The Calling
What future is wanting to emerge through you?
– Otto Scharmer, Co-founder of the Presencing Institute
No human society, however wise, subtle, prudent, and cautious you may consider it to be, has ever had to grapple with the reactions of the earth system to the actions of 8 or 9 billion humans. We understand nothing about the vacuity of contemporary politics if we do not appreciate the stunning extent to which the situation is unprecedented.
– Bruno Latour, Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climactic Regime (2017)
An invisible atom bomb has exploded in our information ecosystem, and the world must act as it did after Hiroshima. Like that time, we need to create new institutions...
– Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech (2021)
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
– Margaret Mead, recipient of the Planetary Citizen of the Year Award in 1978
The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre once wrote: ‘I can only answer the question “What am I to do?” if I can answer the prior question “Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?”’ We believe the ‘what am I to do?’ question arises in the context of a true story of being in a time between worlds, with the only doubt being about the depth, difficulty, and duration of the transition we are living through.
This is a particularly seismic moment in history, characterised by a shift in geological time from the relatively stable Holocene to the unstable and potentially devastating Anthropocene, and the spiritual and material exhaustion of modernity. New ways of extracting, organising, sharing, and experiencing information (through the internet and subsequently the smartphone), alongside developments in synthetic biology and virtual reality, are subverting our understanding of human nature and reality.
There is profound uncertainty about what is emerging, how we might best relate to it, and what that means for how we should make best use of our capabilities, energy, and time. The world is awash with conflict and corruption, and enormous power dynamics are in play. It is naïve to imagine there is a pre-political ‘we’ that is ready to spring into action. Still, for those who feel called to fight for a better world, it seems we are called upon to allow some aspects of the world to die well—patterns of governance, economy, and technology, alongside their patterns of meaning, purpose, and value that are no longer serving us well.
We are also called to give cultural and institutional form to the patterns of regenerative power and vitality arising throughout the world. Taking that call seriously means a commitment to help each other, so that individual agency may become a kind of collective hyperagency.
This is not merely about acting in the world as we find it, but also about the power to create new metanarratives and new worldviews that are prerequisites for true societal transformation.
We have through the Emerge project over the last five years been connecting individuals and networks into networks of networks. Now it is time to create communities of practice that can serve as interconnected nodes of emergence!
This project in Stockholm is a response to this calling. We aim to bring together visionary individuals from diverse backgrounds to address the unprecedented challenges of our time.
Our lakefront property, just 15 minutes south of central Stockholm, provides an ideal setting for this transformative journey. We invite you to join us, whether on-site or remotely, to co-create a future where we thrive together, fostering innovation, social impact, and sustainable development.
Together, we can harness our collective intelligence and creativity to build a new civilisation that embodies the values of collaboration, resilience, and regenerative growth.
