Episode 16
Post birthday reflections delivered whilst melting in my flat. I talk a bit about medium term goals and how I navigate my life towards them. I also talk about one of these past goals was back in 2012 running http://thoughtmenu.com/
I also talk about the event i’m speaking at on the 27th Sept in Amsterdam. Tickets available here: https://www.codedmatters.nl/event/terrafiction
Quarterly zine; my gift to you ✉️
Waypoints
So today I’m absolutely boiling, apologies if there’s any sound in the background because I’ve got all the windows open, I can hear my neighbour on the phone downstairs, there’s many puppers and doggos in the park, and also there’s planes going overhead.
So that’s a bit annoying but quite frankly It’s just too hot for me to get the room divider thing out and cover it in a red blanket And put it in front of my desk to create a little audio booth like I usually do because i’m absolutely Melting should start off one minute in saying hello to all of the new subscribers Not sure where you’ve come from, but i’m happy to have you here and listening I hope you enjoyed last week’s episode on Speed Gibson.
It was certainly the most ambitious and fun episode that I’ve made so far, dropping in all of the samples and things, and I’m excited to make more like it. So I just turned 33 this week. I can’t really believe it, 33. Considering that I thought I was going to die when I was 17 when I got Crohn’s disease, I think I’ve had a good run so far.
If you’d like to give me a belated birthday present, please go onto iTunes and rate this five stars as it helps other people find it and then they can listen to my dulcet tones too. But more seriously, with my birthday, and the space weather, this week, I’ve been using it as an opportunity to reflect.
Ivy, from CircleThrice.com, calls it a time of mending nets, and if you don’t already subscribe to her newsletter, I highly recommend it. I’ve certainly got a lot out of it.
So what nets have I been mending? Well I’ve been looking at medium and long term goals, talking to Eve about the farm, and looking at all the short and medium term steps, or stepping stones, needed to be crossed to get there.
The trick I’ve always thought is to look for the short term Cairn’s that are just in eyesight. Sometimes these might take you out of sight of your eventual goal. But by having a strong resolution that these waypoints are on the journey, you should optimize your route towards them. Occasionally, in the future, something will happen, or a new opportunity will arise and your present self will have a moment of realization.
That the route or decision taken in the past was exactly the reason this possibility is open to you today. The past and present dissolves and connects together somehow. Past Jay nods at Future Jay in recognition that he was doing his best with what he had at the time. Recently, especially this year, one of those past Cairn was the ThoughtMenu.com, a DIY nomadic talk series that I started in summer of 2012, alongside Mr. Ben Vickers, Gaia Marcus. Congratulations on your recent engagement, by the way, and Susanna Unsworth. Over the course of three years, we had nearly 60 speakers across 12 events, including the four part mind game series that happened during the Olympics, which is exactly six years ago today.
We had events on stacktivism, and we also talked about metanomadism and cryptocurrencies back in 2013. The experience of running these events, taking part in them, and meeting all of the amazing people that we had speak, in large part, has resulted on where I am and what I’m doing today. If you want to check out this event time capsule, a lot of the videos from the talks can be found at thoughtmenu.com/events. In many respects, I see this podcast as one of those Cairn’s. At some point in the future, the skills, time, and effort that I’m putting into this will dissolve and I will nod at my future self going, told you so. In the meantime, it’s just another stepping stone because I have another podcast that I’ll be launching later this year and I hope you’ll listen to that one too.
I’m really looking forward to it. But that’s probably enough of you listening to me about how I try and navigate life. Much of the netmending has been making lists of things like get fitter, grind out work, And be more productive speaking of work after this i’m going to continue sorting out some slides that i’ve got to put together for next week on citizen sci fi and solar punk. And I also need to start thinking about putting together my notes For a talk that i’m giving in amsterdam in september If you’re around i’ll be speaking on the 27th at coded matters Terrafiction an evening program about art sci fi and imagining future worlds and sustainable living on earth and beyond The line in the press release says, Solarpunk researcher and technology theorist Jay Springett lays out the strategic narrative of Land as Platform, which grafts the organisational logic of digital ecologies back onto the living soil.
I think it’s going to be a great talk and some of the other speakers at the event look absolutely fantastic and I’m really looking forward to it. So if you’re in Amsterdam, you can pick up tickets at codedmatters. nl for the 27th of September and the event is Terrafiction. With that said, I think I’m going to end it here, as I’m absolutely dripping, and these huge headphones that I’m wearing aren’t really doing much for my overall body temperature.
If you’re in London, pray for rain, and hope the storms come, and I’ll speak to you next week.
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