These Are The Times To Grow Our Souls

It's hard not to feel like the dog from the This is Fine meme, like the world is on fire and overwhelming. Using the insights of revolutionary thinkers like Audre Lorde and Grace Lee Boggs, this talk goes into how to deal with that helplessness by investing in community building.

Transcript

1. These Are the Times To Grow Our Souls Gwendolyn Weston @purpleyay
4. Good Bones Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful. -- Maggie Smith
6. How to help heal the world (and yourself) when things are on fire
7. I'm Gwen! @purpleyay gwendolyn.io — iOS developer — accountability coach
10. I was feeling both: — alienated by my local environment — helpless at the greater scale of injustice.
12. "If I make enough money, I can donate it to the high leverage causes I believe in.”
13. “If I can gain enough influence, maybe I can broker the changes I want to see.”
14. "If I gain enough power I can use it for good."
16. "The master's tools will never dismantle the house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change." – Audre Lorde
17. What could an alternative system to affect change look like?
19. Society is self-similar – roughly resembles itself at any scale.
21. "What we practice at the small scale sets the pa!erns for the whole system." "Until we have some sense of how to live our solutions locally, we won't be successful at implementing a just governance system regionally, nationally, or globally." – adrienne maree brown
22. "Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections. We don’t need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits." – Margaret Wheatley
23. A connection is anything you do to: — get to know someone better — to serve them better — to organize and collaborate with them
24. We change the world by fostering deep connections to our local communities.
25. You don't have to become Jeff Bezos to change the world.
26. My sense of personal alienation and societal helplessness were the same problem.
27. a lack of community
29. How to build community?
30. How to build community (by strengthening yours and others' sense of belonging)
32. "To belong is to be related to and a part of something. It is membership, the experience of being at home in the broadest sense.” [It is also] to act as a creator and co-owner of the community.” – Peter Block
33. Both membership and ownership are necessary to create an active sense of belonging.
34. Ownership makes me nervous.
35. Scarcity “Everyone can't be a owner, there's only so many ownership positions.”
36. Credentialism “Ownership isn't something I can just unilaterally take on, it needs to be bestowed upon me.”
37. Fixed mindset “Could I even be I'm a leader? I'm not super extroverted.”
38. Tentativeness “Ownership sounds like a lot of work and responsibility and do I really have space and energy for that?”
39. When we have membership but not ownership, we become a consumer of the community.
40. Scarcity “Everyone can't be a owner, there's only so many ownership positions.” Credentialism “Ownership isn't something I can just unilaterally take on, it needs to be bestowed upon me.”
41. Scarcity “Everyone can't be a owner, there's only so many ownership positions (in a hierarchy).” Credentialism “Ownership isn't something I can just unilaterally take on, it needs to be bestowed upon me.”
42. Assumption: Ownership = rising in the ranks
43. Let's change our model of ownership to be more like a co-op
44. Reframing: Ownership = rising in the ranks = willing to take initiative
45. Scarcity -> Abundance "There are only so many leadership roles." "There is so much progress to be made, what do I choose to take initiative on?"
46. Credentialism -> Choice “Someone needs to choose me to take charge.” "I choose to take initiative on the things I do have effect on."
47. Fixed mindset “Could I even be I'm a leader? I'm not super extroverted.” Tentativeness “Ownership sounds like a lot of work and responsibility and do I really have space and energy for that?”
48. Assumption: Ownership = a 'certain' kind of person (who is extroverted, gregarious, charismatic, workaholic, etc)
49. Deepen connections over amassing them.
50. Reframing: Ownership in your community doesn't have to look big.
51. Small kinds of initiative — Adding a linter into your codebase to make teammates lives easier. — Sponsoring and lending your network to a junior engineer. — Reaching out to a distant relative to hear about their life. — Participating in your local community board meeting.
52. Fixed mindset -> Growth mindset Tentativeness -> Exploration “I'm not kind of person who is a leader.” "I get to figure out what kind of leadership feels good to me."
53. You don't have to be an owner of everything.
54. Choose to be an owner of something.
56. How to help heal the world (and yourself) #1 Transform the world by transforming yourself and your connections. #2 Value critical connections over critical mass. #3 Strengthen belonging by being a member and owner of your communities.
57. What are the possibilities for the iOS community? The greater tech community?
58. What do you think are the gi!s of this community that should be encouraged?
59. What change will you own to make those futures happen?
60. You could make this place beautiful.
61. Bibliography — Emergent Strategies by adriennne maree brown — Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde — The Next American Revolution by Grace Lee Boggs — Community by Peter Block — Leadership and The New Science by Margaret Wheatley