Last month I became a supporter of The Stoa and I am very much enjoying being involved with this initiative. Every morning I read the latest email from Peter Limberg, the steward of The Stoa. His daily journal entries are amazing and I want to capture some of my own thoughts that they have inspired.
Oct 1 - Wild, Embodied, Modest, and Not Snappy
I am a tad overextended right now… Today I want to expand my thoughts on reasoning, because it is one of the courses I eventually would like to create, but with much more sexiness than the other reasoning courses out there… Before I go into this further, I do want to confess I am feeling something close to the impostor syndrome here.
Peter Limberg is full of ideas, good ideas. And he is very open about his thoughts and feelings which I greatly appreciate. When he asked me what inspired me to support The Stoa, I sent him the following reply.
Greetings Peter,
Keep doing what you are doing.
My interest in The Stoa began with your article The Memetic Tribes Of Culture War 2.0 posted on Medium, which I discovered about a year ago. BTW, that leads to my first suggestion. I would like to see more written material. All the video material is great, but I also like to engage with written material which I can absorb at my own pace. You obviously do not have time to do a lot of writing, but others may emerge.
Along the same lines, I love your daily journal entries. You are practising something that I call radical personal transparency. You bare your soul. You share your journey. This gave me the confidence I needed to support your work. I trust you and there are not many out there that I would say that of. Trustworthiness is, unfortunately, a rare commodity in the world today.
If you have time (you do not), have a look at my attempt to practise radical personal transparency. https://johnstokdijk.com/
It was through The Stoa that I discovered Collective Presencing by Ria Baeck. It seems as though I have been waiting for years for this book to find me. If you have time (you do not), you can have a look at my comments on The Stoa on Discord in the book discussion area. I am having some brief exchanges with Ria Baeck herself which is very, very special. This area will be my primary focus for a while. I hope that a small group that I am part of will emerge committed to a Collective Presencing practice, but I am not yet ready.
And you are Canadian, as am I, although I now live in Mexico.
Regards,
John
My phrase radical personal transparency just popped into my head as I was I writing the above email. I sense that somehow it is a significant idea and I think it is original, although others have also used it. When I later googled the phrase I got only 103 hits, a remarkably low number for any google search.
Oct 2 - Interpersonal Load
Relationships are demanding, especially if you want to get them right. I do not want a series of superficial and bullshit relationships, I want the good stuff. This project is slowly growing, more and more people are discovering it each day, and I am going to need to develop new heuristics in how I personally relate—to protect my time, my energy, and my access to the daemon.
Peter is always talking about the daemon. That is not a word that I relate to but I think I know what he means. I also occasionally feel an energy inside of me that seems to be something more than just strong intuition.
Oct 3 - A Loving Space
The current social media ecology encourages people to egoically collapse into narrative warfare, which perpetuates their trauma. The Stoa is a place where people can follow the wisdom of Hermann Hesse instead, and recognize that when they are triggered, it is really something within that is bothering them. You need a space for this, and it is not a safe space that is needed, but a loving space.
My experience to date with The Stoa is completely consistent with the above words, a loving space.
Oct 5 - A Stoic Opportunity
I received something strange and unsettling in my inbox last night. I do not want to write too much about this situation, and hopefully it does not escalate. Somebody who has a proclivity to burn his bridges, sent me an unlisted video where he “critiques” me.
This critique seems to boil down to me being friends with people he does not like, and how I do not talk or listen to him enough. The email also felt like a threat: talk to me, and invite me to The Stoa, or I will release this video or others like it. It is not wise to appease threats like these, because it rewards bad behaviour, and that would promote bad behaviour in the future, towards others and myself.
I am reminded of the saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.”
Oct 8 - Core Challenges
The only personal goal I have here is to reach 5k via Patreon…
Good Stoics do their negative visualizations though, and it is probably good to be more sophisticated about all the bad shit that could happen here. Luckily, somebody kindly sent me a very thoughtful email recently, outlining all the core challenges he thinks The Stoa has.
They all felt pretty accurate, so I will list them here and summarize what he said… I imagine there are more challenges here, but this seems like a pretty good list to start. Writing this out is making me feel into why I have not moved away from this place being a “one-man administration” operation.
The challenges facing The Stoa seem accurate to me as well. And it seems wise to me that Peter is keeping this as a one man show at this time. It will be interesting to see how The Stoa will evolve as it grows.
Oct 9 - Wanting to See Red
It has been a while since I was in a physical confrontation. Or said in a more “manly” way—it has been a while since I've gotten in a fight… I am usually your calm and collected Stoic, but if I get punched in the face, then I go ape-mode… There is some hesitancy in my sharing this story, for impression management reasons. It feels like I've shared my sensitive side more here, where I romantically drink cortados while listening to indie-rock and longing for communitas. But there is also a side of me that would enjoy fucking another man up.
I deeply appreciated this particular journal entry. It is so open, so honest, so real. Peter seems to have a strong, macho male side that I do not share, but I think that I do understand it. I wonder if there are other males like me at The Stoa, HSPs, highly sensitive persons. I forwarded the above journal entry email to Pat and she enjoyed reading it.
Oct 11 - Chess Player
But there is something deeper than being dominated and heartbroken, and it is what happens after those things happen: being left alone...
I do not want to be alone, at the heart of it, and I do not want to be lonely. I do not want people to leave me, and stop loving me. I do not want to be unlovable, which I felt like I was for such a long period in my life, and it really sucked. I do not know if you feel what I am feeling right now, but I sense some of you do. It is open right now, this lonely heart, of this ridiculous steward, and his eyes are getting a little wet…
We are all lonely sometimes, and that is okay. The inner boy or girl we forgot long ago, keeps failing their way to communitas, again and again. I am optimistic though, because I am here now, lonely with you.
Peter continued this theme the next day.
Oct 12 - Befriending the Ego
After reading my last entry, Bonnitta Roy wrote me: That lonely thing is the last strategy that the ego uses to control your greatness. It's the ego's final card. When it's played it means the ego doesn't have anything else (or anything powerful enough) to call you back into your cage.
I like that. My ego wants to seduce me, with its loneliness, in order to get me back in my cage. I have a sense he is jealous of the relationship I have been forming with the daemon. I have been feeling the daemonic energy with great potency these days. Something feels really alive, and this daemonic fire is coursing through my mind-body. It feels sexual, spiritual, and powerful.
If Bonnitta is right, then my ego is protesting with loneliness. I imagine because he does not want to lose me to the world, because if you let yourself listen to the daemon, your life becomes bigger than yourself, and your transpersonal commitment gets revealed to you.
I was moved by Peter’s last two journal entries and I sent the following email to two amazing women.
Greetings Bonnitta and Ria,
Peter Limberg wrote something in his journal yesterday that struck a deep chord in me.
After reading my last entry, Bonnitta Roy wrote me: That lonely thing is the last strategy that the ego uses to control your greatness. It's the ego's final card. When it's played it means the ego doesn't have anything else (or anything powerful enough) to call you back into your cage.
Years ago a psychologist told me that I had a deep fear of being alone. An intense feeling of loneliness has been with me my whole life, although I am coping quite well now. However, I continue to think that this is somehow important for everyone to understand better.
Is there written material about this somewhere that expands on your statement above?
Ria, do you have any experience with exploring intense feelings of loneliness within Collective Presencing practice?
Regards,
John
And I was delighted when I received these replies:
Hey
Years ago I immersed myself in Chogyam Trungpa's writings. I own all his works which have accompanied me through may interesting times. Just about the time I felt this nagging (gnawing) sense of loneliness -- like at the end of the spiritual development/awakening there is a profound sense of loneliness, I was reading Trungpa about this, and he was saying that there is great loneliness in store... (Can't remember which book, I should look it up again after all these years.) I struggled to understand/ come to terms with that. On the one hand, yes I was experiencing that loneliness. On the other hand, I rejected the notion. As it came to pass, I recognized it as a last ditch attempt of the ego, in the context of the fear of her death. I could say a lot more about the psychology of this. It has to do with the way we organize our experience as children into primary schema, and then interject the ego to accompany the "core self" ... Would be great to do it in a Stoa session.
B
If there is resonance with/in Peter - to do this on The Stoa - I'm happy to 'hold a circle' around this topic.
I guess we will need to make fine distinctions between loneliness that was actually there when you were a child (and is like a personal wound) and the loneliness that comes up here 'at the end of spiritual development'. And then there is Bonnie's take on it… would surely be interesting for the ones joining and even for others to watch (if it was recorded).
With love,
Ria
Oct 14 - Playing Chess With Demons
I was corresponding with Bonnitta about my last entry, seeking her guidance about the “following the daemon leads to the demons” thing, and she basically advised me not to put on the breaks, and recommended for me to keep going. She said that the worst that could happen is me having a psychotic break, or me publicly embarrassing myself.
I have already experienced both of those to a degree, and ultimately they are good character building exercises, if you can get through to the other side that is. I am not that worried about psychotic breaks or embarrassing myself though. I've got Stoicism for that shit. It is this demon shit that I am more concerned with.
My former therapist, Jordan Peterson, believes Christianity had the best understanding of evil. It is the religion that is not shy about stating it exists. Years ago a demon visited me, and brought me to “hell,” which ultimately led me to become Peterson’s client.
I was once a Christian and I had beliefs in angels and demons, but no personal experiences. I lost my faith at midlife and I have no fear of demons. But again, I appreciated Peter expressing his deep thoughts.
Oct 15 - Rescuing Our Father
Everything I am doing here with these journals is basically listening to my former therapist's advice: tell the truth like my life depends on it. And yeah, while some people have given up on Jordan, I have not. I sense his intuition is right: we will meet again, maybe at The Stoa.
This email excited me and I sent Peter the following email.
Greetings Peter,
As with many Canadians, until a few years ago I had never heard of Jordan Peterson. He was first brought to my attention by my Christian conservative friend who lives in Scotland. When Peterson emerged as a public intellectual on the world stage, I was horrified. I followed his story on the Intellectual Dark Web and all that. I watched his recent interview with his daughter and it filled me with compassion.
I am getting a little teary-eyed reflecting on this actually, because I do want to rescue our father from the underworld.
Your intention resonates strongly with me.
And...
I would also like to help remove the stigma against psychotic breaks...
I too have had one, only one, serious psychotic break.
Regards,
John
Oct 16 - Finding the Expiration Date
I sense there is a newfound excitement at The Stoa amongst some of the regulars, and there is a hunger for more community involvement. I feel there needs to be more steward-community interfacing going on. This does feel needed, but I want to be careful here. I do not want us to get doped up on collective excitement, and lose the plot that is being revealed.
This is one more journal entry from Peter full of good ideas. The hunger around the idea of community resonates with me. But I am quite new and I do not know who the regulars are.
Oct 17 - Communitas > Enlightenment
Now I could be completely wrong with the communitas before enlightenment thing, and my thoughts are probably muddled here somewhere, so I am happy to receive propositional push-back.
Quoting the above, I sent Peter yet another message: No, no, no Peter. I think you have it right. Regards, John.
Oct 19 - Weird Stoicism
I would say all memetic tribes have distinct vibes. The tribes I probably most vibe with, in the order of most-to-least vibing, are: Game B’ers, postrats, metamodernists, and integral theorists. There are things I do not vibe with them as well.
It was Peter’s great article on tribes that first caught my interest and I have followed him since that discovery. I now self-identify as a metamodernist wannabe. Any effort to end the tribal cultural wars impresses me.
Oct 21 - Fuck Bodies, Holy Sluts, and the Horny Sage
I am horny all the time as well. This is why I probably cannot help but use sexual analogies and innuendos all the time, like I just did with placing the words mouth and cocky so close together.
Peter’s sexual vibe does not resonate with me, but I do not find it offensive. In fact, I found this journal entry to be very insightful. And again, I love his openness, his honesty.
Oct 22 - Hearing the Music Part 2
I see the whole Game B thing as a nerdy instruction manual, to describe where we are and where we need to go. Reading this instruction manual does provide existential hope, but it does not provide instructions on what the bridge from Game A to Game B will look like.
Yes! We need many bridges from Game A to Game B. This is work that I want to contribute to.
Oct 23 - The Next Sage Is the Stoa
In that “Communitas > Enlightenment” entry, I argued that we if had to choose, we probably should put our efforts into getting into communitas first, instead of getting into enlightenment. Despite getting pushback about being uncharitable to Buddhism, nobody has disabused me of this argument yet. Given this the next sage is the Stoa thing, I sense the order of operations needs a rejigging. First comes wisdom, then communitas, then (for lack of a better term) enlightenment.
No, Peter. I think communitas comes first and that communitas will generate collective wisdom. And although I learned much from Buddhism, I share Peter’s skepticism towards enlightenment.
Oct 24 - Cult to Culture
I like how we are focused on communitas here, that feels right. Perhaps the mission of The Stoa is to convert memetic tribes into embodied tribes, but now I actually feel called to push back on my previous comment: It is not a cult. It is a culture.
Maybe The Stoa is not a culture either, maybe it is a meta-culture: a place where the code of culture is rediscovered, which can afford a plurality of cultures to emerge from it. I do not think it is wise to expect some mono-culture to emerge from The Stoa, or that all of the people who come to The Stoa will get into communitas with one another.
I know cults. For twenty-five years of my life I was in a benign Christian cult. The Stoa is no cult. If it evolves in that direction, which is doubtful, I think I would be one of the first to sense the shift. And I would leave.
Oct 28 - Becoming a Spiritual Bouncer
The challenges external to me can be divided into challenges that are internal and external to The Stoa itself. To start with the challenges internal to The Stoa, I sense two at the moment: a “sense of community” and the shadow it brings, and the onboarding of certain spiritual energies, and the shadow that those energies bring...
The second internal challenge I currently see is onboarding certain spiritual energies. We are attracting more spiritually inclined people, and I sense more will be coming. This is beautiful, as this energy has a delicious femininity about it.
Yes, this is beautiful.
Oct 29 - Sensing Into Your Gift
I have not felt like I was in a meaning crisis since this project started, because once you start giving your gift, the meaning crisis goes away, and more good news: your gift giving will probably help resolve the meta-crisis as well. And there is no point getting egoic about this, because nobody’s gift alone is going to resolve the meta-crisis; we need to all start giving our gifts.
Again, this is work that I want to contribute to.
My summary comments:
Why am I taking the time to capture my reflections on The Stoa?
My main intention is to write a message to my future self. At the moment I am excited by The Stoa. Will this feeling wane? What will I feel a year or two from now? A few years ago I was excited by spiritual naturalism, but that waned.
I am also documenting who I accept as my teachers. Some potential teachers are a mile wide and an inch deep. Others are an inch wide and a mile deep. I look for teachers who are both wider and deeper than I am. Peter Linberg is such a person, much wider and deeper than I.
And I am trying to respond to what I feel inside. I feel that somehow my effort here will make more sense, even to me, sometime in the future. Hopefully, my future self will emerge with new insights that I cannot grasp at this time.