The Aspen Institute Kyiv held the first club seminar of the year for the Community: “Purpose of a Human, Eternal Values, and Self-empowerment”
We recently posted more about the Aspen Community. To briefly remind you, the Community includes graduates who want to participate actively in the Institute’s life.
One of the community’s advantages is the opportunity to initiate members’ own initiatives. One such initiative from the Community Council in 2024 was the club seminar “Spiritual and Intellectual Traditions for Resilience in the Present.”
Club seminars are multi-day moderated dialogues based on texts. This format allows participants to experience Aspen practice once again in the company of other leaders.
For two days, participants from previous “full-format seminars” — leaders from various fields—discussed classical texts from Western and Eastern traditions. They integrated them into the modern context of building resilience for individuals at a personal level, communities, and society as a whole.
In particular, the discussions revolved around:
- Inner strengths that help maintain resilience
- Personal purpose, dignity, and willpower
- Understanding human nature and preserving it in extreme points of life
- Demand for justice and its relativity in modern conditions
- How concepts and understandings of death impact life scenarios
- The idea of virtue and its influence on decision-making
- Issues of choice and foundations for making everyday and strategic decisions
- The role of a leader in the vitality of a community
- The property of human fears and ways to combat them
Andriy Kulakov, Program Coordinator of the Aspen Institute Kyiv Community, moderated the discussion.
The two days were full of new acquaintances, meaningful content, and bright ideas, with a sense of empathy and depth. We are grateful to the Community Council for the initiative and to all participants for their contributions to the dialogue!
