Mark Morey returns to the podcast this week, for a deep dive into Cultural Capital, one of the more intangible and less understood (though no less important!) of the 8 Forms Of Capital. PeakProsperity.com readers may remember Mark from his front-line reporting for us of the situation in Standing Rock as the confrontation there with the government first escalated.
Cultural capital is rooted in society’s values and traditions. Sadly, over the past few generations in the West, we have departed from the time-honored (and honed) customs and rituals of our ancestors, and adopted a much more “it’s all about me” approach to life.
The result, argues Morey, is a populace left isolated an unfulfilled. Those age-old traditions and rites of passage developed for a reason. They gave our lives meaning, as well as instructed us on how to live.
Is there a way to recover some of that lost wisdom and sense of “fit” in life? Yes, Morey believes. And there’s much the world’s indigenous cultures can teach us:
People feel a lot of isolation. In the past culture used to take care of this for us — having to greet everybody in the room, having to show up for ceremonies, having to show up to pick food with each other.
And so now there are all these creative programs out there which, I believe, are a substitute for what culture used to do for us. That’s important to look at, so yeah go take some programs. Go hang out with people. Go find the folks teaching things there and creating connections. But know that what you want to do is to take that experience and move the lessons learned into your life, outsie of the program. That’s the ultimate goal.
But, sometimes people get stuck a loop of going from program to program to program because they love how it feels. But then they go through the cycle of despair on Monday morning wondering Where are all those people? They were my tribe.
One simple way of looking at it is you have yourself to work with. And then the next ring out would be maybe your family or whoever is most close to you. And then the next ring out from that might be your geographic community.
If you think about those three things as nested within each other, then if you’re doing some kind of personal connection where bring your closest family into it with you, then that group can do something in the local area to bring the connection to the community. You should look at connection in general: So how can I connect with myself? What’s my purpose? What are my specialties? What are my gifts that I came into the world with?
You might have some parts of yourself that are buried. that you don’t like. That’s actually a really important form of connection that can bring you into more wholeness. Like maybe what had that joy get put aside, you know there might be some grief there. So, connecting with sadness is a powerful thing to do that brings you into more wholeness. I think it also helps you relate to other people better. So, much of our needed inner work should center around connection.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris’ interview with Mark Morey (51m:34s).
