For the past year, The Stoa has been a significant part of my life. Yesterday, March 21, 2021, I attended the Maybe the End of The Stoa Party on its one year anniversay date. For several months Peter Limberg has been floating this possibility.
The two and a half hour event was well done but not easy to describe. Any description would not be meaningful to anyone who did not attend, or anyone unfamiliar with The Stoa. I was impressed by the sense of togetherness that could be achieved untilizing Zoom. At the peak I noticed 181 participants, later dropping down to 136.
Peter kept a very low profile during the party. In his closing comments he indicated that he would be making no announcement about his future plans. Instead, he said, we would shortly receive an email. I read that email this morning, written in typical Peter Limberg style.
March 21st, 2021
There is a song I am listening to right now, but I do not want to tell you what it is.
I sense it is good to keep a few secrets, at least for now, even if the secrets are inconsequential. Was this past year inconsequential?
Did it mean anything at all?
Camille and I celebrated spring equinox last night. We took something that made us happy, drank a lot, made love like it was our first time, and talked for hours while listening to slow songs. We dropped so many wisdom bombs, and the whole night I was saying to her: oh, that is definitely going in the journal tomorrow!
I forgot most of what we said though. The reason why I was saying that to her was probably because I was mining for content for this entry. I am a little nervous now, writing this. There is pressure here to make it beautiful. What if I cannot make it beautiful? There is a fear that I will let you down, and just do something inconsequential.
I did remember a few things from last night. I recall telling her that understanding oneself is so overrated. Like seriously, fuck understanding yourself. I spent my whole adult life trying to understand myself. It is a never ending game, and it gets you so tangled up. After I was telling her this, she turned on her laptop and showed me this water eel, contorting itself into a knot, after it entered a toxic lake. She said that eel reminded her of this process of (mis)understanding I was describing. Camille really likes nature shows, and I fucking love her so much.
Once I understand something, and that state of knowing comes online, it does feel great. When that knowingness fades though, an antsy desire emerges, pulling me to know. Am I addicted to knowingness? Sometimes I can catch myself, and let it all go. In those moments I can sink into the now, and allow myself to be submerged into unknowingness. When I do this, my body tells me this: I do not really know, and that is okay. It feels peaceful when my body says this. I feel like a mystery to myself, that is a part of a greater mystery.
You are as well. Maybe take a moment, and join me in this state, if you are not already here.
The other thing I remember from last night is feeling like a good person. This feels corny to say, but it is true. In Toronto before COVID we had a biweekly Circling practice group, and all the cool sensemakers in Toronto were a part of it. John Vervaeke and Jasna Seishin Todorović were both in the group, and in one session they turned to me and said they were drawn to my “goodness.” They were saying something about me having a “good person” vibe. Everybody else in the group agreed.
I hear stuff like this often. I have no evidence that I am a good person. I do not have a massive amount of good deeds behind me, nor have I figured out the philosophical formula to unlocking a neverending goodness. I have hurt people in the past as well. I never did anything too terrible, but I was playing stupid games, that stemmed from me not feeling lovable.
That feeling of goodness which came last night is still here. It feels like a big bright ball, floating in front of my chest. It feels quite inspiring actually. Sinking into unknowingess allows me to just witness this thing, and ask it what it wants. It is like this internal beacon, that is calling me forth. Maybe I should stop trying to figure out how to be virtuous via propositions, and just trust this energy, and become deserving of it, so this state can become my home.
I will try to carry this state throughout the day. It is a big day for The Stoa. Today is its birthday. It was born one year ago, when the collective madness about the virus was in full swing. In December, I posted a “Maybe the End of The Stoa Party.” I did that because I had a desire to end the place then. There was weird energy then, hitting me from so many angles, while I was giving so much. I was a little sad, and old rejection patterns started to emerge. I felt existential loneliness, and I wanted out.
I put “maybe” in the title because I have learned not to trust my decision making capacities in existential lonely states, but it felt like the right move to post the party, in order to remove undue expectations on this place that were coming from myself and from others. And it worked, a month later things changed, and this place felt alive for me again. At that point I was pretty sure I was going to continue The Stoa after the party.
Around my last entry, when I was feeling funky, the thought of ending it emerged again. Doing introspective trauma type work is a heavenly thing, but it does open up past hurts. I started looking at all the negatives, and I was discounting all the positives. It felt like nobody liked The Stoa, or me. It is so fucking ridiculous really. I am so fucking ridiculous. Is all of this just me wanting to be liked? Is all of this just me wanting a friend? Is all of this just me playing silly games so I could find one?
A pressuring thought was emerging: if this place was indeed going to continue to exist after the party, I had to announce something big, in order to justify its continued existence and all of this “maybe the end” hoopla. I did not know what that would be, so I reached out to people whose discernment I trust: Jordan Hall, Daniel Schmachtenberger, Bonnitta Roy, John Vervaeke, etc. I asked them for their thoughts, and shared with them my doubts, of wanting to end this thing. They all had great things to say, but it was something that John said that was really powerful …
The Stoa may end one day, but now is not the time.
He spoke with a spiritual authority that he sometimes channels during his dialogos conversations. Laurence Currie-Clark said something similar, albeit in a more poetically intense way: ending The Stoa now would be a crime against humanity.
I oscillate between feeling like this thing is inconsequential, to feeling into the potential of Laurence’s bold statement. There is a goodness here. I can feel it now. I cannot feel this goodness though, when that noisy part of me that feels unlovable is demanding my attention.
I did get a daemonic download a few days ago, and I have more clarity about what to do now. This kind of clarity is different than the knowingness I described above. It is the kind of clarity I received the day I heard the music, which was probably the wildest day of my life. I felt fused with the daemon that day, and he led me to a demon. I got by with a little help from my friends, mainly Daniel Kazandjian and Lubomir Arsov. The demonic energy wanted me to do something that probably would have permanently damaged me. I would have lost my mind in the wrong way.
I did lose my mind though, hopefully in the right way. I saw Jesus that day, or felt him. I cannot be 100% sure of course, propositionally speaking. Socrates was there as well, with that “M” on his forehead. He was deep asleep though, purring unusually loud, so we cannot ask him if the son of God was really there with me. Don’t worry, I am not about to get too weird here. I do not know what happened that day, and I am too meta to get attached to any narratives. It was beautiful though, especially when I heard the music.
One of the last things I wrote in my journal entry for that day was this ...
I love you. I love you. I love you. I will be here, as long as I am needed, and no longer.
I sense I am becoming pretty good at not knowing things, but I do know that what I wrote that day is still true, and yeah, I am still here. And yeah, you are still here as well, and that feels good. Now, let us discover together what this goodness wants from us.
So, the wait for the fate of The Stoa continues.
Near the end of the party, a surprise tribute was made to Peter in the form of a living slide show to which we could all contribute. I captured and saved the link from the Zoom chat. Wonderful technology! https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1A1nfd4Vb6lA7kUkJJDkEMG8xIt_cpdY2/edit#slide=id.p4
I added my own tribute (without active links) and I became slide #63.
In 2019 Gregg Henriques, who I had been following on Psychology today, wrote An Open Letter for a Vision of Humanity in the 21st Century. In it were many links to what I later came to know as the Game B community. A new world opened up to me.
One link was to a Rebel Wisdom video discussing an article entitled The Memetic Tribes Of Culture War 2.0, co-written by Peter Limberg, who I had never heard of. Next came the Intellectual Explorers Podcast. Then I found Peter’s journal on the Letter platform. And a year ago came The Stoa.
Through The Stoa I found Collective Presencing, or perhaps it found me. The book has had a big impact on me, and still does. This journey is not over.
Thank you, Peter, for your radical personal transparency. I sensed I could trust you and you have proven trustworthy. I hope to follow your journey whatever path you walk.
Next I read all the other slides, many very beautiful and some very creative. I recognized some of the names, fellow Stoa session attendees, people I know. Peter Limberg and The Stoa have deeply touched many lives, mine included. Never before have I witnessed the birth, life and possible death of such a special community! Although I am only a fringe member of this community, I felt a lot of emotion around this event, particularly while reading the tributes. I imagine that for Peter this must be an extremely emotional time. Will I get to read about his experience in a new journal entry?
I have saved the tribute slides to my own G Drive since I have no way of knowing how long the link will be active.
Something I have greatly appreciated is that Peter has resisted any temptation to monitize The Stoa. He clearly has the skills to do very well financially if he went in that direction. But he knows that that would turn The Stoa into something different and something unlikely to be beautiful. He operates transparently in the gift economy, a mechanism that encourages trust. I am one of his patrons at a low level.
***
I will be sending Peter the following email later this morning (now March 23rd).
Greetings Peter,
With all the talk of maybe the end of The Stoa, I have naturally been thinking about my small support of your work as an official patron on Patreon. Would there be anything to support? If so, would it be something that I wanted to support? The Four Attractors of The Stoa provides me the information I need to answer my questions. As always, I appreciate you sharing so much of what is on your mind.
All four attractors are of some interest to me. However, Attractor 2: Culture War to Culture Dance is the one that resonates most strongly. The culture wars seem to be intensifying and becoming more destructive.
Therefore, it is my intention to continue my very modest financial support.
I have expressed additional thoughts on my website here.
I wish you and Camille all the best on your road trip.
Regards,
John
I immediately got the following response and it felt totally appropriate.
Auto-response: Hey beautiful person, I will not be active on email in 2021. There might be a long delay before my response, and it is possible that there will be no response. My preference is to receive concise emails, as for whatever reason I am receiving a lot of emails. With love and warmth, Peter
"The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have." - Epictetus