“Imagine walking into a control room with a bunch of people hunched over a desk with little dials, and that that control room will shape the thoughts and feelings of a billion people. This might sound like science fiction, but this actually exists right now, today.”
― Tristan Harris
A couple of years ago, I attended Dr. Dan Siegel's Neurobiology Conference where mindfulness and cultural luminaries including Dr. Siegel, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Reverend angel Kyodo Willams, Otto Scharmer and Tristan Harris presented on intersectional topics including mindfulness, race, technology and climate change.
Each of these visionaries understood that our attention and capacity for empathic attunement was being hijacked by the complex and often invisible structures of oppression, notably racism and as Harris says, a new species of power: technology.
Layer in a pandemic and the fissures continue to widen so that no matter where we sit in the bleachers of life, we can see the cracks widening, feel the fear increasing, hear the deafening noise of our social channels.
When I got sober more than two decades ago, it was a complete revolution for my own identity narrative. Some days, most days, I didn't know what to do with myself so I followed the good, orderly direction I was given.
Do the next right thing.
For us at The Well, that next right thing is to leave Facebook at the end of the month, both as humans and as a business.
We are going to experiment with meaningful connection on Instagram (baby steps, we know) and via email and other old-school ways of interaction.
We also hope that this will open our minds and free up more time to dedicate our human resources to generative, restorative practices to reckon with limiting structures of oppression, just as Storefronts is doing this year with their liberatory practice work in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine.
Be well,
Stacy Sims
Founder
