I listen to a lot of baseball on the radio. In fact, I am even working on a plan for a weekly Mets podcast for next year. I dabbled with some beta-testing this year. You can find them under the podcast tab.

I am also beginning to interview people for next year's big project, The Emotional Census. This is what it sounds like, a census focused on our emotional lives. It will be much more a qualitative census than the census. So good things coming as I try and find a way for the Urbanmonks to thrive in this online world.

This picture is a cool one to share, for it is a preview of things to come. I sketched this based on an interview with my friend Adam, a barista and all-around nice guy. We are going to get into charts - into making our emotional lives more visual, so we can understand them better. Here is an example of the long view, an emotional chart that is meant to encompass the entire life of the individual.

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Ok, back to the book. I am going through the book in chronological order, in case you were wondering. We just finished the intro and now we are diving into the chapter, Studying Wisdom. So happy to share this with you. This excerpt really sums up a lot of what drives my research, me, my life. Interwoven French-braid style. Well, it is never that neat.

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Studying Wisdom

I began to study wisdom in search of a solution, a solution to the high rates of anxiety, depression, and addiction in our culture. We did already have some solutions, but these were reactive, after-the-fact solutions. I found myself wondering, where are the before-the-fact, proactive solutions? Did we have any? Could a wisdom curriculum serve as a proactive solution, with the goal of nurturing the growth of emotionally healthy people?

I began to search for wisdom. Could I find it and observe it and learn the nature of wisdom. I searched for wisdom in individuals, wisdom in families, wisdom in schools, wisdom in nature, wisdom in neighborhoods. I sought out wisdom in foresight, in sound planning and design, and wisdom in hindsight, in thoughtful reaction and response.

I began to understand that the wisdom of our minds is related to the wisdom of places, for we are shaped by the culture that surrounds us. What does a wise workplace, a wise school or a wise home look like? What are the elements of physical design and social design that can foster wisdom? How do we engender wisdom in our schools and homes?

I know what you are thinking: This is much of a remix, this is pretty damn similar to the actually book. Well to you I say, hang on, we have some pretty fun audio recording scheduled for this weekend. REMIX!

Here is a picture of my desk on a day when I was working with my emotional charts. Fun times, huh? Keep positive and please drop me a line or ask a questions or send feedback. It has been awesome hearing from you thus far

Living and learning,
Doug

Ok, back to to the book...

I propose that wisdom ought to be a course of life-long study for us all. Wisdom ought to be a subject for exploration and discussion in our families, in our relationships, in our neighborhoods, and in our schools.

In this book, I introduce the Urbanmonks Wisdom Curriculum, explain various methods for studying wisdom, and then share some simple yet potent rituals for identifying and understanding the weather of our minds and for building strategies for our response.

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I have been researching emotional health and culture for a dozen years and I have realized that the topic of our emotions is somewhat challenging to write about. For we are not a culture that likes to go deep and explore the nature of our lives. However, it seems that each year more of us realize that we must go deeper. We realize that we must understand our emotional selves in order to build a healthy life. We are beginning to see emotional health in a way that is similar to physical health. Just like we need to eat well and exercise to build healthy muscles and bones, we must learn to listen to and understand our emotions to build healthy minds.

For many of us, understanding our emotions is no longer a luxury, no longer a choice we have. Many of us have been forced to retreat. Many of us have, at some point in our lives, hit the wall, emotionally. And these wall-hitting episodes are the most defining moments of our lives. These are the great crossroads of our emotional lives. At these junctures we face a critical choice: to distract or to learn. Many want to learn but are overwhelmed and then seek out distraction. This book is intended to provide a set of skills that can allow us to learn from life’s inevitable challenges.