Thoughts about Wasatch

[Keith Yamashita]

Comrades,

I know that you've had curiosity about Wasatch.

As you know, the group gathers every year. The membership is private, and they don’t disclose the list. It's mostly to ensure that the community is a completely safe, private, and restful respite from the pressure of people's day jobs. People don't blog about it. They don't talk about what happens there. They don't tweet about it. 

But as you know: Michelle Kydd Lee (from CAA), Joi Ito, and Reid are all Wasatch members. I am being admitted this year as a member. There are actually two groups at the annual gathering — Wasatch 1, which is comprised of a set of "Elders" (people of Reid, Joi, and Michelle's generation), and Wasatch II which is a group of up and coming leaders. I think Adam Grant is in Wasatch 2.

Joi's invitation is to share some ideas about compassion with the group. Provoke them. Get them consider compassion as root enabler. That will happen with the Wasatch 1 group. 

Todd Holcomb (my life partner) and I have been preparing some materials to help engage people on the topic:

• A set of quotes, visuals, diagrams, findings about compassion — many drawn from the sources we have all been sharing with each other at this alias
• A set of films and videos about compassion
• A set of papers about compassion

There is a universal rule at Wasatch: You cannot ask for anything from the stage. You cannot pitch. You cannot use the group for personal benefit. 

In the spirit of that, my goal is to offer compassion — as a topic — as a gift. 

We are creating an experiential room. 

Imagine the Wasatch members enter a room where there are large format posters resting on the floor as far at the eye can see. They hear the voiceover of the Dali Lama, and others, playing over the speaker, talking about compassion. They dive in. Each poster represents a quote, an observation, a scientific finding about compassion. Portraits (Holly, we got permission to use that photographs from that New York-based photography who you also discovered) spark your interest; we also got Magnum to donate several dozen photos that demonstrate a real need for compassion in this world. You explore further. There are iPads around the room, with dual headphones. You share those headphones to listen to people tell their story about compassion, to watch films bout compassion, to link to moving stories about people. You access literature about the science of compassion. Most of all, this is a chance to be appreciative…open-hearted…vulnerable.

After exploring for 30 minutes or an hour or however long it needs to be and deserves to be. You convene with others. And a conversation begins.

I don’t know where that conversation will go. All I know is it cannot be forced. It has to emerge.

From there, we are prepared to go many places — to activity to visualize what impact these leaders might have in the world on behalf of compassion…to a conversation about unifying existing efforts they have…to a debate about what compassion really means. We will follow people's hearts.

Unlike most of the for-profit work that I do, I really don’t have a sense of where this one will land. The outcome is not pre-engineered. Rather, it will emerge as the will of the group.

However, even if all they do is experience this, I don't think there is anything that is a bad possible outcome. And in the same breath, I'll say, there could be many wonderful outcomes. 

I think that's authentic to the topic.

Will give you more insight as it unfolds.

Keith

[James R. Doty, M.D.]

Keith,

Congrats on the project and your membership in the group. 

Thanks for the update. It will unfold as it is meant to do.

I must say if you are considered an elder then I must be an ancient.

J

James R. Doty, M.D.

jrd...@gmail.com

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[Holly Bybee]

Keith - thank you for hosting this conversation at Wasatch. Thank you for the overiew, it is much appreciated. I cannot wait to see what emerges.