We Launch!

because some ideas do not fade away

I DO NOT KNOW, from personal experience, how to co-create. What I do know I learned from Collective Presencing by Ria Baeck. The book itself is a beautiful work of co-creation.

We need each other – in presence and uniqueness – in order to co-create. Our need or our invitation is like a gift to others to be and to become more of who they are… We need something from each other in order to co-create… If places are calling us, then people can listen, respond and co-create. Without place, without context, without story, without consciousness, without clearly-stated intent, there is nowhere for a creation to land.

I knew that I did not want to start a publication by myself and I began looking for co-creators. I extended several invitations but no one accepted the challenge. However, now an unexpected way forward has emerged.

I do not know what is in a name, but there is something that conveys something. My initial name for this publication was Celebratory Agnosticism which captured an aspect of what I had in mind. I shared my ideas with some others and requested feedback. Ria Baeck thought it sounded too philosophical. It did not resonate at all with my friend Linda Joy Stone and we began to play with alternatives. She suggested Celebratory Unknowings. Later she noted the need for grieving as well as celebrating so we shortened the name to just Unknowings. That landed.

I do not know what Unknowings will become. But I have hopes and dreams and aspirations which I will share. Inevitably, these will change over time as each hill climbed brings into view a new summit to be scaled.

Initially, Unknowings was to be a publication on Medium. However, in 2023 I sensed something was happening on Substack, something I wanted to be part of. In October of that year I launched Metamodern Wannabes and I am pleased with my Substack experience.

Unknowings would need a tag line and, again, Linda had some words that landed, “about the joys, sorrows and crazy wisdom of fessing up to how little we really know about being a finite human in an infinite universe” and I used a shortened version of her creation.  I was beginning to sense that Linda could be a co-creator for me to work with. That did not manifest, but our friendship has deepened.

Unknowings will not celebrate ignorance because the more we know the better. There is much that we know with a high degree of probability. But there remain great mysteries to be explored with awe and humility. 

I  hope that at all times Unknowings will reflect the Good, the True and the Beautiful. But I do not know what those words mean in their totality. That is itself another vast territory to explore.

It is ironic that I am attempting to launch a publication because, at best, I am a mediocre writer. However, at age fifteen I discovered the therapeutic value of writing when I kept a diary and later a journal. Now in retirement, I am writing the story of my life, The Life of John Stokdijk - an average and ordinary life, which I am posting page by page on my website. 

Early in the coronavirus pandemic, for some unknown reason I felt a strong urge to write essays, also posted on my website. Writing helps me clarify my thinking which gives me a measure of peace of mind. More than writing for others, I write for myself with messages to my future self. Writing helps me to track changes in my thinking that might otherwise be more difficult to notice. Thus writing becomes an aid to living a life with a sense of thriving. 

Unknowings will hold space, a concept I learned about from Collective Presencing, for other writers to contribute to this initiative. 

This capacity to hold the whole and hold space for unmanifest potential has been attracting more attention in recent years, and is starting to surface more into awareness (in the West). Because it is part of learning how to consciously and intentionally manifest, alongside actually practicing holding space, it is equally important to name and articulate this skill. It needs to be included as a foundation stone to enable every project that is set up to develop in a natural and organic way.

It is my intention to invite a variety of writers to submit articles to this publication. All writers will be encouraged to explore the general theme of Unknowings in their own unique way. It is my hope that a collective wisdom of mostly average and ordinary people will somehow cohere in this space.

It is my hope that eventually we will be able to post about one article per day, enough content to attract readers. And it is my hope that every writer will be better at this craft than I am. For me personally, there will probably be more joy in reading than writing.

When this idea first began taking root, I thought that a community could develop around it. But in the last few years, I have learned that community building is really hard. And I am unconvinced that that is mine to do.

What we do is important. How we do what we do is equally important. Unknowings will be a civil space. We will not be caught up in any of the culture wars raging in society. We will avoid provoking outrage and creating click bait, but we will also be unafraid. We will try to model being our authentic selves, always writing in good faith. Yet we will do this with an understanding that parts of ourselves may remain unknown to our conscious selves for far too long, perhaps forever.

Why am I adding yet another project to my already busy life? Well, partly because it is my strange idea of thriving. And as I struggle with being overly serious most of the time, I hope we attract writers who add playfulness, humor and lightness to the publication, and to my life.

But Unknowings is also driven by a higher purpose. We believe that our current civilization, built by the elites, is in trouble, big trouble. We believe that a radically better world is possible, and necessary. We aspire to join with others and be part of that change. We believe that solutions to problems must emerge from the collective wisdom of average and ordinary people like us.

I would like Unknowings to become a bridge, a small bridge for a few people, one of many bridges between Game A and Game B. What I mean by this will not be apparent to many people at this time. Although it is nothing secretive, I had no understanding of Game B myself until 2019. 

And what do I bring to this initiative? I am unique. Therefore, I bring something that only I can bring. But, I do not know, not exactly, what my gift to the world is. Perhaps it is Unknowings, perhaps not. 

I do not know what other writers will bring to Unknowings. Everyone is unique and will bring something that I cannot. And I am hopeful that together we will become one cell in a giant global brain.

The aggregate of contributions to Unknowings  has the potential to be transformative. Perhaps we are creating tiny waves on a big ocean of possibilities. We must wait for the muddy waters to clear so that we can see what emerges, and probably only with hindsight.

I try to bring a radical personal transparency to everything I do. There is nothing remarkable in my story, no great reason why anyone should read it.  But I do hope to inspire a few others to share their unremarkable journeys through life. Somewhere in these stories are little gems of wisdom and opportunities for meaningful connections. Unknowings is one more way to find the others.

It is my belief that radical personal transparency is necessary for building deep trust, which is necessary for building meaningful connections, which is necessary for building small communities, which is necessary for building one global community for all inhabitants of the earth.

The next article that will soon be published here is written by Zephyr Starrlynn, my co-creator. I do not know her very well, not yet, and I am excited by Possibility. I am looking forward to her first article, written by someone who has not published anything anywhere until now.