A passion for the possible

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"Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible." - William Sloane Coffin

A notebook about how we work, learn, love and live.

This week Michelle Obama suggested that "something wonderfully magical is in the air".

"(It's) a familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for far too long...It’s the contagious power of hope, the anticipation, the energy, the exhilaration of once again being on the cusp of a brighter day... America, hope is making a comeback."

But she warned us not be overly optimistic: "As we embrace this renewed sense of hope, let us not forget the despair we have felt. Let us not forget what we are up against."

Her caution reminds me of William Sloan Coffin's assertion that "Hope is not the same as joy that things are going well...but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed."

I like the idea of working for something just because it is good. Here's some good things I found this week.

Happy Friday.

Learning, Hope
"Hope is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism."

Last week Nick Cave visited Stephen Colbert's late night show. He recalled a question a reader had posted on his Red Hand Files newsletter: “Do you still believe in us human beings?” His reply went viral.

"Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position — it is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism.

"Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like — such as reading to your little boy, showing him something you love, singing him a song, or putting on his shoes — keeps the devil down in the hole.

"It says the world and its inhabitants have value, and are worth defending.

"It says the world is worth believing in.

"In time, we come to find that this is so."

Blog Post: Open Thread: What Are You Feeling Hopeful About?

Civics, Social Imagination
Mapping the transition from today to tomorrow

Gus Speth is author of They Knew: The U.S. Federal Government’s Role in Causing the Climate Crisis (MIT Press). He has served as Dean of the Yale School of the Environment, as President of the World Resources Institute, and as Administrator of the UN Development Programme. He was Chair of the US Council on Environmental Quality during the Carter Administration. He knows his way around policy and politics.

He wrote this book 12 years ago. He said then that while it is up to us as citizens to inject values of justice, fairness, and sustainability into our system, it was abundantly clear that reformist approaches to our government were not enough.

"Pursuing reform within the system can help, but what is now desperately needed is transformative change in the system itself. To deal successfully with all the challenges America now faces, we must therefore complement reform with at least equal efforts aimed at transformative change to create a new operating system that routinely delivers good results for people and planet."

He mapped ten specific transformations that held "the key to moving to a new political economy."

He acknowledged that such systemic "change along these dimensions will require a great struggle, and it will not come quickly. The new values, priorities, policies, and institutions that would constitute a new political economy capable of regularly delivering good results are not at hand and won’t be for many years."

As we dare imagine what it might be like to have national leaders who support justice, fairness, and sustainability, the utility of this guide to "creating a new operating system" might be more apparent than it was in 2012.

Book Excerpt: America the Possible: A Manifesto

Video: America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy (Gus Speth)

Short Summary Video: America the Possible

Habitat, Public Spaces
Helping communities thrive by turning schoolyards into spaces that serve well-being, development, learning, and social cohesion.

The Learning Landscape playground at Denver's McMeen Elementary celebrates the community in which students live, learn and play. The theme of “Sense of Place” was developed to compliment the school’s curriculum where each grade studies a different level of their community.

"When Lois Brink’s kids were in elementary school, she remembers being struck by how uninviting their schoolyard was. She described it as 'scorched earth' — little more than a dirt field coated in 'I don’t know how many decades of weed retardant' and some aging play equipment. But Brink, a landscape architect and professor at the University of Colorado Denver, didn’t just see a problem. She saw fertile ground for a solution. Over the next dozen years, she helped lead a transformation of nearly 100 elementary school grounds across Denver into more vibrant, greener spaces, dubbed 'Learning Landscapes.'" - Claire Elise Thompson

Article: How Greener Schoolyards Benefit Kids — and The Whole Community

Learning, Mindfulness
Educational institutions could place a higher value on the inner life of young people by supporting a culture of contemplation.

"Picking up son from school, as usual he wanted to play in the schoolyard with the other kids. Game was tag, sort of. You get immunity if you assume lotus position and meditate, complete with ommmmm. And then you run around like a ninja. At one point there were 6 kids meditating in a circle. Portland public schools? Or just generic left coast? 'YOU CA-AN'T GET ME; I AM ENLI-IGHTENED; NEENER NEENER NEENER'". - Todd Fahrner

"Gaining fluency with the contemplative practices – like becoming an artist or athlete – requires not only time and attention, but social and institutional support. Where do we learn and refine the skills to be an artist or an athlete? We go to school. An intellectual education alone does not nourish the whole person. For that, schools additionally provide resources to train in creative and athletic skills – but very few other life skills, and fewer that promote flourishing and transcendence in the way contemplative practice can." - Michael R Sheehy

Article: What If We Learned Contemplation Like We Do Arts or Sports?

Mission, Vision, Purpose
"What did you mean to say?"

Our friend and colleague, John Abrams, has sent his latest manuscript to his publisher. Look for From Founder to Future: A Business Roadmap to Impact, Durability and Employee Ownership next June.

This week he posted a great article on his appreciation of the many people who helped him get it this far. As a writing and communications coach I appreciate his emphasis on clarity of purpose. Before writing anything, from an email to a book, answer three questions: With whom am I speaking? What do I want them to know? What do I want them to do?

Article: The Generosity of Editors

Civics, Third Places
“People feel differently about their bookstore than they do about their grocery store or electronics store.”

The Elliott Bay Book Company is an independently owned bookstore founded by Walter Carr in 1973. Located in the heart of Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, The Elliott Bay Book Company is a full service bookstore, home to over 150,000 titles, set on cedar shelves in a multi-level, inviting unique atmosphere. Image by Steve Walser via CC

"We all know of food deserts: landscapes where there’s no access to fresh produce, just a Taco Bell or two. Less fretted over are the book barrens.

"It is now possible to visit many places in our great democracy and not come anywhere close to a bookstore. (Public libraries are hanging in there — for now — though younger people overwhelmingly experience them through smartphones.)

"Of course, along with bulk orders of Folgers and Cottonelle, one can order many exciting titles to be delivered cheaply — overnight even! — from this amazing online entity named for a river in South America. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. …

"Grossly inadequate, asserts Evan Friss, a historian and husband to a former clerk at Manhattan’s Three Lives, in 'The Bookshop,' a spirited defense of this important, odd and odds-defying American retail category."

Book Review: Browsing Is a Pleasure in This History of the Bookstore

Communication, Drawing
A dad draws the first week of his daughter's life

"The past week has been a wonderful blur. We’ve changed 13,756 diapers and gotten 3 hours of sleep but we’re having a great time.

"Here are some drawings, scribbles and notes..." - Mitchell Volk

Blog Post: One Week

One-liners

Article: A more varied diet would help the world’s economy as well as its health.

Article: Scientists have developed an approach which could generate increasing amounts of solar electricity without the need for silicon-based solar panels.

Article: Researchers have developed a Circularity Index that provides a comprehensive method to quantify circularity in bioeconomic systems.

Article: Alkemis Paint has earned Cradle to Cradle Certified designation for its architectural wellness paint—the world’s first.

Article: Burning Man festival fails to sell out for first time in a decade.

Playlist

"Growing up in a part of South Africa, where the Zulu tradition of a cappella singing is central to the cultural identity of its people and Ladysmith Black Mambazo have been worshipped for decades – their Grammy-winning success an authentication of the fact that the magic of isicathamiya music isn’t restricted to the townships where it flourished – The Joy’s harmonies hark back to yet another vocal tradition. Mbube means ‘lion’, which gives some indication of the elemental power its practitioners summon when bursting into song. This seems to be the lineage into which lead vocalist Duzie seems to be tapping when he cuts loose from the intonations of his co-travellers, as if compelled to commune with the ancestral spirits whose music he invokes."

"...The Joy released their self-titled debut album on 21st June 2024. Recorded live, in real time, at the renowned Church Studios in Crouch End, London and featuring no instruments or overdubs, the 11-track album is a thing of transcendental beauty thanks to the astonishing vocal talent of the 5 group members." - Transgressive Records

Video: The Joy - A Record In A Day - The Film

Weekly Mixtape
Voice first

Playlist: Voice

Image of the Week

Suffragette with Flag. Image from the publisher, Bain News Service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

104 years ago this week, on August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.

"The new amendment was patterned on the Fifteenth Amendment, which protected the right of Black men to vote, and it read:

“'The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.'

"...Suffragists had hoped that women would be included in the Fifteenth Amendment and, when they were not, decided to test their right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment in the 1872 election. According to its statement that anyone born in the U.S. was a citizen, they were certainly citizens and thus should be able to vote. In New York state, Susan B. Anthony voted successfully but was later tried and convicted—in an all-male courtroom in which she did not have the right to testify—for the crime of voting."

"...For the next two decades, the women’s suffrage movement drew its power from the many women’s organizations put together across the country by women of all races and backgrounds who came together to stop excessive drinking, clean up the sewage in city streets, protect children, stop lynching, and promote civil rights."

"On the 104th anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, delegates gathered in Chicago, Illinois, for the Democratic National Convention, where they celebrated Kamala Harris’s nomination for the presidency.

"It’s been a long time coming." - Heather Cox Richardson

Article: Letters from an American, August 18, 2024

What's Love & Work?

Love & Work is the weekly newsletter by me, Mitch Anthony. I help people use their brand - their purpose, values, and stories - as a pedagogy and toolbox for transformation.

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