Emerge: Making Sense of What's Next

Latest Episodes:

Robert Kegan - The Five Stages of Adult Development (And Why You Probably Aren't Stage 5) Mar 06, 2020

Show notes

Robert Kegan is a psychologist who teaches, researches, writes, and consults about adult development, adult learning, and professional development. His work explores the possibility and necessity of ongoing psychological transformation in adulthood. He is perhaps most well known as the author of The Evolving Self, In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life, and An Everyone Culture.

In this conversation we talk about:

What is a good definition of an 'adult'?

The phasic vision of adult development

The variety of developmental logics in the human mind

A tour of the 5 stages of adult development

What people get wrong about his 5 Stage model of human development

Why you are almost certainly not ‘Stage 5’ if you're under the age of 40

The gap between philosophical understanding and developmental attainments

Why you might take on a Stage 5 philosophical orientation from the Stage 4 developmental level (and what that might look like)

The most important developmental stage transition for the majority of humans

What transcending the limits of the socialized mind means for our planetary culture

The Monastic Academy Awakened Leadership Bootcamp

Mark Feenstra - The Inner Dimension of the Meta-Crisis Mar 01, 2020

Show notes

In this episode, I'm speaking with Mark Feenstra. Mark is co-founding a consulting and training ecosystem and incubator, called New Mainstream, which focuses on large scale change that starts with ourselves and the possibility of a new mainstream. Mark is also in the process of founding a land-based community to ground the possibility of actualizing a new mainstream, initially in Golden Bay, New Zealand.

Over the last year or so I’ve been lucky enough to have a number of conversations with Mark. He, as much as anyone I’ve encountered, really lives the sort of inquiry that I’ve been attempting to embody on this show. Every time I speak with Mark I feel like I’m falling into some wormhole of understanding and coherence. Mark has an amazing ability to bring these topics down to earth without sacrificing the ambiguity and playfulness that is the lifeblood of beautiful conversation.

We talk about:

Shifting from a Game A to Game B mental operating system

The fractal nature of the meta-crisis and how it lives within each of us

What integrity really means (and whether a crisis of integrity at the heart of the meta-crisis)

Whether the split between individual transformation and systems transformation is an artifact of Game A consciousness

Why attempting to fix or heal the crisis is a red herring Integrity as an emergent property of coming into relationship with wholeness

How noticing the lack of integrity is a proximal cause of integrity

The relationship between integrity and omni-win decision making

And the beautiful impossibility of true omni-win decision making

Monastic Academy Awakened Leadership Bootcamp

Rob Burbea - Emptiness, Postmodernism, and Sacred Participation Nov 25, 2019

Show notes

On this episode I'm joined once again by meditation teacher and author Rob Burbea. For this conversation Jamie Bristow and I talk with Rob about his approach to emptiness, and how it can be a route beyond postmodern nihilism and into a vibrant and sacred participation in the world. We talk about: An overview of the ‘ways of looking’ approach to emptiness, the participatory nature of perception & the world, how perception gets fabricated through our participation, the limitations of a purely cognitive deconstruction ala postmodernism, how Rob would define emptiness if asked about it at a cocktail party, How emptiness reveals a path beyond post-modernity, how hidden commitments limit our ability to explore perspectives, the unavoidability of participation and the impossibility of neutrality, the middle way between existence and non-existence, how this approach to emptiness offers a way forward in a ‘post-truth’ world, how your experience right now is constellated by your way of seeing (whether you know it or not), and the necessity of practice to realize the deeper dimensions of emptiness. Seeing that Frees [Amazon] Rob on the Deconstructing Yourself Podcast 2009 Emptiness Retreat Dharma Talks

Jamie Bristow - Mindfulness as Metamodern Psychotechnology Nov 18, 2019

Show notes

Jamie Bristow joins the show to respond to critiques against the mindfulness revolution and to make the case for mindfulness as a key metamodern cultural technology.

Jamie is Director of The Mindfulness Initiative, the world's first policy institute about mindfulness. Jamie now works with politicians around the world to help them make capacities of mind and heart serious considerations of public policy.

Topics discussed include:

A snapshot of the current state of the mindfulness revolution,
where we are at in the ‘hype cycle’ of mindfulness,
a response to the current crop of critiques of mindfulness and in particular Ronald Pursers ‘McMindfulness’ critique,
how mindfulness allows us to rescue our attention the clutches of the attention merchants,
the attentional capacities of mindfulness as fundamental ground for mass action and civil disobedience in the 21st century,
the symmetry between mindfulness and the concept of Sovereignty as promoted by Jordan Greenhall and Daniel Scmachtenberger,
and what might be available at the deeper end of practice... 🤩

Jamie's Article on OpenDemocracy

The Future of the Emerge Podcast Nov 04, 2019

Show notes

A solo episode where Daniel shares his vision for the next turn in the inquiry of the Emerge podcast.

Rebel Wisdom // Future Thinkers // Emerge - Making Sense of the Sensemaking Web Oct 14, 2019

Show notes

David Fuller, Mike Gilliland and I spend time jamming on the conversational space that we have been participating in, and attempt to make sense of where this all might be going...

Ronan Harrington - Extinction Rebellion: Collective Sacrifice and Metamodern Praxis Oct 03, 2019

Show notes

This week I'm speaking with Ronan Harrington about Extinction Rebellion. We talk about the strategic dilemmas of Extinction Rebellion, and how it functions as a practical exploration of metamodern theory.

Previous Emerge episode with Ronan

We chat about:

- The limits of philosophical conversation and the need for practical movement building

- The challenge of moving from collective awareness to collective action

- The possibility of inspiring an ethos of sacrifice as a portal to action

- Extinction Rebellions upcoming actions beginning October 7th, which are positioned to be the largest direct action in UK history

- Our mutual desire to move beyond conversations and into experimental action

And much more...

Extinction Rebellion International Rebellion

Guy Sengstock - Circling Towards Meaningfulness & Collective Intelligence Sep 23, 2019

Show notes

In this episode I'm speaking with Guy Sengstock. Guy is the creator/discoverer of Circling, a relational meditation practice that is quickly spreading across the world.

In this conversation, we cover such topics as:

- Guy’s take on what Circling is

- How Circling has revealed itself over the years to Guy

- What it means to obey what we discover in our practice(s)

- How we know to get interested in something

- The mystery at the heart of the practice of Circling

- Where the sacred and the divine live in Circling

- Why other people are terrifying

- Circling and Collective Intelligence

- How conversations make the world

- How making fine distinctions brings the world into being

The Circling Institute

Zak Stein - Metapsychology, Soul, and Collapse (Pt. 2) Sep 17, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, I'm speaking with writer, educator and futurist Zak Stein. We discuss 'Metapsychology', Zak's attempt to answer the question 'what is the human?' brought up in our previous conversation about a vision for metamodern education. This is part two of a two part conversation.

It's recommended that you listen to my previous conversation with Zak on Education and the Meta-Crisis before you listen to this episode.

Apologies for the sound quality on this episode, it's a little rough around the edges. 😕

We talk about:

- What is soul?

- How to understand suicide and collapse from a soul perspective

- The symmetries between suicide and the movement towards collapse we are collectively moving towards

- How metapsychology helps us understand what the human being is

- How our entertainment industry functions to repress our encounter with death

- Why you can't do educational design without metapsychology

- The difference between spirit and soul

Zak Stein - Metapsychology, Soul, and Collapse (Pt. 1) Sep 10, 2019

Show notes

In this episode I'm speaking once again with writer, educator and futurist Zak Stein. We discuss 'Metapsychology', Zak's attempt to answer the question 'what is the human?' brought up in our previous conversation about a vision for metamodern education. This is part one of a two part conversation.

It's recommended that you listen to my previous conversation with Zak on Education and the Meta-Crisis before you listen to this episode.

Apologies for the sound quality on this episode, it's a little rough around the edges. 😕

We talk about:

- What is soul?

- How to understand suicide and collapse from a soul perspective

- The symmetries between suicide and the movement towards collapse we are collectively moving towards

- How metapsychology helps us understand what the human being is

- How our entertainment industry functions to repress our encounter with death

- Why you can't do educational design without metapsychology

- The difference between spirit and soul