A mini campaign idea came to me fully-formed and felt simple, fun, interesting, and worthwhile, leaving me curious and playful to see what happens without any expectations.

tiny vision, tiny goal

This began with seeing a friend joyfully post about their eSIM getting activated, which got me intrigued to learn about the initiative and try it myself; to use an effortless medium like Instagram Stories to communicate that 'you did something and that others can too' was powerful in retrospect.

A few days later I had a visual identity concept (stemming from my belief that the icon is the promise) and all the needed parts for a tiny campaign I could produce and run over a weekend easily, quick, and cheap: how far could this get? and with what kind of results? Of course, food would actually be more necessary and urgent as people there are on the brink of famine, but I chose to focus on what could be helpful without getting blocked by borders; I also have credibility with technical things and certain skills that can be fittingly deployed with respect to this kind of idea. My wish was to share a simple action people can do to instill hope and comradery in the midst of a dire situation.

structure and steps

I timeboxed with a limit to keep it approachable, so it took probably a few hours of effort in total, and because the idea was more or less fully-formed, I just needed to execute on the fly, without too much pre-planning. Always begin by brain dumping everything, to give new refinements and ideas a place to go: let time work for you.

unusual visuals

My concept was to link the sense organs with a smartphone to communicate that Internet becomes our 'eyes and ears', and make it a bit weird by showing more hands than I actually have. I took two photos of myself (~5 minutes), imported them into Photopea to superimpose one on the other via layer masking (~5 minutes); removed the background (~2 minutes, but almost automatic), and duplicated the result on a portrait-sized canvas to create some quirky repetition (~10 minutes).

do something and document the steps

I got an eSIM to understand the experience, made a note of the steps and anything noteworthy that wasn't in the project instructions, and simplified everything into a small unintimidating guide (~15 minutes) with three concise sections: introduce the original project, list different options for purchasing, and the important step of donating the QR code, prefacing the whole thing by giving an idea of how long it takes.

It takes less time than boiling water for tea 🍵 or heating a slice of pizza 🍕 to donate internet access for Gaza.

Hyperdraft let me just edit text to quickly create an online home for this: no setup, no nonsense, just write.

share on Stories

After importing my earlier photo composition into Instagram, I was able to put some text on top and link to the guide.

It took a bit of fiddling and re-writing to find nice wording (~30 minutes) even though I already drafted possibilities in my initial brain dump, then I finally posted it to Stories on different platforms (~5 minutes). I also made another version for public social media (~10 minutes).

The important part here is to set and communicate a small, achievable goal ("5 people") so that it doesn't take much to accomplish something meaningful.

ask friends who would likely join

This took the longest: I direct-messaged about 106 people in my network who were posting about the situation there (about 20 were able and willing to participate, and 15 eventually did) and corresponded with those who were on board to help them, send encouragement, and share progress (~2 hours spread over the weekend); I extracted templates from my personal messages to save time, spell correctly, and include important details, then refined them through experience and usage; this means copypasta but I always respond personally to any replies.

Some people wanted to participate but felt not able because of financial constraints and I found them sponsors so they can still engage with the initiative. Some already heard about the initiative and had done this before, so I just encouraged them to share the guide with anyone who could use it. The point of reaching out is less about their donations and more about making contact: the feeling of knowing that one of your friends is doing this can often be worth the effort.

I mostly stuck to Instagram but found Beeper and FluffyChat helpful for both multi-platform messaging and not feeling distracted with timeline posts.

celebrate progress

When someone completed the steps, I told them how many other people had done the same and gave a sense for the total impact.

I tracked progress in a spreadsheet and at the bottom of the guide itself.

Everyone who did this felt happy and excited at the end, so I encouraged them to share that they did this in their own story: this enabled more people to get exposed to the idea and feel comfortable, potentially starting a recursive process and channeling that energy into future progress.

lessons and reflections

1. I probably shouldn't have worded this as 'donating eSIMs' as many people might have no clue what that means: if you're not tech-oriented, you might wonder "is that something lying around at home?" or "do you buy one from a convenience store and bring it to the post office?". I eventually rephrased to 'donating Internet' and tried to communicate how it can be done online and even from your phone.
2. I probably should have mentioned 'Gaza' as many may have understood 'donating eSIMs' as a general request for some random cause rather than related to the current situation there. I eventually rephrased to 'donating Internet in Gaza'.
3. As a tech person, I thought 'total gigabytes' was an interesting metric to track progress, but of course not everyone speaks that language. I eventually tried to estimate what the data could be used for and converted it to more meaningful numbers:

That means: 24 hours of livestreams or videocalls (1.5gb per hour), 18,000 photos (2mb per photo), 288 hours of audio calls (2.5mb per minute), text messaging for 30 days (rough validity).

All of that involved random edits to the guide and spreadsheet (~1 hour).

1. It was necessary to reach out, as likely nobody would have taken action via the ephemeral story alone; I imagine asking directly helps move an abstract idea to one where people might consider acting and see themselves involved. I received feedback several times when someone said they were aware of the idea before, but eventually did it because they saw that I did it, which tells me the importance of modeling the action before or while you ask; in a way, this whole campaign happened because I saw a friend friend post his eSIM activation in a story.
2. I wish I had operated with less urgency, as it unnecessarily drained me. I tried to disconnect regularly, but was often magnetized back to my phone simultaneously from excitement (at progress) and doom (desire to help the situation over there); as I described in watching catastrophe, the time to change course was a decade or two ago and there's something misplaced about urgency 'now'.

conclusion

Inspired by someone's action, I had an idea to transform my own contribution into a call for other people to follow my example. I asked for five people and over a dozen stepped up (on a weekend) to contribute, without any in person interactions (completely digital); I feel that's a success, and only in the least because of the material result: the feeling of 'doing together' and any resulting conversations from this will probably have future effects that we'll understand later.

It was a bit exhausting to do this, but I really enjoyed it; I engaged in the kinds of things that fit my curiosities, maybe other people would take a different approach to fit theirs. How much impact can one have with a few hours work? Maybe it would take you longer to do similar tasks, but there are other possibilities easily afforded by your skills—do you have a sense for what they are? What's the value of feeling that we can accomplish things within our own circles, rather than waiting for larger institutions to help? I like to believe sometimes that it doesn't matter where we go as long as we do it together.

If anyone else wants to donate or sponsor please reach out and I'll happily help you 🙏🏽☀️❤️

---

go deeper

I can't take much credit for many ideas here, as this was a chance to put into practice what I learned from The roads to funding your community network projects.... and the Get Together book and podcast; I'd recommend those for anyone interested in this sort of thing.

---

If you want more, there's hopefully some comfort in when bad things happen in the world, tips for dialogue in "Why Are We Yelling?" by Buster Benson, and more collective visions in secular churches for continuity.

---

A mini campaign idea came to me fully-formed and felt simple, fun, interesting, and worthwhile, leaving me curious and playful to see what happens without any expectations.

tiny vision, tiny goal

This began with seeing a friend joyfully post about their eSIM getting activated, which got me intrigued to learn about the initiative and try it myself; to use an effortless medium like Instagram Stories to communicate that 'you did something and that others can too' was powerful in retrospect.

A few days later I had a visual identity concept (stemming from my belief that the icon is the promise) and all the needed parts for a tiny campaign I could produce and run over a weekend easily, quick, and cheap: how far could this get? and with what kind of results? Of course, food would actually be more necessary and urgent as people there are on the brink of famine, but I chose to focus on what could be helpful without getting blocked by borders; I also have credibility with technical things and certain skills that can be fittingly deployed with respect to this kind of idea. My wish was to share a simple action people can do to instill hope and comradery in the midst of a dire situation.

structure and steps

I timeboxed with a limit to keep it approachable, so it took probably a few hours of effort in total, and because the idea was more or less fully-formed, I just needed to execute on the fly, without too much pre-planning. Always begin by brain dumping everything, to give new refinements and ideas a place to go: let time work for you.

unusual visuals

My concept was to link the sense organs with a smartphone to communicate that Internet becomes our 'eyes and ears', and make it a bit weird by showing more hands than I actually have. I took two photos of myself (~5 minutes), imported them into Photopea to superimpose one on the other via layer masking (~5 minutes); removed the background (~2 minutes, but almost automatic), and duplicated the result on a portrait-sized canvas to create some quirky repetition (~10 minutes).

do something and document the steps

I got an eSIM to understand the experience, made a note of the steps and anything noteworthy that wasn't in the project instructions, and simplified everything into a small unintimidating guide (~15 minutes) with three concise sections: introduce the original project, list different options for purchasing, and the important step of donating the QR code, prefacing the whole thing by giving an idea of how long it takes.

It takes less time than boiling water for tea 🍵 or heating a slice of pizza 🍕 to donate internet access for Gaza.

Hyperdraft let me just edit text to quickly create an online home for this: no setup, no nonsense, just write.

share on Stories

After importing my earlier photo composition into Instagram, I was able to put some text on top and link to the guide.

It took a bit of fiddling and re-writing to find nice wording (~30 minutes) even though I already drafted possibilities in my initial brain dump, then I finally posted it to Stories on different platforms (~5 minutes). I also made another version for public social media (~10 minutes).

The important part here is to set and communicate a small, achievable goal ("5 people") so that it doesn't take much to accomplish something meaningful.

ask friends who would likely join

This took the longest: I direct-messaged about 106 people in my network who were posting about the situation there (about 20 were able and willing to participate, and 15 eventually did) and corresponded with those who were on board to help them, send encouragement, and share progress (~2 hours spread over the weekend); I extracted templates from my personal messages to save time, spell correctly, and include important details, then refined them through experience and usage; this means copypasta but I always respond personally to any replies.

Some people wanted to participate but felt not able because of financial constraints and I found them sponsors so they can still engage with the initiative. Some already heard about the initiative and had done this before, so I just encouraged them to share the guide with anyone who could use it. The point of reaching out is less about their donations and more about making contact: the feeling of knowing that one of your friends is doing this can often be worth the effort.

I mostly stuck to Instagram but found Beeper and FluffyChat helpful for both multi-platform messaging and not feeling distracted with timeline posts.

celebrate progress

When someone completed the steps, I told them how many other people had done the same and gave a sense for the total impact.

I tracked progress in a spreadsheet and at the bottom of the guide itself.

Everyone who did this felt happy and excited at the end, so I encouraged them to share that they did this in their own story: this enabled more people to get exposed to the idea and feel comfortable, potentially starting a recursive process and channeling that energy into future progress.

lessons and reflections

1. I probably shouldn't have worded this as 'donating eSIMs' as many people might have no clue what that means: if you're not tech-oriented, you might wonder "is that something lying around at home?" or "do you buy one from a convenience store and bring it to the post office?". I eventually rephrased to 'donating Internet' and tried to communicate how it can be done online and even from your phone.
2. I probably should have mentioned 'Gaza' as many may have understood 'donating eSIMs' as a general request for some random cause rather than related to the current situation there. I eventually rephrased to 'donating Internet in Gaza'.
3. As a tech person, I thought 'total gigabytes' was an interesting metric to track progress, but of course not everyone speaks that language. I eventually tried to estimate what the data could be used for and converted it to more meaningful numbers:

That means: 24 hours of livestreams or videocalls (1.5gb per hour), 18,000 photos (2mb per photo), 288 hours of audio calls (2.5mb per minute), text messaging for 30 days (rough validity).

All of that involved random edits to the guide and spreadsheet (~1 hour).

1. It was necessary to reach out, as likely nobody would have taken action via the ephemeral story alone; I imagine asking directly helps move an abstract idea to one where people might consider acting and see themselves involved. I received feedback several times when someone said they were aware of the idea before, but eventually did it because they saw that I did it, which tells me the importance of modeling the action before or while you ask; in a way, this whole campaign happened because I saw a friend friend post his eSIM activation in a story.
2. I wish I had operated with less urgency, as it unnecessarily drained me. I tried to disconnect regularly, but was often magnetized back to my phone simultaneously from excitement (at progress) and doom (desire to help the situation over there); as I described in watching catastrophe, the time to change course was a decade or two ago and there's something misplaced about urgency 'now'.

conclusion

Inspired by someone's action, I had an idea to transform my own contribution into a call for other people to follow my example. I asked for five people and over a dozen stepped up (on a weekend) to contribute, without any in person interactions (completely digital); I feel that's a success, and only in the least because of the material result: the feeling of 'doing together' and any resulting conversations from this will probably have future effects that we'll understand later.

It was a bit exhausting to do this, but I really enjoyed it; I engaged in the kinds of things that fit my curiosities, maybe other people would take a different approach to fit theirs. How much impact can one have with a few hours work? Maybe it would take you longer to do similar tasks, but there are other possibilities easily afforded by your skills—do you have a sense for what they are? What's the value of feeling that we can accomplish things within our own circles, rather than waiting for larger institutions to help? I like to believe sometimes that it doesn't matter where we go as long as we do it together.

If anyone else wants to donate or sponsor please reach out and I'll happily help you 🙏🏽☀️❤️

---

go deeper

I can't take much credit for many ideas here, as this was a chance to put into practice what I learned from The roads to funding your community network projects.... and the Get Together book and podcast; I'd recommend those for anyone interested in this sort of thing.

---

If you want more, there's hopefully some comfort in when bad things happen in the world, tips for dialogue in "Why Are We Yelling?" by Buster Benson, and more collective visions in secular churches for continuity.

---

for the chronic criticizers

[When someone always criticizes you: 1) ask if was meant for you or if they just wanted to hear it out loud; 2) ask "how am I supposed to do that?" to tease out whether they have actually thought about it practically; and 3) confirm that "what I'm hearing is…" to clarify if there's anything constructive.]

Substack's Dilemma

“I will pelt you to death with marshmallows” is not very credible, though it might conceivably be done if one had a great many marshmallows.

Seek wisdom, humanity, relational existence, cooperation over competition, and you won't find much in startups and business.

quick tips for difficult conversations

[Have a difficult conversation by: 1) avoiding small talk or "how are you?" and starting with "thanks for making the time to speak with me"; 2) state that you need help with what to do or feel about the subject; and 3) finish by sharing that you feel settled or like the direction, and then ask "how about you?"]

Phenology, Time and Synchronization

[Befriending a bird, the news spreads to other animals.]

[We refer to plants in English as "whats" and "its", implying an object, rather than "whos", implying living beings.]

What would it mean to speak a language thousands of years older than English?

Only on #Mastodon do I see people judging others being on #Substack and #X, seemingly implying that they are better humans for not being on it.

Purist reductions of any platform and the people there to it's worst policy is lazy; it's harder and more meaningful to actually help.

for when something feels off

[When someone's lying to you: 1. tell them you need to come back to the conversation (and walk away); 2. say "something feels off"; 3. simply wait, as it makes dishonesty uncomfortable.]

If you want to study the economy, consider studying anthropology, sociology, geography, law, politics, psychology, and even biology and physics

If you want to study a very narrow method for analysing very narrow aspects of the economy, consider studying economics, maths & stats

The Poor Can’t Afford the Benefits of Monogamy, and the Rich Don’t Need Them

Non-monogamy is generally cringe not because multiple people are consensually involved, but rather because relatively privileged people have dumped their neuroses and misguided aspirations for a “free” or authentic life

The people documented in our study kept households together, raised each other’s children, stayed together for lifetimes, aided each other’s work and stayed by each other during war, illness, death and grief. Much of this is the sort of relationship style I get to experience daily, too, living with my partners and my cats and I am both grateful and hardly special for it. There are lots of people like me. We are, of course, also doing a social reproduction, making the world over and over again, just slightly differently. We are generally using different relationship style and thus socio-cultural technology in a way that is responsive to the precarity of neoliberalism—not liberated from it, because we have of course not escaped material and historical trends. But though we cannot escape these trends we can counter some of their isolating or libertarian effects, and so live in a less individualist, more communal and fairly committed way.

ask: if two parents good, perhaps three parents better? Perhaps motherhood communes better? Perhaps parenting with friends better?

your defense against yelling.

[Add pauses around your verbs to appear more controlled in your speaking.]

I've been to the Hackerspace Wiki before to find local places while travelling. I didn't know they had hackerspace apps listing, software wishlists.

Their design patterns library includes The Community Pattern:

set up a mailing list, a wiki, and an IRC channel. You will need all three. Think about a platform for discussion, storage for documentation and real-time communication.

The Critical Mass Pattern:

[You need at least two people to start an idea and two more to get work done. It's easy to recruit once you have four people, and best to get started with ten.]

The Infrastructure Pattern:

[Infrastructure first or projects first? By making everything infrastructure-driven, people will come up with contributions you would have never thought about.]

A simple habit to let luck find you

I’ve made one [Mutually Beneficial Introduction] per day for 10+ years.

[Once both people opt-in, take thirty seconds to write with details that can't be found by searching online. Try this regularly.]

Imagine every thought and action as sound that raises the loudness measured on a 'sound meter', then practice less activity to let the volume level drop as low and long as possible.

Beliefs

communication is a proxy for care. If the person doesn’t communicate, they don’t care.

how to respond to passive aggression

[Respond to passive aggressiveness by: 1. clarifying if that was 'meant to be helpful or hurtful'?; 2. stating when you observe negative tone even when they claim to mean it positively; and 3. acknowledging that it's okay to not be okay and communicate that it's a safe space.]

[Confidence is like a shrug: "Okay, no problem."]

The Signals: A Guided Primer

[Welcome:

1. Does everyone feel invited to participate?
2. Does the space guarantee users a safe experience?
3. Does the space encourage the humanization of others?
4. Can people express themselves without compromising their identity and data?

Connect:

5. Does the space cultivate a sense of belonging?
6. Does the space encourage fruitful connections between groups that aren’t naturally alike?
7. Does the space strengthen emotional, structural, and participative ties to geographically local communities?
8. Does the space make it possible for people to be heard by those in positions of power?

Understand:

9. Does the space allow for shared concerns to be raised for broad attention by society at large?
10. Is the information being elevated and shared reliable, factual, and true?
11. Does the space build civic competence and encourage democratic participation?
12. Does the space promote thoughtful conversation and room for respectful disagreements?

Act:

13. Does this space boost a community’s resilience in the face of significant stress or adversity?
14. Does this space facilitate our ability to participate in each others’ lives and shape society?]

handling insults

[Handle insults by: 1) Adding silence or continuing as if it doesn't affect you; 2) if a stranger, asking for their name, then asking to repeat what they said; 3) if someone you know, saying maybe they're right and checking in if they're feeling okay.]

We're not saying what we're saying, we're saying what we're not saying.

Kevin Komisaruk, American-Canadian Keyboard Musician

messaging that bombards us daily: fear and compliance are the new virtues to signal and will ensure our survival.

I also wonder how they process the contradiction of seeing our society celebrate those who disrupted history with peace and compassion, while persecuting those trying to do the same today.

[A given name like 'honour killings' portrays that violence as somehow different than in the occidental nations: more barbaric and primitive. Is ours any better?]

[1. What is the difference between hearing and endorsing a dangerous idea? 2. Should we hear them or not, and why? 3. Is it possible to discuss them productively?]

[Strengthening an argument doesn't make it more threatening.]

[Appreciate disagreements; notice and address anxiety.]

[Systemic issues stick when their disagreements are stuck in unproductive states or off limits of discussion.]

what triggers you, teaches you.

[Get comfortable asking "what does that say about me?" to learn about why you have buttons people can push in the first place.]

I changed the game from "online debate" to "potluck at my house." I changed the goal from "let's debate ideas" to "let's enjoy each other's company while having a stimulating conversation." I changed the conversational medium from "type into a comment text box" to "discuss over food and drink." And I changed the question from "What do you believe?" to the biggest unanswered question in my own head: "What's the endgame for the gun-control debate?"

[By realizing that we knew less, we felt somehow wiser.]

A traditional essay makes a single case and puts all its weight behind it. A problem brief collects the best proposals [and criticisms] that attempt to answer the open question. That means it might have two or five or a hundred different proposals, each with supporting evidence and proposed actions, each a result of a collaboration between supporters and opponents.

[Focus on end-games instead of arguing specific points.]

the low doorway is meant to remind guests to enter with respect.

Be Kind, Everyone is Fighting a Social Atrophy You Know Nothing About

And so we struggle to reach out, and to respond with our fragile hurting brains. We want connection, and we also find the possibility potentially very difficult when we're not doing so well. After all, if you invite someone over, they will see your messy house, and maybe judge you. And everyone's "house" is a mess right now in one way or another.

---

love the hack to reach out right before 'correspondence bankruptcy' to reduce pressure on the recipient 👍🏽 i also try to generally cultivate a norm of 'no response necessary' with anything i send; if it's urgent i'll call or say so.

this made me reflect on my frequent desire for solitude, often by saying or feeling that 'my social cup is full'. i never thought that it might cost me some 'social muscles' but i can see that as a possibility if it goes on for too long. nevertheless, i'd like to think that i know when i want to have company and when not, that i have good judgement in balancing this within myself.

in what seems to now be a previous life, where i felt an overwhelming lack of social interaction, friendship, or companionship, i practiced what i called 'shake the tree' once or twice a year: dm everyone with warm wishes and my current city. many were happy i sent this, many reacted with a simple emoji, many didn't respond, but it generally felt worthwhile for me.

[To any disagreement, you can ask: What's really at stake here? If true, what happens? What truth would cause you to change your mind? If this were no longer a problem, how would we get there?]

['Nutpicking' is to select the most extreme viewpoint so that it's easy to tear apart; an empty victory that invites another cycle.]

[Consider helping the opposition build their strongest arguments and enlist them to build up yours. Iron sharpens iron, and each of you is best suited to find flaws in the others' approach.]

[We're easily blind to the loopholes in our own desires.]

[Even if one side wins through power, do they really expect the other side to simply shut up about it forever?]

What is your relationship to the unknown? What is it like to have sensitivity to nature and spirits?

[Reason habituates us to asking black-and-white questions like "what is real?" and "what actually happened?" when actually there's no need to go there, to the point that some people feel a sense of duty to correct others who believe in something considered unacceptable.]

[Ghosts are more heart-realm metaphors than head-realm beings.]

To ask a good question, walk right up to the perimeter of your current understanding about something and find a question that you don't know the answer to.

[Instead of "are ghosts real?" ask "what experiences led you to your beliefs?".]

It's amazing to have a chance to peek into someone's belief systems and memories, a treasure trove wasted by a bad question.

[People don't need to answer, or do so truthfully.]

[Open and honest dialogue requires the information shared to not be weaponized.]

[The fruits of disagreement include: 1. security (negotiating for foundation); 2. growth (taking risks to discover new possibilities and potential security); 3. connection (being able to relate to people with diverse perspectives); and 4. enjoyment, learning to enjoy fundamental disagreements because the discussion brings new nuance each time.]

[Going beyond battling for security diffuses the zero-sum game to enable everyone to gain and grow from the experience.]

[The voice of reason makes sense of things by connecting to all the other things that give authority and power to its wielder.]

[Ghosts and spirits are a more a language to talk about unknown forces that influence us and less a physical being that we can't interact with.]

Let's talk about a New Year's resolution, a message, and change....

I have known you before. The only ones I still know are the ones that left and never looked back.

Some reflections on last night’s hawtt Jew-on-Jew action with @thedandelionking

['Might makes right' disqualifies someone from leftism.]

Let's talk about balance and advice for the unvaccinated....

Make a plan for your kids, discuss it with them. Write your will. Sign a power of attorney. Talk about DNR/DNI with your family and decide if it's right for you. Make one box for originals or copies of the following: life insurance policy; home and car owners insurance; medical and vaccination records; tax records; court orders, such as child support and custody; social security card; marriage license; birth certificate; passports; vehicle titles and registrations; important documents and anything you don't want to lose; copies of last months bills (make it easy for the person taking care)

I see you, with errors in your ways, and I choose compassion.

[It's a strange time to do 'living' things.]

@danielbmate x @thedandelionking

[What's the difference between destroying in the name of your country versus your god?]

Twitter’s game mechanics select for a low-effort posting strategy, the dunking game. The rules are: find a way to misunderstand the tweet so that it is wrong. If you can’t, quote it out of context so that it is wrong. Tired.

The short instructional manifesto for relationship anarchy

Love isn't more 'real' when acting out of compromise.

On a whim, but a deeply felt one, I went live to share some impromptu thoughts on Israel, Palestine, condemnation, and context. Thanks for tuning in and considering.

[Might seem futile to add one's voice to the cacophony of others on social media, especially as it makes little difference to people suffering over there, but my voice is all I have.]

flip the power dynamic with the high ground.

[When someone talks down to you, 1) flip it around with 'this way of speaking is beneath me'; 2) assert authority by 'allowing' or 'giving them another chance' to try that again'; and 3) express that you are 'willing to continue the conversation if they speak respectfully'.]

'Capoeira should be fun' can extend to the game itself; the movement you admire is never in frenzy; always calma, giving time and space, not allowing someone else to make you hyperventilate; how can it feel more like effortless language exchange?

We can even extend this farther: how can everything be fun? more like that? fluid conversation with yourself and the stars.

venting has a purpose.

[Let hotheads vent without interruption to 'deflate the balloon'. Ask them to repeat with 'can you please tell me that again?' so that they can speak more calmly (they've already vented). Ask questions of fact like who, what, where, when to engage with their analytical side.]

Let's talk about changing times and minds....

[If you believe in changing the world for the better, you also believe that individuals can change; there's no other way.]

[When sharing the 'same bus' with people who think differently, some might be on for a few kilometers, some for a few thousand.]

The Roads to Ruining Thanksgiving....

[Eat an elephant one bite at a time, starting with the youngest.]

Is this something we have to agree on?

[Avoid getting into a heated argument by 1) asking if this is something we need to agree on, as often it's not the case; 2) pulling the brake of "well, maybe so" to acknowledge it's possible they're right, sometimes all they wanted to hear; 3) lowering your voice and slowing down your words if they do the opposite.]

push the eject button

[Politely end a conversation by: 1) acknowledging you need to interrupt; 2) moving to another room (like the bathroom); and 3) cuing an end with "thanks for sharing".]

for the unwanted table talk

[Pass over unwanted conversation by saying 1) "that subject isn't for me", as with food you don't eat; 2) "good to know" and "that's interesting", to acknowledge without agreeing; and 3) "I typically avoid this discussion", to communicate it's not singling them out. Nobody can force you to talk about anything you don't want to talk about.]

don’t feed the complaint, funnel it out.

[Complaints generally mask a larger underlying issue. Help them to get it all out by saying 'tell me more' and repeating until they're empty. Then guide them towards a solution with phrases like "How do you resolve this?", "What's the answer?", "How do you usually handle this?", "How have you addressed this in the past?"]

The more I pay attention to observations or notice where my attention is, the less effort it takes to have something to say.

Birds Aren’t Real? How a Conspiracy Takes Flight

[The crisis of belief can only be addressed after the crisis of belonging.]

Conflict is potential

[Reacting reduces potential in a conflict.]

[Presenting multiple perspectives of an argument says nothing nor does it engage with reason.]

[The underlying motive of proving one's experience as correct is to resist relationship with the other side.]

[Stereotypes and dogma confuse us into thinking there needs to be a winning side.]

[Focus on feelings, sensations, experiences over judgement.]

What Great Listeners Actually Do - A Visual Guide

[A good listener bounces ideas like a trampoline rather than absorbing like a sponge.]

[Good listeners: 1) ask questions that promote discovery and insight; 2) cultivate spaces to promote self-esteem; 3) challenge or disagree cooperatively, without making others defensive; 4) suggest open alternative paths in the conversation.]

[Levels of listening: 1) create a discussion environment safely; 2) remove distractions; 3) understand the substance and clarify or confirm with questions; 4) observe nonverbal cues, which may make up 80% of the conversation; 5) empathize with emotions about the topic; 6) gently encourage and help them to see the issue in another light.]

Daryl Davis on Reforming Over 200 ‘Ku Klux Klan’ Members - by Befriending Them

[Five core universal values underlie human interaction: to be loved, respected, heard, treated fair, and to want the same for one's family.]

[Treating neo-Nazism as a culture without justifying it enables you to approach the people as with any other culture.]

[Avoid focusing on destruction, hate, or fear as they are symptoms. The root cause of ignorance, cured through education and exposure, will get symptoms under control.]

[How to be offended by insults from someone who doesn't know you? They have no credibility.]

[Allow people time and space to marinate with ideas, avoid impatience. Even if they don't like you, they might give you a return visit, and that's what you want. Don't destroy your credibility by lying.]

[Find and build upon the commonalities.]

[The voice of possibility doesn't need to immediately decide whether something is true, and can accept contradictory arguments simultaneously.]

[Propose to 'disagree and commit' when nobody will have the ideal information anyway, especially if reversible. Try to recognize misalignment and correct quickly.]

[Leader seek to have strong judgment and good instincts. They incorporate diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.]

[When resolving conflict, the voice of power uses force, the voice of reason uses systems, and the voice of avoidance uses inaction. The voice of possibility tries to make conflict productive instead, by facilitating learning, curiosity, understanding.]

[Depersonalize points of view so that people feel free to try out other ones. Plot them on a quadrant of agreement against potential to change.]

no matter how platforms may persuade us otherwise, there is no 'undo send' or 'delete message' in human communication, we can only add context to what has been expressed

[Arguments are an indication of something important, not necessarily bad. It's normal for them to come back like weeds. Not dealing with them to 'avoid rocking the boat' can create anxiousness underlying everything.]

[Try to determine whether it's about being true, meaningful, or useful.]

Critique, The Internet, and You

[Offer critique only when you understand: 1) is it for you?; 2) under what conditions was it created?; 3) who is your audience? 4) what are your goals?. Important not to misalign by simply sharing whether you 'like' it, or by complaining that "your seafood is bad because I don't like seafood".]

So you have to do a layoff.

[Do it only once, not in multiple rounds. Consider salary reductions instead (also only once), accompanied by lower labor expectations. Be very direct without trying to lighten the mood. Management signed up for this.]

Injuries we experience are a reminder of what strangers may be carrying when they avoid things, and how we can be more mindful or compassionate when confronted with people who seem like or say that "they can't".

To rather be helpful than right.

It can be a security tactic (around people who choose to deploy anger) that they become hard to estimate under unknown conditions. When anything can turn into an explosion, the environment becomes one of constant fear.

first they laugh,
then they want it,
then they can't have it

• noticing several friends point out my habit of being highly self-critical, something i've been aware of but never realized how often it happens, working on it now
• somewhat aware but never tried to change it

The roads to dating advice for men....

For those who are confused: Flirting is a smile. Flirting is holding a door. Flirting is letting her have the last doughnut in the break room box. Flirting is a corny and clean dad joke. Flirting is telling her that coming to work and seeing her smile makes your day better. Flirting is NOT remarking on her bosom or derrière. Flirting is not telling her to “loosen up”. Flirting is ABSOLUTELY NOT what online “pickup pros” tell you it is. It is NOT insulting her between compliments. It is not a battle, it is not a war you must win against her. Flirting is a request for attention, and if she is receptive, she will give you that attention. But whatever you do, if she is not interested, accept it gracefully, and with charm; and the confidence that she is just not in that place in her life to want a relationship, and she is being kind enough to not lead you on. It takes courage for some women to turn men away, because some men become hostile when rejected. She is behaving courageously, keep that in mind. Her friends are watching, and THEY may be interested in you, as long as you do not become an antagonistic jerk when turned down. That is a huge red flag to women that they cannot trust you not to become potentially violent if they disagree with you. Not boyfriend material, for sure. A calm, confident man will find what he is looking for, and can rest assured that he IS worth having a relationship with, to the receptive girl at the right time in her life. And she is worth your time spent seeking for her.

"facts don't care about your feelings" is now my metaphor for futile forcing of logic on someone in an emotion-based position

help > hurt

if my purpose is to feel good and help others to feel good, then…

[When someone has a Ferrari, you can feel sorry for them that they're really in need of love. Choose sympathy over contempt.]

There are some couples who take pleasure in together selecting a third person, a stranger, to have sex with one of them while the other watches. The voyeur willingly cedes his or her rightful position and derives erotic enjoyment from bearing witness to the induction of his or her spouse. This is not an act of altruism. Rather, the new actor has been brought in for a particular purpose: to remind the voyeur of what is arousing about his or her partner. The voyeur uses the stranger's lust as a map to trace the way back to desires long obscured by the fog of routine. Through the agency of the stranger, the voyeur can feel the same excitement for a partner of twenty years as on the night they first met.

A less threatening and less dramatic version of this act of perception is readily available by checking in to a hotel room for a night. Our failure to notice the erotic side of our partner is often closely related to the unchanging environment in which we lead our daily lives. We can blame the stable presence of the carpet and the living-room chairs for our failure to have more sex, because our homes guide us to perceive others according to the attitude they normally exhibit in them. The physical backdrop becomes permanently coloured by the activities it hosts – vacuuming, bottle feeding, laundry hanging, the filling out of tax forms – and reflects the mood back at us, thereby subtly preventing us from evolving. The furniture insists that we can't change because it never does.

Hence the metaphysical importance of hotels. Their walls, beds, comfortably upholstered chairs, room-service menus, televisions and small, tightly wrapped soaps can do more than answer a taste for luxury; they can also encourage us to reconnect with our long-lost sexual selves. There is no limit to what a shared dip in an alien bath tub may help us to achieve. We may make love joyfully again because we have rediscovered, behind the roles we are forced to play by our domestic circumstances, the sexual identities that first drew us together – an act of aesthetic perception that will have been critically assisted by a pair of towelling bathrobes, a complimentary fruit basket and a view out of a window onto an unfamiliar harbour.

The common conception of anger posits red faces, raised voices and slammed doors, but only too often it takes on a different form, for when it doesn't understand or acknowledge itself, it just curdles into numbness.

the specific incidents that anger us happen so quickly and so invisibly, in such fast-moving and chaotic settings (at breakfast time, before the school run, or during a conversation on mobile phones in a windy plaza at lunchtime) that we can't recognize the offence well enough to mount any sort of coherent protest against it. The arrow is fired, it wounds us, but we lack the resources or context to see how and where, exactly, it has pierced our armour.

We may, for example, be deeply wounded when our partner fails to notice our new haircut or doesn't use a breadboard while cutting a bit of baguette, scattering crumbs everywhere, or goes straight upstairs to watch television without stopping to ask about our day. These hardly seem matters worth lodging formal complaints over. To announce, 'I am angry with you because you cut the bread in the wrong way,' is to risk sounding at once immature and insane. An objection of this sort may indeed be both of those things, but given that immaturity and insanity by and large constitute the human condition, we would be well advised to stop subscribing to (and then suffering from), any more optimistic notions.

To fall in love with another is to bless him or her with an idea of who he or she should be in our eyes; it is to attempt to incarnate perfection across limitless range of activities, stretching from the highest questions how to educate the children and what sort of house to buy) to the lowest (where the sofa should go and how to spend Tuesday evening).

By overwhelming consensus, our culture locates the primary difficulty of relationships in finding the 'right' person rather than in knowing how to love a real – that is, a necessarily rather unright – human being. Our reluctance to work at love is bound up with our earliest experience of the emotion. We were first loved by people who kept secret from us the true extent of the work that went into it, who loved us but didn't ask us to return affection in a rounded way, who rarely revealed their own vulnerabilities, anxieties or needs and who were – to an extent, at least – on better behaviour as parents than they could be as lovers. They thereby created, albeit with the most benign of intentions, an illusion that has complicated consequences for us later on, insofar as it leaves us unprepared for the effort we must legitimately expend to make even a very decent adult relationship successful. We can achieve a balanced view of adult love not by remembering what it felt like to be loved as a child but rather by imagining what it took for our parents to love us - namely, a great deal of work.

Our feelings of anxiety are genuine but confused signals that something is amiss, and so need to be listened to and patiently interpreted – processes which are unlikely to be completed when we have to hand, in the computer, one of the most powerful tools of distraction ever invented. The entire internet is in a sense pornographic, a deliverer of a constant excitement that we have no innate capacity to resist, a seducer that leads us down paths that for the most part do nothing to answer our real needs. Furthermore, the ready availability of pornography lessens our tolerance for the kind of boredom that grants our mind the space it needs to spawn good ideas - the creative sort of boredom we may luxuriate in during a bath or on a long train journey. Whenever we feel an all but irresistible desire to flee from our own thoughts, we can be quite sure there is something important trying to make its way into our consciousness – and yet it is precisely at such pregnant moments that internet pornography is most apt to exert its maddening pull, assisting our escape from ourselves and thereby helping us to destroy our present and our future.

A portion of our libido has to be forced underground for our own good; repression is not just for Catholics, Muslims and the Victorians, but for all of us and for eternity. Because we have to go to work, commit ourselves to relationships, care for our children and explore our own minds, we cannot allow our sexual urges to express themselves without limit, online or other-wise; left to run free, they destroy us.

The fact that the straying spouse has had the temerity to imagine, let alone act on the idea that it might be of interest to push a hand inside an unfamiliar skirt or pair of trousers should not truly come as such a surprise after a decade or more of marriage. Should there really be a need to apologize for a desire that could hardly be more understandable or ordinary? [Rather] than ask their betrayers' to say they are sorry, the 'betrayed' might begin by saying sorry themselves - sorry for being themselves, sorry for getting old, sorry for being boring sometimes, sorry for forcing their partners to lie by setting the bar of truthfulness forbiddingly high and (while we are at it), sorry for being human. It can too easily seem as if the adulterous spouse has done everything wrong, and the sexually pure one nothing. But this is an abbreviated understanding of what wrong entails. Certainly adultery grabs the headlines, but there are lesser, though no less powerful, ways to betray a partner, including not talking to him or her enough, seeming distracted, being ill-tempered or simply failing to evolve and enchant. […] A spouse who gets angry at having been betrayed is evading a basic, tragic truth: that no one can be everything to another person.

This isolation is something we all become acquainted with after the end of childhood. If we are lucky, we begin comfortably enough on this earth, in a state of close physical and emotional union with a devoted caregiver. We lie naked on her skin, we can hear her heartbeat, we can see the delight in her eyes as she watches us do nothing more accomplished than blow a saliva bubble – in other words, than merely exist. We can bang our spoon against the table and inspire uproarious laughter. Our fingers are tickled, and the fine hairs on our head are stroked, smelt and kissed. We don't even have to speak. Our needs are carefully interpreted; the breast is there whenever we want it. [Then] gradually comes the fall. The nipple is taken away, and we are blithely induced to move on to rice and morsels of dry chicken. Our body either ceases to please or can no longer be so casually displayed. We grow ashamed of our particularities. Ever-expanding areas of our outer selves are forbidden to be touched by others. It begins with the genitals, then spreads to encompass the stomach, the back of the neck, the ears and the armpits, until all we are allowed to do is occasionally give someone a hug, shake hands or bestow or receive a peck on the cheek. The signs of others' satisfaction in our existence declines, and their enthusiasm begins to be linked to our performance. It is what we do rather than what we are that is now of interest to them. Our teachers, once so encouraging about our smudgy drawings of ladybirds and our scrawls depicting the flags of the world, seem to take pleasure only in our exam results. Well-meaning individuals brutally suggest that perhaps it is time for us to start earning some money of our own, and society is kind or unkind to us chiefly according to how successful we turn out to be at doing just that. We begin to have to monitor what we say and how we look. There are aspects of our appearance that revolt and terrify us and that we feel we have to hide from others by spending money on clothes and haircuts. We grow into clumsy, heavy-footed, shameful, anxious creatures. We become adults, definitively expelled from paradise. [But] deep inside, we never quite forget the needs with which we were born: to be accepted as we are, without regard to our deeds; to be loved through the medium of our body; to be enclosed in another's arms; to occasion delight with the smell of our skin – all of these needs inspiring our relentless and passionately idealistic quest for someone to kiss and sleep with.

Nothing is erotic that isn't also, with the wrong person, revolting, which is precisely what makes erotic moments so intense: at the precise juncture where disgust could be at its height, we find only welcome and permission. The privileged nature of the union between two people is sealed by an act that, with someone else, would have horrified them both.

One of the difficulties of sex is that it doesn't – in the grander scheme of things – last terribly long. Even at its extreme, we are talking of an activity that might only rarely occupy two hours, or approximately the length of a Catholic Mass.

How might our society enable Tomas and Jen, and others like them, to advance towards a better outcome? First, by recognizing that neither need has the moral advantage: wanting love more than sex, or even instead of it, isn't 'better' or 'worse' than the reverse. Both needs have their place in our human repertoire of feelings and desires. Second, as a society, we have to find ways to make sure that these two needs can be freely claimed, without fear of blame or moral condemnation. We have to mitigate the taboos surrounding both appetites, so as to minimize the necessity of dissimulation and thereby the heartbreak and guilt it causes. [So] long as the only way to get sex is to feign being in love, some of us will lie and make a run for it. And so long as the only way to have a chance of finding long-term love is to hold ourselves out as devil-may-care adventurers ready to have no-strings-attached sex with near strangers in a motel, others of us are going to be at risk of feeling painfully abandoned the next morning.

Over-assuming to connect the dots forwards: connect backwards only makes more sense—collect in the present and forage from the past.

If you're feeling intimidated, let them stretch you.

[Don't ask what's their favourite X or most important Y.]

I love you today.

[The accountant is accountable and therefore can get emotional about numbers not lining up.]

You remove the clothes of your soul when traveling.

[I love seeing someone living their extraness.]

We're accustomed to carry out activities with some kind of objective. Normalizing this makes it uncomfortable when nothing is being accomplished. Finishing something early and confronting stillness and silence invokes a reflex to fill space by checking your phone or notifications, distracting yourself for fear of a void. It feels wrong to simply breathe, stretch, exercise, practice capoeira movements outside the context of a structured activity: "can't just sit and breathe for the rest of my life, gotta actually do something". Nothing is possible without breathing: mental and physical health is necessary for accomplishing anything, so it's strange that we're afraid to connect with it in an unstructured context.

Each moment of stillness is actually a gift: we can celebrate an opportunity to focus on the gaps. We're always breathing in the background, so stopping gives us a chance to pay attention to the whitespace, or darkspace. Enjoy connecting with it like meeting an old friend. The tendency to ask "I did my breath, now what?" might be an anxiety about the activity not having a well-defined start and end time, so we can practice being there without expectations, and when something compels us into action, we are free to move on.