Early in my work life I came across the book Getting to Yes which apparently was a heavy part of the more successful peace talks in the 1970's in the Middle East. I also had a friend a few years ago in tech that did a summer exchange with one of Egypt's Muberick's sons/princes in college. He actually was invited and spent some time in the Palace during a key period of the uprising there, and was surprised how little they were affected by it all.
What these references give me is that although there is a lot of fear to go around, there is potential and possibility. Don's accounting of the group study between the Israeli and Palestinians who had lost children are a testimony of course to this Reality.
I'm also struck by a couple of those who said "I'm calm" in the comments of their experience to some of the hostilities that are playing out in the World. Bryan's contextualizing of why he felt so was especially precious because it reflects a maturity that we are being called to at this time, as a friend said to me the other day, a "grandfathering" as it were.
This also brings in the recent interview of Aubrey Marcus with Jordan Hall talking about we are in a Spiritual War where we many are "discovering new capacities of interiority and relationality." This is so important to remember as we navigate these "troubling times." I'm also reminded of the book the Fourth Turning which also is very hopeful in many ways, IF and this is a big IF, we understand and learn from history and see there is in fact "nothing new under the sun." For many reasons I've been relating this time to that period in the 1970's which was also fraught with economic and political tensions, the world seemed on "fire" much as it does today. I felt this storm coming back with Strauss and Lowe's Fourth Turning fresh in my mind in the mid Noughties (2000's), so made sure to play the audio book of Economist George Friedman's The Next Hundred Years to my teenage kids at the time. (no it actually wasn't boredom central, because he is a very good writer and allows for a sober but yet still hopeful picture of the future. )
Back in my professional life in the mid 90's when I read Getting to Yes, a wise director in the retail chain I had a job had challenged me to be a retail instructor after my relentlessly taunting of the teaching staff (so yes I've been this protagonist for awhile, and definitely softened over time, Thank God!) The wisdom I gleaned from the book and others I read around it allowed me to steer through a lot of conflict and enabled me to successfully navigate for not just myself but quite a few departmental difficulties at a Major U.S. Brokerage house in the late Nineties. It didn't however prepare me for the dissolving of my marriage nor the economy that left me bartending again in the Noughties. Which shows we always have things to learn AND there are limits to how things will work.
That the Middle Eastern Tensions and Wars have been going on for thousands of years reflects the reality of our primal and base natures still an ever present reality of our World. I've been blessed lately in reviewing the rich history of Persian Mystic thought and realized how shallow the West has been in it's inquiry in so many ways comparatively. (John Vervaeke's reading list which included Henry Corbin and a few others turned me on to this, and I'm sure there are more) Without though the Tragedy of that part of the world, I do feel that these great souls would not have delved deeper..
it's something that Aubrey and Jordan allude to in the beginning of their chat, that of how can we truly talk until we experience and embrace some of the tragic of the world in ourselves. I was very glad to hear Jordan get to the root of the word "suffering, to undergo," that it doesn't NEED to have the painful aspects really, but so often does right.
Which brings us back to Getting to Yes: what does that truly include, exclude, where must we fight for ours, and more important, others dignity?