Native Reading Room SF – #8
Schedule:
6:30-6:45pm: Welcome + seating
6:45-7:15pm: Reading time
7:15-7:25pm: Presentation
7:30-9:00pm: Small group discussion + tea
9-9:30pm: have fun and chill!
Native Reading Rooms are where writers, thinkers, and founders gather to read and discuss the future of technology and the philosophy behind it.
Each Reading Room is centered around one piece of writing. On arrival, you'll receive a printed copy of the week's writing and (of course) a warm beverage. For the first 20 to 30 minutes, everyone reads the text. For the next hour, we discuss over coffee/chai, letting the conversation move where it wants.
We hope each Reading Room gives you the chance to get away from the screen, explore new ideas, and meet others who want to think about technology and society deeply and in community.
This week's room will center around on Octavio Paz's "In Search of the Present."
From our co-host, Chardonnay Needler:
"Octavio Paz - Mexican diplomat, poet, translator, and close friend of fellow thinkers Pablo Neruda and Eliot Weinberger - has been described as “the quintessential surveyor, a Renaissance man.”
Yet, for being a Renaissance man, he is surprisingly modern.
We’ll read his speech from his acceptance of the 1990 Nobel for Literature, entitled “In Search of the Present (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1990/paz/lecture/).” It presents Paz’s non-dualistic approach toward modernity and tradition. He attempts to present the positives and pitfalls of a new turning toward the inward that our cultural systems may not be ready for: that, potentially for the first time in history, our globalized society lives out a metahistorical doctrine without collective absolutes, only private ones.
The hope: engender balance both as we create our own technologies, communities, and societies.
If you’ve never heard of Paz, even better!
Excited to hear your thoughts on modernity and tradition :)"
About Native
Native is a narrative strategy studio. We help technology companies articulate what they're building and why it matters. We work with founders as their narrative agent: producing essays, sharpening positioning, and building the language layer that holds a company together.
Our mission is to cultivate a philosophy of business built on agency, craft, and belief, and build a network of aligned founders through our work, our words, and our experiences.
By registering for this event, you will also be added to the Native newsletter.