L&C

I am no Superman
I have no answers for you
I am no hero
Oh, that’s for sure
But I do know one thing
And that’s where you are, is where I belong
I do know where you go
Is where I want to be

–Dave Matthews

Thought-induced warfare is what I sometimes hear when I read “think tanks”. Submarines lurking with brilliance waiting to be unleashed, thought missiles and counterfactuals and opposing claims, and the zero-sum game of words used for or against.

For what? At best, the competition of debate clarifies the root differences, revealing what’s truly at stake. At neutral, it elevates the art and science of argument, where one side’s social and mental intelligence…

But let’s slow down. Take a step back. Wait. Deep breaths.

Before wanting a winner, let’s decide what “winning” means. 

Presence wants all of ourselves to attend. Not narrowed or directed, but diffuse and wide and open and available.

What are we here for? We might not know. We might have forgotten. How can we remember?

Let’s walk together a little bit. Let’s see what happens when we dialog. Where do we want to go? What do we want to create?

Lots of things at first. Nothing perhaps. But something must come of our energies flowing together. Let’s find out.

A harmony ensues, emerging from both sides when sides aren’t corners but circles. And when it’s dissonant, it’s simply more music. A field of energy that asks for greater presence from us all. What could this presence field hold? 

I don’t know. We can’t know. Because if we did, it wouldn’t emerge from us, it would be known ahead of time. The outcome would only be an agenda, and sides would form again. 

The presence field doesn’t give us answers, rather questions to live into with each other. Questions that ask us to be here, willing, flexible, curious, exploratory, experimental, innovative, generative, wondering, imaginative, playful.

Child-like, not childish, in our wonder.

The process then is the outcome, because even if we end up nowhere, we are still present to it. It is not failure, it’s simply learning. To be with one another in a new way, to create possibilities yet unknown.

Another field of presence.