I have been asked by folks when I was going to start blogging again. The last post was in September 2015 following a fantastic trip to Quebec with Landmark Education. The focus of that weeklong course was about wondering more and knowing/being certain less. I have been cultivating the practice of wonder for several months. So what do I know now? I have come to recognize that there is a creative energy that accompanies wonder resulting in a rise in imagination and a rolling out of unforeseen possibilities. Following that course in Canada, I went to another Landmark course for two weeks in Hawaii on the island of Kauai. That course was focused on an inquiry into the creation of freedom – like what is freedom, what keeps us from being free. I began this year with the awareness that freedom for me was going to entail saying NO to many of the projects I have been involved with for the past year. Freedom was about having the time to reflect, wonder, and imagine where my life is heading. I was acutely aware of how much time I was spending on projects that no longer felt fulfilling. By saying no, I have been able to start saying yes to new projects, having time to myself without the hustle and bustle of getting to appointments, sitting through meetings, and taking notes.

We are now entering the sixth month of 2016 and many hours have been freed up since my Just Say No campaign began. It has been a bit overwhelming to savor my solitude – to be at one with my thoughts and ideas. I learned during the course in Hawaii that freedom is dependent upon a willingness to look at life as it is – to be in wonder about the nature of life, of time, and our relationships to others. The late social psychoanalyst Erich Fromm wrote in his 1941 bestselling book Escape from Freedom that human beings look for ways to avoid or escape their existential freedoms. The sense of freedom he writes about is due to the fight for individualism and self-determination that began in Western culture during the Renaissance. This sense of freedom often leaves us feeling untethered, afraid, isolated, and can lead to destruction. Some of the ways we “escape” or avoid freedom is by being involved in destructive relationships, substance abuse, and being overcommitted to work, projects, and volunteering. In other words we avoid being alone with our thoughts, with ourselves by being overextended with our time. Fromm noted that the escaping of freedom tends to encourage a climate of authoritarianism. In essence we become non-thinking, non-wondering, and not being aware and the tendency towards mass or group think rises in tandem with the climate of authoritarianism. The “group think” can take over as we saw in Nazi Germany and the rise of fascism in Europe and as we can witness currently in the polarization of our political parties in America. I am wondering about so many things right now. My next few posts will be devoted to wonder, freedom, and the nuanced relationship between being an individual and a community member.