I was just opening a page in my book The World's Fearlessness Teachings: A Critical Integral Approach to Fear Management/Education for the 21st Century (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2010), and this is what I thought was worth quoting today re: ISOF Project (In Search of Fearlessness):
"After ISOF's rise (1989) and fall (1999) as an organization, I had been researching and writing to figure out what went wrong: why did it collapse, at least, in its first community manifestation in Calgary, Alberta, Canada? This is not the first time in history (herstory) that various visionary leaders [like myself] have witnessed the painful collapse of a radical movement. Usually they follow that with a reflective incubation and exile. They attempt to think through and write about their theories of revolution once again, before they pass away. ISOF Project is still going strong--in spirit--in the spirit of fearlessness. I expect new forms will emerge in the future; its inevitable, no matter how much one sees Fear's Empire growing and dominating (e.g., post-9/11 era). That said, it gives one great moral strength to carry on a Tradition (still unrecognized), when one finds that other's have acknowledged the importance of fearlessness in our future and attempted to lead movements to make that known." (p. 172)
It is now 2015, and as I reflect on this passage, sitting in Calgary at the computer awaiting emails from people I put a 'call' out to here, there is a sense that a lot of folks have more or less folded into a practical (pragmatism philosophy of life) way to be. I'm still appreciative that we have to be pragmatic to survive, I should know as a person who has been underemployed and unemployed for 22 years or so. Yet, I am still a critical thinker not willing to fold under my essential rebel spirit (of fearlessness). I am still willing to lead this fearlessness movement in some form, somewhere.
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