Hi, I'm Jesse Hirsch.

Welcome to Metaviews, recorded live in front of an automated audience.

And today we're gonna talk about what I think is a crucial subject of our times, the power of community and the role that community can play, not just in connecting us with our humanity, our nature, but forging a better society.

Now, you know, this is where I should start, John, by telling you we have a few segments that are meant as kind of icebreakers to start the show.

Although I'm going to do something with you now that I haven't done with any other guest, which is to give you a bit of context on our audience, because on the one hand, I would say the majority of our audience is not American.

And that's important because America has very rigid narratives and meaning when it comes to words.

And I would say we're more diverse in that regard.

But we also have a lot of people in our audience, my parents in particular, but others as well, who have experience in intentional communities, who have spent time living.

In my parents case, it was in the seventies in northern Ontario in the bush with a lot of others.

Again, these are people either in the boomer generation or younger, who have had some experience in the kind of intentional communities that we will be discussing on today's episode.

So I wanted to kind of prime you and say you can go into advanced mode, right?

You can eschew the normal, this is what's going on, and get to the synthesis of what you think is important, what you want to share, and we'll get into perhaps a more in depth conversation as a result.

But we like to start every episode of Meta Views with the news, partly because we publish our own daily newsletter.

And today's issue is what we're phrasing as AI nationalism.

And we're sort of looking at the way in which the new Trump administration has really aligned themselves with big tech, and how normally in an inauguration, the seats that are reserved for key governors were occupied by the CEOs of the big technology company.

So we're trying to flesh out this concept that nationalism seems paradoxical, contradictory in the age of the Internet, and yet it seems that AI is being used to bolster it, to amplify it.

This is something, again, we encourage our listeners and readers to check out.

But the real purpose of this segment, John, is to offer our guest an opportunity to share some news that they've heard.

Could be personal news, could be professional news, could be world news.

The goal here, on an intuitive level, is to ask the question, is there something that you're paying attention to that you think other people should know about, and in particular, that our audience should know about.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

I mean, obviously, there's so many things happening right now on the planet, especially in my country here with Trump coming into power.

You know, the thing that has caught my eye more than anything in kind of also the same context, what you shared is Trump's sweeping pardons for the January 6th rioters, many of whom were complicit in killing law enforcement officers.

And I'd say that for, like, me, you know, your podcast is called Meta Views.

We, like, made a film about a very meta existential situation.

And, you know, as somebody who is a American who's also Jewish, it is definitely striking the resemblance between Trump Musk and what is happening and Nazism and Hitler back in the 30s.

And it feels like in one swoop, Trump freed all of his main, very criminal cronies who I think that is not just like him keeping a campaign promise, but it's him strategically trying to place people in the public in certain realms of his influence so that he can hold on to power even beyond what might be legal or ethical or normal for a president of the United States to, like, do.

He's actually putting people in power in the populace to keep kind of a enforcement of his code.

And I think we're on a very wild ride of what this fascist rise is and how that's also going to create a counter effect of community.

And really, I also trust it's part of a bigger design of earth towards us going towards healing.

But this is a moment of maximum polarization.

Well, and, you know, ironically, that's part of why we put the news out front, because you start with the bad news, and hopefully we get to the positive and the feeling better what we got to do about this stuff later in the show.

But specifically what I read it the same way.

He's creating brown shirts, right?

He's creating this type of vigilante fascist force.

And the example, like they stated, the administration stated they wanted to target Chicago as kind of the pilot project for ICE raids, Right.

And for deportations.

But because they said that before they did it, a lot of activists in Chicago, a lot of municipal officials in Chicago are preventing it.

Right?

They got the jump.

They've been able to, through their own political will, but also through legal means, prevent these raids from happening place and prevent these deportations from happening.

But to your point, if you have paralegal forces, if you have illegal militias that don't care about what ICE is going to do, but will target immigrants in Chicago or target marginalized people in Chicago.

From a policy perspective, it accomplishes the same thing.

So it is, you're quite correct, a really scary precedent of the way in which this regime is going to use outside of government forces and authority to terrorize people to try to enforce their will.

So our second segment is what we call wtf, which is what's the future?

Because we are a future centric podcast, we try to empower people to anticipate what's coming next.

And so we like to ask our guests, what is something about the future that you've got your eyes on that is part of your event horizon that you want our audience to know about?

And this is where I will disclose.

We tend to have the position that the future is largely fictional.

It's a target, a goal that we aim for, but the process is the purpose.

Right?

It's the journey that matters.

So in this sense, indulge in your imagination.

But at the same time, we're looking for an intuitive answer of, you know, for you, John, where do you see the future?

Yeah.

Thank you.

You know, we're actually hosting a summit in two weeks called Fugitive Futures.

Far out.

Something we think about a lot.

And the future is also, like I said, it's fictional.

It is a story.

But I also have a quote on the end of my email that says the future will be built by those who can tell the most meaningful story that we can be a part of.

And that this year, as both the.

As both, the turning point is also going to be the height of crisis.

And I think, again, there's going to be that polarized, like, I think this year, in the very near future, I think things at Covid level and beyond are going to be happening maybe not all at once, but in different waves.

And I think, though, that because the public has lived through everything we've lived through, including a past Trump presidency, that not just the.

Not just the, like, other side, because I think it's actually a moment also of a lot more unity is going to be happening.

But I think there will be a response of people banding together in community at a organic level in a way never before seen.

Like, everybody I know wants community, even my, like, parents that are very not in the alternative world that I'm in And I think this year is going to be a tipping point of dominoes for things to really happen towards people being like, oh, now we actually need this.

And this is just the healthier way to, to, to like, live in every single regard.

So I see a lot of crisis and a lot of upwelling of like, connection and community happening that is actually bridging divides right on.

And, and you know, let me get you to unpack what you said at the start.

Only because we've always here at Metaviews had the philosophy that in a surveillance society we're all outlaws because 100% compliance with the law is impossible.

Right.

Like you see cars coming to rolling stops on stop signs, and there's always a kind of gray area that in an analog world we accepted, but in the digital world it's more a matter of enforcement.

So what was the summit you mentioned?

And can you unpack it a bit in terms of what its kind of mission or agenda is?

So this summit is really the integration space.

And remind me, the name, it was.

So good it blew my mind is Fugitive Futures.

And so this is coming out of the film we, like, made.

But actually we need to take the film and inspiration into really a global conversation.

And the idea of fugitive futures is that, you know, we've known for a while the world's messed up, things aren't quite right, out of balance.

And yet not really on a big scale much change happened.

Things really just got in, some is worse.

And I think what we're recognizing is that the way we have tried to create change is still operating from some of the base narratives and paradigms that caused the problem to begin with.

So that actually any regenerative future is going to have to be more fugitive in that we're actually going to have to create more of a space of uncertainty, of not knowing of beginner's mind and really holding space for the shadow, for the grief, for the, for the like reckoning.

And from the not knowing, it isn't like, let's have a plan in charge.

It's like, hey, let's sit together and feel and talk and listen and be a little bit more unmade and unmoored.

And maybe from that unmaking we can become alive to new possibilities that we couldn't have otherwise.

That's what makes the future that's coming fugitive yes, it is not authorized.

This is not the mainstream status quo.

This is definitely something that we have to be willing to dance on the edges with and be uncomfortable with.

It will come from our capacity to hold discomfort.

The actual solutions will come.

Now, I have to say, John, I have been wanting to use these sound effects in an episode for as long as I've been podcasting.

And you are the first guest who has earned the reaction of our automated audience.

So more power to you and what we do.

I love the way in which, again, the news and the future are really a setup for.

For what is fundamentally our feature conversation, where our guest comes into our lair and settles down.

For each guest.

I take kind of three pillars that I want to use as the conversation to kind of weave it through.

And you've already teased out all three.

And again, this conversation does not have to be nonlinear.

It's ideally we take it where it goes.

But I thought the pillars of community and then Tamara, the community and then conflict would be a good way to kind of allow us to really get as deep as we can in the modest time that we have and give the audience a kind of provocation.

Right?

For, as you said in our future segment to prepare for what's coming next.

Because where I thought you were right on is while we are witnessing the ascendance of fascism and a kind of fascism that while comparable to Nazi Germany, I think potentially could be even worse, we are at the same time already seeing it's the future past it, right?

And our substack is called the future of authority because we are living in authoritarianism.

And God damn it, we need to see a future past that.

Right?

And that is what I really heard in your narrative.

And your point about the power of stories, I thought was also crucial.

So let's start with community, because community strikes me as both one of the most powerful aspects of human organization.

I like to say that we've evolved to live in community, right?

That to be an individual is almost contrary to the hard wiring of our biology and our culture.

But you also said something in terms of everyone wants it, and I think they want it because it is so scarce.

We've become so alienated in the kind of late stage capitalism, especially as social media has kind of created this faux community, right?

Or this fake community that again, speaks to our desire for it, but like junk food never allows us feeling satisfied, right?

Or fulfilled.

So where to really get you to get into that big picture?

Where do you see community at this moment?

Right?

How.

How does it exist within not just the supply and demand of our economic centric society, but the culture of alienation.

Right.

The pandemic of loneliness that.

That a lot of people describe.

Yeah.

I mean, there's so many threads I want to touch on here.

I mean, one, yes.

Like, just by basic health, the reason everybody wants communities by basic health metrics.

It's clear, like, science has proven that social connection is like, or lack thereof is the number one marker of health.

Or like, not like, it is the thing that will kill you the fastest is not being able to be connected and feel that, like, relational health.

I think the second important point in community, as you said, is that it's not just like, want action at the.

Like a desire like, I want Pepsi or I want whatever.

This is a deep biological imperative.

That was the.

It was like the base structure that humans evolved in for 98.5% of our species evolution.

It's like we are literally biologically hardwired to thrive in communities.

There's also, I think, a longing people can't quite name.

And that also goes beyond just having friends, because a community.

And again, I really want to define, because you said that, that, like, the word community of most other words can be really misunderstood.

People throw that word around all the time.

Community is not your friendship group.

It's not just like the guys you hang out with and drink beer, play, like, sports with or whatever.

It actually is a place of solidarity and mutual care.

And actually, in real community, you don't like everybody.

You don't agree with everybody.

But because you have a common shared interest and care and really understand that your life depends on everybody else's life, you show up in solidarity to support.

I mean, this is what, you know, extended family is in its best regard at some level.

So I think one, we're in a really interesting point on planet Earth, where we are in this globalized world.

So it's not just we have to.

We can't just be local and tribal.

And for.

And why, Tamara, the community we made a film about is so unique.

Is that one of the core differences from them and the other communes, like your parents ones in the 70, that most of them failed, like, one of the highest failure rates of any endeavor is that.

Well, there's really two things.

But one is that they weren't like, we're gonna go.

And just quickly, not only did they fail, but they left their participants with trauma that skewed their politics, which is no surprise.

That's why a lot of boomers are supporting Trump, because they may have been Lefties when they were young.

But to your point, they had such a bad experience that that influenced their politics.

Please continue.

And that.

Which is interesting, because that doesn't mean it was the wrong approach, but it wasn't culturally mature enough yet.

But one of the things that makes Tamara mature and functional is that they aren't like, we're gonna go make a little, like, enclave and hide.

Because they recognize very intelligently, we are on one Earth and you can't hide.

We are on, you know, some kind of, like, sinking ship and that.

So they recognize that their vision, which is part of what keeps people also together in that solidarity, is having a common vision.

Their vision was like, hey, we need to make this functional, but as a model for what global peace culture could be like.

And we need to understand how what we're doing at this very local interpersonal level is also deep activism towards a global system change.

And they spent 50 years in the deep thinking and research and a really.

A really profound theory of really how change can happen through field effects, which is a whole thing we could go in, go like, into.

But the other thing they figured out, and I want to say also in this moment of fascism rising here in the US and really around the world, why we should be learning from the people that survived and how to deal with the aftermath of fascism.

Prior and Tamara is a German project that came out of World War II.

Germany.

It was the next generation of kids being like, what the happened?

Like that incredible guilt and responsibility put something in the founders and the early, early people in Tamara that was like, this can never happen again.

We have to actually find a different way.

And what they found was that fascism happens primarily through othering and through, like, repressed psychological, emotional content.

So their community, and any community is going to have to deal with this pretty much has to be organic, like, vestibule of healing, shadow of digesting trauma and pain.

And shadow.

And Tamara went straight in there and put shadow in the center in a very held way and continually healed and is still doing that work.

Yeah, I.

I want to pick.

I want to get you to double down on something you just said.

And while also not just citing the German experience, but the Spanish and Portuguese experience, because both the Spanish and Portuguese, of course, had extended fascist regimes that survived the Second World War.

Right.

So it went even longer.

And I think that has incubated a much different community centric culture that we don't have here in North America.

And that's why I want you to spend a bit of time unpacking the Othering.

Because so much of contemporary American culture is based on othering.

And the kind of connection I made when you said that is the extent to which.

And again, I'm using North America as the context.

This may be happening elsewhere, but it strikes me so much of community in North America is centered around othering, right?

We are who we are because we're not them, right?

We are the Democrats because we're not the deplorables.

We are the maga because we're not the elite, right?

And so much of that community construction of identity and the narratives and stories that go with it reinforce this culture of othering.

So I'd love for your thoughts on that, but in particular thoughts on how we reverse that, right?

Thoughts on how we bring it back to inclusive notions of community.

Especially when that fucker in the White House like he did an executive order against diversity, you know, inclusion and equity, like they are so vehemently committed to othering, right?

That it has infected our notion of community.

How do we counter that?

That's why I think also we should not fear because there, there's no real power in othering.

Yes, Hitler did heinous things, but at the end of the day there is a spiritual strike.

There's actually a really great book I recommend called the Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk who's actually speaking.

It's an incredible novel that really shows the political possibility of like a spiritual stance of inclusion.

It's an incredible book.

Just that's like a kind of a side thing.

But most people again think of community as like minded people.

And that couldn't be further.

This is not your interest group.

That's great to have, but that is not community was always a diversity.

That has to really be a holistic frackle, a holistic fractal of really the entire earth.

And not saying you need to have one person from every place, but it actually like diversity in any ecological system is what builds resilience.

And community is there to build social resilience.

Which again is why the nuclear family doesn't work.

It's just not resilient.

It is just inherently not a resilient thing.

And community is.

Which is a whole other thing we could go into.

But on the topic of othering and what we do about it.

So one I want to say that it is both a political pathway and a spiritual pathway.

So it's like yes, I do it because I care about the world and I do it because this makes me more fulfilled.

Because every time we are like othering, we're Actually othering a part of ourselves because what we other is repressed psychological is repressed parts of us.

So we therefore are not as whole and we are more innerly divided and full of essentially angst.

That's the opposite really of peace or like happiness or a contentment.

And you know, I want her to talk with this man, Daniel Schmachtenberger, who's like one of the most incredible existential thinkers.

Like this dude is tracking existential threat on the biggest level on planet Earth.

And when asked what is the most important thing we can do to like deal with existential threat at the largest level?

And what he said was go and have an open minded conversation with people that think differently than you and truly be curious.

Listen, do not come in again.

We need to also evolve to a place where our identity structure is not our beliefs.

That's also was also what makes Trump and Maga and those things weak and not real power is that there isn't real power in identity because it's not very actually a very like strong thing.

And so can you hold your beliefs in front of you loosely and actually talk to somebody who you might even hate and really consider there's a good reason they believe what they believe and if you had their life experience, you'd likely believe the exact same thing.

And where can you actually seek to grow understanding?

You don't have to necessarily agree with them, but to really hear people is the start of the revolution.

And there's an interesting kind of tangent to that on the research side, which is that persuasion doesn't work.

Like if you go into a situation wanting to persuade something of someone, best case scenario they're going to ignore you.

Worst case scenario, they're going to double down on the opposite just to piss you off.

And we mistake advertising for persuasion when advertising is just reaching out to the converted already and activating them.

Your point about community?

I've often had the definition that community are the people who will wipe my ass when I'm not able to.

I use that to be vulgar.

I use that to kind of give a sense that there's a commitment to community that I think in our consumer society, in our convenience society society, not a lot of people get to.

But I want you to talk about Tamara and I want you to talk about kind of the film that you did around it.

Partly because what we've been describing so far, while you and I fundamentally believe in it, it can still be a little abstract or even radical for some people.

But stories are real.

And I think in Tamara this is an example of community that, to your point, is not only mature, but is inspiring.

Right.

At a level.

Yeah.

That I think we need right now at a moment where people, quite frankly, are anxious.

Right.

And concerned about what comes next.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I mean, this film came through, really our souls in terms of.

I went to Tamara 11 years ago and I was like.

And I at the time, been a social change filmmaker seeking solutions to the crisis we.

We were in, are in.

And at Tamara, it was like, oh, it's not people just, like, doing some activism, maybe doing some cool permaculture.

It is like these people built a completely different society from the ground up.

And in that, what they figured out.

Can you give a sense of timeline?

Yeah.

So Tamara started really in the 60s, like, student movement.

One of their founders, Dieter Doom, wrote a book called Fear and Capitalism and really was talking about the way capitalism is built from fear and, like, othering.

Community research experiment that, like 20 people live together in a farmhouse for three years.

And it just slowly grew.

And at some point they're in Germany.

They actually got kicked out of Germany because one of the things that does make them very radical but also very successful, which is probably the most controversial, is that in their community, they don't operate from, like, morals.

They actually believe that getting past morality is part of the evolution of our species, because that's founded in static ideology.

But they have ethical principles.

The first and foremost are truth and transparency, all to build trust.

And when they found.

When they started actually doing this deep shadow work, the place of most conflict, you know, along really with power and money, is love and sexuality.

Because we've been programmed.

I'm saying that intentionally because of the loss of village over thousands of years, the idea of nuclear family and the story of the one has become like the Hollywood.

Hollywood injected trauma response at a cultural level to the loss of village.

Although I would go further, I mean, you're correct in evoking Hollywood as a powerful storyteller.

But let's not forget the church.

Right.

It's more than Hollywood.

It's Western culture as a whole.

Yes.

I think has embraced that narrative and promoted it.

And it makes so much sense.

The same way that in your own inner healing journey as a child, you grasped on to, like, survival.

Survival strategies that maybe don't actually serve you long term, but worked then.

It's like, yeah, it made sense in the loss of village to grab on to nuclear family, to Grab onto this idea of the one, the one and only, who's going to save you.

But that's just not a resilient system.

So the reason love and sexuality became so central is that the thing that prevents community.

I see this again and again and again, is people get in fear that they're going to lose their, like, mythic narrative of the one.

Or, you know, think of Trumpism.

It's all about family first.

But again, family as some isolated, separate unit from really, the community.

There's a deep coupling between, like, nuclear family first and nationalism, because there's no community in the center, which is where resilience and health actually works.

So, Tamara, over time, and they're often called a polyamorous village, but that isn't true.

They don't operate in these identities of, I'm polyamorous, I'm monogamous.

They operate in truth.

And when you're in a safe enough container with 150 people, it's often very true that you are attracted to or love more than one person.

It doesn't also mean that always has to equate to sexual love.

But even that, even in most, like, couples I know in the modern world, like, it's often people can't even have, like, friends of the.

Of the other sex, of the partner getting jealous and afraid.

So they really realize, okay, this is going to be the biggest block to actually building a community of solidarity.

So they had to put that in the center and do a lot of work.

So eventually they moved out of Germany, they moved to Portugal, and actually one of the most, like, communist parts of southern Portugal.

And they've been there the last 30 years, and they have been thriving.

They've been attracting young people, which is often hard for.

For projects that started 50, like, years ago.

They've been.

They've been regenerating their, like, land.

They have sister projects.

So the other, other thing is, again, with their imperative for global healing.

They've done work in crisis areas like Israel, Palestine, like Colombia, like India, like Africa.

And they have sister projects because they see these crisis areas as acupuncture points on planet Earth.

And they've had to stay because they do have a lot of privilege, but not even necessarily financial privilege, but it's the privilege of community, of a healthy society.

I'll go further.

Right.

Privilege is a word we tend to use in our liberal society to be polite.

What they have is power, right?

And they have this power partly because they've built a foundation upon which their ideas, their methodologies, because it is often about a more cooperative methodology, a collaborative methodology, than an exploitative one.

But as someone who has spent a lot of time in kind of anarchist milieus over the last several decades, I've certainly recognized that the people who are successful at polyamory are the people who are successful at conflict resolution.

Right.

Because to your point, conflict does tend to come up in things of love, in things of faith, in things of vulnerability.

And so when I say power, it strikes me that what you're describing is in developing skills of conflict resolution, in developing skills of mediation, that that in itself is a kind of power.

And we do have a shout out section at the end, but I will circumvent it and say a shout out to my comrade Josh Haner, who for years promoted this concept of the disarmy.

And the disarmy were a bunch of basically non violent conflict mediators who would willingly put themselves in harm's way between parties at conflict as a way to use their humanity to try to stop that conflict.

Tamara is obviously not at that level of martyrdom or heroism, but the reason I find this story so compelling is it provides a model of community that is not only successful and resilient, but is different.

Right.

Is radically different from what we see elsewhere.

And this leads me to ask you the question, as you've been showcasing this film, as you've been sharing this story, what are the kinds of reactions that you've been getting?

And I don't mean just the envy and people saying, oh, that's fucking awesome, sign me up.

I mean the more complicated reactions, even the hostile reactions.

And I say this as a fellow traveler wanting to anticipate where this dialogue is going now that we have a very clear, viable alternative that we can point to.

Yeah.

You know, I want to say that, you know, definitely most of the reactions are positive and most of the people, it's actually this sensation of like, oh my God, you've put into like, film.

And this place is doing something I, like in my heart knew as possible, but I couldn't even conceive of it yet.

Just the power of film.

We are broadcasting a vision for what's possible.

And we're also not saying, everybody go be Tamara.

It's going to look different everywhere.

But.

But their principles are things that they are.

They were trying to make a model or a blueprint.

And certainly we get people that have been like your parents, people have been hurt by community that see it as a pipe dream or they, they are curious or like.

But you're not showing all the shadow and we're like, well, the whole thing we actually were like showing is how they're digesting the shadow.

But like, they have, they have essentially a container way they have conflict all the time, but it's in a held container, like centralized as.

Like, this is what we do because it is power.

And certainly we get people that you can feel have a really deep ideology that this butts up against kind of the hetero cis, normative, like monogamy mandate that that is the only way possible.

And the thing is, and for the.

Record, we did see a fascist government elected partly on that assertion.

Like, they are so insecure about their identity, to your point, because we as a society are evolving our sexuality, we're evolving our sense of gender, we're evolving our sense of identity.

And.

And these reactionaries are so scared of what will be unleashed in their own mind even that they've elected this terror to office just to assert their traditional family values, which have no rooting in tradition whatsoever.

Right?

But the interesting thing is, and this is the kicker is like, even those people at the film screens or at Tamara, this is now a single line from that book, the fifth Sacred thing I mentioned.

But there is a seat for them at the table.

Because if that's your honest truth in that moment, Tamara and us will accept you and say, hey, brother, sister, whoever, whatever, like, come sit with us in that truth.

We're not here to change you, but we're also here to recognize that truth is ever changing.

And we're here just to be in that.

You don't have to protect that as your be all like static identity, but we welcome you with it.

And we also welcome you as you want to examine it or change or like, not.

And that's the thing, Tamara, isn't about an ideology.

It's about having a culture of transparency and truth.

Recognizing truth is not capital T, because that doesn't really necessarily exist, I think, at least in the form humans can speak about or conceive of or write down.

But in like, you can be in the ever flowing emergent expression.

And that's where you get to real community.

And this is where, you know, to play one of my own kind of personal theories.

I've often felt that the Internet defeats ideology.

And the reason that the Internet defeats ideology is because ideology is based on constraints and the Internet kind of abolishes constraints.

Because you're going to hear from everybody, right?

Anything is possible.

So instead, I kind of feel that we're entering a moment where politics is defined by methodology, right?

And that's what Temera has.

Tamara has a methodology, right?

A way of approaching the truth, a way of approaching community, a way of approaching conflict.

And still so much of contemporary society is obsessed with ideology, even the purity of ideology, when instead, and this is the old anarchist in me coming back, it's not about authorities, it's about process, right?

It's about how you engage the community and how you empower the community in an inclusive, participatory manner.

But, and here's where I kind of want to push you a little.

We do find ourselves in one hell of a conflict currently, right?

I often used to joke the class war is waged by the rich, right?

It's not as if the people are saying, oh, we need to rise up.

No, we are being waged war against constantly.

And we are now in a conflict with a fascist regime who, as a Canadian, they're already essentially declaring war on us and saying they're going to invade, right?

And crash our economy.

And our entire political system now is collapsing, ending chaos.

That's a literal hostile act to a so called NATO ally.

How do we respond?

And here I'm putting you on the spot and saying, how do you in America respond to your fellow Americans in this time of conflict?

Either so that we can create functional community that works now that we've kind of got not a blueprint, but a model that can be riffed on, iterated, improvised upon.

But how do you see yourself engaging other Americans around these topics when so many of them are intoxicated by the lies of fascism?

Yep, totally.

And again, I wanted to get to this.

I want to tell just a bit of a cultural story around initiation, which has been a big part of also my career work, because in traditional, healthy cultures, like indigenous ancestral cultures, cultures we all came from, at one point there were initiations to become a mature adult in that village.

And I think the bigger crisis we're seeing and the conflict at some scale, and I don't want to say this to excuse any of the mayhem happening to people like in Gaza or elsewhere or in this country, in your country.

And I think we are in a grand initiation that is trying to mature us.

So I think the way to respond, which I am calling culturally mature, a initiated way, is that you have boundaries, you know, you have boundaries against anything that's causing you harm.

And beyond having just boundaries, I personally just don't give if somebody's coming at me with a lot of, like, bigotry.

I don't, I don't, I don't talk back at them.

I mean, if they're, if they're up in my place, I need to set a boundary.

I'll set a boundary, which usually is me leaving or setting a boundary if it's, like, in my personal space.

But often it's not to engage because that's the hook.

We can't get hooked in the online fighting.

It's actually just don't resonate that Tamara has understood deeply about the principle of resonance, like the actual vibrational frequency.

So I just don't vibrate with it.

And that could sound a little bit esoteric, but I actually mean that in, like a second scientific kind of, like, way.

And even, even culturally, you know, the kids are all using the word vibes.

Right?

Like, the vibe's not right.

Yeah.

So again, if somebody comes at me with, like, bad vibes, like, kind of bigoted or othering vibes, I will hold my.

I will double down in my frequency, which is I'm bounded, I'm secure, and I have a, like, open heart and I see them with compassion and love, and I'm willing to engage them, but not at that frequency.

I will not engage somebody.

So I think we.

I think that Canada to the U.S.

i think we should.

Like, the thing about Trump, everybody plays his game because they.

Because they are afraid.

But if you're not afraid, you just don't have to, you know, like, Michelle Obama was very, very intelligent.

She was like the vibes of the whole thing.

She just didn't show up to the inauguration.

Like, that is just, for me, that's the answer.

Just don't, don't, don't.

Just play, play the game.

And yes, if somebody's coming at you, you need to set a boundary.

And, like, I'm not even against human beings setting a boundary by force.

Like, I would protect myself and my community from violence if I, like, needed to.

That's definitely my last resort.

So I'm not in this leftist.

Like, we just have an open heart.

We're going to, like, vibrate them to a new level.

No, sometimes you have to have a boundary, but you can always stay anchored in that open heart and set a boundary with yourself.

Not.

And I would even say this is the real ticket.

This is the thing I've been thinking about a lot.

Like, I really think part of the answer is to love Trump.

It's not to not hold him accountable.

It's not to not be like, dude, that's fucking messed up, and I'm saying no, but it's to be like, ultimately, man, I see that Deep down you're hurting and you're scared and you're really like insecure and like, oh, you know, because that is disarming.

That's part of that disarming you're talking about.

Because if I come back at him trying to play his game, I'm gonna lose because that game is a win lose game.

So I always lose because there are losers.

If you play the win win game, which is like, man, I see you're hurting.

Like, oh, dude, you don't have to do that.

You don't have to like do all that big talk because you're, you know, if you just kind of like, if you rise to a different level and don't vibrate, it can actually change people without the fight.

Well, and, and to your point, the, the win win requires empathy.

And unfortunately, empathy is not something a lot of people are practicing as regularly as they should.

So let, let me ask one last question before, please, I, I get you to talk about fugitive futures and how people can check out the film.

I think to go back to a phrase I used earlier, the kind of pandemic of loneliness.

I think there are a lot of people who desire community, but they don't know where to start.

And not only do they don't know where to start, but maybe they should be the one to start.

Maybe there are other people who would benefit from them initiating that community.

And paradoxically, even though I think we would both agree that the best communities are face to face, you still can have somewhat meaningful community using the digital technology we have, 100%.

So I'm curious again, not to get too deep into it.

This is more kind of a high level surface stuff.

But what advice would you have for people who, you know, you've a couple times been really provocative and I think quite correct in saying community is not an interest group.

It's not about people who you agree with.

What are your tips on helping people create and sustain meaningful community?

Yeah, totally.

There's a few different things.

I mean, what I want to say, there isn't necessarily a recipe or a formula, but there are best practices.

I want to say also community isn't out there.

It's not even necessarily to build.

It's like inner place to recognize you already are in community.

You already live around people.

And not just with people, with the plants, the animals, the trees are literally Exchanging Oxygen and CO2 with you, the sun.

And once you recognize I am in community and you start acting as if that is so.

For me, that's the first step which would Mean, say hi to your, like, neighbors, maybe invite them over for dinner, even if they're different or, like, weird.

Because it's not just going to be about the cool people you find either at some cool event or on the Internet.

And I'd say also be willing.

Community also comes in.

You create, like, a suction into it through your vulnerability.

And it's vulnerable to name.

Man, I'm lonely.

Like, in a healthy culture, in community, suffering is an opportunity for companionship.

So if you can also be vulnerable by saying, hey, I'm hurting, or I.

I really, like, want.

It's also vulnerable to say, I want this.

Like, I want community even, Right.

If you just wrote on Facebook, you know what people.

I'm recognizing, I want a different kind of life.

And I just want to put it out there that, like, I'm seeking more connection, more.

See what happens.

Let me push back there a little, only to get you to double down.

Because I have often used the phrase vulnerability is power.

And there's often nothing more powerful than being vulnerable.

And I have had so much shit thrown at me in response to that.

People are like, no, you're wrong, or, no, that's terrible.

And I still believe it.

It's still something I say.

But I have gotten a lot of blowback by trying to argue exactly what you just argued.

Because I think that vulnerability is not only the heart of community, it's the heart of trust.

Right.

And how we.

Yeah.

So please elaborate.

Yeah, Well, I say, like, if you're actually being vulnerable, you need to expect you're gonna get blowback.

That's what makes it vulnerable.

Right.

In various ways.

Because you being vulnerable is going to press on other people's vulnerabilities.

So you do at some level.

Also.

The thing is, you have to be like one.

You have to be intelligently vulnerable.

You need to actually check in what are my resources to be vulnerable in the way I'm wanting to be vulnerable.

And I want to say you can't be vulnerable as a.

As a manipulation.

There is a lot of people, especially in the kind of, like, alternative coaching world, that use vulnerability purely to sell.

And so I want to say there is ways that that actually isn't even real being vulnerable, but I want to say that you will find the power in that being resonated with.

And people are going to resonate with you.

And you need to also, as you come out into your own power, your own power is predicated on other people not liking you, disagreeing with you, and you don't waver.

You don't start fawning to appease people.

You just say like, hey.

So I want to say it's like also, it isn't like go jump into the deep end of being vulnerable.

It's like, what's the, what's the, what's the easiest, lowest hanging fruit of a vulnerable next step where you could be more honest.

Because that's what all it's about.

It's about vulnerability is you being more honest.

So where could you be more honest with your parents, with your partner, with your friends, about what you really want and what you're really afraid of or the grief you have?

Like, that's the step.

And I think that starts by being honest with yourself.

And in late stage capitalism, a lot of people are lying to themselves because you're often rewarded for doing so.

So being honest about yourself, that you desire community, that you'll thrive in community, and that community takes work, that it's not like everything else in the convenient society, designed for you.

Quite the opposite.

You are designed for community.

And that means that there's much work that needs to be done.

Which brings us to the last segment we have on every Meta views, which is the shout outs because I think it's really important to recognize that we all stand on the shoulders of giants.

And I want to shout out my friend Tamika, who I'm going to message the moment that this interview is done to let her know about Fugitive Futures, because I think she is going to get a kick out of what you're doing.

So before we do the shout outs, actually give us a quick promo again on Fugitive Futures and then another promo about the film and how people can connect.

So actually I'll start with the film, just because I think it's.

The film is the village of lovers and we committed 10 years ago to give this film away as a gift.

So it's available on our website on Gift Economy, which is our experiment with a different economical way.

We have a suggested donation, but you can pay zero.

And the film is going to like be one of the most inspiring things you have ever seen.

I fucking guarantee it.

I'm not saying you're still going to agree with it all or like it, but it is definitely something to expand your mind in a way different than it ever has been.

And so I want to say watch it with a friend, watch it with community, share it with your people.

Because it's meant to be a thing that inspires connection.

And we did it to ask better questions, not even necessarily give answers.

So that's Our prayer and fugitive futures is like, okay, we actually need a place where we can come together.

We're gathering some of the best thought leaders, whatever, I don't really like that term, but some of the best leaders who are doing all different wild facets of regenerative culture.

And we're gathering over a five day arc.

And you don't necessarily need to be there all five days, but there is an arc of experience where we're going through reckoning, through, through grief, through repair, through vision, through emergence.

We're really building a very open blueprint to what approaching the future in a more fugitive way would look like.

I also must say we're also doing it under ethical economics.

So we have ticket prices, but we also.

It's completely accessible to anybody if you just like, write us.

And if you need a different pricing structure, write us.

If people are like, you know what?

I can't pay anything.

We will still give it to you because we are trusting.

I will say that those prices are also quite reasonable.

Like in the world of events and conferences, it's accessible to begin with just from the pricing.

But it's great that you're providing that kind of pay what you can back door.

And I want to say we did something similar a year ago, but not even as good as we really learned from last year.

Last year we had 6,000 people come.

Not all at once.

People signed up and they were blown away.

Like, it really is something to be like, you know what we need to do?

We need to get fucking together and sit in the uncertainty.

And that's future.

The futures is like, let's sit together in the not knowing and see what happens.

And that's a lot more edgy and exciting than like come hear a bunch of answers.

It's like, no.

Bring your own questions, your own grief, your own longing.

We're going to like meet you there, have some deep inspirations, but we have speakers, we have like butterfly TED style talks, we have integration spaces every single day.

We have practical workshops.

Because that's also not just talk, but learn some practical skills.

It's really actually what we're saying is like this is part of the consciousness shift.

Come be part of it.

Your consciousness will be transformed.

Even if you come one day, like you will be transformed.

That is what we are creating and that comes from like the willingness to be in that uncertainty.

Right on.

So shout outs, anyone, living or dead, that you think our audience should know more about.

And you know one or two names, you don't need to get into your.

Entire yeah, I'm gonna say life story, four names.

I want to shout out to my dad, Blair Trotwine, who I'm living in his house right now.

I've been helping him and his in his retirement journey and his healing journey.

He's been helping me as I've been putting out this film the last year.

Shout out to my deceased mother, Suzanne Elizabeth Wilson Trotwind.

She's my guardian angel.

Me and her did not have an easy thing in life and in death has been a lot of healing.

So I want to say, just like ancestors matter.

And I also want to shout out to my two film partners, Ian McKenzie and Julia Marianska.

I've been on a 10 year journey with them as a team of three, and that has been the most revolutionary, like sticking together for 10 years, like bowing down to those two and us three for many ruptures, many repairs, many having to practice what we're preaching about conflict and community.

Right on.

Right on.

Well, thank you, John.

This has been a fantastic conversation.

I suspect a lot of our audience members, especially those who were part of intentional communities in the 70s, were probably leaning in and really being inspired by the way that our generations, newer generations, are picking up the cause, as it were.

And maybe we'll have you back in a few months to talk about fugitive futures and talk about how this stuff is moving on.

Because the main thing I've been wanting to hear, and I will want to hear, to hear, is how people are responding to all of this, because I think this is a ray of hope.

So that's been today's episode of Meta Views.

You can find us on the usual socials, but we'll be back soon with hopefully it probably won't be as good as an episode as this one.

We can't do this all the time, but nonetheless, we will be back with more good stuff.

Although Rick Salutin, I think, is our next episode, so it'll be almost as good as John.

But again, we'll see you all soon.