Josh Frank's Page

UC Santa Cruz World Cafe

Folks have hosted the cafe here at the university for about four years now. I feel blessed to be a part of the cafe process in circulating ideas and sharing insights.

We have had many themes and questions both abstract and grounding, and everything in between. When you enter the world of conversation, oh is it boundless!

Cafes take place on UCSC campus in the Kresge community, 1 of the 10 colleges on campus. A Stevenson Cafe has been proposed but may not come to fruition till later on in the year.

Check out some themes and questions that have circulated around the warm tea cup.

Fall, 2010-2011

Cultivation Cafe
1) How do you gather your intentions to reach your goals?
a. I feel like intentions are a funny thing because one may intend on doing something, for example thinking or saying "I am going to check out that club tonite!" but then later either forgetting to do so or simply choosing not to
b. One's intentions and actions may not always match, and one goal/intention of this particular Cafe was to invite folks to come into a space feeling energized to create new goals for themselves by first reflecting upon summer experiences and then imagining that they are in a new home–Santa Cruz–ready to begin anew

Connection Cafe
1) How do you form a connection?
a. Connections form between human beings, humans and nature, with ideas, it really is endless.
b. What came up in my group was specific interactions between two people and the idea of whether small talk is hindering to a connection or actually serves as the initial spark to create a more passionate flame.
2) We did a Be-With exercise for the second question round
a. It really was intriguing to be a part of a "Be-With," which is an activity done between two people and other times more. This night we partnered up with one other person and sat staring into the other's eyes, hands in each other's hands, one person giving energy and the other receiving. Then we switched giver/receiver roles, and this lasted, oh, maybe ten minutes altogether? Hahaha it really is difficult to say when time stands still in that moment of connection.

The "Other World" Cafe (Dreams & Deja Vu)
1) What do dreams feel like and what are they made of?
a. they feel like surreal waking life experiences, although what occurs in dreams may not typically occur during waking life experience
b. in Sigmund Freud's mind, dreams can provide for us unfulfilled wishes, as well as release what is kept in the subconscious mind during the waking state
2) How does it feel when you experience a moment in which waking life feels like a dream? Is this intuition something we can channel to examine our lives more intimately?
a. this question is a bit loaded, but one may often question a moment in waking life. Something I do to test the question, "Am I really here right now?" is often during class when a teacher is zoned in on what she is teaching. I focus on her physical body for a moment, not so much on what she is saying, and somehow my eyes fool my mind to believing the teacher is much farther away from me than I think. I feel if physical space can be manipulated in the mental world, then what does the word "real" mean anymore?
b. this experience does not speak to part 2 of the question, however I believe moments like deja vu can help us to zone in on our lives. It could be an intuitive indication that one should do something in that particular moment, or say something that one may not have planned to say to intend a particular meaning the subconscious mind is sure of but the conscious mind is oblivious to.
c. Are dreams made of the same things that waking life is made of?

Wild Love Cafe (Fear and Loving in Las Kresge)
1) Describe an experience in which you felt totally in love with the world and your place in it.
a. folks shared experiences about self-love, coming out of a relationship and feeling crummy. Turning the emotion around and feeling the love for oneself in one's heart truly is remarkable. It makes one question whether we love other people or whether we love ourselves more in a gratifying way through the "mirror image" of ourselves in others' eyes.
b. then there is the love of no self and immersion in nature. Can I love my being strictly as a part of nature? I describe my experience being in a nature spot for twenty-four hours alone except for a pad and paper to write my thoughts. One could argue that I was more in love with my connection to my thought, and while this is true, not pen ink could do any justice to how I felt watching the surroundings.
2) How do you grapple with love and fear?
a. some people do, while others don't. One could argue that each are opposites and that fear is the antithesis of love. Love is acceptance, while fear is confusion and often rejection. There is the fear of being vulnerable in another's presence, and of course there is the fear of rejection.
3) How does fear play into choosing one lover or multiple lovers?
a. we talk about jealousy in relationships. One may get jealous and hurt if one's partner "cheats" on him/her and the other finds out. Is monogamy preferential, or might polyamory (multiple lovers) be the better route? We hear arguments on both sides, one which speaks to the idea that girls are particularly exposed to the idea of marriage and "soulmate" at a young age. Is there one ideal person out there for you? Are there several ideal people out there, encouraging you to be open to those possibilities? What do we fear about holding hands with one's lover in the same room as another lover? What a force love is, and what a fear we enforce upon ourselves when the veil of society casts a shadow of abstract guilt over our lives.

Spring, 2009-2010

Sports Cafe–
1) How do sports promote political uprisings?

2) What values can we learn from playing sports?

3) How has technology affected sports in the virtual (media) and physical world?
a. Here we may elaborate on how people consider video games to be a sport and play sport video games such as the Wii, which makes the player feel as though she is actually playing, say, tennis.