Why I'm Building Beings Club

My name is John.

In the past half decade, I've been playing with what is possible when you follow your curiosity.

I like art, I like writing, and I like having conversations. I've made some stuff, experimented with some concepts, and had a lot of conversations. It's led me down a lot of different roads, to different countries, and into different kinds of making.

All the way through, I've kept thinking back to this tea house at a Buddhist Monastery I visited once in France. I visited for a Retreat in 2019, specifically for neuroscientists, psychiatrists, and psychologists to be in conversation with monks. I got in because I was in training so that I could be one of those things.

It was at that tea house that I felt strongest that conversations could be transformative, and reflecting on it with other attendees in the years since, they too felt that it was a special situation.

At the scheduled events many fun conversations happened. However, my favourite space of all was the pagoda-like tea house, where conversations felt casual and serendipitous.

Conversations in that tea house were the ground for collective wellbeing, the flourishing of one-to-one relationships, and for individual journeys to embark toward transformation. Bolstered by the intentional practice of individuals and the interesting guest-talks that were happening, meetings at that particular spot had a kind of freedom that allowed participants to traverse any topic, whilst supported by the winds of a personal commitment and intention.

In short, that's why I'm building and taking part in Beings Club.

I'll tell you more, but before then it'd be useful for you to know exactly what Beings Club is:

Beings Club is what I'm calling 'a curiosity social club'.

It has two main components:

1. The Beings Club Salon
   A weekly space for either one-to-one or small-group conversation with other members plus a period of time for you to commit to and deepen an intentional practice of your choice.
   
   and

2. The Perspective Session
   A monthly guest-led space with time for Q+A, with guests specifically chosen for their unique experience and insight, so that you can take away practical tips for integration into your own life.

'What is the best way for Beings Club to be structured and operate?' remains an open question, with evolution an accepted possibility, but, as of now, Beings Club is like this:

The Beings Club Salon begins with a short time period reserved for members to practice with personal intention perhaps by meditating, writing, making art, etc. The rest of the time is for conversation, taking place in Zoom-facilitated breakout rooms, where conversations are either one-to-one or in groups of up-to-four depending on the week.

Participants are randomly assigned to chat rooms providing the chance to meet and meet again as well as make contact with the entire pool of members over time. The conversations at the Beings Club Salon unfold organically through curiosity, with no prescribed topic, allowing for collaboration, co-exploration, and unexpected magic to occur.

The Perspective Sessions offer insights and practices that members can apply in day-to-day life and always offer the chance for Q+A with the guest speaker. Each month a new speaker introduces a new perspective and members are invited to engage them in the Q+A. Nothing is expected to be taken at face value on behalf of Beings Club and members are invited to take what is useful and leave the rest.

Beings Club also has a Token-Gated Group Chat on Warpcast.

Overall, it is currently thought that this structure provides the best opportunity for connection, collaboration, and transformation whilst preserving the freedom to find your own path.

I believe we need spaces that facilitate community, collaboration, and transformation, without imposing any specific artistic or spiritual dogmas, or any specific belief system.

I believe this is important so that people from all kinds of backgrounds can experience profound personal wellbeing and enjoy the transformative benefits of community.

The most significant and meaningful changes in our lives extend through our whole being but as humans in a world with other humans, we could see this whole as three layers of being: as part of collectives, in one-to-one relationship, and as individuals.

Deep transformation reverberates throughout all three layers - through how we relate to the wider world, how we relate to those we are in direct one-to-one relationship with, and how we relate to ourselves.

To leave any of them out is to deny the totality of our experience as a human being and miss the opportunity to embody our fullest expression. The kinds of transformations that occur when all three of these layers are engaged lead to some of the deepest forms of purpose and well-being that we are capable of.

There are many community traditions that have facilitated these multi-layered kinds of transformations for people and many of them are home to lineages of wisdom worth drawing from.

Perhaps the most famous of them are religions, but they also include whole countries, businesses, charitable organisations, and sports teams. The gathering of real community around values, practices, and shared goals creates the conditions for wellbeing and transformation, often through the adoption of a shared identity or belief system.

However, to draw the line between us and them on the basis of an ultimately malleable identity or inflexible belief system, as many of these communities have done so historically, also sets up a false boundary that limits the potential for distinct and innovative forms of individuality, cross-bubble collaboration, and more expansive forms of collectivism.

Beings Club has landed on a very specific set of conditions with the intention of fostering a uniquely diverse community, allowing for new kinds of collaboration and more expansive forms of personal and collective transformation.

The closest thing to a belief system at Beings Club is the invitation to be curious under the pretences that this will facilitate community, collaboration, and transformation. The closest thing to a shared identity are the words 'Beings Club'. The events are designed to facilitate the exploration of curiosity throughout the collective, one-to-one, and individual layers of being, and the nature of curiosity itself allows for an openness in meeting all kinds of experience.

It is my hope that these intentional choices create the conditions for Beings Club to facilitate profound wellbeing and transformation, and provide the space for unique and personal journeys to unfold.

That's why I'm building Beings Club. And I'd like to invite you to come along for the adventure.

Beings Club can also be viewed as a response to a particular problem.

In short, that problem is that the technology that was supposed to connect us has isolated us and we are feeling the consequences. Now more than ever we need spaces that offer the benefits of a connected world without sacrificing the humanity of meaningful connection.

When posting to social media, whilst posts might reach a wide network and we might even get a rush of feel-good engagement, ultimately we're left without the richness of real-time connections.

Division and isolation has exacerbated the problem through continual exposure to narratives and content that trigger our emotions to maintain our attention and warp our view of others and the world at the same time. Algorithms have already intensified the subjective point of view and entrenched intellectual, political, and cultural bubbles, with the increasing prevalence and power of AI threatening to only deepen the hole we find ourselves in.

If we want to collaborate with all the diversity and global opportunity that the world has to offer, transcend our bubbles and echo-chambers, experience deeper connections online, and meet the changing landscape as it changes, I believe we have to stay curious.

It is my belief that engaging curiosity in relationship to ourselves, others, and whole systems, offers us the best possible chance at being humans that are best equipped to meet change and harness it to the benefit of ourselves and others simultaneously.

In other words: in order to meet a transforming world, we are challenged to transform too.

If you're interested in joining Beings Club you can now get membership via Hypersub.

Otherwise, click here to find out more or check the events schedule.