Ed Dowding

Posters in the Hub Westminster with typographical design by Robert Reed.

Source: This is Reed

The commuter traffic jam is the peak of man’s unhappiness.

It’s a situation outside of your control, probably on the way to a location you don’t want to be at, at a time you didn’t choose. It is noisy, shamefully inefficient, encourages mis-directed frustration at one’s fellows, and you have absolutely zero ability to remove yourself from the situation. At least, not without Falling Down.

There are a few of ‘traffic jams’ in my life. London is one of them. A recent Facebook chat made me realised that facebook is another. The cyclic stop / start samsara, the echo chamber of tribal opinion abutting the cacophony of a billion voices…

It turns out I can only tolerate a certain amount of ‘traffic jam time’ and maintain any kind of optimism, creativity, happiness, or compassion for my fellows.

Since right now I’m in a position where I can not change London, I’m only going to sit in the facebook jam for at most a few minutes per day, mainly to post on there as Sustaination.

For everyone who’s keen to say “at last / I told you so / phew now I can get back on facebook”, jolly well done.

But please don’t ‘like’ this post: it doesn’t make me in the least bit happy to do this. Relieved, yes, but happy, no.

It’s a personal failure that I’m choosing to take this action, because I love hearing your stories, and seeing all the great things everyone is up to. I find facebook a place for togetherness, support, connection, and delight; and I’m going to miss it.

See you in the real world,

x

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Wanta change the world?
There’s nothing
To it

From Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

For the ‘personal growth’ diaries:

—-

Dear xxxx

I was having a chat with xxxx today who brought it to my attention that I’d been a little rude to you during the mentors evening, ripping on you as hard as I did about your decision to work with Wonga.

I apologise unreservedly for making you feel at all unwelcome as a guest at Wayra. Your intellect, insight, competence, and generosity of spirit were never in question, and that you have chosen to freely volunteer these talents to help startup companies is tremendous, kind hearted, and virtuous of you.

In that decision I admire you and hope to emulate your actions where I can.

It is your decision to sell these same talents to Wonga that I find so perplexing. It’s the dissonance between understanding the problems so clearly and the chosen solution which leads me to question intensely and challenge remorselessly.

Sometimes – all too often – I do this less constructively than I’d like. I’m not at all happy with this personal and social flaw and am actively working on reconciling these facets of myself. Again, for my tone I apologise unreservedly.

I should be working with you to build upon your innate inquisitiveness, to challenge you to greater answers and to point out to you the larger opportunities Wonga is missing. A more beautiful world is surely possible. I know you believe this because you’re a generous giver who is passionate about how Wonga provides a better solution.

But I believe you can find an even better one.

I remember we were talking about the nature and characteristics of money: who is permitted to issue it, who decides how much they issue and why, what money actually represents – or could represent, whether and how much interest it bears, its implicit need for economic growth, and what levers could we apply to money to make it work more effectively for us. After all we designed it as a tool to help us get things done, yet currently it seems to be holding us back from doing so much that we need to do.

I hope you’ll be interested in this paper by one of the contributing architects of the Euro, Richard Douthwaite:

http://files.uniteddiversity.com/Money_and_Economics/Ecology-of-Money.pdf

It’s a quick read, contains some great examples, and provokes a great deal of thought about aspects which people often go their entire lives without questioning. I’d love to know what you make of it if you have an hour to read it.

Have a very happy Christmas, and all the very best for the new year. I look forward to meeting again and promise to do my very best to talk only from a place of enthusiastic support for excellence.

May 2013 bring you new and inspiring opportunities,

This is cool. I didn’t know this even existed!

Exmoor National Park has been designated the first International Dark Sky Reserve in Europe!

A view of the stars is a view of our natural heritage and a spectacular quality of Exmoor’s night time landscape. Dark night skies are a declining resource, threatened by development and the effects of intrusive artificial lighting. To help protect Exmoor’s natural environment the National Park Authority aims to achieve International Dark Sky Reserve status, an award administered by the International Dark Skies Association IDA. Through careful management of artificial lighting the darkness of the night can be protected with benefits to wildlife, people and our natural environment.

via Dark Skies.

This is very like the Stargazing St idea at the London Sustainability Jam which hoped to bring such schemes to cities.