Cafe Dialogues goes down a treat

I am in a hotel room in London.  I’m on the 9th floor with  a fantastic view of the city lights.  The London Eye is visible off to the right.  A full moon hangs low in the sky competing against the multitude of lights that make up the London city skyline.  I am down here to attend a marketing seminar.  It’s funny because you think you know every thing there is to know about marketing yourself, but there seems to always be something else you feel you could learn that will get clients coming through the door.  There is meant to be over 300 people attending the seminar, so if nothing else, it should be a good opportunity to do some networking and make a few new contacts.

Last night I held the inaugural Cafe Dialogues at Rhubarb.  I wasn’t sure what to expect.  It’s hard to imagine that there are many people out there who are interested in joining a philosopher’s club.  So I was pleasantly surprised when a good number of people responded with interest.  And I was even more surprised when people actually showed up on the night! It was fantastic.  After setting the context for wanting to start a philosopher’s cafe, we fell naturally into exploring several issues that were of concern.  We had several lively debates ranging from the impact  of social media, like FaceBook and Twitter, is having on real face to face socializing to whether there is a such thing as divine purpose.

The most beautiful thing about the evening for me was that we were just a group of ordinary people talking about issues that are playing out in this human drama we call life.  We had beer.  We had wine.  The only thing missing was the togas.  I am looking forward to the next Cafe Dialogues, which will be in February.  I’ll post the date here as soon as I know.