Watercourse Updates

What's new, what's in-the-works, and some exciting new connections!

Dear Subscribers,

Thank you so much for reading OpenSourceAwakening (OSA) and sending in so much feedback! I continue to be bandwidth-limited in my ability to write new essays as I’m spending most of my free time conversing with you and reading new authors I’ve had the pleasure of coming across (details below)! After more than a year of talking to almost no one online, it’s been a nice change of pace to be “virtually social” :) I will get back to publishing new content as soon as I can, but my writing efforts on the new essays are concurrent; so final results are still a ways off.

I have at least updated the Site Map page to reflect the incoming new content - something to look forward to! In the interim I wanted to offer a couple news updates and a couple reading/listening recommendations, please see below.

Updates:

It’s always a delight to hear from people who are newly taking-up their self-investigation/inquiry! I continue to receive many such reports. And the ongoing conversations since the last OSA update are demonstrating real unfoldment in others’ investigations and lives. This is so exciting! If you have found the content of this corner of Substack helpful in your personal journey (or even just an interesting read), please forward OpenSourceAwakening on to people you think it may be of help to! This world is hurting; the more people we have deeply engaging with themselves and their experience, the better chances we have of “turning this ship around.” Please help spread the word!

Reading Recommendation: Self-Investigation.org

And to that end, a broad-spectrum resource for self-investigation/inquiry can be found at Self-Investigation.org. There are articles and references pertaining to all aspects of inquiry/investigation — and from all manner of different vantage points. Further there are “stories,” which are conversations with everyday people that had their lives deeply impacted by their investigation. I’ve had the pleasure of being interviewed by Jesse in that effort. If you are farther down the path of investigation and think the results can be a source of help and/or inspiration to others not-so-far along the path, please reach out to them!

Podcast Recommendation - My New Favorite! The Great Simplification:

I don’t really follow many podcasts closely. Readers here will quickly know the one true podcast I do at least pay close attention to. But even that one I might only listen to one in every five episodes. The World Science Festival (which isn’t really a podcast) is the only thing I regularly listen to, but that’s simply my “nerd heaven” listening while I wash dishes or do other chores. However, my information processing pattern was turned on it’s head when, last week, I stumbled across an interview with

Iain McGilchrist

¹ that knocked my socks off! Presented by The Great Simplification (TGS) podcast, it is entitled “Wisdom Over Power: Why Contemplation & Wonder Are Essential for the Future of Humanity.”

Nate Hagens

hosts what is hands-down the most profound and most important podcast I have ever come across:

The Great Simplification

. I’ve sampled many podcasts from well-known public intellectuals. Usually they shine in (only) one or two categories, but wind up woefully deficient in several other categories I care deeply about. Hagens and the TGS team have checked every box I care about, which is quite a feat given how all-over-the-map I am!²

TGS takes a systems science approach in exploring the human condition, (the likely, impending demise of) global civilization, and planet-wide ecology — chiefly addressing the polycrisis that’s becoming increasingly well-known as “The Metacrisis.”³ Many podcasters may address the topics of neuroscience, geopolitics, and climate change, but virtually non of them address profound introspection, holistic cognition, deep ecology, or economics from a solid finance and energy analysis perspective. TGS covers all of these matters with care and erudition. If you have never listened to TGS, please give it a try! I highly recommend this potent exhortation in conversation with Kristine Tompkins entitled: “Rewilding 15 Million Acres: Why True Wealth Means More Than Money.”

Reading Recommendation:

Left Brain Mystic

And speaking of trying to rise to the challenge of complex problems through multifaceted, integrated approaches… Not long ago, Alex over at

Left Brain Mystic

wrote a fantastic article (again!). He incisively articulated what is ailing us in our fractured and toxic information ecosystems: The Actual Mind Virus of Today.

We struck up a little conversation in the comments and he had some sagacious insight to share. For those of us that communicate publicly online, he said the following, with regard to processing and disseminating accurate and veritable information:

I believe the solution requires cultivating three interconnected virtues that reinforce each other: humility, curiosity, and skepticism….

• Skepticism without humility becomes mere arrogance - the closed-minded rejection of anything that challenges our existing views.

• Curiosity without skepticism leads to delusion - the uncritical acceptance of compelling narratives regardless of their truth value.

• Humility without curiosity results in detached passivity - acknowledging limitations without the drive to expand beyond them.

But when combined, these qualities create something remarkable: the capacity for "truth without stakes." When we approach conversations with this triad of virtues, the goal shifts from winning arguments to mutual discovery. It's no longer important who is right, as long as both parties want to learn and both question not just each other's reasoning but their own as well.

He later created a Venn diagram graphic to illustrate this, which I thought was brilliant (thank you, Alex!!):

Alex writes with amazing alacrity, drawing deeply from a surprisingly-diverse array of interests. His work often bridges two loves of mine: scientific understanding and the mysteries of consciousness. Please check it out!

Reading Recommendation: Journey Through Reality

I have been having a wonderful time reading through

Ben Curtis

’ Substack Journey Through Reality. He describes himself as a “philosophy nerd.” Given that I often have written in a rather, ahem, “unenthusiastic” manner with regards to academic philosophy and academic philosophers, it may surprise some readers that I would greatly enjoy and recommend reading Ben’s work.

Perhaps some of the appeal is we are both formerly-devout Christians. Perhaps some of it is we reasoned our way out of our faiths in such similar ways. Perhaps part of it is, while we write with complete sincerity, we’re not overly-concerned with seriousness. Perhaps a large part of it is he has the laudable virtue of not being an academic philosopher ;) Yet? :)

With keen insight, two feet on the ground, and a complete and admirable commitment to the pursuit of truth, his writings have been completely the opposite of the desiccated, rational-to-a-fault pontifications of so many philosophers I won’t name. Perhaps, in my disdain of much of western philosophy, I’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater? Thank the Universe that there are thinkers and writers like Ben, whose work can adhere to sound logic, yet be open to mystery and the ineffable, and also be completely approachable!

My favorite article so far is: “Why Philosophy Needs Mystical Insight.” It beautifully highlights our common interests. Please take some time to check out his Substack!

Again, thank you for reading! And if you know anyone that might find the content here on OSA useful/interesting, please forward the link to them!

All the best!
-Lance

1. Psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and author of one of the most important books of the 21st Century, which should be read by every person in the developed world: The Master and His Emissary. More information available at:

The Matter with Things

(Substack Publication)

channelmcgilchrist.com (official website)

2. My vocational background is control systems engineering in the power industry. I spent many years working on grid-level control engineering efforts, including projects on the scale of regional grids. After I left that career I became a freelance consultant. At that time I self-studied in finance, specifically investment and monetary policy. After I got disgusted with with the myopia and destructive exploitative natures of those “industries,” I quit that effort too, which set me down the path of studying — and attempting to live in keeping with — deep ecology. Pontificating public intellectuals who are ignorant of introspection, ecology, energy, and finance are a pet peeve of mine :)

3. Writer

Jesse Damiani

(whose work I literally just stumbled onto writing this update) has an excellent write up on his Substack publication (

Reality Studies

) on these topics called: Explaining Polycrisis and Metacrisis. Highly recommended!