Gossip with Purpose, Tracking Our Daily
AC+DC 155 What if we imagined mundane, everyday futures instead of utopian or dystopian extremes?
☀️ 30c Yellow Warning!
If you didn’t know me, you’d think I’m super lazy, siesta all day, do-nothing, or worse two-faced, out of sorts, a hazard. For good reason, that’s the stereotype I grew up around. Most of us are silent, stubborn, and stoic, burying their anxiety deeper and deeper, thinking no one will notice, like magma building pressure, until kapow, it all blows up.
I can’t blame them. If you lived a mundane never changing life, no one gave you any notice, steppd on you, took you for granted, then complained when you finally break down. I mean, come on, who can bare that?
Not me.
If you do know me, you know I can chat endlessly, I’m a big gossip, I like to think that I know everything and everyone, an extroverts extrovert, although I do enjoy a good siesta. I discovered that life doesn’t have to be so unendingly boring and the same.
The other day some of us gossipy types were chatting, as we do, and discovered a shared coping mechanism. For some, they said merely waking up and getting a glimpse of the new day was enough to stimulate their imagination of what may arrive to the point of getting lost in a whole new universe. Others said everyday seems anew because every greeting of the same ol’ day seems like a new greeting, of a new day. Every new greeting contains a progression from the last.
A side-effect, secondary effect, result, benefit, bonus, upside, plus is that now I know everyone and everyone knows me. I like to think so. Unlike the silent stubborn others, I’m entrusted with a lot of secrets. I attain these sometimes indirectly as folks don’t realize I’m listening, nor do they realize I’m there. So there’s that. Touché. Et tu brutus.
Did you get the note on Friday, from Spot? The message was partly in Japanese, so I get it if you skipped it. Anyway, we’re buddies since awhile now and Spot is similarly curious and sniffs around and wants to know everyone too. I suspect Spot’s motivations are similarly protective, like we good sentinels. Stewards of our street.
Our community nominated me to become a permanent steward, a docent of a memory, a benchmark, a non-monument to a name, a history, aligned with that concept of “you only live as long as the last person who remembers you.” For me, it’s a nice tie in to my Egyptian pyramid ancestry. I now carry the name of a neighbor. The Citizen Action Team nominated the name, a family that resided on this section of street, and set forth the process to transform me from a simple gossip to a gossip with purpose.
Oh, by the way, good segue. I should mention, not only am I gossipy but I’m super next generation. It’s exciting actually. I’m so connected. Rather than the typical processes that are killing the planet, and btw, there are SO many of those, I consist of life. Part of me is pine and olive. It feels totally different. Bonus, they say I’m responsible for reducing Co2 emissions by 76%. Not a braggart. But it’s nice.
As a representative of a sustainable generation, I’m imbued with a name and responsibility to endure, be cleaned, make way for the rain waters, now in this new form. I’m part of something bigger.
Part of my docent, stewardship duties is to keep track of things. Do you have this, do this, feel connected, part of something bigger, purpose to be a part? do you keep track of it somehow?
As I have a lot of time, sitting here, I illicted the help of Spot, that wrote you last week. Great reviews. Couldn’t think of a more suitable collaborator to track down and help introduce everybody. The dog remembers everyone!
Spot and I made our own tracker, to discover who is actually part of our ecosystem, who relies on us, who we rely on, even if we might overlook, or forget to appreciate. It’s like a core sample of time. We marked down our community members emergence, presence, or retirement, and at what hour. Solid circle = presence.
Speaking of, let’s say some thanks to…and gossip about:
the persistent, totally reliable ones, the air we breathe, the water that bathes, the atoms we’re all made of. Hot goss, the water department is drafting a message to you. Keep an eye out. Also, loved how the ufo story got out about the atomos.
the formerly foreign new friends like Orno and the narrator. Altho, still unclear about the narrator’s intentions. Meant well with that Cheat Sheet, which btw, we used for our tracker.
the rhythmic rituals, I’m jealous of their lore, the vermuts, the evening paseos, and streetlight selfies.
the yes-and passionate renegades behind Citizen Action Teams, the Committee for Reciprocity and Care, the repair cafes, the cooperative kiosks.
and finally, the sticky newcomer, embedding their fingers and nodes and wires and wifis and LLMs and who-knows-what into everything. Every thing. They say smart, I say for whom? So suspicious. Like the clouds are even in on it now, making money, grifting, selling out to the wannabe gods to make it rain when they want not when the clouds are ready. Exhausting. What kind of rain even is that? I don’t know if I want that running between my toes. The Aesop store is beautiful, it works for the retired carved stones, so maybe it can be ok.
Ok, well that’s a taste of our community.
Phew. It’s not getting any cooler. These heat waves keep washing in. Maybe you’ve heard of the Spiling the Tea activitation, part of the Inspiration Hours Playbook set of 40 ways to connect with your community. I’d like to think I’m responsible for Spill the Tea. Ha, maybe we do a summer edition, Spill the Iced Tea? There you go. A freebie. I’ll be here all week. Well, an eternity if my generations composed as they’ve said, a sustainable member of the circular economy. Sounds like ground hogs day, but take it from me, boredom is a choice!
Try out our new tracker.
Panot y Perro Trackerr
A Practical Exercise
inspired by Georges Perec
the place:
the date:
the time:
the weather:
Who’s there?
What’s there?
Detect a rhythm.
Unwritten rules of conduct?
Where is everyone going?
How are they? in a rush, ambling, meander?
Continue in this way until it becomes strange, you become a stranger? like saying the same word 20 times, its sound becomes odd, new, different.
Imagine yourself immersed with me, just under your soles.
And now, below that, amongst the roots and buried torrents, the bugs and clay.
Thanks for listening. Hmm, did any of that make any sense? Did we clear it up or is it now even more muddy? I promise, I’m also a good listener. Part of gossip is listening, no? I’ve thick skin, please let me know.
See you,
Panot y Spot スポット
Today’s story is inspired by imagining the world of a paver, a panot
and this question:
What if we imagined mundane, everyday futures instead of utopian or dystopian extremes?
A card is drawn daily from Temporal Tactics, a deck of cards designed to help us imagine conscious futures. Created by StudioCONE
☕️☕️
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If you’re in Barcelona, send a msg, and we can go for a coffee!
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FIELD REPORT es el nuevo canal adoptado por CRC en colaboración con Possibility Hours y Adventuring Ventures. FIELD REPORT is the new adopted channel for CRC in collaboration with Possibility Hours and Adventuring Ventures.
Two roads diverged in a wood.....Robert Frost