#74 the Dynamics of Holding and Sharing: Authenticity, Maps, Masks & Voicecraft with Tim Adalin

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Navigating the Depths of Voice, Authenticity, and Love with Tim Adalin
In this episode of 'Love and Philosophy,' philosopher host Andrea Hiott engages in a profound conversation with Tim Adalin, founder of the Voicecraft Project in Australia and a philosopher and facilitator of philosophical events. They explore various themes such as the importance of voice, the distinction between holding and sharing space, and the challenges of maintaining authenticity in today's complex social landscapes. The discussion also delves into the nuanced dynamics of relationships, the transformative power of silence and presence, and the impact of technology on communication. Through personal anecdotes and philosophical insights, Tim and Andrea highlight the necessity of genuine connection and the cultivation of trust in relational contexts.

00:00 The Essence of Voice and Presence
00:58 The Generativity of Relationships
05:23 Introduction to Love and Philosophy
06:44 Thought Collectives and Communicative Patterns
09:29 Voice Craft and Authentic Expression
10:36 Holding and Sharing Space
24:42 Navigating Modern Contexts and Leadership
56:24 The Role of Masks and Maps in Expression
01:08:16 Introduction to the Magic Flight Light Box
01:08:36 Openness to Potentiality and Relationship
01:10:35 Skepticism in Love and Leadership
01:14:23 Navigating Digital Communication and Integrity
01:25:49 The Role of Language and Technology
02:08:26 The Importance of Silence and Presence
02:20:08 Closing Thoughts and Gratitude
02:22:05 Final Poem: Of Many Worlds in this World

Voicecraft

Tim Adalin

Ludwig Fleck

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Transcript

From Holding to Sharing: Maps, Masks and Voicecraft with Tim Adalin

Tim Adalin: [00:00:00] I was sitting in drama class once, probably I was probably 11, 11 or 12. And a question was, if all of you, apart from one aspect was subtracted away, what would you choose to keep? Something like that. How was the, something of the meaning of the question and I immediately felt voice. I'll keep voice.

There's something about the. Meaning of presence and the affirmation of presence in the world. That was what was fundamentally there. If all else were to be stripped away, then my expressive capacity in, in a sense, the dignity, the, the uniqueness of that, the self, the soul, whatever the me is I am, I'm here at the end of a talk I gave once.

I said, [00:01:00] I believe something like the essence of integrity is sharing space, not holding space, something like that, because of course, you are offering something profoundly valuable. Ultimately, you are offering a truths of where your edges are, of what your dreams are, of what you care about, and what you're seeing.

The generativity of relationship, real generativity of relationship requires that genuine skin in the game risk. Has to be, that has to involve sharing space, which involves something tremendously radical and is actually involves the kind of thing that the great religions and great symbolic ordering structures of civilization are offering in a way that is capable of mediating.

Aspects of evolution, including technology for instance. Well, what is it to [00:02:00] think our time and create in our time in a way that welcomes in some of those evolving aspects of reality? What is leadership? In that context, holding space is, is critical, but then also sharing space seems important too. And the risk involved there is tremendous.

I in that moment where nervous energy or anxiety before going out on stage or taking on a task is the alchemical transformation of that into the. Hey, well this is it. This is a life. This is an opportunity that can be alchemized into energy and a certain, a certain acceptance in it. And so to take that on, then to affirm the occasion to, you know, one could see that as as the necessity of putting on a mask, we are really getting to know each other and we're.

Open to the slips and the glitches in the matrix and the deeper context. That [00:03:00] is more than just whatever the immediate small talk is or. The deeper dynamics underlying actually what's orienting the value in exchange. We might be recognizing in any context and we can start to get to know each other and appreciate more of a depth of sharing space together.

And we can appreciate more of the depth in the space that is being held by another in that process. There's a way in that sense of playing with the masks we have and noticing and attuning to the underlying or. Permeating self that is energizing and orienting the integrity of art relating throughout them.

But why are you attending to it? It's 'cause you really care about it. Why am I doing anything at all? I cannot not be in relationship with love and the cultivation of its momentary forms in the world. For me, I think about love in terms of, ultimately, in [00:04:00] terms of loving transformation, again, as a dynamic.

I find the word very powerful because it seems to enable that sense of both holding and letting go. Forrest Landry, who's a philosopher, who's obviously makes, he's been on the podcast many times and I appreciate him very much. He has an expression that is and love is that which enables choice. Inside out as it participates in the relational field, presencing and bringing to voice the transmutation of perception into expression as a generative relational activity that.

Relationship is where we cultivate the trust. Then I think there might be a few things, fundamental things which are being neglected. I disagree. Foundationally with what you're doing, how welcomes that? Right. Okay. Well, even if there's a sense that that might be present and even if there's a sense that that might resonate from some aspects of, of soul or knowing we might have about what constitute the fabric of our [00:05:00] belonging together.

Nature as beings, then that seems to be felt. My sense is that that is terrifying to you. Some kinds of authority at different phases of the maturation process to be charitable, and they don't want any of that. So whatcha gonna do? How are you gonna treat that situation? It's just so unbelievably clear that we need each other. 

Andrea Hiott: Hello everyone. Welcome to Love and Philosophy. I'm Andrea Hiott, and today's episode is one of those long, intense and generative if you stay with it. Conversations with Tim Adalin, who is the founder of the Voice Craft Project and who is also a philosopher.

this one really touches on some important themes for me, which are very hard to talk about, which is why it's so long and intense. even the title holding, if you've listened to me at all, you've heard me talk about holding Paradox and Tim really. Challenged me, not on purpose, but he started talking about sharing and I started thinking about [00:06:00] what's the difference between holding and sharing.

He was talking about it in terms of space, So the whole idea of holding paradox is really about entering into the space beyond polarization, being that space in a sense. And I started thinking, what's the difference between that and sharing I also started thinking about groups and the ways some of this that you will hear in this episode will seem really emotional and philosophical and wonderful to some of you. Others, it might seem very strange and esoteric. The way we talk and the way we let the conversation come in almost without any plan.

Sometimes there's a lot of just pausing. Letting the conversation come. And if you're not used to that, it could feel really strange. Or even offputting. others who listen to this podcast find the more normal sort of interview process, offputting, because they're just sick of everything being planned and everything sounding like a hook anyway, what I was gonna say is it made me think about when I was younger and I moved a lot and I noticed [00:07:00] something strange every time I moved I would walk into these new groups and there would be completely different references, that people just expected that I understood, I kind of would have to pretend or sort of just. Observe until I really could understand what was going on. Sometimes what they were doing would feel awkward or annoying, and I'm sure it could have been the same if I acted the way I had been acting in whatever city I had been living in. By those references And there was this kind of friction to it, which was really interesting in a sense, like made me think about life and about myself, but also was frustrating. I couldn't name it. And it took me a long time to realize what was happening that I was encountering this whole different constellation of.

Communicative habits and patterns. It wasn't that the people themselves were somehow really different from all the other people I'd known in the different places I'd lived. It was just that they'd come into this world together in a sense, and they'd shared references, and they had a way of being together and a way of living in this world that most of them had been in their whole lives.

And so they [00:08:00] didn't question it, and it was just their normality. But of course. Been in another situation which had a different normality. So there was a kind of resistance, or friction or meaning making going on there that I noticed as a kid, because you know, you have to, if you're. The outsider coming into a world where everybody assumes the inside.

and I know a lot of you understand that feeling in different ways than I do and in your own ways, but over the past decade, I've really thought about that in different ways. I thought about this idea of the thought collective, which I first heard from Lynn Margolis, who was quoting, uh, Fleck. I'll put all that in the show notes, the references, but this idea of a thought collective is giving me a little bit of a way to scaffold what I'm talking about here.

I've really noticed over the past five years or so that there are a lot of thought collectives happening. I mean, you could think of podcasts and YouTube and these different ways that we all are meeting one another as. Thought collectives and some of them overlap and some of them don't. And some of them can feel very strange.

[00:09:00] a lot of them that maybe started seemingly at the fringes eight years ago, nine years ago, have now become part of mainstream everything. I mean, from the highest office of offices in the world, there's some kind of influence there. So something strange is happening with the way we're collecting around our thinking and as our thinking, and I'm not gonna pretend to understand it, but the reason I'm rambling on about this is Tim Adeline has been part of one of those groups.

He's actually been part of a lot of thought collectives, but he's created this thing called voice craft, which is really dedicated to the voice as a craft and how can we cultivate wiser. Thought collectives. I, you know, I mean, that's a little bit, that's not a word Tim uses, but how can we cultivate these groups that are sort of wiser or able to communicate more authentically?

And how can we do that without it becoming itself somehow insular? And this is really hard to do. And also. A very important thing to [00:10:00] be trying to do from a place of care right now. And Tim really is coming from a place of care, which doesn't mean he's some perfect person who's not concerned about all the normal things of life, which is what we talk about here is why I'm bringing it up, because we talk about the tensions of all of this, of trying to be authentic and follow.

Your bliss towards creating something you think will be helpful for the world and how there's a lot of tension in that and a lot of competing interests, and that's where this idea of holding and sharing comes in and what it means to hold space versus what it means to share space and how this plays out.

And everything. From our most intimate conversations to these public dialogues that we're now sharing online, which then become. Food for algorithms, which then give people new conversation as if it's somehow coming, you know, new to them. But it's actually coming from all these conversations that so many of our LLMs are now being trained on or training themselves on as they look through [00:11:00] the web.

So the idea of thought collectives and how we might cultivate a more kaleidoscopic or constellation thinking view. As we enter into them, I feel like that's so important, just the way we notice that there are these different collectives. Even when you come to these conversations on love and philosophy, some of them are probably really strange for you, but can, if you come to it, knowing that it's maybe gonna be strange and feel a little bit weird and let it without rejecting it, what happens?

I don't know. Does something good happen? Hopefully sometimes it does. I, I've found that it does, that we don't have to immediately assimilate and agree with everything we hear. We can also observe it as kind of like a different school to put it in my childhood, when I went to a different school and, and I observed it.

So how do we come to recognize that and recognize the maps and the masks that we wear, that we use? Tim and I talk about that. We also talk about cookies. Yes. The kind of cookies that come when you go to a website and they sort of like, [00:12:00] track or leave the path so that you can more easily come the next time.

Let's say it like that. And what, what an interesting idea to think of. In our technology, but also in all these conversations we're having, the cookies that we're carrying and that we're allowing and that we're deleting too. and third, something that surprised me in this clarity of the conversation, which is also very esoteric, but also not, is this idea of the large language models that might, they might be teaching us something.

Which I find very important, which is that we're not our language and we're not our thoughts. That's a something I've tried to articulate in a lot of different ways, and I tried to articulate it here with Tim too, and he sort of re-articulated it back to me at the end of the conversation in a way that was much better than the way I had tried to articulate it.

So that was a really big gift. I'm really thankful for that. It was very helpful, I do think we all need to think about. What an a large language model LLM really is, and what AI really is, and what this mimicking of our representational forms might really be showing us, [00:13:00] because it's not mimicking us, it's mimicking the ways we've represented each other to one another, and that's a real blurry confusion right now, we're.

We're, we need to get clear on that or I need to get clear on how to express what I see there. So some of this conversation is about that too, and about integrity, about speaking honestly, about being flawed human beings, about needing to make money about, do we need to make money? What is money about play?

Playing. it's a beautiful word. And in this context we even think of it in terms of theater, a play, or being a player in the theater. the many ways, different ways that this is also part of our life these days, or how to become an authentic actor. And somewhere in this two hour journey, Tim also articulates.

this idea of meaning, you know, it meaning is happening and you're part of it, I think is what he says. So what a pleasure to have this conversation and what a pleasure to have been asked into [00:14:00] conversation with Tim and to be taking part in some of his voice craft. gatherings, which there's probably one gonna be published, somewhere, uh, that we had recently.

And it's a beautiful entry into the constellations that we are, and I hope you'll listen to it and listen to other voice craft episodes. Look at Tim's work and, just think about this, these ideas, what we're really trying to do. It's funny, but I started thinking about two poem. One was the, the of Many Worlds in This World by Margaret Cavendish, which I won't read to you or anything right now, but, just that title, of many worlds in this world.

I think I just wanna say the title and then the other point I was thinking of was, by Raymond Carver, and it's called Two Worlds. And that one I can probably recite to you, although I might get it wrong, but. actually, let me just look it up. Let's see.

So the other poem was two is two worlds. I wanna expand that. So I wanna think of it as multiple worlds, but we often enter into the multiplicity of the kaleidoscope or the Constellation through [00:15:00] two, it takes two to no one, which means there's always at least three. So here's a poem by Raymond Carver called Two Worlds in Air, heavy with odor of crocuses, sensual smell of crocuses. I watch a lemon sun disappear, A sea change blue to olive black. I watched lightning leap from Asia as sleeping. My love stirs and breathes and sleeps again, part of this world.

And yet part of that.

Hello, Tim. Thanks for joining me on Love and Philosophy Today. Today, tonight. I'm not sure what time it is there, but 

Tim Adalin: yeah, it's uh, what time is it? 7 0 2 in the evening. It's a pleasure to be with you and meet you, Andrea. 

Andrea Hiott: I thought first it might be interesting to think about this word, voice craft.

I, I love that word, and I know there's a lot of connection there to your work, but I wonder if we could start with your voice and maybe what that word means to you, or how you even came in to start thinking about what that [00:16:00] word has meant and has become as a project and as a community. 

Tim Adalin: Yeah.

Awesome. Thank you. Hmm. You know, what comes to mind is similar to some of the reflections I was having about the meaning of love and what it is to share anything at all about love or show up in the way of love in public communication, because as you asked me that question. A number of stories and memories came into my mind in terms of the genesis of, let's just take the word voice, for instance, and what that has meant to me and where that came from.

And I think to myself, well, there's another like deep, like deep myth just here for the algorithm, you know? Here it is, another one. And uh, and you know, and, and maybe that's just one of the things that one gives over to [00:17:00] in, in today's age. But, um, I was sitting in drama class once, probably I was probably 11, 11 or 12.

And a question was, if all of you, apart from one aspect was subtracted away, what would you choose to keep? Something like that, you know, it was, that was the, something of the meaning of the question, and I immediately felt voice, I'll, I'll keep voice

and always stuck with me. That memory, I suppose when I think of voice, I think very broadly about. Expression as such, what it is to participate in communication, which is in many respects what it is to participate in life in reality, [00:18:00] and what it means to cultivate that, what it means to share that, of course, what it means to receive the world, to be present on the channel, to hear another, but also what it means to give of yourself, what it means to belong to, and contribute to the context of belonging and the question of one's life, and all of these things, you know, as creativity, all these things come up to me, come up for me in the meaning of voice.

And then of course we can particularize that in the context of conversation or philosophy. But at the heart of it, for me is the meaning of expression as such, which, which can come through in, of course, so many different forms. 

Andrea Hiott: When you said voice when you were 11, do you think you only meant it in the way of being able to communicate and speak to people bodily?

I mean, do you, do you, I know it's hard to go back to your, I can't even believe you said that when you were [00:19:00] 11, but I'm also thinking of you in the context of your, you said you were in an acting class or something, so you, the sense of performance or performance is a weird word, but. Wanting to connect with people in a particular way, which is still part of your life.

Was it already there? Were you tapping into that with that feeling of voice or, what does that bring up?

Tim Adalin: Yeah, but there's something about the meaning of presence and the affirmation of presence in the world. That was what was fundamentally there. And I suppose that's also wrapped up in terms of how I was relating to it. Then in the form of identity, if all else were to be stripped away, then my expressive capacity in a sense, the dignity, the, the uniqueness of that, the self, the soul, [00:20:00] you know, whatever the, whatever the me is I am, I'm here.

And uh, so in a sense it was a, and it is a profound affirmation of the belonging we are in life, but of course can often lose or feel as though we are disconnected from, or feel as though it's under threat or. Of course when we express we can be received poorly or find there's nowhere to share. And so of course we don't always necessarily feel like we belong and we can recognize many aspects of our culture, which are disenabling of cultivating a enriched kind of belonging in the world.

The performance piece.

I am very lucky in that for the first sort of nine years of my life, I [00:21:00] experienced a tremendous amount of love and felt through that as though I was worthy of being. And in a sense that is and, and, and, and the, the aspiration toward becoming in life and the reality of becoming in life that education and maturation is, and growing up all of that is I felt empowered to be on that journey.

And there's a sense in which there is a kind of performance in a bringing to form of that. So, yeah, I, I, um. You, you know, drama for me just at high school, uh, was an opportunity to express what I felt I was unable to express at that point in [00:22:00] my life. And I came to recognize quite quickly as I, you know, left high school went into university, that the actual reality of drama, acting, that whole world was, uh, a far less, for me anyway, effective or enabling way to go about actually cultivating expression.

I wasn't so much interested in

creating characters or, you know, performing in a manner that was divorced from my journey of understanding or really connecting with people. Um, it was just something, it was one of my interests and it was an opportunity to step outside of the usual overtones of expression at school. 

Andrea Hiott: It's wonderful what you said [00:23:00] about feeling like you were safe.

I, or you didn't, I don't think you said the word safe, but feeling like you could be yourself and express yourself and because you were loved that you, you were held in a way, as, as what I was thinking of, I think because I had this conversation with, some researchers and one, one conversation that was published recently about play and how we, we hold the space for each other where we feel safe enough to kind of become in the way that you were just talking about.

And it's a form of play, which is interesting with, you know, the play on theater and plays and performance. but also I was thinking about craft and the voice craft. I mean, your podcast is voice craft or your project, and that crafting, the way you described it made me think about another word that comes up a lot in your work, in that transformation or the transformative.

I'm sort of thinking, you, you were already finding a space where you could transform. You said in theater you could try to [00:24:00] be the people that you couldn't, you felt like you couldn't be or, or something. So that's really an interesting space for me to think about in terms of, of transformation.

Do you, do you think even back then, or even now, that is that a thread that you see kind of moving through these spaces? We're already talking about childhood to now. 

Tim Adalin: Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. I mean,

yeah, it is curious. I attended an event yesterday, which I didn't really want to go along to. It was a event for let's, let's say entrepreneurs and business owners. And in the panel discussion, the invited guest was a branding expert and they were sharing very effective advice for sure. And they're very successful, right

at doing a [00:25:00] particular kind of narrow thing, which I do think is ultimately

corrosive in a very deep way. And one of the pieces of advice on the question of authenticity. And how can I cultivate an authentic persona or express authentically online, make 90 posts, one a day, show up on the channels? How can I be authentic? Someone ask this question and very quickly the answer back spoke to a notion of authenticity, which I think rightly recognizes that we are and appear [00:26:00] and take on different roles for each other at different times and in different contexts.

In mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends, lovers, opponents, so many other kinds of roles and moments, and of course, great friends bring different things out of us. We can be more humorous in this context or more serious in this one and navigate some philosophical terrain in this one.

And so, okay, we authenticity doesn't mean some absolutely consistent symmetric thing in all possible context over time, but part of the sentiment shared was lacking something about. Still what it means to show up with integrity across all of these different [00:27:00] roles. The question of what it is to show up with integrity, and I say integrity as a core part of the meaning of authenticity in this case, I guess speaking about that would be interesting.

That's part of what comes up and it's an ongoing question, like what is it To share voice to craft voice in a public context, in a private context, what is it to take on a role or play a certain kind of part for the sake of opening a space for dialogue or for some endeavor at opening a cultural clearing or to support the becoming of another's voice, playing the role of interviewer or questioner or dialogical partner.

Why? Why shift the roles we're playing? In what way? What, what kinds of transmission? What [00:28:00] kinds of exchange? What broader patterns, deeper patterns of participation can we tune into and cultivate and make? Together attend to in the making of together as the field between us, which also constitutes part of that integrity, which is in fact, what I am and can be like,

some of that is, is perhaps quite convoluted, but this brings things toward some very ongoing inquiries for me. And, uh, maybe I'll stop there and I'd love to obviously continue to try and clarify what could be meant here. But I think it, it's very, it's very important. 

Andrea Hiott: It is. It opens up so [00:29:00] many exciting possibilities because, well, the voice craft isn't necessarily one voice.

And even that voice craft could be a kind of stance or tool, or what's the right word, orientation. and how do you, and that could be manipulative or that could be, as you were saying, authentic and. we talk here often about how to hold contradictions or the way things are always contradictions and you, you kind of have to hold the space around them rather than choose one or the other or something.

Or the idea of being and becoming or, you know, needful freedom where, as you were talking about the branding for example, that's a very, very difficult contradictory space to be in, in a way, in the way that we've been describing. Where as I was looking at your work, I mean, you're, you say often that you're, you don't say it like this, but I get the feeling you want to hold the space.

And when you, when you said that your early life started in love, I kind of got the feeling, oh, he wants to kinda hold the space for people [00:30:00] to find their voice or make voices or create voices together. 'cause it's a lot of dialogue. It's not often about one person's voice, it's the voice that emerges through a conversation.

You know, that's the kind of craft too, in your work. That's interesting, right? That, that feels like, there's so much integrity in that, in, in wanting to hold the space and, and help people become or just be, and also like create new voices that, that emerge when we come together. That's really exciting.

And then of course, you're also human and you're trying to survive and like, you know, it's, it's a business. Um, and why does that feel like something I shouldn't say right now, like that, that we shouldn't talk about in the context of all that other stuff? Yeah. Holding that together, it feels really rich and hard, in this moment. 

Tim Adalin: Yeah, I mean there's so much there, there's so much there. I already sensed that there's so many conversations to unfold all of that. So I, I won't [00:31:00] try too hard to respond to it all and just feel where is, first of all, thank you so much for sharing what you just shared.

I feel that you, I are very genuine in your, are

in the perception you are sharing of what you see in voice craft. and it's awesome to hear. There was a time I, um. I said at the end of a talk I gave once at a psychedelic festival, it was the second psychedelic philosophy talk I gave. And at the end of it, or at the end of my part, I said, I believe

something like the essence of integrity is sharing space, not holding space, something like that. And I said those words in [00:32:00] a flow of expression that was very much on the pulse of its own inquiry. This wasn't something I had formalized in that way before. But of course what is at stake in that expression is an ongoing life project of relations.

So of course the thoughts and all the rest of it are always flowing within me. And that was a three years or so ago now, I think. And I said that and in the process of saying that, invited a close friend and collaborator of mine, cam, who's been on many of the podcasts up, and he brought the event home and he spoke very beautifully and I was quite emotional as I did it.

I found the talk quite difficult in parts. I think I spent at least a few minutes in silence and I edited some of that [00:33:00] out of the video, but not all. You definitely get the sense of it. I just sat there really dwelling in, in a sense there's a kind of performance of dwelling in the silence, but the silence is a lot more, um, powerful than any performance of the silence I can give.

You know what I mean? Like sometimes when you can't find the words and you are without words, there's no, um, you are kind of beyond performance at that point, you know? and that's all good. I was deeply nourishing. There was quite a few reasons why I was in that way. At that particular festival. I was expressing a tremendous amount of frustration, and it's a returning point of frustration.

I continue to experience, and I've metabolized in different ways about just how [00:34:00] challenging it is to create contexts and participate in society, participate in. Structures of power across different interests, market interests, the context of business, politics, identity, religion. All the things. All the things.

And we could break it down in technical ways, these different conditionings and constraints on voice, what it is to participate in philosophy, what it is, in a sense to cultivate trust and intimacy, with respect to love, with respect to building and coating in a manner we might feel to be loving. I was particularly frustrated with the lack in what I was perceiving as [00:35:00] leadership context in our time in that moment.

And I was also remarking about the difference between holding space and sharing space. And I certainly think holding space is something to aspire towards and cultivate the capacity to do. In a sense, in holding space, we are supporting the possibility for parts or aspects, which may be in some kind of.

Um, difference, some kind of potential discordance or chaotic relation with each other, perhaps within someone else to have the space to find their connection, to maybe express in a way that meets another and could potentially be quite [00:36:00] generative, but might from the perspective of leadership risk the membranes or openness to experience of some of the others who might be there in that space, which is being held.

And so having someone or people who are capable of holding space that can, um, help to manage and, uh, condition and tone and shape some of that energy that's exchanged. We can say, okay, well we want to get the ship from this island to that island. We can keep it on somewhat of an even keel in order to do so.

And there's a place for that mode for sure. But then, well, what about the people who are holding that space? Hey, where are their limits? What are their boundaries? Just what are they permitting and what are they not right? Are they gods? So it seems like, seems to me that belonging. It's a continually, at least in part, it's, it's an [00:37:00] evolving thing as well.

And what is it to genuinely welcome the participation, which is making with and creating that and re revivifying it and all of that. That has to be, that has to involve sharing space, which involves something tremendously radical and is actually involves the kind of thing that well in effect, the great religions and great symbolic ordering structures of civilization are offering some answers to what the ultimate containing symbols or structures for mediating exchange ought to be.

Um, we know as well that we like to challenge some of those, or might not always feel that those are being kept as well as they should or perhaps have not been formulated in a way that is capable [00:38:00] of mediating aspects of evolution, including technology for instance. And so, well, what is it to think our time and create in our time in a way that welcomes in some of, those evolving aspects of reality?

Uh, what is leadership in that context? Um. Yeah, holding space is, is critical, but then also sharing space seems important too. And the risk involved there is tremendous. So I think a lot about those things. That's what I'll say. Some of say in response. 

Andrea Hiott: Hmm. I love that, that you challenge this holding a bit, because that's a word I use a lot and there's a lot of ways to think about holding.

It can be embracing, it can be, a more controlling kind of way. I'm holding the space or I'm making this happen. but I think it also has to do with the way we understand self and the way we're assuming a, a self already that's somehow separate from everything [00:39:00] around us. Like you in that room.

I'm thinking about in that silence is, silence can be so vulnerable and you really realize how you are that room in a sense. If someone wants to make fun of you in that moment, it's gonna change whatever that feeling is. Or if someone, I don't know, in some, in some weird way, everyone in the space however they're feeling in that moment is the holding, you know, even though someone had to kind of rent that room or invite you or whatever, which is also kind of holding.

So when you were talking, I was thinking holding and sharing aren't opposites, but they're different. They're, they're almost, it is almost like the awareness or something becomes. The lens or the kaleidoscopic kind of switching there of, of how we're thinking of it. And importantly, when you, we use those words, we're all maybe in a different lens, which is why it might be even more important to bring up the word sharing just so that we have that other, you know, foot to kind of, uh, balance on.

Um, so I appreciate that. That's really important. And another thing that came up when you were talking was I [00:40:00] realized how we have to show up in so many different spaces these days. I find it confusing. I don't know if you do, just to go back to that discomfort with the branding or discomfort with holding a space in the sense that you're responsible, right?

You've created voice craft it's a community and it's co-creating itself, but at the same time, there's, there is a holding to it that's a responsibility of caring for it. And how do you care for it in the right way with while being authentic in, within a space that's kind of telling you that.

That event you went to, which probably isn't bad in itself. It's giving people a way to do things, to, to create. but you know, there's so much of that now, and it's like you feel like you have to make, make it happen, right? If you're, if you're responsible for a space. So when you were talking, I was thinking about these different media platforms, which I see you on, right?

We show up in different ways. If we're on Substack or we're on LinkedIn, or we're on YouTube, like everyone's in some spaces makes more sense than in others, And we can all kind of tell we're a little more awkward in, in this [00:41:00] space than that one. And it's interesting isn't that we we're all going through this, but we almost do it silently or something as if it's, we take it for granted that we're supposed to show up in all these different ways.

And I'm kind of rambling on about what came to mind when you were thinking, but how does that strike you in, in that context of, of holding, sharing and also that vulnerability and that silence that you, that you shared that can feel really potent and also far away when we're in a space, like a social media space where we're holding, you know, our project 

Tim Adalin: yeah. I, well certainly I think the holding and sharing our complimentary and, um, you know, we probably have a, like a. Tremendous lack of capacity to hold space. Well, so it's not like, you know, even the message of cultivate, you know, your capacity to hold space, I'm, we need way more of, of that capacity For sure.

Yeah. Being the space,

I mean, it brings to mind sort of [00:42:00] receptivity, I suppose, to further clarify the distinction if we think about education and the importance of learning, obviously. I do find that Zach Stein is a fantastic communicator of educational philosophy. So I'll just name him for anyone who's not familiar with his work, if they're interested in this topic.

But in thinking about education, the teacher who, well, their teacher, if they are in Zach's terms, you know, have teacherly authority, in part it's because they actually have knowledge or skillset that is worth transmitting. And if I. I translate that to some of the language we've used in this conversation, and certainly I use in the context of belonging.

Then [00:43:00] I think about the kinds of learning which can help us contribute to the context of belonging in which we participate in. Well, obviously that's necessary. Basic examples might look like, well, if we are unable to teach younger people how to look after the nuclear reactors, then we might have some problems in a few decades time as being one.

You know, basic example, maybe we'll just teach the machines. Okay, well, let's leave that avenue just for a second. But then there's the education and the myth, but also the openness of being to support the orientation to transgress. That's not the same thing as learning what's been done previously, but it will have to become the case that the son or the daughter will [00:44:00] eventually need to tend to the environment or new phenomenon, and the mother and the father may not be there or may not be adequate to that challenge for any number of reasons.

Likewise, we face different conundrums. As a culture, as evolution continues. And so what is it to transgress the norm? there are different contexts that explore and cultivate, let's say, character and trust in those spaces, which we could potentially think about as, you know, trans meran, I don't neutral or novel where there is no authority necessarily, which has the complete map to identify what needs to take place and doesn't even necessarily [00:45:00] have the direction for what's worthwhile.

Certainly doesn't have the keys to realizing the most beautiful possibilities, you know? So partly you could sort of point to the domain and affectivity of things like tantra in that realm. This is not something that I am in any way a teacher of, but I know that in the East this is essentially the kind of language that points to, in relation to suture.

It points to that sort of, um, a particular imminent kind of transformational unmapped activity beyond the. Established rule set of the society necessarily, or ordinary time for interaction. And you think about also things like liminality and as well, you know, the, the deep, you know what it is to enter deep, creative, philosophical exchange, [00:46:00] thinking about both being open to the sacred, but also to engage in the conceptual mediation with difference.

These can be profoundly risky and stabilizing and dilutive activities, which are never the less necessary for a reintegration into a more whole or remade whole. I like thinking in terms of whole, making certainly a dynamic process rather than, oh, we've finally figured it all out. That's not where I'm coming from.

And so that's where the, the, the sharing is located. It's that mutual participation in an [00:47:00] unmapped encounter, real contact with life and, um. Yeah. And I'm losing, well, maybe I'll just bring the expression to a close there. Ah, the business parts, yeah. And the importance of holding and all of that. And, uh, yeah, I don't want to, that's the, that's the thing.

I don't wanna downplay any of that. The reality is, in so many contexts I participate in, of course, I'm, I'm showing up in a very, in, in a mode that is very much taking responsibility for holding space. It's never held as a kind of front and center hold, hold, you know, it's never kind of like, it's, it's just part of my, it's, it's much more, I'd say if I am well, and I would say this aspirationally, uh, then it, you know, it would animate from the axis of my being.

And, um, part of that, you know, part of the endeavor is to cultivate the kind of [00:48:00] relationships that can appreciate and perceive and are sensitive to and can support you when you yourself are limited. So it's not about occluding or hiding where my own limits might be, but in fact, to share. That I am navigating a particular kind of limit.

And so invite, and not only invite, but sometimes call out for, and maybe you don't even have the words to call out for aid sometimes, you know, but the field can be there and others can be there. So, you know, it's, it's, it's just so unbelievably clear that we need each other, you know? And so they're totally complimentary, you know?

Andrea Hiott: Yes. This pacis symas autonomy, bringing forth a world while the world brings you forth. it all has to do with what, what, from what position we're looking at it, but it's all dynamic and ongoing and we're always [00:49:00] changing each other and we're also always recalibrating where those membranes are in a way.

It's interesting when you were just talking, I thought, oh, well maybe there's a role for this disruption, in that sense of jiggling the membrane, you know, like, uh, and by that I mean, you said you didn't really wanna go to this event, you know, and, um, this branding event, and then there was this kind of, maybe I misunderstand, so that's why I bring it up, but I had, I heard this kind of tone of, it's not really the kind of thing that turns you on, you know, And yet you kind of went, it's almost like an obligation, which is an interesting energy to act out of. but I was, and that seems, oh, that's negative. And Oh yeah, we have to do these things, but then maybe that's actually a kind of a disruption because it is interesting to have to face that stuff and look at your own reaction to it and notice how the membrane is gonna react.

I don't know if that makes any sense or if I'm, if I'm actually, putting something there that wasn't there when you said it, or how does that [00:50:00] strike you? 

Tim Adalin: Yeah, I mean, it's very perceptive. It's, you know, one thing which does come to mind is obviously I'm beginning to share, uh, parts or aspects of the context of my life.

And, um, you know, we, and I, I will respond and we can continue to look through this particular setting to illuminate different patterns. for me it's, uh, you know, quite a minor instance. And, um, and there would be a lot of context to share to situate, you at a level of friendship why I was there and what I was doing.

But I think you are, yeah, quite perceptive about it.

Yeah, I did go out of a sense of obligation, an obligation to show up with open Energy, despite having [00:51:00] a pretty strong and evidenced, you know, belief of what I was going to find as a vibe. Of course, not all the things I could possibly find in interaction with people. Plenty of openness to possibility there.

But of course we do have limited time and energy and, um, there are other things we could be doing. I was there primarily just like I would say all of the other people because the subtext of that context is this place can help you make money. This place can help you make. That's actually the foundational reason for being here together and all of our language of community is, uh, subordinate to that.

If we are a community, our common unity is that we wanna make money [00:52:00] and, um, how far that can be followed. As a, as an orientation to, in cultivate an enrich community is a totally different question.

and I, uh, I did in fact, as I stood up at the end to ask a question once the event had ended, I wasn't chosen to ask a question unfortunately. But as I was standing there, I was approached by a woman who, you know, asked me who I was and what I was doing. I said, I'm, I'm a philosopher. And that's a usually an invitation for people to open up, you know, in ways they weren't expecting.

And so she started speaking to me about her relation with Christianity and then her husband's work and, you know, we had a meaningful interaction. Who knows what will come of that? And so, 

Andrea Hiott: oh, that's great. [00:53:00] 

Tim Adalin: That is what it is. But the, the thing is, in lots of these contexts, and I, I guess I'll just share this to you, add some an important dynamic to, that's really influential on our possibility to.

Open space for deeper exchange and deeper relating with the patterns of our time and cultivating the kind of connections which want to also be part of a, an understanding process that can support us to build and create and interact in society and as and with nature in a way that is wiser than just following the ordinary patterns set out for us, which may not be as wise as we might hope to do.

That does of course, require energy and time and capacity and all of that. And there is a way in which genuinely opening up to relationship and opening up and participating [00:54:00] in understanding is very ripe for para powerization predation

because of course, you are offering something profoundly valuable. You know, ultimately you are offering a truths of where your edges are, of what your dreams are, of what you care about and what you're seeing. And, um, you know, many other things besides, all of which can be in some ways. Received and taken and applied in a manner which doesn't necessarily return energetically to the cultivation of that context of relationship.[00:55:00] 

So just what does one give of oneself to contexts that may be interacting primarily in a zero sum competitive way with the sense that if I don't find a boat for myself, then I'm not gonna make it. So I'm gonna not worry so much if my activity of trying to make it pushes you down that little bit. 

Andrea Hiott: yeah.

That's the dangerous sort of iteration that can happen because we are so porous and we can, the more we are around certain ideas, we do start to sort of take them on. I mean, that's just kinda what happens. So there's always this strange dance of trying to stay authentic or, or, or, or having trust and, and being in touch with the things we were talking about at the beginning.

And then also that the way that you can sort of start it iterating [00:56:00] towards. Competitive or whatever. but when you were talking about there was like a lot of s coming through, I mean, money meaning, but also in, I think it was in maybe the, a recent video or something that we shared of, that you shared with me.

you said you were talking about maps and, um, masks and was it maps as masks or ma masks as maps or something? I don't know why that's coming up in this context, but that's interesting too, to think of the mask and the map and mm-hmm. The way we can perform or, you know, find the craft in these things and Yeah.

Tim Adalin: Yeah. That awesome. Well, I shared that video with you. I mean, this is, uh, always, yeah, it's fun to revisit poetic expression, you know, from several years ago. I, uh, and so what I'm about to say is not coming from a place of, uh, formalized philosophy, [00:57:00] but yeah, I mean, it is interesting, isn't it? I mean, the connection between masks and maps, you know, one thing that comes to mind in the context of, of love as we are here in the context of love and philosophy.

Is the, you know, if I wear on my face, you know, consciously and less consciously, you could think about makeup as an example of sort of the conscious modulation, right? But also, you know, shaving and uh, also the efforts we might put into our physical health and our expression and all the rest of it. Even the sense of confidence one might want to project.

And actually the adoption of confidence as such, you know, in that moment where nervous [00:58:00] energy or anxiety before going out on stage or taking on a task is the alchemical transformation of that into the, Hey, well this is it. Like this is life. This is an opportunity that can be alchemized into energy, you know, and certain, a certain acceptance in, in it.

And so to take that on, then to affirm the occasion to, you know, one could see that as, as the necessity of putting on a mask. And you can think about it in terms of personas and the necessity of how the psyche presents itself as at that public persona level. And of course, you know, if there's. Artfulness and depth, and we are really getting to know each other and we're open to the slips and the glitches in the matrix and the deeper context that [00:59:00] is more than just whatever the immediate small talk is or the deeper dynamics underlying actually what's orienting the value in exchange.

We might be recognizing in any context, then we can start to get to know each other and appreciate, uh, more of a depth of sharing space together. And we can appreciate more of the depth in the space that is being held by another in that process. And so there's a way in that sense of playing with, the masks we have and noticing and attuning to the underlying or permeating self that is energizing and orienting the integrity of our relating throughout them.

And in the sense of maps, the connection could be there. Well, of course the persona and the mask of that is an invitation to a certain kind of interaction that we can mutually hold together so we can make it through whatever [01:00:00] this thing is. You a transaction, a cashier, Uh, and. Entering, not that I've entered any ballrooms, uh, recently, but enter, you know, maybe you meet the person who's opening the door for you and I tip my hat to you.

Do you know what I mean? In we go right with a, with a wink, right? Yeah. So, 

Andrea Hiott: somehow I just had a great vision of you, sort of in a movie, an old movie going into a ballroom. It was very fitting actually, especially with the theater idea. I could totally see it. But you talk about territory a lot and, um, there's, we, well, it's funny I asked you, I wanted to ask you about love, you know, relative to your work because, and you sort of said something really interesting about, I mean, before this conversation in an email about how you don't, you notice that you don't really talk about love directly or in the foreground, I think might've been how you put it.

And yet you had this wonderful way of saying, it's kind of like the cookie or something that, you know, if you [01:01:00] founded it would sort of unlock everything, even though it's not spoken. And I find that really interesting also this word value I wanted to ask you about, because almost every, I mean, I'm exaggerating probably, but It, it comes up. It's not that you talk about it directly. it feels also like a bit of a cookie in the background, but it, the word itself does come in every now and then in a conversation.

Or, or maybe I just heard it, I don't know, but Oh, totally. I feel like what it, it seems important. So those two things are, are on my mind. 

Tim Adalin: yeah, yeah. I mean, over the years I might also have used the word quality a lot more than value, you know, goodness, beauty, these sorts of things. I meaning I had a different time.

Uh, are you 

Andrea Hiott: saying you might've used those same words to point to a similar 

Tim Adalin: Yes. 

Andrea Hiott: Important thing? 

Tim Adalin: Yes. I mean, affirmation basically, you know, but in also [01:02:00] maybe the, the sacred, not to say all these words are exact synonyms. 

Andrea Hiott: No, no, no. 

Tim Adalin: But in many instances, they could function as isomorphic. 

Andrea Hiott: Right. 

Tim Adalin: You know, it's, it's funny because it, it's, um, there's almost an absurdity in naming, uh, value or meaning or significance as such.

Mm-hmm. Right. Um, mm-hmm. Because, you know, here we are very much performing in the sense of living out. Something valuable or, or else what are we, what are we doing? And uh, you know, so one of the things which has been on different things, I've, you know, cards I've printed out or on subtitles or titles in videos I've created is something like meaning is, I think, um, the first thing I wrote on the, the voice craft website back in 2016 or 2017 when I was making it [01:03:00] something like, there is meaning and you are involved.

You know, we can be better, better copy than that now, right? But I all manner of ways, right, to try and keep and so just meaning is, and yet

as is so often the case, and many people of course are speaking about the overindulgence in following the dictates of quantity over the cultivation and appreciation of, of quality. Tyson, Yoko Porter, who's an indigenous thinker, who's based in Melbourne, he makes a nice distinction here. Many others have similar distinctions between increase and growth.

Growth is more to do with quantity and scale is increases to do with the quality of connections within a context. So in that [01:04:00] sense, enriching rather than just, um, seeking to stack. Quantities of that, which in principle could be converted to wealth. All the while we may have been neglecting or maybe hollowing out the actual quality and relational integrity, which is the deeper enabler maker of, of wealth.

Right. So yeah, oftentimes it, so, so let's take love, you know, and especially in the context of sharing publicly. What is more effective, effectively, you know, inducing of effectivity than love, [01:05:00] spirituality, intimacy, the sacred significance or someone speaking on that. Yeah, someone's speaking on that.

Well, if you feel, or for whatever reason, sense rightly, or you know, accurately or, or not that someone is saying something about that. That's interesting. Well. Where you'd be really interested. Like if love is in question, then by definition you are probably profoundly interested. And I mean that in the sense of imminently in one's life, not just as a point of discourse.

But if the question of love is in the air, if the question of love, if love as a possibility, as a reality, as a, as a living [01:06:00] necessity, like as part of what is connecting us is in question, then you're gonna be pretty effectively engaged. And by necessity, somewhat open. How could one engage in the question, the living, the cultivation of love in a way that was entirely closed, right?

Just dis, totally dispassionately. Okay. Maybe there's unconscious process going on, but well, that's unconscious process. And either you are, it's so uninteresting, you're gonna completely tune out and you're no longer engaging whenever that channel of communication is. Or you're still there attending to it and you're just sort of that bit more split from yourself.

But why are you attending to it? It's 'cause you really care about it. It's just you're dissociating about why that is.

Why [01:07:00] am I doing anything at all? I want to, I am, I cannot not be in relationship with love and the cultivation of its momentary forms in the world. For me, I think about love in terms of, ultimately, in terms of loving transformation, again, as a dynamic. And I find the word very powerful because it seems to enable that sense of both holding and letting go.

You know, Forrest Landry, who's a philosopher, who's obviously makes, he's been on the podcast many times and I appreciate him very much. He has an expression that his love is that which enables choice. And, uh, you know, before I met Forrest and started, um, [01:08:00] reading his work, I, he actually, uh, created the world's first, um, weed vaporizer.

And, uh, some of my mates bought it. 

Andrea Hiott: Sorry, what does it mean? Vaporizer? Oh, like a, like a vaporizer. Oh, like a vape. A vape. Oh, okay. 

Tim Adalin: Yeah. Yeah. He just put the herb in there and he made that and. I think that was released in like 2009, 2010. The magic flight light box. I feel like that's the natural 

Andrea Hiott: state walking around New York these days.

Or mini a city. Right. Which feels like a vaporizer, but anyway. 

Tim Adalin: Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I didn't know that. Probably, probably not. Just a vapor, probably a whole bunch of other things. All manner of fumes yeah. And so anyway, and there's something that comes through in that phrase, which is very important, which is similar to these other dynamics I'm sharing. There's a certain, there's a certain, an affirmation of openness to potentiality that is beyond one's [01:09:00] capacity to contain in an image derived from a separate self in a sense that no one perspective can speak on behalf of the totality can enclose reality.

You know, you think about idolatry and these sorts of things in similar kinds of ways. So the holding and letting go, but in the context of the digital to speak to love, right, to invite is, for me, this is about participating in relationship. This is really about understanding what it is to live and die well and to, and to serve and to transgress what it means for some to serve.[01:10:00] 

So, you know, it's, uh, it's, it's an openness to relation and possibility that in a sense is not,

is not demanding anything and on the other hand

is cannot but make a call to everything. And, um, I've just always been and continue to be unbelievably skeptical about the way that people who pronounce on, some people who pronounce on love and intimacy and leadership. Um, of people, [01:11:00] of new cultures, of old cultures, how they show up to relationship and how they meet that context of transmission.

And, um, and, and, and I think woven throughout all of my expression is a continued modulation of

ha like proximity, you know, in, in the sense of, well,

I prefer to meet someone in the question and to, and to participate in the, [01:12:00] in the mutual cultivation of what expresses as love not to draw in to the center. 

Andrea Hiott: Mm-hmm. 

Tim Adalin: My expression of love. 

Andrea Hiott: Hmm. 

Tim Adalin: Right. Like the caring Yeah. I'm starting about that intimacy. Yeah. 

Andrea Hiott: Is it, are you more comfortable in these liminal edge work becoming sort of spaces do you think, are the, does that feel more your na not not in your natural state, but when, when you're saying that, I wonder about who, who you're skeptical of or what the skeptical ness is.

Here's what it felt like when you were talking that there's a kind of pulling back and, and, and creating the identity and like sort of assuming some kind of a self or brand, I don't know these words we've been talking about, but these, [01:13:00] this kind of way in which, um, we all have roles, but are you skeptical when someone starts to believe their own role or something and they don't go into that liminal, edge, worky, risky, conversational space or, 

Tim Adalin: Yeah, yeah. No, I, I really appreciate what you're saying. Uh, I felt, and I feel that I can't answer a clear yes to that just because it's so important that the, the aspect of me, which does really care about formalization without making, without putting that on a pedestal and actually like, really ha it, it is not leading.

It is nevertheless so important that I feel more comfortable meeting a response to that liminally, let's say, am I more comfortable in those spaces? I mean, [01:14:00] 

Andrea Hiott: or trust them more, or I don't know if it's comfort. 

Tim Adalin: Ah, yes, yes. When it comes to, ah, so super, super interesting here. So in like, a lot of this conversation has already been that, um, but this in particular is very, feels very risky.

Like there's something about this exact moment and the way I could respond here, which brings into question whether or not I am sufficiently understanding the medium in which we are participating, uh, and whether in that potential lack of understanding, I'm actually doing a disservice to the, the deeper dedication.

So, but in saying this, what, [01:15:00] what that means is that that is also in my experience and to my, you know, thesis will be actually beginning now to tune people out of staying with attending to. The tension I'm bringing to question. So what's naturally coming up for me in order to stay kind of in presence and in integrity with you, is I am beginning to layer and push away even, even here.

Andrea Hiott: Mm-hmm. 

Tim Adalin: But at the same time, in doing that, I'm still sh I'm still showing up right in there. Right? Mm-hmm. So why, because there's so much in our world that's totally fucked. Like it's totally fucked the, in, in, in terms of the integrity of voice and the, and, um, and there are people who take different strategic repo, uh, responses to that as a conundrum.[01:16:00] 

And, uh, I watched, you know, uh, and or, um, which I enjoyed, I always liked Star Wars as a kid. Anyway, in season one, I believe one of the main characters, what was his name? Lutheran. He shared that his, his sacrifice, he was the, the predominant protagonist, leader of the nascent rebel intelligence resistance against the empire and his primary sacrifice.

As he named it was that he had been, he had accepted that his role was to use the tools of the enemy. You know, he was involved obviously, you know, [01:17:00] assassinating people and if he was concerned that there might be a leak in his intelligence network, he would do whatever was necessary to plug that leak.

And there's something about that engaging the tools of the enemy. That's very interesting. Part of that, part of that tool set in the, in our context, seems to be

using words and truth in quotation marks to just get what you want to get, the short term outcome that you want according to the strategy you might have. Or maybe if you're more of a chaos agent who's not necessarily got much strategy going [01:18:00] on, then whatever the immediacy is that you want to orient the other towards Gary Stevenson.

Sort of a left wing economist makes this reflection about the financial elites he was often in participation with. They were really just showing up to just, they would say whatever to get what they want. And they weren't really attached to the truth, value, the integrity of their words.

And so to tie this in

when we speak publicly

about

matters of the, how we navigate our perception or how [01:19:00] we develop or cultivate or sense the integrity in others, that's

what can be gamed in response to that becomes quite interesting. One of the, um, one of the things which are a collaborator of mine for a number of years would often say to me, he had participated in many different. Very large, very large online networks. When these were more popular during COVID, headed up by fairly major influences, he had a lot of experience witnessing how people could enter the space and learn the language game, but also the sensibility of the [01:20:00] game and convince a whole bunch of people that they were very effective or maybe even righteous in their navigation and orientation, in that domain.

Uh, gain a certain kind of status and leadership and credibility as a result, and then often times destroy to his perception anyway, destroy the context. In effect, what has always been core to the orientation in voice craft is looking at trying to understand what, what constitutes the mode of enga, mode of engagement in the highest dimensional sense, deepest dimensional sense.

So not just at the level of the language game, obviously, what constitutes that mode of engagement, which can protect [01:21:00] the integrity of communication. When we are in a space that is not in fact held, and that almost by its very nature to the degree it's attractive or interesting or engaging or in any way, you know, attentionally attractive for various kinds of people is gonna attract people who might be interested in that for its power and its possibility and its proximity to whatever else.

And so what is it to engage then with sociopathic psychopathic impulse, people who or who might otherwise be just a little bit more twisted in

their own [01:22:00] self relation to love and how that shows up in their actions or something like this? That could be word that, that last part could be worded way, way, way better technically. Um, and so it's a, it is a wild, it's a wild, wild conundrum because, I mean, there's so many things which we could say are at the heart of voice craft in that regard, but one of, one of the, you know.

One of the calls to, Hey, attend to this problem space and often talk about this with OG Rose. And he speaks about this, you know, unbelievable philosopher OG Rose, speak about, you know, pluralism and the challenge of speaking and engaging with the other in that context. And [01:23:00] you know, this doesn't have to be, and isn't primarily a matter of highfalutin philosophy, but in so many countries in the west in the world today, we have an unsettled diversity of culture identity,

often with different perceptions at one level of what is perceived as most valuable or most necessary for them. How do you mediate that? How do you relate in context where you know there is real question and disagreement and tension and maybe lack of language, all these types of things. I'm kind of giving an example here in a concrete sense, which.

[01:24:00] Hopefully is, you know, way more down to earth. If we imagine like what potentiates violence between peoples or classes or ethnicities or identity groups before it takes to the streets in the motion of violence itself, where there might still be openness for conversation or when there is enough energy spent that we can pull back a bit.

And when does that moment come to then reen reengage and with some openness. The cultivating relation.

Yeah. That also points to this dynamic unknown of real encounter and what is it to cultivate trust in that context? What is it to build genuine intimacy in that context? What is it to lead well? What is it to have the genuinely, the [01:25:00] humility to follow as well? Um, those are sort of given two, like one extreme over here and then there's other extreme over here.

And, uh, I'll stop there. I could say, I've said a lot there. I could, I want, I'd wanna say a lot more to continue to orbit around what this is. You know, 

Andrea Hiott: I'm having a computational kind of explosion of possible threads that I wanna, I mean, there's, there's so much in there. Let me just say a few things that I remember.

'cause a lot of things were coming up. One thing was that you brought up this, like we're almost like, or I heard it at the beginning that we're sort of feeding the algorithm in a way, or maybe I'm reading it through my own thoughts, but 'cause recently I, I never thought much about, I mean, it's been hard for me to be public and share things that was hard and doing it was a, a practice, right?

And only recently I've started realizing that we're all, you know, everything we talk about and say is literally kind of going into training [01:26:00] LLMs and all of this other stuff. And that, and it feels weird in a way that I think kind of touches on what you were getting at in a different context. And then the other thing, uh, was when you were talking, I was remembering this thing maybe 10 years ago, where it was like, don't waste a good crisis.

Never waste a good crisis. That was a kind of a, a theme and it's, it felt kind of revolutionary. Like, oh wow, we can, I'll kamise the crisis into something beautiful and help one another. It felt like that in the time. And now it feels like we've started just creating millions of crisis so we can alchemize them.

And it's similar to that feeling of the LLM, uh, speed at which we can no longer comprehend what we're creating. Kind of, there's some link between those things that came up as you were, as you were talking. And then yeah. I'll just stay, stop right for there, there, right now and, and see what 

Tim Adalin: Oh, okay. Yeah, I would, that was great.

I mean, I, I, I'm super. I would be interested to listen to you continue all the [01:27:00] different things that are coming, um, through for you there. Yeah. But I'm happy to respond as well. But if you, if you have anything more you'd like to say, I'm more than, well, 

Andrea Hiott: I'll, I'll say the next one was also thinking about how your conversations and voice craft, at least at some point, I mean, you know, I haven't listened to every single thing, so I can't talk about it.

Like I as if I understand your whole, what, like eight years now of it. Um, but it seems like you invite the same people often and you continue conversations and so that also feels like a kind of trust that you're building or that you, there's something going on there that feels both, uh, it speaks to what you're saying there in a sense of answering it.

But also when I think of it through that manipulative framework that's now suddenly everywhere of the LLM thing, it, it also makes me a little, I don't know, it almost hurts me a little bit. I don't know, maybe that's being maudlin, uh, that, [01:28:00] that, I'll just leave it like that. And also another thing that was coming was I was thinking about, um, how we, we are heard.

We are talking with. I mean, we're right now talking across the world and, uh, this is like normal now. We just do this and who knows who hears it. I mean, I have no idea how all these people who look at my channel, I don't know where it comes from. I'm completely, I can't figure it out at all what's going on.

And people, and you know that everything's getting interpreted in different ways and you can't control that. And we're all speaking out of particular language references that sometimes might mean completely the opposite in another context. And if you start to really think about that, it can be paralyzing too.

Um, and, and the only answer I can really find is trying so hard to be a little bit naive in the sense of always at that edge that we were talking about of, I, I'm just trying really hard to present how, how this is coming right now. Uh, but at the same time, of course, you, you, you know, you're learning and [01:29:00] cultivating and all of this.

So again, it's that holding, this, sharing, holding, becoming, making, uh, space. So those were the thoughts that were coming up most. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Tim Adalin: Yeah. Awesome. I just mad, mad respect and appreciation for all of that. And, uh,

why, why people in great, you know, d why people in different. Degrees of quantity, listen to this or that is, is something of a mystery because one of the things which, um, has characterized my experience, and I suppose in quantitative terms like this is of course not true, but, you know, sometimes I would say that, you know, I've [01:30:00] made more friendships than I have audiences like, or number of audience.

And obviously there's like a massive limitation to how many relations you can be open to. And of course relating, uh, relating with the reality of scale and network effects and structure in that regard is very, very critical to the overall philosophical endeavor of understanding cultivation of culture and participation in our time and power and all of this.

But my experience is, is that I really know fairly well and hopefully more and more, well a good number of people who listen to the podcast I create and of course who participate in the voice craft network. You know, [01:31:00] so many of the people who return on the podcast are members of the Voice Craft Network, but who are also.

Uh, you know, um, creators in other networks and in their own projects. Not all of them, but some of them, you know, notably people like OG Rose and, uh, Cardell las, who are both members of Voice Craft are outrageously generative philosophical agents in the world, totally irrespective of any participation in voice craft.

Uh, but also there are a number of people who aren't, you know, members in quotation marks who are part of the relational field and who are part of, you know, cultivating, I hope, trustful relations with myself and, and maybe a few others in the context to return again and again. And, uh, I would say that it's always an interest of mine that I sense whether or not there is [01:32:00] openness and possibility to return in conversation.

Um, and it generally feels like a failure if someone doesn't want to, which isn't to say that people should want to, of course. Um, but if someone doesn't want to speak to you again, well that's obviously a very, that's very interesting. I'm not saying it is a failure in and of itself, but for part of what voice Craft is, has been wanting to hold open.

The possibility to deepen and participate in and to clarifying, understanding and be in response to changes in the world, and really does hold to the knowing that we need each other. Now, part of the lack in what I've managed to [01:33:00] realize so far is a reliable recurrence of interactions between guests who might have, um, really strong differences of identity or opinion as influencers.

That has been an interest to be able to do that, to be able to, but there's just a lot that goes into that. And of course, a tremendous amount of, um, plausible deniability for not responding to invitations for, and, and then various ways people might not be interested to show up to these sorts of things.

So yeah, that, that responds to some of it, um, in that, to link in this theme of, in a sense, the, [01:34:00] the, the sadness. Or the, the cost, the pain of having to adjust to a world in which artificial intelligence is becoming so unbelievably capable at mimicking fundamentally how we look, what we sound like are sentence structures.

Well, surely this is just the absolute death no of trusting public communication, but across what medium and what actually is, what does it really mean? What really is it to participate in communication? What are the deeper mediums of [01:35:00] exchange that we, you know, craft voice on and receive each other? Now, I do believe that voice craft is pointing towards and is at the very least in dedication to the kind of, just in the last few days I've been speaking about it in terms of technology.

So I'm gonna say that, but I'll say it's very much in dedication to the kind of. Technology, which is inherently anti-fragile to just that kind of mimicking and just that kind of puritization of the comments fundamentally of the deepest comments there is, which,

which is [01:36:00] the impression that other self and other make, uh, in second person field of relationality as such so stupid, so stupid philosophical words. Um, yeah, you could specify at different levels of analysis, you know, uh, life love. So

yeah. What is that technology? What is that inherent capacity? We might wanna point to it with language, like, uh, I would say that it's an inherent, I would say that it's an inherent lineage gift of humanity in a sense. Like part of what constitutes. An [01:37:00] essential aspect of what constitutes our capacity to remake and tend to the integrity of the commons.

And communication as such is a lineage birthright, as has manifest in the dignity of all of us, but it is in continued need of cultivation and is itself part, it seems from my perspective, part of an an evolving change process. And, um, and so the question as regards the mediation and strengthening and recovery and innovation and, um, you know, technical development of what it means to[01:38:00] 

protect the potential for trust is like remains, you know, you know, an open question and also a technical question for sure. Like by by definition it's not just technology, it's certain like, you know, some of those other elements I was naming in relation to the technical skill. Of let's say craft have to do with the,

there is an impossibility of naming. There's an imposs, there's an impossibility of naming creativity as such. There's an and in, in effect, we can all only show it in our, in the endeavors, which are also in a, in a sense, kind of [01:39:00] unknown to ourselves. And then we can kind of turn around and go or witness and go, oh, that was quite beautiful, that was creative.

You know, or I felt you really moved something in me in there. Or, that question really afforded me an incredible opportunity that unlocks some free energy, you know, free energy as, as I think really interesting to think about in relation here. But anyway, I, I could go on and, and continue to try to try and clarify there, but there's, um, I don't believe that, um, artificial intelligence as we are presently seeing it manifest, can stand in for what is most sacred in life.

But I also think. By and large, we are really struggling as a culture to step forward with the sustained [01:40:00] courage and coherence of effort to nourish the conditions of possibility and the spaces for actually cultivating our capacity to

appreciate and share in, and create in relation with in orbit, with in touch with the sacred

on the pulse, you know, when the chips are down

and um, but then some of the people I respect most, what they hold to when they're really pushed, you know, elder Les Spencer here. Not that you have to really push him to get there or that [01:41:00] it would be very kind to push him. He wouldn't take kindly to a push. He is strong in the conviction that people under conditions of stress can.

Like spontaneously, you know, realize a great adaptivity and can become very functional in context. So

the only other thing I'll say, and it is just, you know, many other things that could be said is that that's part of my perception and part of why I think some of the voice craft conversations can be so esoteric is, you know, one of the things which seems to characterize why aspects of our society and, you know, [01:42:00] techno economic power order are so insidious, is that it is so

capable. So it, it's, it's capacity is to be able to keep you satiated energetically, just enough to keep you just engaged in cadel. Last, another excellent philosophy and put, puts this well, um, uh, sort of stuck in autoerotic loops. You know, the bliss points of food, but also the dynamics of, you know, and attention and, and addiction with screens and whatever else.

So capable of the, the system is so effective at, um, mediating [01:43:00] addiction, something like that. Keeping people on a certain kind of life support that our energy is drained and our skillfulness, uh, relating is drained. So that is my, that is one of my concerns. It's like, how atrophied and drained are we becoming such that in under conditions of, you know, chaos or great immediate complexity, we might be too hollowed out to respond.

Well, that is, and the stacking of power in the sensor sensor, Socratic techno feal sense is so wild. Um, I don't know like about, about any of that, but, um, but yeah, that, that's definitely, that, that's definitely one of my, [01:44:00] one of my big concerns, um, is, and that seems to be one of the plays I would say. Not necessarily ascribing that to specific agents, but just in terms of the identity of the system, um, you can give people just enough to keep hanging on while they become progressively weaker and more alienated.

And, uh, and that is, that's the great question. I think one of the great questions for people living and building and wanting to be in adaptive response is, is that question of orientation towards, let's say, um, critical activity. You know, if, if one recognizes that their current patents are sort of killing them, killing them softly, killing them slowly, [01:45:00] uh, then at some point with the energy that still remains, needs to be put towards, you know, what, hopefully an adaptive new form.

And there might be like a certain energetic, um, requirement that's necessary to make that transition. And, um, it would be fun, I would say to c cultivate more conversation about that. But there are big, there are quite a few barriers in the way of being able to have that conversation. I would say. You know, Indy Johar, who I really respect.

He said to me in person, you know, that the time for conversations, uh, is over. You know, you just need to build, you know, something like this. And he's being a bit hyperbolic, I think. Um, certainly in terms of how I think we've been understanding communication or conversation in this context, in a sense it's always [01:46:00] present.

Um,

yeah, I would say yeah, the, the time for conversation has only, it's only becoming more relevant and, um, I suppose, you know, I, uh, when you were sharing your orientation and, you know, your maybe wonder, but also I think there was a sense of gratitude in there and, um, also a sense of responsibility in how your conversations have been received.

That just made me very happy. I felt very happy in receiving that and that, and I was just feeling like, yeah, you're a legend. Well done. that, that was my orientation because there's no, and I've heard how you've, you know how you've. [01:47:00] How you've shared in relation to what you've perceived in my work and my efforts.

And, um, yeah, it's very, very discerning and, uh, and caring. And so that's awesome that there are people, so many people listening. So yeah. Mad respect for that. 

Andrea Hiott: Well, it's all, I, I don't even know what to say about that, but I, the care is there and that I'm thankful for if nothing else, because I have no idea like where that comes from either.

But there's so many things in there. but what you're saying there, that conversation and building and caring and, um, it's something I think about so much, all those themes, especially with right now where we, we've brought up language a lot here and, I think there's something about maybe even the YouTube medium and all these conversations, [01:48:00] and that is a kind of building, I think a lot of people mostly learn now from these kinds of formats.

And there's a precariousness in there too, but there's also, Like, what if we really can have a different sense of awareness about what, what language is and what images are and what representations are, and not think of them in the way we do now. I mean, two things were coming to mind when you're talking about all that.

one, seeing this kind of buzz about how now you can, download your voice and, and your image and then you can kind of create podcasts or whatever of yourself. That's not really you. Uh, I don't know about if you can do that with image. I don't, I haven't heard anyone doing that, but you can with your voice and how that strikes me as a little bit hard to figure out how I feel about that.

Um, you wanna know 

Tim Adalin: something crazy? No. If I can interrupt for a moment. Yeah, you don't. No, I, I wish I didn't know this. I wanna 

Andrea Hiott: know. Yes, 

Tim Adalin: but actually, uh, I wish I didn't, but, uh, one apparently, [01:49:00] oh, do I wanna 

Andrea Hiott: know then? 

Tim Adalin: I dunno. Apparently one of the most powerful, uh, voice AI software, Thanos, that's been made, open source, guess what it's called?

It's called Voice Craft. 

Andrea Hiott: Oh, no. Seriously? Yeah. Wow. Well, that's, uh, what are you gonna do about that? Probably, 

Tim Adalin: probably more people. If you had taken, let's say the four month period around when it was launched, probably more people signed up to my mailing list on the voice craft website. Yeah, I was about to say, you probably public that.

Yeah. 

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. Well, 

Tim Adalin: thinking it was that then, not now. Anyone who's primarily interested in using, uh, you know, that technology to mimic voice, I can almost guarantee you is not gonna be maybe one in like a thousand just makes this mad, like dialectical pivot and completely changes the whole orientation towards life.

But I don't think many. 

Andrea Hiott: That's funny. Oh, that's really funny. I didn't know that. But [01:50:00] the, the thing is, there's a way in which this can be so scary and crazy and all, all of this, and there's another way in which maybe we're actually gonna learn something really transformative here. For example, I'm thinking about some terrible things that happened because of technology, for example, in like 2016 or something when, some, I'm not gonna go into politics here, but like, one group in one country was creating, some propaganda ish kind of videos against another group.

And it just, because the algorithm on this particular social media platform was just built to maximize attention and because it got your attention, it just kind of went crazy and it caused a lot of destruction and death and pain actually, I mean, or was definitely very connected to it. And the reason that happened was a kind of lack of awareness that it could happen in a sense.

Like if, if we all kind of understood on a different level that process, Maybe, I mean, in an embodied presence in the [01:51:00] kind of way that I think you're expressing, we need the conversational bodily really here sense. if we start interacting with technology in a way where we know what it's doing, I mean, it's almost hard to talk about because then you do go to a different level of, of how you're using it.

So it's almost like we could kind of move through this point, this vortex. It could almost be what we need in order to understand this is language that's being, that's representational. That doesn't, nothing we say, and no video ever is alive or human in the sense of able to fully encompass the source from which it's represented.

You know, like that's a really, really hard thing to understand, I think. Oh, interesting. Philosophically interesting. Incredibly hard yeahinteresting. It's so hard to even articulate because the language is built on, you know, so you get so meta here, but in a way I could almost see this is a vortex where we're gonna find that language if we, which is why [01:52:00] these kinds of conversations and the kind of voice craft work that you're doing and that other people are doing these communities, right?

Um, that feels more important than we might really understand right now. If we can really keep it towards that liminal space of trying very hard to find that language. And, you know, and move through that vortex. I don't know if that makes much sense to you. 

Tim Adalin: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think what you articulated was really excellent.

I'm reminded you asked me earlier in the conversation if I feel more comfortable in those spaces. I would say like,

no, like, I would say comfort. I would say like, oh, it's, it's difficult. May I, maybe, maybe I do. I don't know. I certainly don't, you know, sometimes I'm received by people and they [01:53:00] think, uh, you know, why can't you just say what you mean? Or can you just be a little clearer or more like determinant?

I don't walk around having all my interactions like this. Right. I, I love, I love the opportunity to share some words with my football team right before we go into battle. Do you know what I mean? 0% ambiguity. Um, but it's still drawing on an integrity of philosophy. So there's times and places I would say that.

In good company, one of the most enriching, beautiful creative spaces to be in is that is a liminal space, but [01:54:00] it's continually sourcing from something that's actually deeply rooted. And so the liminality is, you know, it's almost like it's, you know, you, you, you, you move it and you breathe it through.

Andrea Hiott: You're being present to it. It's almost as if you're trying to get out of it or something. It's not that you're just floating around in a passive liminal space, you know, there's a kind of tension that you are embracing that's keeping you present there 

Tim Adalin: at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I, I don't relate to my own capacity or interest in the liminal in a perverted way.

I don't think I have a perverted relation with the liminal. 

Andrea Hiott: That's good to hear. 

Tim Adalin: Yeah. Yeah. You gotta be real careful that you can actually say something like that when [01:55:00] you go and say something like that. You know, that was some twisted up somewhere in and among it all. But on that regard, no, because.

It is actually the way to,

there is no, there is no, there is no joy from relating with the liminal. If one isn't

actually profoundly willing to, what word am I gonna use there? What I'm gonna be, one word was gonna be die.

But another way to voice that is to just be, is to stand for something. Is to [01:56:00] stand for something and commit one's skin in the game. And, and the generativity of relationship, real generativity of relationship requires that genuine skin in the game risk. And so it's awesome to get to know people who you are both engaged in, let's say, liminal conversations with in the, in the real way, because you are.

Cultivating a sense of what the other person is really for, even in the context of navigating questions for which no one has the answer of let's say, what exactly to do or how history will unfold. So that would be, you could look at that as one of the paradoxes in a sense. And, um, [01:57:00] and so therefore it's often the misperceptions around things being too liminal or not

straight and clear and, mm, concrete enough come from

very challenging, very difficult to presence contradictions and sort of dissociations in our relation between our thinking process and our feeling process, or our minds and our hearts and, and our capacity to see [01:58:00] that in others. So I thought, oh, it's just all the mind, you're just up there with mind.

Where are you rooted or grounded? Where are you coming from? Well, there would be a million ways to language in any, in any particular sense, just in what ways are projections might be misperceiving someone with respect to that. But that's something which has been a tremendous and ongoing learning and surprise began as a surprise for me and has become something I've become a lot more used to, was the way in which like really knowing how I can be received with real, uh, care and trust in speaking from the heart, let's say by some who I then cultivate relations over years [01:59:00] with in that spirit.

And then others who can be so strong in their authority of naming you are not speaking from your heart or you are not connected with your heart right now. Right. There's something very, very interesting about that. When that happens and I've, you know, I've. Heard those intimations at the beginning of the journey from, you know, people like, uh, Gabor Mate even who resonates the signature of like world historical grief.

it is like the ultimate archetype of someone who you would trust, right. In his elderly sense of there's of, you know, interesting stories around that and other, and many others too. I, you know, I [02:00:00] respect, right. So it's very curious how these sorts of, what, what comes into play. Why am I saying all of this in part is just what's coming up, but also there's a thread back into response to the really excellent articulation you gave of how technology with the capacity to mimic so remarkably so at the, it's kind of like highest quality mimicry on tap could be enabling of the reflection that it is not just the, what that is said, and not even just the how that it performs or the way that is performing.

But actually the inside out as it participates in the relational field, presencing and bringing to voice the tra [02:01:00] transmutation of perception into expression as a generative relational activity, that in that relationship is where we cultivate the trust. But what's in between our cultivating relationship, what kind of constraints and modulators and unexamined elements within ourselves, but also in the systems which condition our interaction are actually functioning to enable or disenable some of that context.

Part of what is going on. There are often dynamics of the kind of like systemic, um, like mediation, social systemic mediation of status and authority and power as kind of habituated momentums of various [02:02:00] institutions and roles, some of which are valuable and in need of taking very seriously and protecting in a sense, but often also laced with dynamics which are deeply.

Disenabling of the actual cultivation of the comments of relationship and conversation that we might actually be wanting to develop as a culture. And so that that, so, you know, practical questions which come out of that are if I am invited onto a stage or to someone's house or onto a platform, or I attend some event, like one the other day where there's part of me, which is like, look, if what we're interested in here maybe is the cultivation of real wealth, the kind of wealth that will support, you know, our, [02:03:00] our building and our attending to the gardens that our children could meet and play in together and learn in together with each other and their children could over the decades to come.

Then I think there might be a few things, fundamental things which are being neglected in the very orientation toward gathering people that you are evidencing here in your event. You know, um, I disagree foundationally with what you're doing, um, how welcome's that. Right. Okay. Well, even if there's a sense that that might be present and even if there's a sense that that might resonate from some aspects of, of soul.

Or knowing we might have about what constitutes the fabric of our belonging together in nature as beings, then that seems to be felt like a, my sense is that that [02:04:00] is terrifying to some kinds of authority at different phases of their maturation process to be charitable. And they don't want any of that.

So what are you gonna do? How are you gonna treat that situation? Many things to say about that. Obviously that's been an ongoing, um, relation, so I'll stop there. There's, but at that point about the technology, yeah, I think, I think I kind of responded to that. I think that's a super interesting idea. I think that that is a very optimistic take on it.

And I think that, you know, wielded by genuine, you know, magicians, there is something very promising in what you said. Uh, and we are probably gonna find out regardless, [02:05:00] and we are probably going to find out without it being, uh, you know, handled by the kind of magicians we would like. So what becomes of that, I know, 

Andrea Hiott: you know, we can also.

Get in there and, and, and change it. I think it's a possibility. It's definitely a possibility that we understand that we're not, I mean, I think part of this is tied. I mean, in my own work, which I, we don't have time to go into this whole thread, but just thinking about, and, and you too, as a philosopher, we think about mind and cognition and what it is, and a lot of it has been kind of associated with language and a computer in our head that's symbolic.

And that's been really helpful for a lot of change, growth awareness. And maybe part of this going through the vortex is changing that too, because we're not in our head and we're not our language and so on. And part of the reason we see this power in the LLM is because it's language. And it's almost [02:06:00] impossible for us to dissociate language from life in the sense of the lived experience that we understand as life.

But that would be a whole other conversation. But I, I do think we can pull those threads apart and we have to, and it's really hard. And if we do, it's this something when you've been talking that comes up a lot for me, is the idea of us as multiplicities of beings. I mean that we literally are multiple beings here, but we also are multiple beings in multiple spaces.

And I feel like that's connected. And I know you've had, you know, I think you've had some conversations about that. I know you've thought about that. and that's part of all this too, and that's part of, um, being able to maybe find the flexibility to, you know, shift, shift this, dance this in a different direction.

And another thing that's come up just to kind of start to wind this one, this conversation down for now, is in your conversations and, and today too, you've, well, before I say this, first I wanna say thank you for some of the gifts you gave me where you just said really beautiful [02:07:00] things. And I'm not sure I accepted it with like exactly the right grace, because I find it hard to know how to accept those, but I really do accept them and I fill them and thank you.

But now I wanna say in your work, when I listen to your conversations, I don't know how to put it into language, but there, there feels like, especially because you do with more than one person, that sense of what you talked about is the silence and the beginning story, or the vulnerable space of not being beyond words.

You know, just to relate this to language that feels really important to me. And I wanna say that I recognize it in your, your work. And some thing I had thought maybe I would ask you about is how that feels to be. Or if that's changed something in your life, being in that kind of presence with like four men or something, you know, over and over again.

I mean, to me there's something incredibly beautiful about that. It doesn't have to be men, but there's something about that that feels important to all we've been talking about and that transformative in a way, that we started with at the beginning. And I just wanna bring that up and like, let it be here [02:08:00] and see if it brings anything up to kind of end this, because I also wanna ask you if you have any experiences of love or anything like that that, that you wanna share before we, close this conversation for now.

those, those are the things on my mind, so you can take it wherever you want with that, but 

Tim Adalin: yeah. Wow. Awesome. Thank you, Andrea. That's really beautiful.

Yeah, I definitely, I profoundly grateful for how many opportunities I have to participate in long periods of silence again, you know, uh, with others in the gestating and the creative

opening. A creative, receptive silence. Those are incredible [02:09:00] silences. And uh, again, I actually remember in a drama class when I was 12 or 13, different activities you can do. Um, you have 20 people in a group or 15 or whatever it is, and you've gotta count to a hundred and you don't know who's gonna say what.

So one person can say one, and then you dunno who's gonna say two next. But if two people speak at the same time, you have to start at the beginning. So when am I gonna speak and tuning into that? And I used to really love that. I used to find that really interesting. I never used to think about that, why I found it interesting.

But the attunement to that is one of the key things that is shared as a, let's say, a guideline toward practice. and again, again, often in the voice craft context, I [02:10:00] usually downplay the practice element in favor of the practice with an X. Like that's skin in the game, real thing, you know, because that's, uh, about I was gonna ask you about 

Andrea Hiott: Praxis actually.

Yeah, 

Tim Adalin: Yeah. And look, I mean, there are, there are a few people who regularly participate in the, in the voice craft context. And if they listen to this, you know, I'll, I'm gonna include their names and I'll often make this joke and I'm gonna continue to make it until it really becomes not funny.

Probably at different times. But both, Kyle Lawrence, and again, cam Duffy are both, like, if you were having one of those games where it was like, not games, but you know, you really went into the silence to see who would just gonna speak. They just might never talk. Do you know what I mean? So like, I'm surrounded by people who like, really let the silence, really let the silence speak, you know?

And then I'm somewhere in the middle, right? Which is like, I am, I'm actually, I'm holding the space a little bit [02:11:00] here. We are here to engage a little bit, after all, you know, might step in there and, uh, invite something out. And that's crucial too, is that there are lots of people who step into the space, uh, and more people, I would say, who are too afraid.

Or who might not feel worthy or something to step into the space. We could have a whole conversation about that. Just the various resistances people feel. It's very interesting because, um, maybe, maybe we do, maybe we feel the strongest resistance to stepping into context where we actually will be met.

Well, you know, that's almost more terrifying to actually be, actually be received Well. 

Andrea Hiott: but exactly that speaks to it. I was just trying to express to you too, that it, you know, like when someone tells you something that is a compliment or expresses care, you know, sometimes it can be hard to 

Tim Adalin: Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Be there. Well, we're, we're, we're all very attuned to our own lack, you know, [02:12:00] particularly the people you most want to know, I would say, which is the other paradox, you know. But, um, yeah, even when I said that to you, I, and it was like a couple times in this conversation where I felt like, well, part of the invitation is here, you know, is love and philosophy.

So the invitation is for me, in a sense, to risk a little bit. I don't usually, my experience in general podcasting, particularly appearing on other podcasts is often quite negative, only in the sense that I know my disposition is too. I give quite a lot of myself and recognize that what I'm giving can be received in many different ways and that that is part of the process.

And in instances where the [02:13:00] question is how complimentary or what in that sense of appreciation I am to share to another. And in that context of love, and we should rightly be skeptical of people, you know, you've got phrases like love bombing, right? This type of thing where people are using praise and love in quotation marks as a tool of manipulation, consciously or less consciously.

And you know, deepening and clarifying that is a core angle into some of what I was trying to communicate earlier around why so important. Yeah. Love is somewhat backgrounded in many of the conversations, you know, and partly because as well, [02:14:00] how, how. You know, voice craft as an endeavor. And what I'd put to you as well is part of the endeavor, and if I can say responsibility on the edge of this wave of cultivating networks, of genuine participation in philosophy and thinking and understanding together, is that as much as there is a profound value, and OG Rose will often stress this as well, a profound value in the conversations you can overhear others having.

And in that sense, there's a, you know, you don't have to engage and you are still receiving something where the engagement is present and you get to experience that and that's valuable. Or maybe it orients how you might show up in your life in other ways. That for me what is critical is that there are genuine [02:15:00] efforts being made to relate with the structure as well as the, let's just, yeah, let's just go with structure.

The, to relate with the real structure of relationship that one who is broadcasting is in fact making or participating with two. Pronounce on plenty of the stuff that we've covered and some of the things I've shared, you know, well, how, how are you showing up in the context of really building relationships and building structures to support those relationships in life?

Um, there's a place for [02:16:00] broadcast, but the, the paradigm beyond that, how to move beyond the trappings of the zero sum, attentional personal branding creators and consumers as weaponizing people's identities into blocks of passive metabolizers of garbage and active tools of culture, war. Moving beyond that into actual participation.

It's just different ball game, you know, different ball game, and it's just not that. [02:17:00] I, I am much more interested in the people who I can actually be in conversation with than I am in the How interesting can your thinking be if you're not really engaging in conversation? That's the thing. It's like, there's been, there's a lot of, there's been a lot of fantastic thinkers, you know, there's some real big dogs who have got a lot of valuable things to say, you know, we can be living in conversation with each other now.

That's where the, that's where the real intrigue and possibility is, you know, to really engage with each other. So, um, what supports that? What yeah, quality of relating, but also how can we understand and, and think through. And then, you know, from a business perspective, obviously you mentioned that we haven't gone into that much, you know, Cadel last is thinking about lots of that.

We've had conversations, they're different things, you know, [02:18:00] but, um, yeah, I would have lots to say on that. It's, it's very, very challenging. It's very, it's very challenging. So I'll stop myself from going too much into that particular vortex Um, was there. Was there anything else? I just, just

what's it like to be in those silences?

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's awesome and when transitioning that into the local context, in the public context where there's new people showing up, you know, to events of let's say 40 or 50, that's one of the first things which is prone to go. And, um,[02:19:00] 

and that's an interesting thing to begin that process over and over without,

without making it performative again, many, many different things. I could say that I'm hosting an event for a different organization where I'm going to actively go in with the orientation to do less of that, with less of that invitation to silence, partly because of the different authorship authority I'll have in that context.

Because of the necessity of kind of mediating the sort of expectations for what constitutes, you know, normative, appropriate social behavior. Um, but it's also a context in which I think I can build a bit of a [02:20:00] bridge there as well. So that's part of the effort is to sort of cultivate a network of networks where we can enjoy more of the silence together.

Well, I was just only gonna say, just in closing that, um, I'm, if you're open to it, just really looking forward to you being one of the people who over the years is, uh, returning voice in the voice craft context. It would be an absolute honor. And, um, you've got so much to contribute to conversation that's absolutely clear.

So, um, I'm really enthusiastic about that. 

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, me too. I, I think we just started the conversation, so it's exciting to see how, where it goes. I'm glad we, I'm glad that we somehow our, or our orbits came into a similar constellation. It's always Yes.

Kind of wonderful when that happens. 

Tim Adalin: I reached out to you just for the record to show. Okay. I don't know. Yeah. 

Andrea Hiott: I think you reached out to me because I had commented or something on one of your posts, so, right. Yeah, it's, it's, it's this dialectic. 

Tim Adalin: Anyway, thank you so much, Andrea.

Hey, there'd be so many things that, but they would all be [02:21:00] openings to more conversation. I don't have any messages for people. I hope that those who have listened to this feel it was valuable Thanks for listening everybody. Thanks for making it all the way to the end, and thanks also for your support. 

 I really just wanna take a minute to thank you. The people who do support this really, really, really wanna thank you. And I just want you to know, I really, really appreciate you and for anyone else who might wanna support it, It would be great if you join the Substack, it's $57 a year or the YouTube, which is like $12 a year,

which join buttons in both those places or you can just give, 

 There are links where you can just give whatever you might want to give or you can just sign up for the newsletter. That's also helpful. Really. It really is helpful. 

Tim Adalin: I would really [02:22:00] appreciate it.

and thanks a lot just for listening.

And now for the Mary Cavendish poem called Of Many Worlds in this World. Just like as in a nest of boxes, round degrees of sizes in each box are found. So in this world, may many others be thinner and less and less still by degree, although they are not subject to our senses. A world may be no bigger than two pins.

Nature is curious and such works may shape, which our dull senses easily escape. For creatures small as atoms may there be if every one a creature's figure, bear. If atoms four a world can make, then see what several worlds might in an ear ring be. For millions of those atoms may be in the head of one small little single pen.

And if thus small, then ladies, Mel, then ladies, may well wear a world of worlds as [02:23:00] pendants in each.