In an era that favours doing over thinking, result over process, advocacy over mastery, we are a group of young people who have had the good fortune of meeting likeminded peers, all cherishing free-spirited yet conceptually-grounded thinking.

The rigidly defined purposes and structures of professional and academic life can be overwhelming and it takes determination as well as persistent practice to carve out a vibrant and non-competitive space where ideas can flow freely from within and without.

We believe inquisitive minds need the welcoming atmosphere of a committedly and playfully contemplative community where they can hold the pressures of outcome-centric expectations and externally imposed purposes at bay to engage in relentlessly vigorous discussions.

The collective spirit that arises from this intellectual exercise will also serve a higher social good which embeds and gives further meaning to our personal sense of sustained intellectual enthusiasm. The higher social good that we envision is a response to the myopic demands for tightly scheduled tangible results imposed on our lives that inevitably lead to an entanglement with the here and now.

This entanglement impairs our collective capacity to think about the greater-here and the longer- now. We find this to be alarming because it undermines the society’s ability to orient itself within the vast expanse of time and thus clouds the time-transcending wisdom of the human spirit.

This state of affairs is particularly disconcerting as the increasing rhythm of change that surrounds us seems to mark the early signs of a consequential shift for humanity. The world to be will likely be shaped by realities we have yet to see. Together with kindred spirits who share our curiosity, our challenge is to imagine that future world. 

Just as the urge for tangible progress is a broadly shared human instinct, we believe the desire for and appreciation of profound ideas that resonate beyond time and space is equally integral to the human experience.

We are concerned that existing institutions favour the pragmatic tendencies of our spirits but leave our predisposition for the purity of ideas stranded. Our contemporary social intellectual architecture is off-balance.

In that spirit, we see socially transformative value in rebalancing that architecture to provide a much- needed breathing space for adventurous and forward-looking deliberations. This conviction has further bolstered our resolve to embark on an effort to build a community for individuals who are moved by the prospect of encountering profound ideas and their equally intriguing progenitors. 

We hereby declare the launch of a new initiative, the Society for the Purposefully Purposeless, envisioned for and governed by young committed individuals who have the enthusiasm and the will- power to carve out a space in their lives for the pursuit of ideas in a world of pragmatism. It is purposeful in the sense that we firmly believe in the inspirational value of creating a space that allows individuals to think freely. It is purposeless in the sense that discussions are not constrained by the demands of an ultimate purpose or encumbered by the expectation of an output.

We embark on this path to create a space for individuals from all backgrounds, where the will to understand drives the conversation; where a settled idea unsettles the spirit; where intellectual vibrancy serves as a magnet for new inquisitive minds; where intellectual appetites go beyond the narrow boundaries of professional and academic life; a space where individuals find inspiration in others’ ideas, inquiries and insights. 

We believe this initiative will pave the way to better functioning societies by rebalancing our social intellectual architecture. 

As we begin to lay the foundations of this new community, we hope to inspire all individuals to rebalance the pull of their professional and academic ambitions with the allure of an ever-fertile community of ideas that gracefully and joyfully provokes all its members to reach out for the longer- now and the greater-here.

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