Viewpoint – September 2007
On Urban Living
by Robert Quicksilver
As I sit at the local coffee shop down the hill from my house, I look out a large window and watch San Francisco pass by. Little children walk with their parents on the way to school; people in business suits scurry towards BART to ride to their downtown jobs; “locals” enter the café and sit and talk. After a while, the fog begins to lift and rolls out to sea. It’s another beautiful day in a modern city.
I have lived in cities all my life. I grew up in New York and moved to San Francisco in my early 20’s. I love how
the urban atmosphere creates a sense of living and intellectual stimulation. Indeed, I call it “cutting edge aliveness.” Also (for instant gratification’s sake, I must admit) I can get anything I want within 15 minutes— food, books, magazines, movies, massages, open space. Classes and cultural events are everywhere. And then there are the restaurants. They serve every type of cuisine on the planet. All this contributes to the vitality that emanates from the city that I call home.
About eight months ago, I decided to produce the Wisdom Festival, a two-day conference and exhibition at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco on Sept. 15 and 16, 2007. The Wisdom Festival is a conversation about — you guessed it…wisdom. It explores how we can take what we have learned through books, teachings, and our own experience and combine it with a developed insight in order to apply it as individuals to our daily lives. It will also explore how we can use this wisdom as global citizens. The Wisdom Festival will feature dozens of esteemed speakers, 75 cutting-edge exhibitors and thousands of like-minded attendees as together we discuss what it means to be human in this little corner of the cosmos at this profound historical moment.
It is important to me that the Wisdom Festival is located in the heart of San Francisco. Although I have produced events for years throughout California, it is a special privilege to bring the spirit of transformation and consciousness to my own city. They say that “all politics is local.” Well, I think that a conversation about wisdom and transformation is a local conversation as well. It is from within our own communities that we bring forth the day-to-day changes that rock the world.
So why a “Wisdom Festival?” The word “wisdom” itself is used in our society in a multitude of ways, describing everything from ancient Buddhist and Hebraic scripture to kitchen table advice from a concerned grandparent. Greek philosophy made an important distinction between a theoretical wisdom based on knowledge and experience only and a practical wisdom where that knowledge and experience leads directly to appropriate action in our day-to-day activity.
This latter definition clearly applies to our post-industrial, digitally connected world and is a cornerstone of the emerging culture. We don’t have time to sit around and theorize about global warming. We have to take action, but it must be action based on a broad understanding and knowledge of what we are dealing with. We know it is non-violence which leads to peace, social justice which frees all of us, global prosperity which makes us all rich.
As I brainstormed the nascent festival I realized that I wanted to find a way to bring these two facets of wisdom together in community. I wanted to affirm an esoteric wisdom, a conversation about religion and spirit, both old and new, and I wanted to tie it to current-day social-action––to turn it into an engine of change, so to speak.
And the world is certainly changing. This acceleration is demonstrated in countless ways—social, political, economic, spiritual, ecological, geological. Residents of San Francisco might be more aware than most of what these significant trends look like. Every day we witness signs of a changing world. Maybe not fast enough for some. Maybe too fast for others. But something is definitely happening.
One thing that is happening is the emergence of a new world culture. Paul Ray, a speaker on Sunday afternoon, coined the term “Cultural Creatives” in 2000 in his book of the same name. He is calling this new cultural phenomena a “Wisdom Culture.” This description is both apt and compelling. The Cultural Creatives, brought up on anti-war songs and unified field theory, began to emerge in world culture 50 years ago and now number over 70 million adults in the United States. The values, beliefs and activities of this new social group are the basis of an emerging Wisdom Culture.
The emerging Wisdom Culture can be defined through the significant social and economic trends held as core values for this emerging demographic-—ecological sensitivity, personal transformation, political independence and social justice among others. This new culture speaks to a global civilization, at once sustainable, just, non-violent, spiritually integrated and joyous.
Together in our local communities, we can bring forth this new culture and this emerging wisdom. Come join us in the conversation!
Robert Quicksilver is the producer of the Wisdom Festival in San Francisco and the Conscious Life Expo in Los Angeles. He is a well-known promoter of consciousness raising events throughout California. For more information, visit www.wisdomfestival.com and www.consciouslifeexpo.com. Contact Robert at 800.367.5777.