Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter, and/or enrolling in Embodied Ethics in the Age of AI! This is the first time I’m writing to the SWI audience. I want to extend a big warm welcome, especially to those who I’m meeting for the first time 🙏
Andrew here - wishing you an easeful 2024 from Auroville! A 50+ year old visionary city in South India, that I’ve experience as an astonishing human achievement, a rich school of life, and an elegant microcosm for both the highest potential beauty and deepest wounds of the world right now.
I was only planning on visiting for a couple of weeks, but am sticking around till the end of January because, well, I’m feeling quite nourished here 😌
And tbh, I needed help!
⭕️ Start Again…
I have a confession to make. I am already reckoning with a sense of failure with School of Wise Innovation. Why? Because the way in which I was building it this fall was far from wise. Misaligned with stated values, failed to meet the standard I set for others, simply not a role model for wise innovation.
You may not have been able to tell, but I was moving pretty fast. Rushing major decisions. Bypassing personal boundaries. Shying away from potential collaboration. Burning myself out.
My how, my means, were off. And if the means determine the ends…
Ugh. How did this happen, again? This time it was supposed to be different! My primary intention this fall was to “set a good foundation” to support the clearly articulated “vibes” I wanted to bring to this work (e.g. emergence, collaborative, right speed, joyful, alignment with natural cycles), fully aware that the primary objective is to role model wise innovation in the process of bringing this school to life…
I could chalk up my behavior to the usual busyness of fall, transitioning out of a fast paced organization, the backdrop of war, extra life stuff on top of remnant achievement programming and a culture of ever forward progress…
But when push came to shove, I struggled to live up to my ideals. The felt sense of my process was neither sustainable nor joyful. There was a big gap between what I was doing and what I thought I was doing. Help!
(I’m also working on being kinder to myself 🤭)
❄️ Winter Decelerator
Taking time and space in India this winter break has helped me see where I have been out of balance, and inspire me to re-adjust for the coming year.
Fortunately, I’m in a great environment to practice such adjustments. Without getting too deep into the details, I’m in Auroville participating in a 42 day “Mandala” retreat. 42 days because that is considered the amount of time it takes for a state to become a trait.
I’ve gotten hip to slowing down in winter, tying rituals to the moon cycle, and keep an epic weekly Shabbat practice, but this annual 42 day mandala is something else. Bringing more awareness to my current state, practicing slowness, reconnecting to what’s most essential.
Which is imperative for those in positions of leadership or creating things in the world. Because the state we bring to each moment determines what unfolds.
I get this, but find that I need to be reminded time and again. I can speak to lots of clever ideas about ethics and wisdom, with some years of shedding and practicing to show, but embodiment is a long road ahead for many of us who have grown up and achieved in a disembodied modern western culture.
I need to practice. And I need to be in relationship with others who are practicing too.
🏋🏼♀️ Re-imagining Ethics as an Embodied Process
As I gear up for School of Wise Innovation’s first course, Embodied Ethics in the Age of AI (begins Jan 25!), it’s very clear how far startup education and culture is from supporting innovators in making wise choices in their work and life. And how even the most well intended and ethics-smart amongst us struggle to practice what we preach.
I’ve seen this notion expressed in different ways several times in just the last few days:
“Understanding changes what you know. Learning changes who you are.”
“To know about something is very different from deeply knowing it though experience.”
“How can we go from accumulating insights, to embodying and integrating learnings?”
How do we re-imagine ethics as actual embodied practice, not just an intellectual exercise about what professionals and companies should do? So that in our moment to moment experience, we are able to make choices in greater alignment with the well-being of all involved?
Let’s live into these questions together.
The course comes at the perfect time: a fresh start to a new year, that seems poised to be faster and more dynamic than ever. I’m excited to understand the AI situation more comprehensively, cut right into the heart of the tech ethics issue, and learn alongside a community that is passionate about subtler questions such as:
What does it mean to be personally prepared to be working with powerful technology?
How can embodied accountability be instituted on a company-wide and society-wide scale?
What would it look like to build relationality and accountability into the technologies themselves?
I hope you will consider joining in this first offering from the new school. Do let me know if you have any questions!
Feel free to pass along the course page to friends, colleagues, and especially online communities of maturing innovators who are ready to take the next step on their journeys. Let us chart a new cultural path together.
With gratitude,
Andrew Dunn
Co-founder at School of Wise Innovation