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Excess and Abstinence

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Somehow a conversation about excess turned into a conversation about community and it made sense.


The second Listening Circle (held again on the hottest day of the week but in a much cooler room) was a gradual transition from reflections on excessive and addictive tendencies, to an exploration of some of the reasons and context surrounding and underlying those patterns: being overwhelmed with choice, surrounded by messaging of what we could have and could do, and untethered from community.


Rather than narrate it to you, here is a breakdown of the points that guided the discussion so you can go back whenever you want and let your mind fill the gaps with your own thoughts, experiences and perspectives.


  • Balancing extremes, from excess to cutting things out

  • Excess of substances, excess of work, excess of time alone, excess of socialising, excess of going out…

  • Digital media and the multiple possible experiences, lives, professions, opportunities, trips, partners we could have, live, embody, enjoy, love.

  • Excess of options

  • Consumer culture and the availability for excess

  • The pressures for constant improvement and growth.

  • Is excess defined by a lack of balance?

  • Balancing extremes of isolation and extroversion or stillness and productivity with seasonal cycles; acclimatising to cold insular winters and extroverted outdoorsy summers

  • Collective rhythms and cycles of hedonism and hard work

  • Using seasonal and menstrual cycles as an anchor for balance

  • Work, creativity and flow states

  • Individualistic pressures to be self-sufficient leading to burnout, instability and isolation

  • Community as a grounding force for balance

  • Community as shared responsibility and mutual care

  • Our need for belonging, reliance on others and the taboo on (non-romantic) ‘codependence or at least ’interdependence?

  • Interdependence as the formula to feeling useful and valuable 

  • The challenges of finding community and the appeal of joining a cult

  • The importance of being of service

  • When free time can be a lonely, daunting prospect

  • The beauty of unconditional friendship and family bonds

  • Loneliness and the line between the joys of solitary time and lonesomeness

  • What does abstinence look like? Is it depriving yourself on purpose? Is it about testing an extreme to figure out our place of balance? 

  • Celebrating sobriety and moderation

  • Discomfort and suffering as essential ingredients of life

  • Excess to test and set our own limits 


The next Listening Circle will be held on Wednesday 9th of July on the topic of 'Progress'. Are we progressing? What should progress look like?

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