We’re near the end of intermission. A few things to keep in mind:
- We’re still in the (long, slow) process of integrating our existing mailing list with the private community. Progress has been made, but as mentioned: long, slow.
- We’ve compiled enough for a book of text, but given the current vibe weather it may no longer be structurally relevant. As a result, it’s been relegated to the “fun hobby that will turn into a zine someday” bucket.
- We now have an introductory course around value-based design that will greet newcomers to this list. Once people complete the course, they’ll be able to read the rest of the list.
- Speaking of what we’ll post here, our updates will be considerably more freeform going forward. We believe most common design discourse isn’t focused on the necessary work of understanding & leveraging power, and so we’ll be following a path that looks a little different.
- Draft will be closed for holiday break starting on December 20, so we won’t be writing then anyway.
A brief life update, which is about as much of a bummer as you would expect it to be
I spent the past week mostly doing what you would expect: disassociating in a park in Amsterdam, looking up real estate in Amsterdam, and moving large sums of money around my bank accounts while in Amsterdam. I have also been on a series of brief 2.5-hour calls, and being in Amsterdam is quite nice for these because nobody in the states wakes up until around 2p local time, so I get a lot of time to do the aforementioned activities before the calls begin.
I am, for the record, unsurprised at the result, but it is no less horrifying. If you want to know where things are going politically in America, I invite you to bike daily during Chicago rush hour for a couple of years before a major election. You will learn more about basic human behavior – what motivates us, how oppressed people are, how angry they are, whether they exist in right relationship to the collective or are willing to burn it all down and never look back – than you ever thought possible. In 2018–9, people were, generally speaking, nice to you on your bike. 2023-4, on the other hand, has been the most violent two seasons of my life, entirely perpetuated by a certain strain of man whom a flotilla of pundits is now loudly attempting to psychoanalyze. I started telling Lianna about some of this, and she got so upset that I changed the subject and sent her lots of pictures of my dogs, instead. And now we are here, in this place, wondering what comes next.
Spaceholding
When I speak of my job as primarily involving spaceholding, this is, roughly, what I’m referring to. It is my entire job to understand the broader trends, to exist at a higher level than my clients, and then to synthesize all of that for them, provide clarity about how to move, and then above all hold space for their feelings about the decisions at play.
We make most of our decisions from an emotional center, whether we want to admit it or not. And when you have a consultant come in and suggest a lot of bold things, then you’re letting go of some power. That influences your agency to make bold decisions yourself. And that brings up emotions! And so hence spaceholding.
About 5% of my job involves actual design, and the entire rest is effectively unteachable, because it’s entirely rooted in understanding the messy human issues that lie behind every decision that we make.
I don’t know what the future holds for us, and I’m just as scared as everyone. I’m responding to the current moment by going into hermit mode a little, narrowing my focus, protecting my field, and connecting exclusively with my clients & close people. I invite some form of the same for you: find what grows in front of you, and water it. There is always something you can do.
What I’ve been reading
This piece on how care doesn’t scale. Again, one must put the totality of their focus in front of those whom they love.
Take care of yourselves, take care of those who are worthy of your love, take care of your local communities. The rest is noise.