As Occupy Cafe gets ready to set up on the ground in Philly for #NatGat (and to bring the world there with us via Maestro, live-streaming and this website) these questions are crucial to our presence being generative and "leaderful."
I want our inquiry in Philly to be designed to meet the movement where it is, as well as to be at the leading edge of supplying what is “missing.” In this regard, we had some interesting discussion yesterday on our C2012 call, and prior to that as well. I am currently holding two distinct visions of where “the movement” (in both the narrow and the widest sense) might be “at.” Call them the “everything is evolving as it needs to” versus the “this isn’t nearly enough yet” scenarios.
“Everything is evolving as it needs to”
On the one hand, there is a great deal in motion. People are awakening and they are not willing to settle for “business as usual” any more. It is impossible to know the full scope of what is emerging, and we can choose to trust that is it sufficient and make our job be to carry that message, to mirror to the movement as much of what is working well as we can, and to create links (community) among those who are already in action to support and synergize what they are doing.
“This isn’t nearly enough yet”
On the other hand, it is possible that, while the potential is there in terms of people, ideas and the will to act, the form of what will really make the difference is not currently emerging, change agents sense this, and they are feeling desperate and cynical. They are tired, angry and in pain. The “system” seems too powerful to be defeated. The movement is shrinking and becoming more extreme rather than gaining energy and broad support.
Of course, it is probably more useful to see this as a spectrum than as an “either/or” and perhaps in some ways both things are true. Here is my thinking in terms of conversational design based on this framing… If we’re basically on track (“everything is evolving as it needs to”) our job is to make that visible to the movement and celebrate what is emerging. From there, new ideas and initiatives can also be born, but that is not our main focus. Rather, we are tending to the spirit of those who are engaged, helping them to feel safe and inspired and appreciated, and building community. If things are not on track, however, the key missing becomes BOTH a tending to spirit/community AND the catalyzing of something new that can shift the dynamics within the movement and in the wider world. The question that resonates for me at the core of this is the classic “if our success was completely guaranteed, what bold steps might we choose?”
Along the lines of “bold steps,” I got a vision yesterday that really inspired me. It is outlined here. The core of it is for a huge segment of Occupy’s energy to be channeled into the creation of “alternative communities” that both heal our broken neighborhoods and support our desire to move towards ways of living that are increasingly disconnected from “business as usual.” This specific idea can be discussed in the Alternative Economy group here--let's use this thread to address the question more generally.
