For once, this is not one of my own images. My friend Billie Mercer captured this timeless shot on Sunday evening while strolling her neighbourhood in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. I asked Billie if I could post her photo on my blog, and of course she agreed. Come to think of it, it’s now six years since I last spent Christmas in Mexico, and images like this bring back happy memories for our family.
Well on a personal note, I’ve big plans for 2009, not least making an early start on a book about charities and innovation. I promise to share more about this in January!
Wherever you may be, I wish you a Happy Christmas and a very peaceful New Year.
Amy Sample Ward tagged me in her five-a-day-post, following the mindapples ’meme’ started (I think) by Andy Gibson of The School Of Everything, and brought to my attention initially by Tessy Britton.
We’re asked what five things we do every day (or almost every day) to stay mentally healthy. So here goes…
Listen to a TED talk. I do this often - or more accurately on those mornings when I answer my daily five o’clock alarm call, which if I’m honest, is about two or three times a week. TED talks typically last 20 minutes and rarely fail to inspire. My all-time favourite is Ken Robinson’s witty and moving rallying call for creating an education system that nurtures creativity. Genius.
Explore Flickr. I first fell under the spell of the Flickr photo-sharing community in 2004, and in my opinion there is still very little on the web that can match it. Every day I look to see who may have viewed my own photostream and then click through to Flickr Explore. There’s no greater pleasure for me than attempting to capture the beauty of the world around us, and my family in it - even with my little compact camera. We live in a visual world that is becoming more and more visual, and if you’ve yet to experience Flickr, then perhaps this is the perfect place to start.
Day dream. Whether I’m sitting in a favourite chair, looking out the window of a moving train, or on the seashore, or at the summit of the Tor, daydreaming is my #1 tool for creativity and I although I may not allocate time for it, I do it every day without fail. I cannot really plan for it, although I surround myself at home, around my desk, with physical things, often tiny things, each with a special memory attached to it. For example, take the tiny screw with the now infinitesimal fleck of turquoise paint. Looking at it instantly transports me back to 1991; it had slowly loosened itself over the course of a bumpy 12-hour journey on a ‘chicken bus’ from Guatemala City to Flores. Near our final destination, it had dropped into my lap. I decided to keep it. One day, if I ever write well enough, I might tell the whole story. (I was almost daydreaming there for a minute.)
I should add that I also daydream on purpose, with a purpose; often to play out positive scenarios that I wish to happen that day, or in the future. In my daydreams I replay good times past, and imagine the good times still to come, when even the world’s injustices may be put right.
Listen to music - or more particularly, an anthem. Current favourite is Sigur Rós epic Hoppípolla, which packs a real emotional punch, especially now I associate it with a short film I watched at an Action for Children charity event in October.
Be generous. I’m not certain of it, but I think I’m a pretty generous sort. I never expect anything in return, but it nearly always comes anyway; often when I least expect it, but when I have most reason to be grateful for it. Tools like Twitter make it easy to share and reward you in spades for doing so. And it only takes a minute to reciprcate. I’m reminded of something Guy Kawasaki once said: Eat like a bird; poop like an elephant. Finally… being generous can be as easy as making someone smile, or sharing a laugh.
After finishing this list and glancing back at what I have written, it becomes obvious to me that all of it helps me stay grounded, and to keep my balance and perspective.
You can’t fake genuine emotion. Barack Obama connects and inspires. Did you see the tear-streaked faces of those gathered in Grants Park in downtown Chicago on Tuesday night? They were not mere spectators, but active participants as Obama called for a shared vision of the future - using We, not You or I as a subject.
Photo: David Katz/Obama for America. Licensed under Creative Commons on Flickr
I first met Don José in 1993, which is when I took the photo on the left. And this is his chair. Not just any chair; he made this one himself.
Don José is one hundred years old, or thereabouts. Nobody knows, not even Don José. His birth certificate, along with countless other documents, was destroyed by fire during the Cristero War in 1920s Mexico.
All of his adult life he’s lived in the small town of Tolimán, in the state of Querétaro. It used to be so green here that every year they held a festival to celebrate the advocado. This has since been re-named the “semi-desert festival” as the land has become arid and the top-soil has turned to dust. On a small plot of land half way up the hill they call “Calvary”, Don José built a tiny house of adobe and surrounded it with a prickly-pear cacti fence.
From that spot Don José has seen it all. Like the day the first motor car pulled into town causing one poor old soul to drop dead with the shock of it all. He is fond of telling how around the time of the Mexican Revolution (which cost a million lives) people used to hack the silver coins clean in half for want of small change.
When he was a young man he built spectacular ‘castillos’ - firework-towers. He lost half of one of the fingers on his left hand, a hazard of the job if you were a ‘cohetero’. He then worked for my wife’s grandfather, and long afterwards continued to look after the house, tend the garden, and harvest the nuts when my in-laws were away for long periods.
Don José is honest to the bone and fiercely loyal. He has very few material possessions, but is hugely generous of spirit. In his own words he is a “a good servant”.
He attributes his longevity to the occasional sip of rough tequila and a smoke - one cigarette in the morning, another just before bed - “for the soul”.
During a call ‘home’ over the weekend, my wife learned that Don José had passed away on Wednesday. According to tradition, he was buried the following day. So we lit a candle for him, and remembered.
I hope this doesn’t sound trite or patronising. I wanted to write something about him, so you can understand why I feel so lucky to have known Don José.
Kudos to Simon Berry and the distributed Colalife team, for this one, and their intelligent and relentless campaign.
Just this morning, Mark Charmer of Akvo alerted me to a United Nations University study, which says providing sanitation and safe water is the top route to reducing world poverty.
Why is there no global search engine for good news?
Imagine… a humungous aggregator of all the positive good that millions of people have done today. The tiny, but not so insignificant acts of kindness and philanthropy, which if joined together would add up to one heck of a powerful narrative for a more just world.
Bad news happens fast and travels fast, while a good story can take much longer to blossom and bear fruit.
Where are the stories of the courageous people who through their own efforts, or with a little leg up such as a Kiva loan, overcome their material poverty to create a brighter tomorrow for themselves and their communities, one person at a time.
There’s a lot of doom and gloom around at the moment. Even the last item on the late evening news - the one that is intended to make us forget the previous 25 minutes of bad news - well, even that has recently dropped off the end of the bulletin. It seems it’s all bad news.
Bloody hell, why can’t those news people get some perspective. Can’t they find just one, simple but remarkable thing that someone, or some group has done today with real and lasting social impact? Did they bother to look?
If you’re reading this and work for a charity - this is an invitation to demonstrate the positive impact of your work, more than you do today. Don’t tell me what £50 will buy for ’someone like’; show me what £50 has achieved. Better still, let me watch a video of Fatima (a real person) that will bring me to within a heartbeat of your work. I’ll even donate towards buying a new computer, if you show me that the old one was used to empower a network of activists to make a positive difference.
I do not want to feel remote, guilty and helpless. I want to feel inspired and involved in making good stuff happen, right now.
We all want to be part of a good news story. Good news begets more good news.
And remember, today something good did happen. For a start, thousands and thousands of people participated in Blog Action Day.
Maybe it’s because I’m a glass-is-half-full kinda guy, but please tell me some good news, and I’ll gladly pass it on.
What are your ideas for making the good news more visible?
I was going to write about something else for Blog Action Day. I was going to write about Save the Children’s Kroo Bay and DfID’s bloggers. I’ll mention them, because they’re worth your attention.
I’m shortly going to be doing some work with Global Giving UK, to embed some more good news around the social web.
I know this is simplistic, and I’d never have dreamt making this sort of comparison when I studied Development Economics two decades ago.
But wait a minute, when other, less powerful nations needed bailouts in the past, weren’t these accompanied by stringent conditions? At the same time the rich nations exalted the “invisible hand” of market capitalism, they also attached “conditionalities” to the loans called “structural adjustment programmes“. The poorest suffered the most. The bankers and government ministers did OK.
Of course, I’m not surprised by these double standards. It just leaves a bitter taste in the mouth when at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Gordon Brown advocates a “new global order, founded on transparency, not opacity”.
We do need a new global order. One based on fairness, equality, and justice for all. Not this.
I was honoured to do some work with Amnesty UK last year. Hat tip to Marc van Gurp and his brilliant Osocio blog for pointing me to this tour de force.
I spent much of the last week in Cornwall with the family. We pitched up at the excellent Treen Farm Campsite, where I am indebted to Kevin for recommending I purchase some storm pegs! Busy working week ahead with two trips up to London, beginning tomorrow.
Just returned from a weekend camping with some friends and their dog in North Devon. Wonderful site in Morthoe. Already looking forward to Cornwall next week. Not long for my wife to wait for her wrist-watch, which got left in a side pocket before we packed away our tent.
Why is there no global search engine for good news? 
