relating that, that she's picked up a habit of trail walking running on Fridays and good weather. Forest Park near here, which is like a marathon in length. So, so she'll, she'll do 26 miles and then come stop at a coffee shop that's between the park and home and then walk home and then she's like, okay, next. Like, how do you, how, how do you do that. We were entertaining topics in the Google group. Happy to sort of surface some of those. There were a couple other thoughts on the matter most channel. Eve, thanks for joining. Yay. Great to see you. Lovely to see you. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us. We had some alternating formats for these Thursday calls. Last week was the regular old check in format where I just go through the little rectangles and zoom and everybody talks about what's OGM me in their life. And this week we're picking a topic. And we haven't picked the topic yet. So the far first order of business, so to speak, is to kick around what we would like to spend this time talking about. Media. And Eric is saying on the chat, don't pick my topic. So, so I will wait at less than than the others then, but who would like to throw in a candidate. Yeah, Pete is totally right. Eric that was a very clever way to get us to talk about your topic but still. As you might in the chat. And this idea of great. Let me read it out. How are people coping with the dynamic tension between a great sense of urgency to act on big issues like climate change and the rise of extremism and authoritarianism. With the reality that as individuals it's very hard to find a place to stand and leverage to bring about the needed changes. I really like that topic. I think, I think that poll is fabulous I'm seeing a lot of. I'm seeing this and nods of affirmation. There being anybody else would like to float a candidate topic. Yeah, I did post yesterday a couple of economics topics one was from normie Prince. I was fascinated by, by the way she framed the, the doom of the future. So, there is there are a lot of people who think you collapse is coming and she's basically in agreement with that. There's a twist to it, without really explaining the cost of this crystal in a nutshell she's saying that we are in for disruptive changes that equal the invention of the combustion and steam engines, which transformed our cities in a fairly short period of time. And then other inventions like electricity, like the internet and so on that created a major disruptions. But then, but then she's saying that the crash that is coming now will be nothing like 2008. And she, it will be changing American cities and communities around the world really in ways that we can't even fully imagine. And then, but she, so she keeps spinning on this but she doesn't really go down as to why she thinks that these changes will be so disruptive and I think we would say well we know because we have run out of resources in the natural sectors to continue using exploitations of the natural resources to feed economic growth. So with that coming to an end, the shift will be will be fantastic. And so she's saying there will be, there will be loose business and losers again because the industry is going to shift into different sectors of the economy and innovate new new structures. So there will be a lot of people getting very rich again but other sectors will lose and vanish in the process. Interesting and Grace was saying in the chat that I don't know about coming soon seems like it's already happening and she is one of the people that invented alternate schemes for how things might work. I'm just showing my brain on know me because I looked here quickly as you brought her up I've not read any of her books but I'm quite amused that the titles are it takes a pillage behind the bonuses bailouts and deals from Washington to Wall Street collusion how central bankers rig the world, all the president's bankers the hidden alliances that drive American power, other people's money the corporate mugging of America, permanent distortion how the financial markets abandoned the real economy forever, which I think is her latest book I'm not sure and I don't think I have all her books here, but super interesting. From a constructive perspective. It's worth contemplating where we think the economy is going to go because you can really put some pieces together and and understand that given current natural resource depletions. There are at least once many responses and they're not electric cars right I mean electric cars are not going to the solution even the, even the electric system, as it is envisioned, because you couldn't build enough batteries for once to to empower all this so where is this thing, most likely going to go is really a great puzzle. And I, I, I sort of dipped in with you because I like this being a little excursion into the topic with us that I want to come back to the group and say between the two topics. So hold up a one if the first topic that came up the woman can propose feels good to hold up a two fingers. If what costs just recommended sounds good. Grace, Grace, you cannot game the system that way. demerit demerits in the value in the value system for grace. We could also do topic fusion where we go there. My fear with the know me Prince topic is that I've not read any for works I feel very lightly loaded for the journey into the topic I would just absorb. And I don't know how many of us are like up on up on all that content in some sense but it sounds good. Any thoughts are close. What is that long, long link. There's a talk she was she was giving there. And there's no real conclusion to this conversation, but as she leads up to promoting her book here. There are a lot of Jews in there that I mean she is advisor to the World Bank to Goldman Sachs to governments and so on so she really is a very influential person that influential person that I never heard of before. I love that. Thank you. Cool. So why don't we start in on Ken's topic and see if we might fold in clauses topic and go from there. There we go. And, Ken, if you'd like to sort of start to read this into it that would be great. Okay, thank you. So this is something I've been struggling with for a long time. I'd say I first started my ecological awareness started in 1987 when I read Buckminster for his critical path and it accelerated in the early 1990s when I moved to California and did a lot of work with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and Joanna Macy and John seed and Council of all beings and you know this is very in the weeds there of, you know, trying to become more ecologically aware. And over the last 30 years, I feel like the acceleration of time at once said everything's getting better and better and worse and worse faster and faster. And from the standpoint of worse and worse, you know, we're watching the world literally burning up in front of our eyes. This week I mean I was 111 degrees in the next town over for me yesterday, two days ago. And the climate weirdness is here that's really happening. Watching the rise of authoritarianism, the erosion of democratic rights. It makes me really anxious. And I don't have a lot of ground stand on to try and cope with it so in the, if you take a then diagram a better and better worse and worse faster and faster. If you're in better and better you sound like Polly Anna and no one wants to listen to you because you're on grounded and you're so it's all gonna be fine. If you're in worse and worse you sound like chicken little people like go away the world's the sky's not following you know the world's going to help. And if you're faster and faster you just sound like a maniac. So I think we have to actually become larger than all three of those circles and hold them as a, this is true all this is happening and where can we find in ourselves and our communities the resources to hold these dynamic tensions and find ways of being productive. Traditional organizing seems to be one path of that but it seems inadequate. I don't know if anybody is aware but what's going on in my town right now there was a brutal police takedown of a to a six foot to 250 pound cop took down a five foot tall Latino man in the canal area, who was totally cooperative he was sitting there drinking some beer after work and they're like, he said give me your ID and he stood up he says sit down he said I have to stand up to get my wallet out said sit down and he he didn't sit down so this cop just took him beat him, gave him a broken nose concussion, pushed his face into the payment all bloody. Then he went back and took a freaking snapshot with his camera as a trophy photo, and he lied on his report and really lied and so there was a city council me the night and hundreds of people showed up and they they're saying this is not a nice late moment this is the police. The canal and center fell is there one square mile ghetto where we hold all of the immigrants, there's over 30 languages spoken there. People live sometimes 20 to a two bedroom apartment sleeping and shifts. So there's this, this sense of what really impressed me was the other night. All these young people stuff said we're the next generation and we're not going to stand by and put up with this shit the way our parents did we're not going to be quiet we're going to be out here all the time. So I think there's a new generation that's really on fire. And I love things like extension rebellion and sunrise movement and you know, but I'm, I'm just personally don't quite know exactly how to handle this and these things pull on me all the time. And it's really disruptive, you know. I'm wondering what other people do how to how do people on this call, hold all these tensions, where do you find effective actions. What can we do together that would that would support each other and maybe make a little dent in the world. That's my framing. Thank you. That's really beautiful. And to dramatically oversimplify. There's two big sides of this one of them is the coping side is just how do you absorb deflect defer process of, you know, how do you maintain stability in the face of all the kinds of news that we're seeing these days. And that is how do you act. So, exactly, maybe sort of coping and acting, and, and the acting is really complicated. In some cases it's really simple because you know I can save that starfish kind of attitude, you know I save that one. Cool. And people helping individuals really matters there was a lovely piece in the New York Times, yesterday the day before about how very small random acts of kindness really help their, the givers of small things underestimate the effect of their kindness on the receivers, and that those things are pretty major. So anybody who would like to jump in please, please do. Mr Kelly. All right, thank you. Two, two short rules principles guidelines, whatever you call it. First one is, figure out in terms of your experience, but also your intuitive you know what your heart is telling you, you know what are you drawn towards, and where do you, what do you have some whatever skill experience, you know that would give you leverage. So for me that is in. Actually it's a pretty, it's a very specialized area it's the pre voting part of democracy. It's, it's what happens with groups of people that allow them to learn from each other and to hang out with each other. There's a lot of emphasis on civility in the in the literature, very important, but there's a lot of cognitive stuff that's not being looked at at all, which is how do you make it more interesting for people to learn that in a way that is not part of a debate or not part of a competition exactly it's a softened debate and there's a whole bunch of stuff that I'm trying to create in that space, but a second principle is check yourself. You know, consider how broad are the definitions of bias, consider how easy it is to to be diluted. And you know you say well gee I know about the major delusions. I'm not falling into the conspiracy theory I'm not falling into the vaccine blah blah blah you know, but there's subtler there's much more subtle distortions and blind spots that they creep into all of us so you need a secondary strategy which is kind of like where you force yourself to to consume a certain amount of information from people you pretty thoroughly disagree with. Those are just two, two guidelines, you know, but that's plenty for now. Thank you. Thanks john and also these I in my own experience I find these toxins kind of accumulate in a way that I don't notice or can't regulate easily. And so, so I will suddenly find myself in a place where I feel disoriented or really anxious, not realizing that you know five minutes early I was like oh you know this is fine everything's going okay and and I would love to know if anybody can include how we hear ourselves better so that we notice those moments, how we raise a flag for ourselves, even or for our partners that that's going on etc just to be more aware of what that is. Doug, Doug C. You're muted. You think by now I would have learned about that. Yes, your first time on zoom. I think the first thing is to make sure that you're doing something that seems to be meaningful in the context the best you can. It creates dignity and it creates a sense of well I tried. Didn't work, but that's the way it is. Now, my proposal would be and I don't know how to do this is if we take possibilities for how things could unfold and turn them into scenarios. So we don't have to choose which scenario is going to be manifesting itself, but we have a set that seems to cover the possibilities. Pretty well, I think it would be a really good thing to do I don't know how to do it. Can you elaborate elaborate on that just a little bit more. Well, if you take something like, let's go all green and turn that into a scenario so it's not so vague. But if you take some steps, then you can begin to see where it might actually succeed or where it's obviously going to break down makes some progress in the analysis of the field of possibilities. Rather than arguing over which one is going to happen. In storytelling or making a point, you know, a non fictional kind of point in a presentation, I tend to refer to this as texture, which is like what does it feel like what is what are the specifics of this thing on the ground. And a long time ago, I heard advice for writers about writers block was I think it's one of my teachers long ago who said, picture a building some place in a specific place picture a brick on the facade of that building. Now tell me what happened to that building, you know, in the last hour or in the last day, like, like, do something very specific and describe it and Stuart's a professional writer. But in some in some sense, the more we understand the texture the more really gets and also the more we start to let go of things we don't realize don't actually work logically. I remember a long time ago I had to turn a speech I was giving into a into a white paper, and the process of turning illustrative diagrams that I could hand wave over into actual logic that worked on the page and and I wasn't rejecting because it made sense was very and very enlightening it corrected a lot of things I had taken for granted in the quick flyover. Go ahead Doug. The example of a scenario would be, let's take all the gas fuel cars and turn them into EVs. Right. So the analysis was that if we look at the amount of material it would take to replace all the current cars with EVs. It does not exist in the world. The amount of material isn't there. We can't do that. Okay, so that we scratch that scenario, and move on to other plausible. That's the kind of procedure I see. Thanks Doug, and I think that opens up the path for cleverness and innovations because just because that something big doesn't pencil out it doesn't mean that something big isn't possible in some other hacky and interesting So, so trying to, trying to not shut down avenues because the major logic of it doesn't work but rather preserve, you know, sparks some innovations and how to do that. Grace then Stewart and Carl. Yeah, this really big question I mean, I really in many I'm going to be touching on this is like, I really kind of wish that I didn't have, not, I was not told me but there's something about the wishes that my vision wasn't so big. Because getting the kind of funding that I need to do what I need, you know what I've envisioned is like, I don't know how to do that. And I'm sort of sitting here like okay well. For me there's a number of things that are balancing issues and one is certainly the emotional thing I and I live alone and it's not simple like it's not easy to just like I kind of don't have somebody to lean on. And also I work in an industry where a lot of people are quite a bit younger than I am and I spent last week with a whole bunch of them. There's a lot of mentoring and guidance that they asked for, which tends to drain my physical energy. And I wasn't really careful about that. I got quite. I'm still having a lot of physical discomfort based on sort of this. I don't know my energy healer has like a whole thing about that my spiritual path. And what's been useful for me which is like kind of an oversimplification is being like, okay, well, we're in a war. It's kind of like a grand matter with that it's not clear what the war is and there's certainly there's certainly a lot of time there are since certainly in the communication media certainly a digital world is certainly available between those of us who are really fighting for environmental preservation and human connection and those of us who are just trying to make a profit and not cause a conflict with that. And so that has helped me a lot. Actually, you know, okay, well, I know what side I think I'm on I could be on I could be on the evil side that we could all be the evil people on this side but this is a side I've chosen. And there's going to be some injuries and some wounds and some emotional trials and it's probably going to go on for a decade and just kind of having that perspective. It's, maybe it's kind of a dumb simplified perspective but it definitely helps me to kind of say okay well that's what's going on. I'm missing this morning that when you watch like a movie about like these heroes and stuff. They're never like, maybe I should just freaking go home and go back to my nine to five job like Clark Kent is never like why won't I just like keep writing newspaper articles. It'd be a shorter it'd be a shorter movie, right. It'd be so much truer like every day I'm like what, why don't I just, you know, like, I could work like I do now a few hours a day make a living and have a pretty easy life. And just be an observer I mean I'm not going to win right like what's the chance that we're going to win this war like not great. I do connect to what Doug said about like okay, you do what feels like you're making a contribution, and that does something. And I really connect to what you said about small apps, I mean, I was in this group of 40 young people yes, last week, and who knows which one of them like took a jam home, and does have the energy to execute it. Yeah, I do find it very difficult. It's been this week has been very physically challenging. I don't know when that's going to get resolved. Or if it's going to get resolved. Yeah. So, and I think surrounding myself with co founders who are can see what I see. For me personally it's been surrounding myself a lot about women. I'm not finding that particular dynamic, getting worse, the dynamic between men and women getting worse. And I don't really know how, you know, like, I'm not. It's not the area in which I've chosen to act, but I have chosen to only choose women as co founders. I'm not in the area of trying to have my quality I don't even think that more equality is the question here and think the question is. It's very difficult for me to even look at this question but there's a question about the things that I see about what economics is that are very easy for me to explain in a female environment and very hard to explain their environment. And, um, yeah, there's something there that I can't quite put my finger on. So, yeah, anyway, but I think that having a mission knowing what I want to do is really helpful and doing a little bit every day like as much as I can do. Um, can you just say a tiny bit more about this thing you just said that things about economics that are easy to see or explain among women but hard and men I empathize with what you said, I would just love to know a couple sentences more texture on it. So all the economic systems that men seem to be proposing around me and talking about talking about modifying are based on this idea of work and labor and this idea that there's certain kinds of that by working, you make your living in an economy. Now, you can map that onto the to graver is bullshit jobs which one of you guys quoted this week can I think posted it this way, like, yeah, like, really that's what's making money and that quote that you said that there's an inverse relationship between how much you help people and how much money you have. It seems to be very true certainly true in my in my day to day work. So pointing this out, no matter how much I pointed out, every time I talk to men about their new tokenomics and their new models are like, well we're calling it contribution, I'm like contribution to what contribution to the project I'm like okay. You know and you have these down and the thing is these guys and you're proving each other's contributions. And okay let's say you're a woman, and you know in a particular part of the world and you're pregnant for the third time and asking for maternity leave and your colleagues have to vote on that. Right, what's your contribution. And so, it's just backwards and also most of what we do during the day isn't exchange it's share. And this, this whole fall is share everything we do in this group is share everybody's been so generous with me and this group just share that like I'm going to keep track of that as soon as we start keeping track of it it's just to get cringy. And this seems to be, and then what people just say like what guys will say is like, that doesn't scale. I'm like well why not. You know, and it's just really, why don't we look into all the things that we share, and the bulk of our economy, which is sharing and Karen and say what would that look like. And so I think that's what's been really hard for me you know people like well but then people would produce anything and it's like, you know, I don't have to get started like I can just like, I can just push the button on files who knows that the people are producing are not for the people who are screwed at the end of the line. You know it's like our whole economy is on its head and but still every time I talk to people that are cooking represents work or contribution or, you know, well we vote on each other so we know what contribution is it's different. It's like, we're not going to get anywhere. We're not going to get anywhere in economics, as long as we're trying to quantify things and compare their value to one another. And, and, and I think to over generalize brutally very male response is things like markets and prices, and you know mechanisms that will solve for a large crowd. And we try to sort of impose that into context where there are commons and where there are intangibles and where there are other kinds of value circulating which those responses those solutions don't actually address and in fact, in many cases just kill. And, and, and, you know, I think this is just happening or all around us and we're at this liminal moment where many different people are reinventing how we live together and how we, how values created and moved around. And unless we open up to less normal conversations we won't make it into a better system that easily will. This will be replaced by robots that are enforcing more brutal system or something like that. And then you said that thing like how value is created and move around. I don't know what you said. Yeah, we just use this word value like value value value and it's like what the hell is that. Thank you, thank you for indulging that Stuart. Yeah. So I think we all need to have our hard drives erased. In terms of our thinking, you know, and had conversations with with Doug about this, and with Stacey about this and we just, we just need our hard drives erased. We're all living in, in, in conceptions that we've all outgrown. It's true politically, and it's true economically. I also wanted to say to Grace, there's some great stuff on Richard Roars daily. There's a lot of things that I miss about the Grail. Once we've seen the big vision and, and, and, and accept the Grail. You can't put the genie back in the bottom you can't step back is just part of, you know, how you're living and and seeing, seeing in the world. To speak to the great introduction that can provided. Our leaders have totally failed us in terms of climate, because the message of how bad it is is only in the minds of people who have done some digging. You know the political leaders talk about it obliquely, but they really don't talk about how bad it really is I guess they're afraid of catastrophizing in some ways. But so people are just not aware, and they continue to, to, you know, live out in the way that they have been in culture. When I said we need our we need our hard drives erased I really mean we all need a completely different way about of thinking about what it is to be a human being in the world that this moment in time on this on this planet. It's just, it's just, you know, absolutely essential. So, people that you know that the folks who are living in the ghettos that that that can mentioned. They're in a place of resignation and resignation breeds violence. There's nothing else to do, but to act out act out violently. What's been my salvation over time is, you know, 10 years of fighting down in the pits of the practice of law taught me how it doesn't work the adversary system doesn't work at all period. It's a terrible, terrible way of solving problems, and it's getting worse and worse and worse. I've just gotten into the TV show suits, which is providing an amazing, an amazing, you know, a little bit of escape about how, how, how not to do it and how people are living at that certain level. Buddhist thinking has been just an extraordinary tool for me, but but I mean, just really kind of stepping into it and and developing the consciousness of awareness of when you're being violent, when you're being aggressive. It really is amazing if you really start to dig down into that. Some of the words we use, how we react to other people. It's just, it's just kind of a critical to kind of recalibrate our own, our own kinds of kinds of thinking it's been very very useful to me and in my own practice, you know, whether it's meditation or some form of movement of some kind but but really being aware of that kind. And I agree with Doug, the notion of having a mission that the mantra of do what you can where you are with what you have is just so so so important. So that's my two cents for now. Thanks to Carl. Yeah, with, with Doug's comment one of the things that came up for me was a scenario work that I think that originated with Shell Futures Group, yours lords and art of the long view. I think that evolved into the global business network. That type of thing but my understanding of it was you, you identify two dimensions. So you have a quadrant system you come up with the most extreme scenario you can for each of those quadrants, and then whatever it's going to happen is going to be some, probably some kind of combination of all four by some validity in each of those scenarios. So, that's something I'm taking a look at again to. Yeah, it's interesting with grace was saying, I'm, well, I'm working on my PhD and actually got a, my framework is about making contributions and and having an impact. Well, the one thing I'm a math was a math major and stuff so one thing I said I'm not even getting near quality quantitative analysis some looking at the various qualitative ones and it's kind of interesting I guess not surprising and almost all the the vast majority of the qualitative research methods have emerged out of the nursing communities like narrative inquiry and things. Yeah, actually, and then somebody, it's one of those things like this week has just been incredible because I have had a couple of meetings and the posts and stuff and I'm linked in somebody posted something about this can can Coleman has a book. It came out I guess late last year about from paycheck to purpose and stuff so I'm taking a look at that it's got all kinds of references to like more like it's not academic at all, but you know it'll be some psychology today stuff so probably be some academic leads for me under that to and things and then another one of my primary mentors a good friend of his was the director of nursing and University Indiana and we talked and he gave me all kinds of links but one of them was to meta integral. I don't know if you're with that but that. It comes out, I think he was just describing is coming out of Ken Wilbur's work it was actually somebody that he knew it. He knew about it from fielding. He actually has a certificate from fielding graduate Institute and integral studies and he mentioned this meta integral if you look at their website which posts they have a thing different kinds of capitalism and wisdom economies and they have a they have a card deck called the wisdom economy card deck that I think my friend Christian samsarian helped create. Yeah, as Ted Nelson says everything is intertwined. Isn't it. Sure enough is. Thanks Carl. Further down the case class. Yeah, I wanted to pick up on the theme that Doug started to, to find ways to engage in and be hopeful, you know, about the future and see where we can make an impact and I mean I have come to the conclusion that change has to be local. You know, it has to be bottom up originating from within the community. And there's some interesting experiments already one of the best I've seen is happening in Maine. There are a couple of articles where the communities have decided to abandon the regulations that govern and control and inhibit the food markets, which in turn prevents small course and small producers from selling into into the marketplace. And those kinds of activities create jobs first of all, you know they create engagement them up up labor markets that they help people who are otherwise unimplorable to to find a job. This is the kibbutz type formations of intentional communities. So there is. This is the beginning, you know, of this massive change, which, which I think is what Aaron Wittler he is talking about. This is the, I mean, the, this is the, the. First of all, the localization of economies, securing your own environment securing your water sheds your own soil, you know, the, the food security food sovereignty issues that are coming with that. So, I think if we, if we pick something that fits our own talent, you know, the aptitudes interests and so on. There are plenty of fantastic examples out there, you know, best practice examples that that are worthwhile to emulate. And that is because I'm so no singularly focused on on food and food system which now I'm pushing hard to to elevate to the same level as the energy sector. That's a wide open field. There are so many points of engagement and potential to to to work constructively, whether you're in finance or like what Ken is doing is wonderful stuff. I'm from, from many different angles but no they are the other things and it has to be local so I'm starting to engage locally now. And the first thing I realize is that I have to power way way way down because my assumptions and things that I see us just like, Oh my God, yeah, what is this guy talking about. So we have to really, you know, first of all, appreciate and accept the, the, the place where people are, you know, not overwhelm but just now start to to really engage there so the local team is scheduled a meeting with me with the local Democratic candidate and so we can be have a chance to talk about bills that are pending that are going to be very impactful to our local community. So, so you, you, you have so many ways. You know, a letter to the editor, you know, engage with the League of Women Motors do all sorts of things that fit your temperament and your, and your interest but by all means stay local, you know, go local because that's where the action really hits but know what's happening at the middle level, you know, so you can direct your efforts locally. The action really is missing right now because the media isn't picking up on it the media is not educating the public right in in ways that become where you become aware of resource depletion around you know the climate crisis that's already unfolding. And what are the options that we have to engage and mitigate and and be constructive about it and I think once you see that you know once you see something that you can engage with your mood changes now your outlook changes and and your energy gets routed into constructive channels. I want to I want to pull on the thread that I think Grace was putting in the chat, while you were talking, which is that the food nexus is so massively important. And one way it plays out is jobs, making food so we can pay for the $5 a pound tomato, which started to make us cost so much I don't understand. The other way to think about it is food that people can have without needing to have money so that they are not hungry so that they like eat really well and are healthy with natural food and and like that's sort of, we don't talk about that end of it much at all. And recently for some reason I had I started looking at yard sharing or other kinds of schemes where people say hey, you have a backyard you're not doing anything and if I come in and grow stuff and give you 10% of what I harvest is that cool and those systems don't seem to be thriving at least I had a hard time googling like what was still there that didn't seem to be a thing that was going on. And so, so I wish we talked more about those kinds of things and did more of that. But there are massive opportunities for innovation for startups, you know for jobs because local still needs support at the macro level, you need tools you need systems, you know you need software for example all sorts of things that can that can create the development of a community. So I'm engaging our consulting firm to to see if we can actually develop a product, you know that and that sort of works like a brokerage function because you have. examples of examples of wonderful startups and communities who are doing amazing things, but you have to pull them together because you have one group that's working on one technical aspect, but it needs to be combined with five others in order to really impact that at the community level. So this kind of broken knowledge brokerage I think is going to be a big thing. Moving forward. Thanks class, Stacy then Wendy then Grace. I would like to talk to you about that. That's exactly what I'm working on generally speaking is the interoperative like knowledge networks between. Sure. Stacy. Ironically, I had been thinking about Ken's question before I got on the call. And I wasn't going to talk about it because I decided I need to write about this because I'm not very good at speaking off the cuff and I certainly didn't want to get emotional or we be. And I've been working on that issue probably for about two months and struggling with it trying different things. But what Grace brought up really hit home, because one of the things that I recognized and it has to do with other comments that were made because I'm happy to do that because I always feel like I'm, you know, adding value in some way, whether it's to person's life or to the bigger picture. But unfortunately I recognize that in this world, if you're not getting paid for something, at least for me, eventually, if you're not getting recognition in some way. If there comes a time where you need to be fed, and there's nobody there to feed you, you realize that something's off, and you've done something wrong so when we talk about doing us differently, it's hard to do us differently. When the world is still the same. So I just wanted to put that out there. Thanks. I mean, and there's definitely sort of filter shifts perspective shifts, attitudinal shifts that are really, really important here or we don't solve for the things we're saying you're talking about. Yeah, if I could just add one thing because the short answer to the quest to a few of the questions, both questions is that I really focus on relationships. And I think that's going to be what saves the day, who's around you when you look around wherever you are. Awesome. Wendy. Great conversation. Thank you, everyone. I want to pull on the thread that was that I feel like has popped up in a couple different comments along the way that's about the, how do we cope, how do we manage how can we shift from the bottom up people's understanding and perspective and galvanize action. It's funny it reminded me I forgot I did this but just like a month and a half ago or so I was in a email thread with Hank Cune and Wendy Elfer talking about youth mental health and the anxiety they have around climate change. And I went back and forth enough that I said here let me just give you a list of tools off the top of my head. I'm not sure what is already out there that I know exists for youth but really it's for everyone. And so I, and then I threw it thought it was rich enough I threw it into a document we haven't gotten back to it. So I'm sharing in chat now the document that I put together. And I've, right I just went back through it and I realized okay so first for anyone who wants to take a look at it the first part is just the context of our email conversation around youth. And the second part is a list of tools, which again are not comprehensive in any way but at least give like an in touch on things that people already talked about today. You know connecting with other people and building relationships it's going to be a massive is not recognized in mainstream but definitely recognized in the science in psychology as being the, you know, being essential to well being and thriving so those connections are going to become essential as we move forward and we deal with more crises and more stress, but then there's a bunch of other things in their apps people can use programs, the role of stress in our lives and how it opens us up to growth and change but then when it gets too much. It shuts us down so how do we find that that midpoint where we're motivated but we're not. But we're not so overwhelmed we end up doing nothing right so I try and I'm touching on a lot of stuff in there and then at the end I talk about my, my ideal, which is was just mentioned actually twice, I think which is what we really need. If people have the tools to understand where their strengths are and their skills are not from the traditional sense but from from some of these newer newer perspectives. Then activating those strengths in service to something that matters to them helps to move what is just sitting anxiety that's not going anywhere into something. Actual and a knowledge network is going to be a huge piece of that, and I think technology has a role it hasn't had for really long time, or ever really. And in scaling up this one to one relationship that used to only happen say in a therapy session or in a coaching session or in a mentoring session where people are more capable of finding self selecting and finding on their own, where they can take some action on something. So just wanted to share that happy to have more conversations or start a conversation on that document if it speaks to people. Then for me, generally, um, you know, I tend to love to work in inception spaces and spaces that aren't full, you know, clearly defined yet. And I am, I have, you know, in working with people who are working in the sphere of meta project. I have gotten my head around enough of the pieces now that I have chosen to focus on regenerative agriculture, not with all my time and energy but as a focus of all the conversations and thinking so that as I'm building processes. I'm using regenerative agriculture to bounce the ideas off of in order to help clarify what needs to happen next and start to clarify priorities. I just see so much potential through the people momentum energy. There's a number of people involved that to this class is what you were talking about to help on another level to try to organize on a slightly, you know, try to be the mycelium around try to be the glue sticking it together what else can we do on a larger level to help organize all the great work that's already happening to try and advance it. That's where my energy is going because if I don't do something I'm going to explode. Hang on class. I was just thinking why don't we take a take a breath for a moment. And class if you'll remember what you're about to say I'll go to you next but let me just take us into silence for a little bit, because I'm feeling a little anxiety from the pace of our conversation. And I figure that means that means maybe a couple of us are so I'll bring us right back out. Everyone take a couple of slow, long breaths, please. How's, then Stuart then Doug and Doug I hadn't seen your, your hand up but I'm glad you put your virtual hand up as well so let's go class first. Yeah, I mean in response to, to focusing on use and I was in a conversation with with jeans workshop and Chimo and bought football was also an GM member, but making a presentation on how he's thinking about assisting children in the first phase of development. And so you had a very complex set of of Google maps and thoughts and so on. And what came to mind for me is that go back to Maslow here and and where is the hierarchy of needs really it starts with food security. It starts with food and then shelter and then safety. So take a look at this. These two charts here which I pulled up then. The next child in the United States is food insecure. And when you think about the trauma that causes. Now, first of all, the, the, the, the brain cannot develop adequately normally and fully, unless you have the nutrients that are that are required for the brain to to evolve, you know, and our food is nutrient deficient and in many cases is not even available. And so my wife worked in a school that was 98% Hispanic very poor. They had like zero resources in Coachella Valley, whereas the community next door had more money than they knew what to do with. But that's just part of the, of the local city of the American funding of school systems here. But it's really important to think about providing food, shelter and and safety first to before the mind is open to to receive training and messaging. So if the end so so we. So I think any intervention here has to be built along that hierarchy to to to put that and there are some wonderful examples of what communities are doing to pull kids that are that are without parents or parents that are dysfunctional off the street and put them into after school workshops and what have you. So that just that just came to mind so when you that that really hits me I wrote a paper. I'm going to pay but I mean I put put together some thoughts for the local superintendent of the school, and I started teaching some classes they had a computer lab sitting there is 30 I max, which they needed for testing but otherwise this thing was sitting empty so I asked them to to collect the smartest kids in the school and give them to me for a couple of days a week. And so I created a computer lab and I was using like Khan Academy and coach.org and teaching games. And I worked with these kids and was amazing how they plume you know and became so interested in joining and talking and so on. So again, you know there's a ton of things we can, we can do. Okay. So, a small thing when you put that article and I went and looked at it, and I immediately went to Michael pollen saying that nutrition is not food. And so that the whole conversation about, you know, eat, eat food mostly plants not too much as as like good blanket advice. And so anyway just want to fill that back into the into the conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, just two quick comments one. In terms of different kinds of thinking. The idea of minutes often talked about in terms of non dualism. And that is that we're, we're, we're one cell in a greater whole and and so much of it, the, the education and the cultural brainwashing has been about, you know, a grand isement of the individual and an individual accomplishment and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And each one of us is just, you know, one cell in in in one little system. So think about all of the systems in the human body and how they differentiate into organs, but each little cell is contributing to some some bigger capacity for for life and and living and the miracle of that. And how do we shift our own brain into thinking that way it's it's it's much more Eastern way of thought that we're part of a larger community and it's not the aggrandizement of the individual. So just to pick up on that Schmockenberger who many of us have a lot of respect for, you know, talks about how with shifting of algorithms in in in some of the mass media that's out there. We could shift that that thinking in a shorter period of time that most of us would think possible. Thanks to work. You know, you're muted. Every sitcom needs a running gag so I think this is really well. I always wanted to be the running gag. Achieve running gag. It would have improved my relationships in grade school. If we start out with the idea that's very popular here of going local with agriculture in particular, and think of it in terms of scenarios you think okay, if you do that, how does it play out against rising temperatures. What is our strategy for what to do with local agriculture that copes with rising temperatures. If not, we've got a lot of work to do. If so, then it will suggest what we need to do. Thank you. And one of the things that just keeps showing up for me is, given how complicated all these issues are we have no blackboard where we can each contribute what we see and what we understand. I think the options are really the space for sharing the logic and the evidence and the paths and the stories is still not there. And I keep wrestling with how do we explain what I call the big fungus and how do we help people feed the big fungus in a way that feeds all of us that metabolizes information well so that decisions like the ones we're talking about how do I find a thing to do now that has meaning and will contribute to the future to address. Ken. Thank you. I really have appreciated hearing people on this, this topic, because it's near and dear to my heart. I'm in the middle of a book called the nut makes curse by Amitav Ghosh, which I would not have found without Bill Anderson and I have to say it's really an amazing book. It's a hard book to read because it really looks at the difficult aspects of human nature. It's also a wonderful because he's an amazing writer. One of the things he points out which which I like to a few months ago I posted a talk by a bio a comal off a, who says you know, we don't ascribe agency to anything other than ourselves. And it goes up repeatedly in the net makes curse that the world is alive and in the early 1600s there was a notion taking place in Europe a new philosophical view of the earth is inert, and it's only productive when people work it. So when the Europeans came to the Americas, you know, they saw this land that looked wild and they're like, the reason we can take over the land since the Indians aren't working at therefore they don't own it. We're making a productive now it's ours and we can do with it what we want. And this idea of the world being alive is really missing, I think, and a lot of our and when I say our I'm talking about westernizing global northern culture has forgotten the world is alive that we came out of the earth. And when we start to look at the agency of the planet itself. Then climate change makes a lot of sense. We have altered the chemical balance of the planet, we have altered the biochemical balance the you know what we've altered the heat trapping capacity. And the planet is has agency it is adapting exactly as it would. And I think we forget we I'm really working on this week. I think it's so easy to forget that we live in a world that is alive because it's been taken out of our cultural lens for so long. And so when I am struggling. I mentioned in the in the chat I go to Wendell Berry's mad farm liberation front you know I go and lay down where the where the drake lies and I, I lay on the earth I will go and lay on the ground and be quiet and in the sky and feel what what's what can how can I draw on this larger power this this larger thing that has no. It's personal and that it brings people forth but it's very impersonal, and I just listened for the wisdom of the rocks. I just I would like more people to start to recover this sense of being part of a living world as opposed to being part of an inert planet that's just there to be torn up and exploited and yeah more rock music thanks Jerry was good. Instead of heavy metal. I like that. All right, I'll stop. I like that a lot. Thank you can that's a that's a lovely meditation and I didn't know about that essay of berries that manifesto so I will read it when we're done here, Julian. So I had a question about something you just wrote and what can was just talking about. We hear so often stories about how indigenous cultures live with the earth instead of stomping on it. So what are you doing, you know in your comment you talk about the European view and some long time ago the Europeans were the indigenous cultures of their locality, and what happened to turn that notion of living with the earth into one of stomping on it. So what's, um, what's the, there was a book I read a very long time ago that talked about the pursuit of witches across Europe, it might have been Leonard slain's alphabet versus the goddess maybe. There was a lot of indigenous wisdom all across Europe, and we managed to go hunt it down and stamp it out like all over the place and replace it with the religion of the time or whatever else but but you're I think you're you're totally right we. My own amateur thesis on world history is we through lots of trial and error, including lots of error that wiped out tribes everywhere, we learned how to live in community on the Commons, all around the earth. And then we had this weird abnormal, a barren period where a couple cultures that had guns, germs and steel, basically took over the world and imposed a series of worldviews that were mechanistic theistic or monotheistic etc etc on everybody and the we here is very dangerous I agree. And so I think a piece of what happened was the undermining of us we and turning it into me and we, as we now kind of practice them, maybe, I'm saying that poorly, but, but, but we are still suffering from this, this aberrant period. I would say decolonization to someone who doesn't believe in it they're like oh my God this is terrible you shouldn't even be talking about this. And yet, for me, a lot of the dysfunctions and worked lenses of our current conversations and our conversation here today to try to figure out how do we tip the lens so that it isn't so based on the artifacts that don't makes actual sense for a thriving world. And that's a big piece of it. Yeah, it's quite a task because one thing I noticed and what you just said over the last 60 seconds was their religion was a big part of it. Yes, I'm afraid I believe that. There was a huge, huge big piece of it. Stacey then can please. I just want to bring it back to like us and people. And I'm just, just the idea think about it. They teach women that if you need help, don't yell help yell fire. Think about that. Thanks Stacey. Julie and I wish I had an answer to your question because it's a really good one. It's a question that is kind of at the heart of the dawn of everything. If you've looked at the dawn of everything and I don't blame people who haven't because it's a really big Harry book, but they asked this question of how did we get stuck with this idea that some of us are better than others and that there's a natural problem and, you know, we need to be led because that's not the way human beings existed for many, many hundreds or many, many tens of thousands of years. It's like where to manifest destiny come from. Well yeah that's that's a little bit further down the line but you know they make this point of at some point somebody said this land is mine and you can't be on it. Up until that point all land belong to everybody belong to the tribe you know and so most people as soon as that would arise would laugh and say you can't claim this land. But some are along the line it became okay to say this is ours and then then we started to defend our land and then we started to actually you know, go out and take other people's land and how did this state of affairs come about. Coming up on the last chapter of the book and I haven't seen the answer to that. So, if anybody has the answer that I would love to know it, but it has been part of our guess please. Yeah, I think a piece of it goes like this. In early Greece, people were herders of cattle. And at a certain point the number of cattle was large enough that people started thinking which cattle goes with which group of people. And that was fine for a while because you got a kind of implicit ownership. Then as the amount of cattle went up, a new thing emerged and that was hey the cows have to eat grass. So we've got an only worry about who owns the cattle but we've got to worry about who owns the grass. So the idea came of dividing the earth into equal plots. And of course that broke down because the plot that's on the hillside does not have the same value as the plot that's in the river valley. But the idea was there. So, the word that's used by Plato for law is nomia. The first version of that word in Greece was equal distribution. So the first thought was how do we divide the world up into equal distribution so it's fair. And of course as we know the can't do that in a world where the land is so various because there is no equal to define. You've got the idea of law as an intermediate reality to try and make it as fair as possible. And that struggle is still with us. I'm mixed up because in Mongolia to this day, the people out on the steps share the grasslands and they wrote they move around like like they don't have fences. So we just figure out like how communally together how to share the resources. Same thing for water coming off the mountain and Bali through Hindu ritual same thing for lots of places where we figured out kind of Eleanor Ostrom ish means for sharing the commons across a large community and the problem is we have this I think we have this picture in our heads that too many people spoil all comments we have the tragedy of the Commons. So therefore we need ownership and rules. And there's this interesting squishy sort of middle ground of how do you create communal regs that keep the Commons actually thriving and create abundance at every turn. And we've lost that practice we've even lost that belief that that's possible. And once you get a dynamic that generates abundance and I think regenerative ag is like right on the tail of that, of that mission so I'm, you know, thrilled so many of us are hot and heavy on regenerative ag because I think the regenerative economy plays with this dynamic in a really healthy and wonderful way which is one reason I'm enthusiastic about it too. So that's part of the mental flip here is that we think things are impossible that aren't that impossible they just take some work and some some hard one insights. I want to go to Paul. I just want to say one thing about that which is when I teach this thing about the Commons. Yeah, in my workshops I always talk about like the plate of searchy like we're all sitting around the table and the plate of searchy why don't you just grab the whole thing. It really gives you insight to what people's nature really is. It's like whenever these watching and you care about the friendship, it's like it's natural to share and if there wasn't enough for everybody you'd be like you know what I'm going to take left. It's very natural there's nothing, there's nothing weird about that behavior. I love that grace thank you. Paul you had jumped in earlier but then you took your hand down I'd love to. I'm glad I'm thrilled you're on the call I'd love to hear what you want to say. And we're in a heat wave so I have to work outside don't get sad and so it's too hot so I got here a little earlier so I was able to log in. I took my hand back down I was just one person asked how did we get to this place of. And it just reminded me a little house in the prairie which has this great section at the very end that Paul has moved his whole family out into the Indian territory Oklahoma worked for a year or two. The Indians are upset and the Calvary comes and tells them they have to leave this is Indian country. And as they're packing up and as they leave on the wagon is going. The logic of this we made something this land the Indians just kind of just sit there doing nothing with the land. We were the ones working on and we should have the land. And it's just a really great soliloquy from a lady who I think looked up to her father. And it's just a really honest statement of where that mentality was back then. Thank you very much. Really appreciate that. Yeah, thanks Jerry. Going back to what Ken and Doug were saying. I think the Greeks were very late in this process. There had been all sorts of distribution schemes, empires and commons long thousands and thousands of years before the Greeks that's not where the pivot is. It's the question that when grow and and Graber exploring in that book and one of the things that was, there was a marvel for me in the dawn of everything. Is the assertion that there are cultures that moved in and out of hierarchical and collaborative relationships based on seasons based on landforms and so forth there are cultures that were different, strikingly different in similar places and cultures that move through different modes with some intentionality. And, Oh, you know the stuff that that we we assert and take for granted or retrojections there, you know their attempts to explain the past through the world that we live in now. And that's, you know, the David's assert by these two apparently contradictory but actually very similar myths of the Rousseau and Locke versions of how humans evolved to where we are now. You know, the for me the power of the book is that if they're correct in their assertions. Different worlds are possible because different worlds have existed. And I keep going back to this great Ken bolding quote that existence is proof of the possible you can't tell me something's impossible if you can show me that it's already happening. And I think that runs through the work of a lot of us in this group is trying to manifest examples of something different. You know, it's not just that people laughed at the guys who said this is all mine, which is a wonderful name to kind of like you know I'm the boss of all you get out of here, go take a bath or something. So that there were. There was ritualistic play around dominance. You know somebody would be king for a day, but not forever, or somebody will be king for a day and then thrown off the cliff as part of the ritual ceremony there was you know there was a very different kind of relationship to power and dominance in at least part of humanity for at least part of our existence. And there were many matrilineal societies as well with very different regime and many men. I mean that's, you know, it's hard to pull a single message out of the book but one of them for me is that enormous variety of human cultural and organizational experience that we have that capacity to experiment and explore and play. And what they're proposing or, you know, is that what you know, can are there ways that we can rediscover that reform that within this very locked down world of the last few hundred years. We're kind of everybody knows certain things, but Jerry you said before you think religion was part of the problem well the indigenous cultures of Europe had religion. And the Roman Empire arrived. And that may be one of the pivotal elements you know we we think of ourselves as descended from the classic civilizations in Greece and Rome. That may be where we went wrong. We, again, we always in quotes in honor to Ken Ken you've completely ruined my, my, my speaking and listening ever since you raised this. Yeah, so it's no it's just no it's we are us or I we whatever it is it's my observation is that humans tend to use the word in many different senses, often in the same sentence. And so I'm just, you know, thank you Ken Homer just kind of attentive to noticing how the connotation of we is constantly shifting and has enormous implications because what I'm thinking when I say that may have nothing to do with what the you know 15 of you are thinking when I say that it's a word with a very messy meaning. Can you maybe about to do this but I was about to ask you if you would refer a moment on the notions of we and what it means so that we might soak in it a little bit better and longer. We'd be happy to do that. I'm using the royal way now. Well, I think it was really lovely that so many of the women on the OGM list spoke up and said yeah I resonate with this because I think women often are included in a we where they don't feel included at all. And you know there's many times on these calls and in other areas of my life where someone says we and I'm like, I'm not part of that we and yet you're including me as part of that we and so you make assumptions about what I believe or what I feel and I am just as guilty. I'm hardly an expert this is brand new territory for me but I think it's simply a really good mind experiment to start to pay attention to when we on this call here the word we being used by somebody to really inquire who is the we being referenced here and am I part of that we and are you making a generalization that that really doesn't include me or, and I chose somebody wrote me off list and said, you know, what's the difference between we and us that's pretty much the same grammatically. I simply chose to use us dot x or us dot and out of Tyson and Caporta's indigenous, the aboriginals say us to as in us to are walking along or us here, you know, us in this call. And I just, I think it's a very useful way to start to improve the precision of our language and our thinking, because it forces us to be a whole lot more inclusive and a whole lot more respectful of the people that we are talking with. Thanks, Ken. I missed brother bright part. Yeah, I. The sort of negative space active counter version to that is. If the principle is when people speak if they can speak in the first person. And it can have a very powerful shifting and a fact. Because if I no longer have a way to invoke, and I'm no longer going to purport to speak for everybody. It raises the bar in terms of the level of intention and ownership and authorship of what I'm about to throw into the pot. I'm usually the person immediately responsive to somebody who invokes away and my, you know, the response is what do you mean we pale face like, you know, maybe that's not me. And it is a projection. It's a very powerful projection, I think it almost borders on violet communication. But we're desensitized. Yeah, you I just invoke the way the way the way the way thing is is is a steady state low grade level of violence that, you know, I'm very I'm very sensitive to but most people don't react to or take note of they don't experience it that way we've been, you know, socialized. It's like that's okay, you can do that to me and I can do that to you. Thanks Doug and I think over generalization is one of these sort of low grade, quiet kinds of violence. So usually often by mistake, because people use things like we and paint way too broad a brush, ignoring the ways in which other people in the conversation aren't included in, in whatever it is they're generalizing about but, but we brush past a lot of over generalization it happens constantly and once you start listening for it. Unfortunately, it probably happens all the time and anyway. Thanks Doug, Carl. This actually gets it a core issue for me because I mean just how do you explain your thoughts if I, if I say I or my opinion or whatever it's like oh Carl's got this huge ego he thinks he solved all the world's problems. And then if I say we, then it's like, oh I'm asking people to do things and stuff but what, how do you how do we. It's just a plea to our tribe, you know which and we're all part of multiple tribes, but it's like people using we doesn't mean they're necessarily trying to get you to do something they're just saying this is an idea that I think we need to be working. And as I said that's been a mate that's really a major issue for me so I'm intrigued with this all. And you just, you just put a dynamic in the conversation that we haven't pointed to yet but it's super interesting which is a whole bunch of people don't feel like their opinion needs to guide the room or is valuable or is important or whatever that may be, or will be taken seriously or there's a whole bunch of ways I could sort of say that sentence. And so, starting with I, or I believe or just starting with an assertion doesn't actually work for them the way they've been raised the way they frame their presence in the in the group or something like that. And I'm just talking out of my house here because I'm over generalizing but but I think that that's a, that's a dynamic that is really important here as well, Wendy. I just want to refer up that the idea that this is a practice and a forever journey, not a rule. And the way I choose to practice it is to become more aware and that's what I hear other people saying to become more aware of how I'm using we to make sure. Sometimes it's a simple as putting qualifiers around it. While I'm speaking which which probably don't even hit people they sound so natural. You know so I might say some choose to say something like so for those of us in this room, we blah blah blah right or I might say for the women that I have spent time with we have felt right and so it just encourages me to frame the we, and not just assume that I'm understood by the people that I'm speaking to. And then sometimes it transfers itself to an eye, I realize I really mean I, and then I, and then that changes the framing of the sentence that might change the grammar of the sentence that might change the whole idea and the way I'm framing it. So, I think regularly now about, and it's become more of a habit so I'm not saying I'm consciously weighed down by it but the initial shift is certainly, certainly take some investment of time and energy I have, I have felt. In order to make that shift and then making that shift I find that I'm clearer more articulate. My ideas are received better. And so it has a it's had a huge positive effect in my life. I think people generally feel I know when people use we even this conversation. I feel put upon like it feel it feels like ideas are being put upon me. And as I receive it, and I'm constantly going now that was alright let that one pass and that was okay I'll let that one pass to like and it's again it's very subtle and I'm not thinking about it all the time, but eventually it rises depending on the group, and depending on who what's being said, it rises to the point of feeling like my if I were to share my voice it would be in such contrast to what's what's in the room already that I feel I can't speak. So, and it's subtle, but so just offering that up is what is felt to me and receiving it and also what I've tried to do and shifting it. Thank you very much that really helps. Stuart and then I'd love to bring the conversation that can and grace are having in the chat into the into the voice space. Yeah, just to pick up on what Wendy just said. Nonverbal is so important in all of this that the tone of the voice that you use the body language that you use is just, you know, really really critical in the messages that others receive. And also, I have a sense that, and I'm not a student of linguistics, but somewhere in indigenous cultures, the, the use of the words I and we were different, not part of the language in some ways, because of the what was engendered by the use of those terms, you know, I don't know that for a fact, but I'm just going to bet that if we dug into that we would find some very different articulations and and words used in different cultures. Thanks to it you're reminding me and do we have any Japanese fluent speakers in the room Pete I know you learn Japanese for well but I think in Japan it's hard to say I like like linguistically there's not a lot of I this I want I whatever that's not sort of a part of the language structure easily and or culturally. But I'm not sure about that so if anybody knows better or knows it's easy to say I but culturally, you wouldn't say it that way. Yeah. Interesting. So we're close to the end of our call. Anybody who would like to offer a some words about this conversation just a little reflection on where we've gone. Let's do a little bit of meta on on this call. Stuart. Yeah, just quickly. I noticed that there are a lot of really good ideas here. I haven't seen or don't sense that there's any action. In other words, we're a group of individuals who come and shared our perspective our thoughts. But there's there's nothing no concerted action coming out of this. That's just an observation. It's it's neither good nor bad. And I think we've talked about at times, you know the purpose of the group. There are not the group that wants to be activist in any way, but just my observation meta observation, and it was a great conversation. Stuart, thanks for prying open the Pandora box there. And, and also, and also, this is a very tiny thing. This is a really tiny thing, but I take lots of notes during the calls and I try to perfect them after the calls, and then I publish them openly into this weird piece of the fungus that is my brain. And I feel like that's a what happens for me and pretty much all of our conversations here is a lot of things are crystallizing a lot of evidence or storytelling, or personal anecdotes show up a lot of insights show up from all of you, and I'm trying to sort of glue them together into a more permanent artifact that hopefully gets better over time. And that's not a huge action in the world but it's a tiny thing to try to make some sense of what we're doing. And I think each of us uses a lot of what we hear or learn from in these conversations either as sustenance, as Grace has pointed out many times in her visits here, or as inspiration for things that we're busy working on. I meant to bring Ken and grace into the conversation I don't know if we want to or have time to if you'd like to that would be great to do and then we have close and Wendy and we're out of the call so let me go to Ken and grace and see, because there was an interesting conversation in the chat about what I'll put under the umbrella of political correctness or politically correct speech or, or you know, this is a hard stop so I gotta go. Alright, that that's the answer to that. Thanks Grace, thank you so much for being here. Oh, it was hard to violent of terminology. No, no, no. You could have said I have a neck chop stop and that would have been very different. Oh, oh. Yeah. Let me go to class and Wendy and then Ken if you if you want to jump in at the end, that'd be fine but let's go class. Yeah, in response to what Stuart was just saying I think it would be difficult for us to have a communal actions, so to speak because we're coming from so many different places but I think where we benefit is made a level thinking if we understand where where this ship is going so to speak where we when we understand the, the resource depletions that are happening, just made a level. The forces that are pushing us forward in in in directions, we have no control over, we can once we understand that we can then independently and individually make a call on how that impacts us and the environment that we have some form of control over. The benefit of this conversation is if we stay at major level, you know and and look at at these larger influence factors and which is what what my point was of looking at the bigger picture economics, you know that are that are going to to to drive us. Thank you. Wendy. Thank you class. I like that too. I like that this group is a place for meta thinking and to hear kind of people's perspectives. And I also have a suggestion. One thing we could do is say you feel calling to help weave action Jerry. We could do a simple exercise at any time, but maybe a half an hour before the end of the call 15 minutes before the end of the call or maybe even at the end of the call towards the end of the call where people can put in a waterfall fashion and chat. What has answer kind of this question what has this conversation galvanized for you or what action are you planning to take in the next week or two, because of this conversation. So what we can do if we do it earlier than the very end of the call is people can see, you know what what others are planning to do and if there's synergy they can capitalize on it. They can reach out to each other, whereas right now we're kind of going off and we're assuming everyone's doing separate things but maybe maybe in a couple cases we're not. And there's an opportunity for, oh wait, you're going to talk to this person I was going to talk to that person that's in the same organization, whatever. We could at least start to to weave people to do some better work together in between meetings. We could even potentially if there's enough synergy arising, we could even say make it the next week's OGM call right where people, we carry that thread from conversation of one week into everyone's check ins. It's related to that thread, right so that we invite even deeper dives into what people are doing but they they share the pieces that are relative to that particular thread instead of just all their pieces in general. Thank you. I like that general sentiment. Sound good. It'd be lovely to do okay so someone remind me during their next call to stop and and do that and we'll do that that sounds great. I just put it on someone else Jerry yeah good. I just, I just put it on the we. Yeah, yeah. So Ken, if you will take us out with a poem that would be lovely. Sure, I want to thank everybody for joining this conversation for you know, indulging me in my in my question. It's been very rewarding for me I hope work for the people to. So, William Stafford is one of my all time favorite poets, and this is the first poem of his I committed to memory about 30 years ago it's called the ritual to read to each other. If you don't know the kind of person I am. And I don't know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world, and following the wrong God's home. We may miss our star. There's many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break, sending with shouts, horrible errors of childhood, storming out to play through the broken die. And as elephants parade, holding each tell elephants tail, but if one wanders, the circus will find the park. And perhaps the root of all cruelty to know what occurs, but not recognize the fact. And so I appeal to a voice to something shadowy remote important region and all who talk, though we could fool each other, we should consider less the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark. Or it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep. The signals that we give, yes, or no, or maybe should be clear. The darkness around us is deep. I'm going to sit here in silence for a little while anybody who'd like to sit in silence for a while it's welcome to and then drop off when you feel like it. Thank you, Ken. That was perfect.