I will begin by relating to myself, the only one person I know truly, and the filter through which all I see is tinted.

Thirteen years ago I left Brazil, and a five year job as an expatriate CEO that made me ask questions about the sustainability of our modern-day developed society. I quit a well paying job and plunged myself and my family admittedly into financial and emotional uncertainty.

Whereas there are many things I would do differently today, I am more than willing to enjoy and appreciate the hindsight for what it has given me today. The years went by, the children grew up, and moved out, I divorced after 27 years of marriage, and have had the fortune to find new love when and where I least expected it.

It all began with a search for my own identity; I thought I knew who I was, I didn’t know all the things I didn’t know, and there was lots of food for thought in the baggage. I learned by teaching, and met many like-minded and equally questioning individuals. Global crisis was followed by personal crisis, and another global crisis, and so on… working with my own personal development I found comfort in meeting others working on theirs, and then came another crisis, financial, social, personal, and all the while humanity is making it more difficult to live on the planet.

My choices have led me back to Spain, where I spent time as a child, grew up, had my first job, met my first wife, where our second child was born, and so much more… the single place in the world where I have memories from many different stages in my life. I live in a small village and have the luxury to reflect on both big and small questions which are part of my life, and the collective reality of our modern society.

Where do we go from here?

We live in an age of disruption, to quote Otto Scharmer from MIT and his book “Leading from the Emerging Future”, or ending of ages, to quote Gregg Braden in his book “Fractal Time”. Both books offer insights and perspectives on this historical moment, and both books aim to create an awareness about who we are, and how we can work together towards “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts know is Possible”, to use the title of Charles Eisenstein’s book, which is the follow-up from his best-selling book “Sacred Economics – Money, Gift & Society in the Age of Transition”.

Going deeper down the rabbit hole, I finally refer to David Bohm and two of his books; “On Dialogue”, and “Wholeness and the Implicate Order”, to set the stage of this and future dialogues. In the final lines of his preface to “On Dialogue”, Peter Senge (SoL – Society for Organizational Learning, and MIT) writes: “I would call David Bohm an extreme realist. He knew that no society has ever faced the sort of global predicament we face, and that we are not likely to muddle through without radical changes in our way of being – together.”

If we take the wisdom of these books, and there are many more to fill the shelves of an exciting personal library, we find a great challenge, both personally and collectively:

How do we relate to ourselves, our society, and the environment which surrounds us, envelopes us, and provides for all our needs, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual?

We are doing a very poor job of it now, and for the past fifty or so years it’s just been getting worse, all the brilliant minds who have asked these questions, in many ways, including screaming them out in squares and through the media, notwithstanding.

And yet, it would seem so simple, so easy, to choose another way, starting with awareness. Taking the time to “Stop, Reflect & Listen…” or as Otto Scharmer says: “Observe, observe, observe”.

This is an invitation to you, the reader, to join and engage in this dialogue, and see how we together can realize that “More Beautiful World Our Hearts know is Possible”.