https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=VUi1MnI1DEY
Welcome everyone to another Voices with Reveki. I’m very excited to be here with two of my close friends and colleagues, Taylor Barak and Ethan Kobayashi-Hughes. So just really happy about talking to them about a new project that they’re working on and I’m giving them some feedback and advice as a cognitive scientist psychologist. And so I’m going to just turn things over. I’d like each one of you, although you’ve both been on Voices before, but each one of you just to say a little bit about yourself and then we’ll get more into the project proper. So let’s start with you, Taylor. Yeah, thanks. So yeah, I’m Taylor Barak. I’m in the Toronto area and I’ve been working in the field of sort of relational leadership, which includes things like authentic relating and circling for about a decade now through running an in-person community here called Authentic Relating Toronto. And then, you know, during the pandemic moving some of that stuff online, starting to work with John. Currently, I work for Reveki Foundation as the Director of Practice and Education, which has been fantastic and sort of overseeing programming and everything for the Awakened to Meaning platform. So yeah, just a lot of convergence in what I’ve been up to the last 10 years or so. And that’s also put me in connection with with Ethan, which has been a fantastic relationship as well. So, yeah, yeah, that’s feels like enough for now. Yeah, I’m Ethan Kobayashi-Sier. I primarily come from an actor training background and a lot of my work has been in practice as research, developing pedagogical structures and exercises that allow for the kind of transformation at first into character and then now in the development of character. So I recently joined the Reveki Foundation as the Director of Community Development and Partnerships, which even though it feels like it’s a particular domain, does have quite a significant amount of lead across all the other projects that we’re doing. And that puts me into close contact with Taylor Barrett, whom I know firstly as like quite a mentor figure, attended the Dialogue OS course, which some of you might have participated in or have read about. And I’m proud to be here excited. Excellent. It’s really good to see both of you. Ethan accompanied me on the first day of the course, which was a really interesting experience. So I think it’s just best to dive right in and, you know, you two start talking about the different aspects of the course. And I think that’s a really good point. I think that’s a really good point. I think that’s a really good point. I think that’s a really good point. I think that’s a really good point. I think that’s a really good point. I think that’s a really good point. So I think it’s just best to dive right in and, you know, you two start talking about this project. Tell us the name of it. Tell us what the intent is and let’s open it up and so forth. Whoever wants to go first, please. All right. I’ll lean in. And yeah, please, Ethan, step in whenever you’ve got some insight. So yeah, so this is a two level course and we’re calling it a Self-As-Instrument development. And Self-As-Instrument is this concept that I first, I mean, it has its origins in organizational development, but it’s been adopted for personal and professional development contexts over the last number of decades. And I first heard it talked about by Rob McNamara at the Integral Center back in 2014 or something like that. And during my time in Authentic Relating Toronto through trying to develop facilitators and leaders to help expand our community here, we ran a course called Master Circle. And while I never used the Self-As-Instrument framing, I’ve gone back and looked at it and it’s like, oh, that’s actually exactly what we were doing in the Master Circle program, trying to develop leaders within that particular community. So in many ways, this course is sort of an evolution of that now taking on my understanding and knowledge of the cognitive science across the work the Respond Network has done with the theory of wisdom and a theory of wise practice, which involves the DIME framework, you know, and then the 3Ds, the domains and everything that John’s been talking about recently. So it’s created to me anyways, and you know, it’s being vetted by John and Greg Enriquez, but it’s created a much more broader and full and balanced structure in terms of scaffolding and building up particular capacities, but also in terms of touching in these various areas that DIME, dialogue, imaginal mindfulness and embodiment are touching on. Because if I go back and look at Master Circle in the past, it was super light on embodiment. Yes, we were trying to get people into an embodied place of being in relationship, but we weren’t actually working with the body in any particular way. So not really aware of that. Like we knew we didn’t do much of it, but we didn’t have any basis to say you should do that. And then through some experiences that I had afterwards with very embodied courses and sort of training through something called Avalon, I really started to get that sense. And then it was just further cemented through the work that John did with the Respond Network and the other scholars, the other teachers in that area. And yeah, Ethan and I are somebody who just sort of took that work and we’re just like, whoa, this is really good, and immediately applied it to our offerings to develop the framing of an ecology of practices, but also the balancing of an ecology of practices. So that’s all very much represented in this particular program. I’ll leave it at that just so we can get Ethan’s voice in here to sort of fill in. Well, I was just about to jump in because actually one of the great source questions that was asked during the recent Respond retreat, where you and I were both part of, was this question that you had posed of like, what is it to be a full stack human being? Like to have a balanced ecology of practices such that it is integrated into your being. And I think like when I step back and look at my work, it’s also like, oh, OK, here’s a full stack ecology of practices, which seems to function in a particular domain. And it’s a domain of theater, it’s a domain of performance, domain of ritual. It’s like it has already a normative framework around it, which doesn’t make the show and is it good? But then at the same time, there’s that larger question of like, how does it train to transfer into domain general context? And built into that is that ability to like know when to apply these skills, in what way, in right proportion. So I see this program as being much more about how do we develop a constitution? I see self-instrument as a kind of constitution from which other skills erupt, other practices really start to take root and become more accessible. So it’s almost like a meta practice in just being. And I think that that’s the thing that I’m interested in, like the conditioning of this constitution to become incredibly accessible and receptive for all other practices that one might be inclined to take up over a period of time because they find it valuable to their lives in a general domain. So I’m going to going forward, I’m just going to throw out questions and you two can answer as you see fit. First, sort of a nomenclature issue, but I think it’ll be related to the I want to ask these two questions together, a nomenclature issue and then a more of a conceptual issue. First is self-instrument would be very off-putting to a lot of people, especially people who come out of a Heideggerian critique of technology where we’re turning ourselves into machines or understanding ourselves only in terms of use or tools, technology. So first of all, comment on that because I know both of you are not promoting that. I know both of you are critical of that. So just to give you an opportunity to clarify that, I understand that the term has provenance and you’re not the authors of it. So I want to give you a chance to attach the meaning you’re attaching to it. And then secondly, I’m a little bit unclear on getting a sense about how this relates to other practices. So the thing I want to pick up is on something Ethan, you said this is a meta practice and maybe and then the idea about something like helping to constitute character. Those are two themes I heard. And I want to know who would want to do this and how it would relate to existing ecologies or practices, other meta practices, et cetera. So those are the two questions. Cool. How about I take the first one? You want to take the second one, Ethan? Okay. So the first one, yes, the self-instrument. Yeah, I think that’s great. And I’m glad you’re asking about that. The actual context for it is actually the inverse of that. So it’s actually using the way in which if you look in organizations, how they’re actually treating people more or less like instruments. So it becomes more of a, what’s the term that they use? It’s not mechanical. It’s something like a mechanical thing as opposed to a human system. And the thing is, when you’re in organizations, they’re human systems, but we don’t tend to treat them like human systems. You have people looking at each other as resources and there’s all this implicit training that’s been happening in how we treat people. So it’s sort of this thing of like, oh, you’re here to serve a particular deliverable or thing for me so that I can do, so it becomes like the cog in the wheel idea. And here is the idea is like you need to bring yourself into a human system. Like that’s the thing that’s sort of missing. So it’s this invitation of like bringing in not overt vulnerability, but to come in and just say, oh, I feel like really nervous and I want to take a risk. And I want to turn around and say, like, how’s everybody feeling about this recent change that we’ve had? And again, this is this organizational context. So it’s really about more about your being in the world, influencing your doing in the world, rather than like you stepping into a particular role and just following the steps within that role to achieve a particular goal. We have to if we want a sustainable system, we have to bring the human element into it. And that just converges with the work that I was doing on the development of the collective intelligence campfire project, where we wanted to include all four perspectives in difficult discussions. Like we had to include the I and the we not just talking about everything that it’s separate from us. Like the way in which I relate to a particular issue says something about me. It says something about my capacity, my worldview, my past, my developmental trauma, my any PTSD I might have that all can have me in a particular way in which I’m relating to something. And the more that we can bring this forward in relationship, we have something that’s a little bit more sustainable in terms of navigating, you know, again, in that context of organizational development, but also just, you know, moving to the domain general piece just kind of anywhere in our lives. So, yeah, so that’s that switch. So let me let me do a little bit with Taylor and then I’ll let you answer the second question. So is the I mean, it sounds like you’re trying to bring in. I mean, in the philosophical sense, not the threat, we’re threats and world threatening sense, an existential dimension to this. So how people are showing up, making meaning, how their identity is taking shape. And around that, perhaps issues of virtue and character are also becoming important and central. Am I understanding correctly? Absolutely. I mean, if I think of your your work with after Socrates, you know, for me, the way that I interpret that particular piece is here’s a bunch of say capacities that are sort of necessary in the reverse engineering of doing dialectic. And for for me, for us, we started this project looking at what do we believe are the capacities for the full stack human being or the capacity is necessary for self as instrument across time. So we actually kind of reverse engineered this. You know, we have the concept that we think is a good concept. And it’s like, what is necessary to do that? And in that we just see that there’s a lot of this is why it’s domain general is a lot of foundational things that if you have them, your relationships are likely to be better. Your flow and ease and the way in which you move through the world is likely to be better. And that’s going to transfer into when you’re running a team or you have influence over somebody, even, you know, say like a parent. So we really see these as very foundational sort of capacities that we’re training and developing. This is gets to the piece that I think Ethan’s going to say more about. So it’s less about training people on a practice, but it’s the it’s the the act of the practice thing that develops these constitutional capacities that then just allows us to be a better responder, say, to the meaning crisis. Yeah, that’s what I would say. That’s very cool. So you reverse engineering the capacities that are like are the distinguishing characteristics of a fully stacked human being. And so you unpack a little bit more. Maybe this is where it would shift to Ethan what the fully stacked human being is. And what does that mean for you? Let me just say one particular piece because this so for the longest time in Authentic Relating Toronto, I was using a particular framework that I held everything up against to the light to see does it fit. And if it fit, then I’m like this is right for art to be offering. And this is a white paper that Ken Wilbur and Dustin DiPerna wrote like seven or eight years ago called Towards Deliberately Developmental Civilizations. And in that they were using this framework of what I call is a three legged stool of awareness of states of consciousness, structures of consciousness and shadow work. And if you’re missing any one of these legs on the stool, the stool becomes unstable. So it’s sort of the idea they’re using the concept of a whole human being. And if you were missing those pieces, right. So if you were missing the shadow piece, like you can have Nazi doctors, right. So you can have somebody who’s a doctor, but also acting in essentially bad faith. And so that framework sort of lends itself to a certain degree and the exploration across dime. And that would say I would say is that’s the particular shift. So the stack is across dialogue, across imaginal, across mindful and across embodiment. So you’re trying to bring the kind of capacities into development, capacities needed for doing dialogos, doing imaginal work, doing mindful work and doing embodiment. And Ethan wants to talk. He’s almost bursting. Yeah, because and I think you’re quite pertinent on that. It’s like when we put these capacities together, they kind of amalgamate together into what I would call the Constitution. And I think this is something. OK, I’ll use a metaphor. So when I was a kid, I loved watching Bruce Lee movies. Every time I watched Bruce Lee and Bruce Lee comes on screen, it’s like, yeah, I’m not going to mess with that guy. Like, it doesn’t mean that every time he goes to a burger joint, he’s one inch punching the burger instead of using a fork. He’s not using the skills. But there are certain baseline capacities in his ability to sense the body, to be able to judge like a body in space, for example, which I don’t have because I have dyspraxia and I have to learn to overcome that with the skill to develop that particular capacity so I can feed into the Constitution. And so when those capacities start to become aligned and fluent, then it affords the ability to go learn a striking art form, learn a grappling martial art. And then you can experience those participatorily across the length of his life and then synthesize it into what we now know as Shikudou, which I understand you’re taking classes in. So there is this sense of like, what are these baseline things, these baseline capacities which are transferable, that are mutually affording, but it does not mean. And I have to make this very, very clear to people who are listening and already interested. Like, this is not a course that promises to make you a wise person. It just develops the capacity to tap into the potential to make the moves which can afford something like a virtue, like virtue cultivation and afford being able to have the collective flexibility to look at a particular situation, to overcome bias and foolishness. It does not preclude that one doesn’t have to go and do the philosophy, doesn’t have to actually do the reading and integrate those practices in relation with other people. It’s not prescriptive in that sense. Yeah. So does that answer it? Yeah. Yeah. So Amor is coming clear to me. I mean, so first of all, I’ve been trying to make the argument that virtue is exactly that stacking in one sense. I mean, for me, it’s the stacking across the four kinds of knowing because to be honest is to have certain kinds of beliefs, certain kinds of skills, be able to take certain kinds of perspectives and be able to adopt certain kinds of identity. And so virtue is therefore a character trait because character is the alignment of the four kinds of knowing into an orientation towards the world. And it sounds like you’re like that’s what you’re basically talking about. Is that fair or am I imposing? No, that’s fair. I was leaving space for you, Ethan. Yeah. Do you have something to say about that or? Oh, yeah, I do. I think it has to do with sort of like the structuring of the program because we didn’t look at it in terms of like, okay, just do this one thing. There is like a way in which we’re introducing a skill building component to the program. At the moment, Tiamat fills that gap. It might not in future, but it’s what we have. And so that’s kind of like shadow boxing. It’s like that’s where you do the skill development. You learn how to throw the punches. You learn how to balance yourself. You learn how to get all of these like the more procedural dimension down. And then we can think of this self-assessment program as the context in which you’re sparring with a live partner. Right. And bringing those skills to bear, bring them into relationship with somebody such that the continual rigor in that testing those capacities, supported by those skills, afford the kind of broadening of being able to hold oneself in those spaces. Okay. So let’s do a little bit, at least conceptually, reverse engineering. So let’s take each one of DIME, the dialogical. What are some of the… So I’m going to ask you, what are some of the core capacities that you think need to be developed in order to improve people’s ability to undertake dialogical practices? And let’s do it with each one if we can in turn. Is that okay? Yeah. So what do you think? What are some of the key, the core capacities that need to be explicated, elucidated, articulated, developed in order to enhance one’s ability to take up dialogical practices? What’s the reverse engineering there? What do you think are the core capacities and how does your program address them? So, I mean, I’ll start with a few and then let Nathan, Nathan, Ethan fill in the gaps. So many Nathans in my life these days. So one of the things that we sort of look at is so here’s how I’ll answer that question. This particular program is two levels. The first level is very focused on the agency of the self while being facilitated. So it’s sort of bringing this awareness to the self and understanding where my own growth edges are in terms of my agency. So a big piece of that in terms of for me and dialog is awareness of our current moment, present affect. So we’re sort of looking at it as one capacity to note. Actually, let me even look, let me even go even more basic. One of the most basic pieces that we see in terms of dialog and relational dialog we’re starting is with breathing. A lot of people don’t have very good flow of breath in their regular breathing or they don’t notice that in relationship they might get a bit tense and start restricting their breathing, which has the potential as I imagine you can confirm that it just can exacerbate any particular underlying anxiety. So one way of sort of just being able to like relax and sort of bring yourself back to home of that place in the breath when you’re in relationship affords a lot more space just to take in the other. This is before words are even exchanged just to take in the other and to be more present. So I would even just start like at even that base and we do in the course. One of the first things we’ll do is we’ll start on breathing. Sounds like the kind of training that you do. So my partner is like she’s a classically trained opera singer and you have to learn this breathing, a lot of breathing before you can actually undertake the singing. So is it analogous to that? Yeah, totally. Yeah, I mean, it’s not like we’re going to just stay on breathing for three days before we ever start talking. But it’s but it’s bringing that awareness, right? It’s sort of you know, you talked about it too, although I forget the framing you use, but it’s trying to bring in a habit that’s sort of like checking your rear mirror every eight seconds. So bring your attention to it, you know, like, okay, there’s this thing. See if you can start integrating that just into your day, like checking like, oh, how’s my breath right now? And it becomes, you know, then your breath becomes more relevant to you in the context of the training, such as you might actually make those small changes over the course of not only the course, but you know, between the two levels and things like that. So yeah, very much so. It’s just it’s just gonna it’s just gonna help. But you know, you’re gonna learn these things in parallel. We’re not going to stop it quite there. But yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And there’s a piece in here where it’s quite vital, at least from the pedagogical sense that the breathing piece is not just a dialogical component. It’s also not just a mindfulness component where one is constantly, as you said, doing the checking of oneself in the rear view mirror. There is, like say, in this particular piece, when we talk about being able to have like your, you know, be able to breathe properly, right? There is a long tradition of voice work that’s been done in the theater, at least particularly the one that I’ve been trained in, which is the link data voice technique, right? It’s a deeply embodied process that uses the imaginal, you’re dropping images in to be able to trigger the opening of the breath and being aware of that in movement. So we’re using DIME to to actually like facilitate these capacities across different perspectives. I see, I see. I misapprehended. So let me see if I can reformulate more appropriately. So it’s not that for like for dialogical, here’s core capacities. It’s that you’re going to core capacities and seeing how all four of them are being are being developed or trained. Is that is that a better way of putting it? OK, so now I think I get that. And that’s interesting because you’re also automatically, although I don’t mean that mechanically, you’re automatically training the integration of DIME. So give me an example of another core thing you’d be training. And how DIME. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, even emotional expression is a piece that we will be training. I’m actually having access to your emotions, being able to go in and turn on these emotions, you know, in my in my my own development sort of journey. You know, I’ve had these experiences of being able to go in and like turn on my anger, turn off my anger, turn on my sadness, turn it off to help one de-identify emotions from from, you know, the individual. But also where I found it very useful is to be able to notice for me if, say, I’m in a very tense situation and I’m actually getting really angry and maybe it’s not appropriate, Agent Arena appropriate for me to express that anger is that I can hold it. And then, you know, when it’s more appropriate, I can actually go in and turn that back on so that I don’t have to hold it. So I get to actually express that anger because we see that as a pretty important thing, like holding on and bottling up feelings. I think I would hope most of us agree that that can lead to not great consequences. So even just that particular aspect of it is sort of a core competency that we get people to lean into so that they get more OK with their anger. I mean, for me, that was a thing, you know, and I keep naming anger because that was a big struggle for me. I was always afraid that if I expressed my anger, I would hurt the other person. And it was only until I was in a container where my anger was fully welcome and other people like there with me, did I actually understand like, oh, I can actually befriend this particular energy and not have to fear it or bottle it or contort it. Yeah, go ahead. Can you say one thing before Ethan speaks? That reminds me of Aristotle. It’s not about being angry or not, but being angry at the right time for the right reason, to the right degree. So it sounds to me like you’re developing that finesse. So I want to hear what Ethan has to say. But a question comes to mind, which goes back to the issue of virtue. Right now, you’re giving people power and power is ethically, morally neutral. I mean, I can hear I could hear a psychopath going, oh, I would love to know how to turn on my anger and turn it off and, you know, and to breathe. I had this I could so manipulate other people so well with this power. So if you I’ll let Ethan speak now. Yeah, I want to I want to just bank that because it is something that Taylor and I have been talking about in terms of like, what is the power responsibility balance and how does that work into something like fitment for the program, for example. Like, what is the ethical implications of us developing something like this? And that the entire responsibility piece is actually made much more prevalent because of the way in which the capacities actually speak to each other. So like Taylor was just talking about having that emotion available to you. It’s not like an abstract. I go into my mind palace. I find the light switch and I turn on the anger switch. Yeah, yeah. One of the capacities that we’ve outlined here is being able to develop a genetic psychophysical intelligence. And what that means is being able to know exactly what to do with your body when something is happening. And we see some of these implicitly in like being able to calm your breath down, like calm yourself down through the breath. You activate the parasympathetic nervous system, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But there is also there are also ways in which tuning up the resolution of which one can feel into the body can actually start to create like ways in which one can map. Oh, if I were to do this with my body, actually, I feel much more relaxed. Like there is something in here that’s being that’s being blocked in this way and developing that causal relationship or at least a map of it between like like affect and actual physical movement, knowing what to do in those scenarios. So because there is this ethical question that sits so permanently in something like this, that fine tuned ability to do that is why we have a kind of fitment protocol that’s laid out. And this has something to do with what you and I had John had talked about when we were in London. And so I want to pass it over to Barry in case there’s something for you to speak to about that. You know, I mean, I want to I want to hear the two of you talk about those contexts, because I think that is important. But this would sort of also bring me back to the fact that there’s two levels and the first level really focusing on the individual. So, you know, within this system, right, basically have it, you know, you can’t just necessarily go from level one right into level two. If there’s particular, you know, we call them like contractions or areas and where somebody is really at their edge and they’re still sort of struggling to get past that, we’re not going to bring them into the level two where we start to bring in facilitation training, because now we’re putting people in a position where they could potentially think, oh, I’m OK as a facilitator, as a leader, you know, which we see as somebody who has power and influence over others. So we’re, you know, yes, is the assessment protocols in terms of entering the program, but there’s also assessment protocols in terms of level one to level two as well, because if we’re finding and, you know, I think you’ll say more about about the Spire framework here. But if we’re finding that some people are, you know, still particularly, you know, having difficulties in the level one, you know, we’ll have other affordances for them to work on those. And, you know, we also have some measurement tools that we’ll be working with you and stuff on to turn around and see, you know, to sort of like test, you know, like, oh, are they actually able to express these particular capacities that we’re looking for before before starting to hand them, say, the keys to leadership over other people. So the first thing right is, is that part of of experiencing and understanding one’s own agency while being facilitated? So can you be a good participant is one way to look at it. But can you also be yourself, not just collapse under under authority? So one, you need to be able to have that particular posture to go into then the next one where you have influence over others. So we’re very. What’s the word? Careful. We’re trying to be very considerate about this because we have seen how other training programs and stuff to sort of hand people, you know, trying to take the things that we’re handing people very seriously that they can be misunderstood and potentially misused. Because, I mean, I think we’ve seen that in terms of, you know, the way empathy right now is being misused in the culture. Totally, totally. Empathy is not a virtue. Empathy is not a virtue. One more time, by the way, everyone. Empathy is not a virtue. So so two things come to mind. One is I’m getting a sense here and I want to give it back to you and see if it’s landing. I’m hearing the first level as, you know, bringing agentic intelligence. I don’t like labeling things intelligence because you had emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence and traveling to Mexico intelligence and how to brush your teeth intelligence. And like if you if you define intelligence in terms of the domain application, then it becomes a meaningless term. But I’ll let you have your term. But I know what you mean. And this is the, you know, the stoic idea of educating agency in a powerful way. So you’re basically first level sounds like you’re really educating individual agency. And then you’re turning that to how can you as an individual help to adduce, draw out and curate and perhaps lead collective agency? Am I getting is that the relationship between the first and second? Yeah, it’s the extension of agency unto others. So, you know, while, you know, I feel like a bit like I shouldn’t say this, but it’s like the extension of agapic love unto others. Yes. And it’s just like we want we want that transition to be clean. We want sustainable leadership. We don’t want, you know, somebody hands some, you know, we see this in lots of organizations. And I think that contributes to their unsustainability is this people enter into these hierarchies of power and they’re not they haven’t quite sorted out their stuff. They haven’t done their work. Yeah, of course. It just it, you know, it trickles downhill into, you know, you’ve got the person at the bottom completely contracted and, you know, and, you know, we have the meaning crisis coming down into the individual as a result of all the levels above. So, yeah, we take this very seriously. So I’ve heard I’ve heard sort of somatic dimension, and I know I don’t want to sound too Cartesian here. So I’ve heard somatic and I’ve heard affective. What about what used to be called separately cognitive? I think of cognition is running through all of those, of course. But you know what I mean? That part of the mind that deals more with, you know, metacognition reflection, inference, insight, intuition, into into the mind. Insight intuition, internalization, indwelling, all of those processes. I mean, those are very I would argue those are very central to agency becoming an agent as opposed to just being a reactor or a mere behavior. And how are those how are those core capacities being addressed in your program? Yeah, so, yeah. So baked into the syllabus, if you take a look at sort of the matrix is that we have certain tools and methods and exercises which we are feeling confident about that can actually help to scaffold these things. And one of those things is actually how it’s quite integrated with you talk. And that’s of course, Greg’s framework. So being able to introduce a kind of framework for let’s say his triune map of mind, right, which is wonderful, wonderful framework. Being able to make those moves and know where you’re at, like, OK, well, I’m I mean, like, mind one a here, I can I can reflect something about what what what my mind one is doing and then I enter into that. So that and we also have we have other maps like this, like we have a equal, which is something that Taylor and I are both very familiar with. That’s all quadrants, all levels. So it’s and this is really important. It’s not that the propositional layer is one above all. It’s that that propositional layer is properly placed such that it affords more participation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the point. It can’t just be like, oh, I know that I’m coming from ice or when the ice face is like, that’s great. Doesn’t help do anything. It has to afford another exercise where we take that back into a particular container to be able to test that capacity. And so this is always coming back to that sense of like, well, what’s the context? And so in the larger context, and we talk about something that we’re at least now colloquially referring to aspire dynamics, then it’s what are the context in which this person is currently enacting their capacities? Is it in service of something? Are they are they in pilgrimage, which is a kind of like a mobility between cultures, just not just geographically, but like also locally between different groups of people, different ways of being. Are they deeply rooted in inquiry, not just of the other but also themselves? Ritual, what is the ways in which these things that are happening to me, can I keep an eye on those and see them transfer into other places? And importantly is the E, which is the enlightenment piece that is not a destination that I get to is like bing, bam, boom, I’m enlightened. Now light comes out my ass. But it’s that there are incremental self-transcendent processes that one goes through. And those those pieces, when that orientation is clear, then at least I feel much more confident that this is somebody who is applying these, the dime, the full stack dime in context which afford the integration across these spaces, across these domains of practice. Just want to clarify a couple things for people. I think that was beautiful, Ethan. First of all, it was spire, not spiral. Spiral is Wilbert. This is spire and it’s related to inspire. And this is something that as Taylor indicated, Ethan and I were working out when we were in Great Britain together because we were trying to articulate a way in which giving people how to reflect upon orientation to properly bring this normative dimension into the meta practice. And that’s exactly what spire is supposed to do. It’s supposed to be how you properly are inspired to aspire. And that’s the connection. And so I think it’s, I mean, I’m obviously biased because I participated in this, but I think that’s a beautiful way in which you’re addressing the normativity question that’s lurking behind this. Without pinning it to a particular specific religious tradition or a specific ethical framework like utilitarianism or deontological ethics or something like that. This is much more, I hate this adjective, we need a better one. This is much more practical, but I don’t like that word because it sounds like a diminished thing in comparison. But it’s practicable. You can put it into practice. I don’t know what to say. We need a better word. So I like that a lot. I suppose what’s coming up for me now, now that I’m getting a much better sense of this and how you’re addressing a lot of these concerns is who is this for? Who would you recommend do this? Or is it for different groups of people at different times or so forth? What would you say to that? I think there’s something I like about the second part that you said, because I think we hold, you know, and you’ve got to be careful with this. I think we hold that the course is technically anybody could do the course, technically, right? However, not everybody is ready to do it. And I think this is where the context piece comes in is very helpful in terms of, you know, assessment and fitment is also like just trying to figure out if the course is right for this person at this time. And maybe it’s not maybe something needs to shift in their life or they need to adopt one of these contexts where it’s like, oh, now this is a thing for me to do rather than, oh, I’ve got two weekends free and I like doing workshops. So I’m just going to do this workshop, right? Because that happens. But for us, in terms of, you know, who we’re targeting it for, you know, it’s really people who are in a position that they can be of service to other people. And that’s still a quite a broad context, but that is really, you know, speaks to the capacities and the way in which you’re trying to train and, you know, and offer these capacities and what one would use them for. Yes, of course, they’re going to help you with your own individual, you know, like your relationship with yourself. I mean, they will most certainly help that piece. But really, in terms of, you know, if we look at this question, what’s needed to respond to the meaning crisis, it’s really people in this particular position who can be of service or who have influence over others and doing it in a much more virtuous way, I think is really what we’re getting down to. So without being oversimplifying, there’s a sense in which all of this is about addressing the issue of proper service. I think that’s fair. Yeah. I think so. I probably would have articulated like a right relationship with service is probably if I had to come up with it myself. Yeah. Yeah, no, very much so. And I mean, obviously, that’s very relevant for Ethan and I, given the context in which we work in. But it also speaks to the reason of why we do what we do. Yeah. So, you know, it’s our I think it’s our work to do because we were working in this particular field. And, you know, we see, you know, we go back to the idea of cathedral building and stuff. It’s sort of this idea of like, what is needed for people to get through today’s perennial problems? What is needed from people to be able to navigate the complexity of modern day life? And that’s where we looked at the capacities and sort of did the reverse engineering piece. But, yeah, it’s very much where we think the problems are largely created and what we perceive in the world are people who are in position of power and influence and doing it in a very contracted, very misguided way. So can we can we help afford or mitigate those particular risks in the terms of developing people in a position where they’ll facilitate a practice or manage a team or raise their children? I mean, again, we’re not, you know, it’s not like we got a parenting module, but it is this thing of like, oh, wow, I have responsibility to the development of this other human being. And I think in many ways, you know, if managers and teams and CEOs also take that perspective, the relationship within their organization is going to be substantially better. And people were going to want to work there because they’re feeling like they’re being related to as an individual, as a human, as a self rather than a cog in the wheel. And, you know, why am I doing this? This is not worth my time. And I’m out of here. And we’re seeing that a lot more, you know, with Gen Z, because there’s a lot more awareness on mental health. So they’re sort of, you know, to whatever degree they’re doing it well, they’re privileging it and they’re really looking at and privileging their own mental health and well-being in terms of the work that they’re doing. So, you know, in terms of people who are managing teams, you know, in some ways they need to be listening to this sort of thing, because otherwise they’re not going to have a workforce in another decade. First of all, that’s very well said. Secondly, there’s all the research that people being able to come into healthy, agentic, because there’s all kinds of unhealthy, manipulative, destructive forms of service, all the abuse around it. But people being able to come into healthy, agentic service, it shows that it is a significant contributor to people having enhanced meaning in life, more gratitude for their own life, et cetera, et cetera. And I really like this because I’ve, and, you know, Ethan and I talked a lot about this. And I’m concerned about, you know, this issue of service because the research is clear about it and the historical relevance, as you just articulated, Taylor, is clear. And yet trying to step into this directly is a minefield because of all of the ways in which this has been abused. And I mean, one of the reasons why many people don’t find the legacy religions viable is not because they don’t believe in the metaphysics. It’s because they find the way in which the notion of service has been exploited and manipulated and abused to just be completely off putting to them. And what I hear you saying is you’re both trying to bring back, could we educate people for virtuous service that really matters to them and matters to others? Is that a fair way of putting it? Yes. So, if that, go ahead, Ethan, go ahead. No, no, because as I was listening to Taylor, you’re sharing this piece and this idea of how we frame it as service within Spire. It’s like this white elephant just walked, like this elephant walked into the room. Whether or not it’s white is up to debate. But like, I feel like I want to step onto this meta level about like looking at it and say, okay, you know, Taylor and I do this as for the most part a living. And this is this program and other programs like it in our facilitative work is also part of the Spire context in which we sit. And there was this question that Christopher Mastropietro rose when we talked about this program with him last week. Like, who is the authority on this? You know, and this is an important question as facilitators, which needs to be reckoned with constantly. This is not one of those programs where I’m going, oh, I’ve done my work. I’ve done all my inner work so I can teach this now, get the foremost authority on it. No, there’s still a lot of inner work that I personally have to do that I need to drudge up from underneath this. And I expect that this program is going to bring some of those things to light so that I can take a look at it. But at least, and I imagine Taylor, you’d agree is like what we are good at doing is identifying the ways in which people, people ourselves included, are navigating these capacities, using these tools and these methods to be able to enter into that kind of inner work. I’m not a dad. Taylor is. I’m hoping that if I learn from him through this program, eventually when I become a better dad, I picked up some of those capacities that are immediately transferable. And participants in this program might be able to teach that to me too. And this is the fellowship component that we’re modeling to each other by virtue of this program, how we can be better for each other. This is the internalization in dwelling piece. We’re not the totalitarian authority on what it is to be a person in service. But we’re just there to be able to monitor the capacities. And that’s why the science is so important. Those of you who have seen the… Yeah, we’ll finish this last piece. Yeah, please go ahead. Yeah. So Greg and I have also been working on the sapiential processing piece with the video just went out earlier this week. That forms a kind of at least covers up that scientific perspective where we’re synthesizing all of the work that’s being done here in this corner of the internet and saying, how does this integrate with these capacities that we’re looking at building? Yeah. So, yeah, I hear that you’re not certifying people as authorities in service. You are educating people to become much more rationally in the platonic Socratic sense, rationally reflective upon cultivating virtuous service, which I think is a very different thing. So in connection with that, because I can hear a concern. I don’t have this concern now that I’ve heard you, but I can hear people having it. Well, you surely are not saying that in order to facilitate Tai Chi, I don’t really need to get develop expertise in Tai Chi. I just need to take your course and then I could teach Tai Chi. Or I don’t need to have a lot of experience and mindfulness. I could just take your course and then facilitate a meditation course. You’re not… you’re both laughing. So obviously, this is a ridiculous proposal, but I want you to speak to that very explicitly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, at the top most level, we’re not actually training practices. It’s more the constitutional aspect. But what I would say, because of the domain general aspect of it, is that if you’re developing these capacities and you’re having a great success with it, when you enter into a more context specific thing, say organizational development, you know, training, or say, you know, an embodiment training, you know, or Tai Chi teacher training or yoga teacher, whatever that is. All these foundational concepts as you’re working, it’s just going to make it one easier to pick them up, two to be way more embodied when you’re doing it, because you’ve already integrated so many things. Like a lot of these trainings, you know, some of them are like super long. And the reason why they are is they’re trying to take people from like the ground floor of like nothing. They’re trying to have people at, you know, easy entry. And then they’re trying to develop very similar capacities, although I don’t think as fully as we’re looking at them, you know, up for debate, I suppose. So that then they can actually do that training. But that’s a lot of stuff to take in within one particular contact. Yeah, I get it. You need that integration time. You know, one of my things about the people who do workshop after workshop after workshop is like, if you don’t step back from the workshop, you don’t step back from the training. When are you getting an opportunity to integrate this into your life? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so yeah, that the domain general piece is just like almost like optimally gripping, like it’s giving you an optimal grip. To then take on a particular practice to go into a circling training and really more fully grasp it at its depths. That might take somebody who doesn’t do a development like this years longer to do it because they’re not directly training these more what we see as fundamental capacities. I want to give something back to you. I wouldn’t say it’s about optimal grip. I say I think it’s about meta optimal grip. It’s like stance and fighting. It’s about how do you properly orient yourself so you can learn the specificities of the training? So you can learn the specific optimal grips you need in Tai Chi or an organization development, etc, etc, etc. That’s where I would put it. And I think if you I would recommend you make that very explicitly foregrounded and clear to people because I can see people because I’ve done similar things where people think, oh, I can just do this instead of doing all of these other things. Right, right. I could just take a few cogs I courses and I won’t ever have to take psychology or philosophy or linguistics or any AI can just do the cogs. I said, no, I don’t think you understand what cogs I is. It doesn’t work that way. So, yeah, I recommend now. I think this is a very strong point to foreground and avoid any confusion people might have in what you’re doing. How can people do this and how is it going to be offered and how can they find out about it and all those very practical questions and Yeah, I mean, I guess I could speak to that. So we we have a number of dates that are sort of planned over the next six to eight months in various cities across the world. So we’re hoping to bring this, you know, we’re going to do something here in North America real shortly and then bring it out into Europe a couple times and then potentially even further out. Well, out east, but all virtually. Is it all virtual or is no, this is all in person. This is important. Thank you. Yeah, I’ve been taken up for granted. Yeah, no, this is all in person. I think that’s almost almost critical because there are just certain things that you can’t pick up even as like a facilitator as a leader of a container like this. There are certain things that get sort of lost in the virtual environment. Virtual is way better than I ever thought it would be. And I think there are certain contexts that you can most certainly work on and train in that. But, you know, it’s really hard. I mean, even just on a practical level, it’s hard to do a lot of the embodiment pieces. And then also when you’re with a group of people and, you know, and they’re doing, you know, pair or, you know, try it. Exercise is really hard. You know, when you’re sitting in a virtual room while everybody disappears, it’s like they’ve just vanished. You have no sense of like, you know, and they can’t ask questions. So there’s certain things with the complexity of the container that we’re working with where there’s going to be a lot of individual like moments where the individual is like, oh, I’m confused about this. You know, that can’t be covered in instruction and stuff. So there’s just so many pieces that get lost in the online environment that this would only be an in-person program. Yeah. Right. So how will people find out? I mean, obviously, I’ll let people know on my various platforms about anything you guys are doing. Would that be the best way? Will you guys be on like social media posting about it and whatnot and things like that? Yeah, we’ll certainly be doing that. I know Authentic Relating Toronto is currently listing. So the meetup group that we have for ART, because the first one’s going to be in Toronto, it’s currently listed there. We’ll give you links that can go into the show notes and, you know, potentially we’ll update those over time as we get the dates for European stuff put in there. So that certainly, you know, when you see this video, there should be links in there. And that’s how you can read more detail about it and find out how to register and schedule a fitment call and things like that. Great. So I’d like to give my guests the last word, and it can be any kind of word, summative, cumulative, inspirational, provocative, enigmatic. What’s the final word you want to leave people with? I think maybe the thing that I’m left with the most is sort of that piece at the end. I’m like, I’m really turning and I think it’s correct, but I’m also turning like, right, meta-optimal grip. Yeah, why didn’t we just say that at the beginning? There’s something about that. It’s like, oh, there’s the key that slots in that makes this so much easier, at least for anybody familiar with your work to sort of understand what this program is about. So I’m just appreciating the simplicity of it. I’m like really grateful that you’re a part of this and advising us. It’s not just to bring gems like that, because I mean, Ethan, I’ve been talking, that did not come up between us. But I think that’s right on. And I’m really excited about that. Excellent. Ethan. Yeah, I’m recalling a conversation that I had with one of our good friends around what it is to pay young kung fu, like how do you cultivate kung fu? There’s two broad paths to it. One is the gong part, which is the very procedural, what you’re actually doing. What’s the move? Where do you put your feet? How do you get yourself balanced? And then there is the fa, which is the way of being within that. Are you beating yourself up about not being able to hold a horse stance for more than 30 seconds? And so like this program is much more leaning into the fa. Because we can pick up the gong anytime we want. It’s all on YouTube. It’s all accessible. But what is the way of being? So that’s what I’m left with. This has been wonderful, gentlemen. I think we’ll probably talk about this again. I’d like to know after it’s unfolded, get some another discussion about what you’ve learned in presenting it and teaching it. And I’m very excited about this. And I am happy to be involved with it. So thank you very much. Thank you, John. Thank you, John. Always a pleasure. Thank you for watching. This YouTube and podcast series is by the Vervecky Foundation, which in addition to supporting my work, also offers courses, practices, workshops and other projects dedicated to responding to the meaning crisis. If you would like to support this work, please consider joining our Patreon. You can find the link in the show notes.