Tenor of Cooperation
Yesterday, my friend Malinda was part of a 5 borough choir performing a civic call to action to address climate change. It occurred in the open air space of Lincoln Center: Search for Spring - a crowd action for optimism
While the event was effective (it made me cry and I offer that as a deep complement - I have worked on climate change for 20 years when no one cared - and here it was being enacted as public cultural event, no longer contested, but almost commonplace, which for me was calming, we are finally here in the cognitive moment of our own cause and effect), it was a technical (auditory) failure. The voices of 600 singers - a kind of democratic fora- were squashed in actual architecture, surrounding car horns and emergency sirens, and audience conversation. At some point, I too participated in the anarchy and turned to the stranger next to me and said something like - this is why democracy is so hard, even when you have 600 people working together in close proximity, all kinds of things jeopardize their messaging.
Granted 600 people in a city of 10 million is not that many. But 600 people in one place at one time, engaging in one event, collectively - that is something.
I was reminded of when I first moved to NYC and wondered, how in the world does NYC get all of its carrots (how many carrots do NYers eat in a day? how many truckloads? when do they come? wouldn’t it be fun if ‘carrot trucks’ had carrots on the outside so we could see a proud truck salad parading our city?!)
I’m pleased that the vector of thought around addressing climate change is becoming common, and that events like these are happening in our commons for intentional and unintentional spectators. It’s finally happening.
Afterwards, 5 of us went for snacks, and during our conversation, Caitlin introduced me to The New Games - games where no one wins!
I asked for an example and she said - well
imagine a tug of war.
imagine people lined up on two sides on the rope.
and a middle perpendicular line - an arbitrary but real point of crossing.
Now, imagine one side starts ‘winning’.
so then some members of the winning side move over to the ‘losing’ side.
I’m not really sure What To Do With This
But for me, it asks: What does it mean to Cooperate?
Right now, everyone is throwing around ‘cooperation’ like it’s a new invention. in my mind, humans cooperate ALL THE TIME.
However, most of our outward facing goals are conceptually insideous and financially inequitable and this undermines the cooperators - we all see it, all the time!
So I like the idea of playing a game where everyone plays and no one wins.
But I would also like for us to design a game (like addressing climate change) where everyone plays and the future wins.
Definition of Tenor:
the course of thought or meaning that runs through something written or spoken; purport; drift.
continuous course, progress, or movement.
[based on tenere ‘to hold’ as in hold the melody]
In my twenties - when existentialism hit me hardest, I used to divide 1 by 6 billion people to understand the scale of my voice on Earth
1/6,000,000,000 = 0.000000000167
Thank you Malinda for being one voice. For inviting me. For being a part of the whole. For reminding me a part in the whole is a part of the whole. Both conceding the painful truth of that small one, but also advancing the integrity and force that one is also.
