In Rumi's Garden: Rules and Responsibilities
Much of our daily reality is incommunicable, but incommunicability doesn't absolve us of responsibility.
After the discovery of the limits of language, we discover the limits of life without language. Beyond the limits of speech, we discover the limits of speechlessness. Speech and silence may be equally futile, but there's a time to speak and a time to be silent, a time to publish and a time to conceal — often, in defiance of futility.
Even when events leave us speechless, we find ways to respond to reality, with both words and actions. We move beyond ineffability to invest energy in our daily responsibilities. As publisher of five Substacks and provider of Dialogue as a Service, it's my responsibility to provide a certain level of transparency about the rules that govern my interactions both on Substack and in dialogue.
Rules of Engagement
To those who know, this may come as a statement of the obvious, but for the record, we can never write down the rules that govern dialogue in Rumi's Garden. We can only live these rules dialogically and dyadically.
1. Don't be evil.
My main rule of engagement comes from Google’s 2004 IPO prospectus: “Don’t be evil.”
2. Respect the community.
Please review the Substack Community Guidelines. They apply to Substack writers and readers alike.
3. Be a conscious consumer.
If you are intellectually drawn to the liminal space where matter meets metaphor, M2 Dialogue may be the right place for you and I invite you to subscribe.
But bear in mind that strange things happen in this terra incognita, including encounters with angels and demons and wolves in sheep's clothing (e.g., members of death cults marketing themselves as healers). If you've met enough of these clowns in the post-reality circus, you probably don't need me to tell you that “We are not in Kansas anymore!” Otherwise, feel free to read the first chapter of my book to learn more about leaving "Kansas".
4. Pick the right ‘location’ for Dialogue as a Service (DaaS).
If you’d like to book a DaaS session, please choose the appropriate location:
For sessions held ‘In Rumi's Garden’ (aka the Tabernacle), read What Is Dialogue? The New Cartography, where I summarize the basic presuppositions I bring to DaaS.
If you don't share my commitment to shielding dialogue from corrupting influences, consider Dialogues with the Devil (DwD) as an alternative.
Whichever side you're on, I deeply value your support. If you’re having trouble picking sides, read the second chapter of my book.
5. Do your research.
My Substack posts are “cover notes”, not substitutes for dialogue. The written word has its limits. This medium is catastrophically slow for the pace of change we confront. By contrast, dialogue at least gives us a fighting chance. So does art and poetry and all the ways of speaking the unspeakable that I mentioned in the second chapter of my book.
I think of my Substack posts as cover notes that merely point to avenues for further study, contemplation and conscious dialogue. Each post is part of a living record in which I don't intend to exhaustively analyze anything, only to draw the attention of readers and listeners to what I believe matters. Please do not interpret anything I write as advice applicable to you personally.
6. Tolerate discomforts.
In speaking about the unspeakable, tolerating discomforts is an essential skill. In the words of William S. Burroughs:
Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose and conflict. Those who seek happiness for itself, seek victory without war.
In Rumi's Garden
The Rumi quote I chose for the cover image above captures the post-ideological spirit I try to imbue into all my work and all my relationships:
Somewhere beyond right and wrong, there's a garden. I'll meet you there.
With some people, the same message may resonate more deeply when delivered through the medium of a different metaphor from Hebrew Scripture: I think of my work on Substack as a Tabenacle in the wilderness of the attention economy. The Tabernacle only fulfills its purpose when the people it protects follow the rules of the sanctuary.
No list of these rules can be exhaustive, but for people and organizations drawn to the horizon of post-ideology, I offer Founding Member DaaS packages that include:
A written research-based response to the subscribers’ problem statement.
A 90-minutes DaaS session based on the RPS report.
Access to all published DaaS and M2D content.
When we meet in Rumi's Garden, you get more of my time because I enjoy the location. In fact, as I pointed out in Where Propaganda Ceases, what I call Conscious Dialogue is only possible within this cloister.
To get started, subscribe for free, email me at m2dialogue@substack.com to let me know what brings you to the Tabernacle.