POLL: What topics would you like to see Integral Life explore in more depth over the next several months?

Community Development
1

Choose your top 1-3 selections:

  • Art & Creativity
  • Health & Wellness
  • Integral Theory
  • Leadership
  • Love & Intimacy
  • Money
  • Politics/Current Events
  • Psychology
  • Sex & Gender
  • Spirituality
  • Sustainability

0 voters

2

I voted in the poll but this seemed a good place to reply with more detail. Delete it if problematic. Beyond checkbox thoughts:

  1. How about discussions across topics on how, or where, to “Show Up” in the world and the actions a person or a collective can take to influence the outcomes we want to see in the world. Have more of the people and projects in Integral Leadership taking on the culture wars and guiding through its main principles.

  2. More conservative engagement. More inter-quadrant examples and understanding. More cross-quadrant examples and understanding. More holonic examples and understanding.

  3. Would love to see more application of Wicked & Wise: How to Solve the World’s Toughest Problems.

  4. I am struck by how clear Ken Wilber is in the interviews I’ve watched. For example, the Collective Insights: Can Integral Theory Transform Civilization and Save Humanity? interview was riveting, particularly watching Ken come alive, heavy with the fruit of his life of inquiry. More like this. I could feel my synapses giggling as they snapped into new understanding.

  5. More about the projects, businesses, and others actively involved in applying Integral Theory.

  6. More from the people being cultivated by, or recognized by Ken and others to grow and expand the Integral Community over time with the intent of bringing it into society at large.

  7. Perhaps a series of discussions, or better, collective/collaborative knowledge capture in a Wiki with periodic discussions and explanations on paths into learning and applying Integral Theory most effectively. More guidance into the serendipity of browsing knowledge. Perhaps a more detailed syllabus approach to ILP with multiple paths but within a view of the whole.

And of course, more … and all. I am new enough to Integral Life so much of this may already exist. But I am quite enjoying the daunting task of finding them.

Thanks for asking.

2 Likes
3

The topic I’d like to see is this: what are the means by which those who are in earnest in self realization can rise above their unresolved personality and character defects in order to grow up? How does one know where he or she is in the spectrum of psychological development and what kind of psychotherapy is needed in order to rise above our inner conflicts. In Dr Karen Horney’s book “Neurosis and Human Growth:The Struggle Toward Self-Realization” she says

A better possibility of dealing with destructive forces in ourselves is that of outgrowing them. The way toward this goal is an ever increasing awareness and understanding of ourselves. Self knowledge, then, is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous growth.

Elsewhere she says,

To the extent that we take our growth seriously, it will be because of our own desire to do so. And as we lose the neurotic obsession with self, as we become free to grow ourselves, we also free ourselves to love and feel concern for other people. At any rate, whether for ourselves or for others, the ideal is the liberation and cultivation of the forces which lead to self realization.

While I understand the need to talk about many important issues because we learn much from them, there seem to be too much talk but no action. I mean, there are many spiritual retreats claiming 3 day “transformation” or “renewed energy” and many other marketing gimmicks, but no amount of it is going to address our deep seated unresolved feelings as well as our un-examined belief system. And of all the spiritual retreats offered, not one addresses -in a very direct way- how to “lose our neurotic obsession with self” as Dr. Horney insightfully points out. So this is the topic I’d like to see addressed. We hear a lot about spiritual bypassing but lose sight that we are doing it too, unknowingly, by talking -ad nauseaum- about all things integral.

4

I like the above recommendations.

I would also like to see some tough issues be tackled by integral thinking like how to deal with School Shootings.
I like the idea that laws be placed to not glamorize them in the media, reducing the repeat copy cat incentive. But is that integral?
I like arming teachers and deploying the military to guard schools. I even like training, arming select students. Fighting Amber with Amber?
I think the banning of assault weapons is a dead end. But is banning assault weapons a Green Meme trying to control everything power play or actual solution?
Lots of great stuff to chew through on that subject alone.

5

Could technology be a topic?