we’re starting a new internship program,
here’s what i’m thinking:
as a vegan design studio, we want to create a culture of people sensitive to their environment,
a culture of people who cannot do harm,
a culture of people who are connected to nature and life around them,
a culture of people who aim for a world without suffering.
* i would like to call this a culture of slight spirituality.
and spirituality is not religion,
it is very far away from religion.
it’s not a sect either.
* by spirituality i don’t mean rules and regulation,
i don’t decide what’s right or wrong,
people just have a sensitivity to what’s harmful and what’s helpful,
an awareness of what not to do, and of what to do.”
two people wouldn’t argue about whether they should do this or not.
they just know. no one decides.
this is what i mean by slight spirituality.
and this is where the internship program starts. each intern or group of interns look for an event, activity, campaign, program, etc.
this activity should help towards creating this culture of slight spirituality.
activities could be vegan restaurants (or kiosks),
positive thinking,
meditations,
tree planting,
promoting cycling,
eco-farms,
Deep Democracy,
etc.
they cannot be anti-something.
they have to be pro-something.
for example:
they cannot be anti-war, nor anti-smoking, nor anti-racism, nor anti-violence, etc.
in other words, they have to promote an alternative to things we don’t like.
also in other words, we don’t want to talk about the things we’re against,
and we don’t want to fight the things that are harmful.
we just want to promote the things we are with.
after the intern finds the activity he would like to promote,
he’ll contact the organization or group that is organizing the activity,
and propose to design the communication materials for free.
if the organization agrees, then the job of the intern is to design the communication materials of his choice.
while working on the project, interns will benefit from the direct expert advice and experience of team .:there for design… (from people in lebanon and the UK). they will benefit from experts in communication, in the way the mind works, and in making sure the messages come across to the audience. so, we do require that interns are highly motivated and have a genuine care to getting messages across in a clear and appealing manner.
we also promote collaborative design. this means that we don’t believe that we are gods of communication, and that we know it all. and whenever possible, we involve clients, audience, and people from various fields in the project, and we allow them to design and communicate the message(s). along the way, we act as facilitators, making sure things head in the right direction.
.:there for design… will cover whatever project expenses we are comfortable with covering,
and/or we can collaborate with the organization to share expenses.
projects will be published under .:there for design… with credit to the designer(s) under a creative commons license for everyone to re-use.
that way, .:there for design… will be collaborating free-of-charge with everyone who is contributing towards this culture of slight spirituality.
what do you think?
i’d love to know your thoughts, whether you like the idea or not (both ways, do leave your comment below).
much love and play,
william
When does this start, and how do we participate?
This is amazing William. Thank you for doing it 🙂
thank you for believing in it. 🙂
i just love you ya therefordesign! and i hope you know how much i do 😀
and i absolutely adore this. yalla i’m in!
you can’t imagine how much i love you too! hanane kaména! i’m soo happy you adore this! great things are happening nadine, thanks for being their when they do 🙂
Hello dears
wonderfull idea, very simple and very effective for all, I see that all “positive people” will benefit of it, and will spread those values around…
it is time now to Positive NGOs and project to interact to this call.
for us “khayal for Arts and Education” we will spread this idea, and we will facilitate your work by supporting this idea and youth willing to participate in it.
we are in…. lead us to an alternative way of acting, of seeing, of feeling….
we will talk concretly on integrating our projects in your plans…
hugs
thank you nehmeh! we love you too!
i love how to said it: “an alternative way of acting, of seeing, of feeling…”
that’s exactly where we’re headed.
and we’d love to see everyone headed that way!
love!
“Culture of Spirituality” !!! Of course, dearest William.
Like always, your thoughts and endeavors are strikingly insightful.
Promoting “Advocacy or Advocatory” Design for the Culture of Spirituality is undoubtedly a noble cause. A “cause”, therefore political!
Increasing the awareness of what’s right or wrong is also political.
Fostering benevolent internships (as facilitators) is great, but it is also an issue of funneling efforts in a certain direction / goal, therefore it is political.
To sum up, dear Willy, the claimed areligious, apolitical, and almost unearthly rhetoric of yours has to face the inevitable need for a stance, therefore political.
It is not easy for me to convey all my thoughts in a concise manner. I will try, instead, to express my anguish, for I fear that your efforts (and with them those of all volunteers) may not serve the “holiest” causes that are urging us. Namely I want to speak about issues such as laicity, discrimination, injustice (in all its aspects), etc.
It is not my intention to annoy you with my feedback, but you have asked for it.
Beaucoup d’amitiés et de respect.
Nicolas the 3rd
hey nic! absolutely loved your comment!
and i agree with everything you said.
i would like to clarify a point that i believe many people confuse,
and these words are not written specifically for you, as i know you’re very well aware of these.
i write these words for the record, and for those who get confused by the following issue:
the word politics can mean many things.
what i have issues with are corrupt governmental politics,
politics for monetary gain on the count of the civil masses,
politics with unjust hidden agendas,
politics for self preservation of one individual on the count of the masses, etc.
what i don’t have an issue with, are personal politics with “un-harmful” intensions,
and i even don’t have a problem with “non-corrupt” governmental politics with genuinely beneficial intentions.
so yes, i do make a stance, and yes i do have strong personal politics, and a clear goal.
and yes i do have a vision of a culture of spirituality, with a transparent and clear agenda that serves this vision.
and this vision for a culture of spirituality doesn’t only cover the environment and non-violence.
people who like to promote and create awareness to non-discrimination, laicity, justice, etc, are also contributing to this culture of spirituality.
this a very broad issue, yet with a very specific and targeted aim.
there will be people promoting healthy environmental alternatives,
people promoting vegan food,
people promoting positive thinking,
people promoting non-violence,
and list is endless.
the key behind this vision, is that i don’t want to promote nagging,
i don’t want to promote fighting injustice,
i don’t want to promote fighting discrimination.
i want to promote alternatives to this and this and that.
other people might have a calling to fight the things that they hate.
instead, i promote alternatives to the things i don’t like.
in other words, i don’t want to “say” stop this and this and that.
i want to “do” the alternative to this and this and that.
so for me, i create my own “politics” which go in a certain direction,
and when lots of other people create their own “politics” which go in a similar direction,
a culture is created.
I just came across this, loved the idea and i could sure use a good internship to work on during summer, will it still be valid at that time. I will have just enough experience by then to get me going.
it’ll surely be still valid. unless we announce it, the program will still be there 🙂
love u
Hola!
I fear being redundant, but this idea has swept me off my feet! Just in time, just in context, and just in good faith! I think it’s definitely a felt-need right now to spread spirituality in our culture, there is this theme of lack and its suffocating everyone!
Me want to help…want to contribute…I’ll share ideas as they come…oh yes this was just my intro…hehe
loots of love to all!
Love the idea and very interested in helping. WE need this type of activity and similar ATTITUDES in our society. Please do get in touch to see if I contribute to this effort. 🙂
.-= Rasha´s last blog ..Thought for the day =-.
I’m in for sure but I think we must invite Pakistani people too.
hahaha! just for the record: “by pakistani karim means me.”
and real pakistani people are most most welcome.
love you man.
I love it, I think it’s a brilliant idea! Really competes with all these silly internship programmed ( scan, trace, photocopy, make tea & coffee) and so on… Really want to be involved in this. Big hugs and good luck.
very interesting.
thank you hala! can i ask what you do best (the thing you love doing)?
love.
I am not good with words – So I shall keep it simple.
It is pure – Simple – Beautiful and very much needed.
I may be wrong – But the entire idea felt a bit like it had a “hippie” touch to it.
Altho I got not much in hands – Will be delighted to try and help in any way.
-Congratulations 🙂
thanks sara!
i got the same reaction about the hippie thing 3 times already 🙂
i’m not a hippie and the idea didn’t come from there, hehe
although i believe they had a good thing going if it weren’t for the drugs 🙂
what do you mean by: i got not much in hands?
you mean you have too much work, or you have little to offer?
either way if you feel you want to be involved, just share your thoughts and things will fall into place.
love you.
Hello :]
Um what I meant was …
Well I’ve just graduated less than a year ago – so I don’t have that much experience really but yeah :] would really like to contribute (Even though, still don’t really know how am I supposed to do so! Hehe).
🙂
cool reply! thanks for the excitement, i love that.
you can try the internship program sometime down the road,
or you could just trust that the answer will come when the time is right 🙂
email me if your intuition takes you one way or another 🙂
(you can find my email on http://www.therefordesign.net)
love.
i always thought that it’s impossible to spread such a culture of “spirituality”.. but well here’s a first step. yeayyy!!
this is what we should do, take initiatives instead of nagging.
thank you for that, it’s a genius idea.
i have been happy at all times to be part of the team, and inspired by all the initiatives.. well.. i am even more happy and inspired now 🙂
much much love
.-= hanane´s last blog ..BEYROUTES a guide to Beirut =-.
you’re part of the genius hanane!
love you!
Perhaps your new interns can put on and promote a TEDx event as their first assignment. http://www.ted.com/tedx . I hear there were some good ones spontaneously organized in European airports while people were stuck in transit this week. It’s a brilliant idea.
I take issue with the use of the term “spirituality” as you know. “Slight spirituality”, I might be able to live with! You could have just as well called it
culture of no-harm
culture of mindfulness
culture of connectedness
or some such thing. Buy hey, you’re the god of communications, so who am I to say what you should call your initiative. [wink]
Is the idea that organizations can also approach you and ask for help with projects they have that promote this culture? Your post doesn’t exactly say that.
Thanks for linking to deep democracy (and I don’t think it needs to be capitalized). I am taking it as a compliment that our website has improved enough that you’re not embarrased to link to it. [smile]
Thank you Aftab for your lovely reply!
I love the TED talk idea.
i understand that the term spirituality is controversial.
i’ve also experienced that different people interpret it differently.
some people I’ve talked to cannot really separate it from religion.
for this reason I took the time to explain my interpretation of the term.
I also used the term slight spirituality for this very reason as well.
I just felt that using any other term doesn’t make a big enough vision to make all the effort worthwhile.
for me at least, the vision has to be big enough to keep the fire going on the long run.
another reason is that I’m targeting people who arn’t afraid of the word spirituality.
I’m targeting people who need a very slight push to make a change either in themselves or their environment.
people who just feel they need to ‘belong’ with like minded people.
those who are still pushed back by the word spirituality will be more receptive once this culture kicks off (according to this vision).
you like pulling my leg, bad you, hehe, I remember saying that we’re NOT gods, and that we DON’T know it all (smile).
I link to deep democracy because I believe it plays towards this culture of slight spirituality.
thank you Aftab always. love you.
i didn’t mention organization applying, because we’re not equipped/capable of handling such a load of requests of it arises.
i also didn’t ask interns to apply (they could if they choose).
the single minded message is to spread the vision; let the world know.
we’re piloting the idea with 2 interns right now.
after that we’ll ask organizations and interns to apply.
i vote for Clowning around!!! 🙂 while cycling!!!!
love love love
great idea! I love it. we need to practice without bikes first, right Wissam 🙂 lu u cuz!
let Sabine learn how to juggle TWO balls in the air without making them fall before even thinking of clowning on a tricycle, let alone a unicycle 😛
hahaha, sabine and us should practice being clowns, sabine the juggling clown, and né7na [sensored]
i am being serious…and you’re messing up… clowning while cycling would be a great idea for spreading love… and good vibes around
ok deal. i’m in. let’s discuss it on saturday and then finalize it on sunday. deal?
Oh!!!
Ok… 😛
I agree… 😀
let her go juggle then 😛
but but but wait…
I was too enthusiastic by the idea that i forgot to say my clown’s catch phrase:
3EIIIIIIIIB!!!
and Soapie… you get HYPER-IRRITATED when you tumble the two juggling balls down the floor… I’d love to see what good vibes you’ll be spreading around, as you’ll be tumbling down the hill while clown-cycling… 😛
but a clown always says yes…
so YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!! 😛
I would love to see you give a talk at TED talk so that the resonance of your ideas reach far and away. I am impressed.
Namasté
uhanna
i’d love to give a TED talk!
10x youh
love this love this love this…
Though I am not the best person to take part in such groups… (due to my lack of creativity and excess of negativity and grumpiness), Don’t spare me in any way you think I could be of help…
keep up the good work monsieur…
two thumbs up… 🙂
thank you, you. I’ll always need the special services of your iPhone. plus, keep in mind that if you ever need some communication for any of your projects that help with this culture of spirituality, do knock our door! love you.
my iPhone, old and new to come are at your services 🙂
and I will surely know which door to knock when the light bulb flashes… 🙂
love you more…