JONATHAN ROWSON HALF-JOKED that his recent article on Substack was "mythos as an antidote to logos overdose."

We all get a little exhausted by the sheer quantity and quality of the cognitive arguments (logos) circulating in our emerging scene but what's this article he's talking about?

The essay in question (The Goat and The Scapegoat) is an odd blend of Orwellian metaphor, the morality of chess and the subtle dynamics of emerging culture.  These are areas in which author, publisher, chess grandmaster, spirituality theorist & Emerge maven Jonathan Rowson has peculiar insight and expertise. 

And it's about goddamned time he had a substack!

Rowson's work at Perspectiva Press (and his important series of essays framing the 2022 Austin Emerge Gathering) are excellent -- but they're often very serious.  I think he might be at his best when he's having fun and experimenting. 

This guy is a "player" in the best sense of that term and the denizens of our overlapping networks should be curious whenever such a person starts playing in a new terrain. 

A credible liminal source recently told this author that Rowson "templates the laudable interpenetration of intellectual and domestic territories."  That phrasing is itself an example of logos overdose but it's also kinda true.  It put me immediately in mind of zoom calls with Rowson in which high-calibre intellectual discussions were seamlessly blended with children running in and out of the scene.  In some communities that would be a bad sign. Unfocused. Unprofessional. But in our integrative transformational cultures it is, on the contrary, a very good omen. 

We are typically full of advanced ideas and impressive conversations but they will likely amount to nothing if they do not "land" in our practical lives, bodies & relationships. 

Part of that landing process is that we need to spend time showing up in different modes.  Play, metaphor and experimentation might therefore be necessary in order to keep our scene moving forward.  Sometimes that will ignite a fire and other times it will pass by in the dark.  Some people will relate to parables about goats and others will not.

Good. 

We need to keep generating and keep risking and keep blending dimensions of ourselves.  Keep spinning the wheel.

This all sounds pretty positive.  Maybe too positive?  I should probably try to balance it out by disparaging Rowson as some crypto-conservative pseudo-metamodernist jerk and suppressive collegial sycophant.  However, I don't quite think that's true.  What's more, it is not the important thing.

The important thing is that you should keep an eye on this substack because there's a good chance it will periodically yield emergent gold.