Unlearning: For Change Agents

Session One: Unlearning the Issues

Beginning with this first session, and throughout the course, I’ll be asking you to notice subtle aspects of your being, your assumptions, and your way of interacting with the world and others. We start by questioning the tacit agreement of the entire news media on what is newsworthy, what issues to care about. The news offers a certain orientation toward life that is visible when we take a step back from it.

Invitation: News Fast

The invitation this session is to consider doing a complete news fast for at least one week, to clear the field and observe the reactivity and polarization that our society’s normalized narratives may create. You can explore the effects through writing and meditation, with a local group or circle of friends, and/or within the discussion forum set up for this course. May it bring you many blessings!

Session Transcripts

Many thanks to Laura Siegel and Stella Osorojos for transcribing these sessions!

All Session 1 – Unlearning the Issues (transcript)

For Further Exploration

• Activism in the New Story
  One of the most triggering sentences of The More Beautiful World… was, “Let us be wary of any revolution that isn’t threaded with an element of play, celebration, mystery, and humor. If it is primarily a grim struggle, then it may be no revolution at all.” People find this naïve. Play and celebration seem a bit frivolous in the face of…(more)“

• Story
  In Chapter 30 of my book, The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible, I consider how what we believe to be true and possible is shaped by the stories we are embedded within. “One day Confucius was walking along with some disciples when they came upon two boys arguing. Confucius asked the boys what the dispute was about. They told him they were arguing about…”(more)