For a while now, some of us have been sitting with a quiet discomfort. The kind that’s hard to name until someone finally names it. On our last call, we explored what it meant for us and realized together in real time that the single-text model wasn’t really working for us anymore. Not because we don’t love reading, or don’t love each other’s minds, but because asking ten people to read the same 300 pages by the same Tuesday was quietly producing more anxiety than curiosity. And in some cases if members of the group hadn’t read, it felt (as was said plainly in our last conversation) kind of yucky. Particularly for whoever had championed the text in the first place.

And so what emerged for us was a reorientation, a new way of exploring not just texts, but their overarching themes, which means, ultimately a new way of being together. Simply put, we are moving away from focusing on a single piece of work and focusing instead on a topic at a time.

Here’s what’s changing, and why:

• We’re moving from single texts to “focus topics”. Instead of one book, one session, we’re moving toward broader themes that can breathe across months. The conversation isn’t anchored to a single work, but rather it’s anchored to a question, a territory, a mood board of ideas that we’re all exploring and wandering around in together.
• We’re moving from assigned reading to self-directed engagement. A focus topic might be explored through a novel, a film, a poem, a scientific study, a piece of music, or something none of us have thought of yet. You engage with what calls to you. The goal is more about bringing something back to the group more that it is about completing a syllabus. It should be noted that we still greatly encourage cohesiveness and shared experiences, and hope that this naturally aligns in veins and pockets here and there at least.
• To that end, a lead of a topic, or the group together, may wish to suggest a small manageable set of foundational works for a topic. Meaning not everything is elective (though most of it is). Each focus topic may have a handful of seminal texts or media that we’re all expected to engage with. They should be light enough that they don’t crowd out everything else, substantial enough that we have a shared vocabulary when we meet.
• A focus lead for each topic. Someone who feels genuinely energized by the theme takes the reins. They aren’t a lecturer or an authority necessarily, they don’t even need to be an expert on the subject matter, but they do need to want it and to be a facilitator and a host. We hope that they will serve at least as an inspiration to others to peek behind the veil. Their role is to shape the container (loosely): suggesting a primary source(s), collecting contributions from others, sensing when the energy is fading and it’s time to move on. I, Jake, will handle any boring logistics that the leads don’t want to deal with.
• Intensives, immersive, events, annd workshops are now on the table. If someone wants to go deep on a single text within the broader theme and really dig in, do a Socratic seminar on an episode of a TV show and pitch it as a sub-session, they totally can – and in fact are encouraged to. Not everyone has to participate in these sorts of offerings, as their purpose is to help widen everyone’s access into the focus topic/theme/etc.
• We move on from one focus topic to the next when the energy moves on. We should all keep our fingers on the pulse of the group’s alignment and stay honest about where we’re at. This might sometimes mean a conversation to unpack things as they stand, and sometimes we might all organically agree with nothing more than a glance. The point is that there’s no fixed end date for a focus topic. We stay with it as long as it’s alive, and when it starts to fizzle, we start talking about what’s next.

One thing we want to be perfectly clear about: the intellectual rigor isn’t going anywhere. If someone invests real time and care into making something teachable, the group owes them real engagement. “A little homework and a little structure is good” was the consensus.

This is new. We’re feeling our way through it, and we’ll iterate as we go. But the hope is that this opens up more: more art, more possibility, more togetherness, more relating, more of what drew us to each other in the first place: a commitment to the mystery.

Ta-ta for now!

P.S. we are still determining how best to disseminate prospective reads for a focus topic. I am most likely going to set up a drive location per-topic that we can all add ideas and content to and add any required media/reads to the EGG website’s study group page (under “Current Assignment”).