DAY 21/20, BODY LOVE, EDUCATION, TRUE POWER IS IN CREATION, CRAFTS DAY, CONNECTIONS DAY, book 4, building

 The next day, Skye (care) made the headlines again and was quoted with: ‘Body love. The problem with the usual approach to health is that we assume something is wrong with our bodies, and we have to fix them. And that makes a good relationship with our bodies bloody difficult. It’s much easier to get to know and love our bodies. That’s how we are motivated to take the best possible care of ourselves.’ Another paper quoted Robin (education): ‘Talking about education includes talking about teacher’s welfare and parent’s welfare,’ Robin Hussan, the renowned education researcher from Cairo and a member of the notorious town project, said yesterday in a speech. She noted that ‘a safe and supportive home is the foundation of a good education. A well trained, strengthened and supported teacher is like sunshine entering through the windows, bringing light, warmth, vision and joy.’ In the second part of her speech, Robin Hussan remarked: ‘It will be a privilege to work with the schools in our town because we will be able to test different approaches to learning, and we will experiment with different kinds of content. One of the most exciting suggestions in my team is the question whether education could start with essentials: our bodies, how to look after our bodies, how to strengthen our bodies and minds, how to communicate, how to overcome fears, how to value mistakes and questions, how to build together, how to look after gardens together, how to get to know nature, how to connect to nature, how to explore, how to treat minor injuries, what to do in an emergency, how to find food, hunt and cook, how to identify herbs and use their medical properties. In short, all the things which will ensure that we are connected to our bodies and our welfare, to our fellow pupils, to our habitat. Learning to read, training to do sums, talking about the stories of the past and the present can be done as an add-on. But those pieces of knowledge aren’t nearly as important as understanding that every mind needs a healthy body, that empowering each other bears the most delicious fruits, and that being part of nature is where we are at home.’ Ripples news, the project’s paper, focused on today’s main theme: The CRAFTS DAY, and Tabansi wrote: TRUE POWER IS IN CREATION is the title of one of the town project’s seven campaigns, and maybe today it will leave its most powerful mark yet. Across the UK, the campaign team prepared more than a hundred thousand events for their CRAFTS DAY. The events cover a multitude of layers, directions, depths, widths. But there are some key directions distinguishable: How do the crafts transform our lives? Our lives as the person who is connected to the creation and shaping process, as the person who is connected to sourcing materials for the crafts, as the person who is connected to someone who is connected to the crafts, as the person who sees, sells or buys a crafted item? And also: How do active crafts workshops transform a family, a home, a street, a neighbourhood, a community? Another direction explores lost, past, existing and future crafts with over a hundred roadshows which all start today, and which provide a chance to apply for a spot in the future town’s crafts community. A related direction, and one of the big highlights, are seventy-seven pop-up workshops of the town project’s company Original Instruments. In tents craftspeople and the public will build instruments together, and in all spots it will also be possible to make music on location. Similar events are organised by other project businesses such as dot. where people can create new clothes with designers and tailors on location, or toys around the world, where craftspeople and the public will build toys and games together, or two wheels who will introduce a new concept for building bicycle, or hidden doors, the project’s furniture company. All workshop tents can be found via the Hub Campaign Square. Some events will be more theoretical, such as the discussions about automatisation and digitalisation. On which subject I got a quote from Roger, head of the town project’s Crafts Team: ‘I don’t mind when some tasks are easier thanks to a machine. I do mind if people don’t grasp any of the basics any more because all they ever knew are machines. It’s that thing with the brain I learned on this project: you’ve got to use the brain. That’s how it can learn to discover things, how it can become a creator. If all the brain knows is to push buttons, then it will only ever be a pusher, not a creator. But, and I want you to quote me on this: “The human is a creative creature. Take that away, take the creating and the creativity away, and you take away an essential part of being human.” You see, it’s part of who we are: creating. We are not made to be pushers who answer to blinking plastic. We are made to create and build.’ I could’t agree more. All the layers I mentioned so far focus specifically on the crafts. To add another layer, the campaign team will disarm the myth of dominance and competition, show the negative effects of both, and then illustrate the power of creation, the power of shaping, the power of cooperation, the power of balance and diversity. For this the campaign team have devised a game, not unlike a paper chase or scavenger hunt, which allows the participants to experience the negative effects of competition and exploitation, and the positive effects of cooperation and empowerment. Related to this layer, the team also uses several simulations to illustrate the benefits of using everything humanity has to offer instead of letting a few people get everything wrong. Also related is another series of events titled: Dominance and Competition meet Space and Cooperation. These events are an invitation to writers, journalists, visual artists and scientists to explore what it is like to create space and opportunity for their fellow humans. What is it like to give voice to others, to find and unearth potential in others. Who are those others? Anyone. Random strangers on the street. People who find these events. Someone on the Hub. Yet another string of events will take us even deeper into probing our attitudes, our mindsets by using open-mic events where common power attitudes are replaced with: For not against, Us not them, Creating not competing, Unearthing not controlling. TRUE POWER IS IN CREATION. We have, for far too long, been told that we must compete, that we must seek power over others, that we must dominate. Today, over a hundred thousand events will write new stories. Stories of how much potential we have, of how much energy we release when we empower, of how invincible we will feel when we create and experience the effects of our creations on others. What good is a power that drains everything around it and forgoes everything the world has to offer? I agree, to destroy, to repress, to violate is no power at all, it’s stupidity, cowardice and the lack of vision and wisdom. True power is in creation, true power empowers, true power unearths, true power inspires.’In the late afternoon, Phoenix Dragonfly remarked on radio 7: ‘Today, the town project surpassed itself — again. I used to tinker when I still had a bit of time to spare. But today is the first time ever that I feel a tingling in my fingertips, and they tell me: Give me something to shape, something to mould, something to create. It’s madness. Amazing madness. Our world has become so obsessed with ever more products, ever faster and cheaper— Hell, we have lost our minds! We’ve lost our creativity! We have lost the chances to be creators. To be powerful. Hell, I want to move into that bloody town! Anyway, there are so many Crafts Day events, and so many stories coming in, I guess we’ll have days of— Oh, hang on, there’re new campaigns coming tomorrow. Hell, how is one supposed to keep up with all this fantastic, mind-blowing, wonderfully inspiring, finger tingling stuff? I know what we need! MUSIC!’ In the evening, the Campaigns & Negotiations Team hosted a party for hundreds of interested players, including business people, politicians, scientists, academics, religious people, lawyers, judges, actors, activists, writers and journalists. Rohana’s people had transformed the atrium of the Compound’s Central Building for the party, using both the Oceans Bar and the Cliff Restaurant, and having repurposed the reception into a bar, too. The mood lights on the floor and at the bar, and the candles on the tables gave the atrium a cosy, relaxed atmosphere. Throughout the atrium were buffet islands, each island catering to a cuisine or to a taste, like the fruits bar or the sweets buffet. Also throughout the atrium, bar tables, sofas and armchairs invited to chat, and a dance floor was open for business and fun, next to the Oceans Bar. A little out of place but discretely placed were some thirty small tables with computers, which could be used to view simulations, campaign spots, and to find information on the project. At first Alice, Jack and Rohana played the welcome team, having a laugh with each other and with the arriving guests. Then Alice opened the evening with a short speech. And that was that, Alice thought some two hours later. Rohana’s team had done such a good job that everyone seemed to find a spot where they were comfortable, and chatting or dancing with someone. There was a joviality about that was quite a change to some of the attacks the project had had to stomach. Food, drink and music, Alice thought. These things put us at ease. Alice chuckled. Maybe if we just always ate, drank and danced, we wouldn’t get quite as much wrong. ‘Alice Adler?’ ‘Yes?’ Alice said, turning to face three stern looking people. ‘Could we have a word in private?’ Alice nodded, thinking: There are probably always some spoilsports, no matter how good the food, drinks and music. Meanwhile, other members of the team experienced a variety of conversations, though quite a few of them would have confirmed this general sense of joviality. Among those were in Skye (care), Heather (media) and Robin (education) who had joined the Campaigns & Negotiations Team as jokers, pokers and sanity checkers, and who had, by now, a strong fanbase, not least among the guests. ‘I’m just not made for parties and networking,’ Andy said to John as they watched Skye, Robin and Heather shine in the crowds. ‘Nor am I. I really thought we had an ideal campaigns team. But now I think, we should have had more party people on the team.’ Andy chuckled. ‘I wonder why Jack is so reserved. I’d have thought he’s a party person.’ John shrugged. ‘I guess this isn’t his crowd, except for his few acquaintances.’ ‘Hm. Where is Alice?’ ‘She went to her office with three people. They looked like politicians.’ ‘Erm, excuse me. Are you John Bergman?’ a woman in a black dress asked. ‘I am.’ ‘You are said to be critical of Alice Adler.’ John raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s my job to be critical of her. It’s why she asked me on this team. But unfortunately she is one of those people who listen, think and reevaluate when she hears a convincing argument. So I never get a chance to be critical of her or her ideas for  long.’ The woman frowned and left. John sighed. ‘Am I really such a buzzkill?’ Andy shrugged. ‘I’ll get us a drink.’ (20) The next morning a media comment read: ‘The town project knows how to host a party. Apparently they used to have parties every Friday, just to hang out together. Is that strange or actually a good thing once you have stripped your teams of competitive and bullying behaviour?’ A social media commentator posted: ‘Alice Adler disrespectful in conversation with three outstanding political advisors. One of them confirms that the town project needs to be stopped.’ ‘What happened?’ Jack asked Alice during their early morning voice training. Alice grimaced. ‘I need to get better at speaking loud with a deep voice. If I get too angry, my voice gets weird and high pitched.’ ‘Alice, what happened?’ ‘I told them to fuck off. They were some of those lobbyist fuck ups. The worst kind of spoiled rich brats who think they own the world and who obviously have never had a single original thought in their lives. They are not real. They are weird. I don’t think they know how to use their brains.  And—’ Alice paused. ‘I think, they are sick. They had to come in a pack of three to intimidate—’ ‘—what?’ Jack interrupted. ‘Alice, what happened?’ ‘Nothing! If you can call words nothing. By the time I began to shout, THE already entered the office. They monitor my pulse, as you know, plus they listened in. They walked the little brats out of the building.’ ‘Alice, I—’ ‘It’s OK. I’ll try to remember to do even number talks. If they bring two, so will I.’ ‘Maybe you should take off some hours. We could go out. Just for a few hours. Give you a break.’ Alice shook her head. ‘No. But talking helped a little. Thanks. And— ‘—I know. But I need you to know something.’ ‘OK?’ ‘No matter what I do, where I am, I’m always available.’ At seven the CONNECTIONS CAMPAIGN’s Connections Day began on three-hundred and thirty-three trains across the UK. In an unlikely cooperation with British Rail, the campaign took over all tasks which used to be performed by humans. At eight, on the Hub, the ticket sales for the town project’s conference in May opened. Around nine, at the Compound, Dennie, Skye and Robin pulled the sanity check card and insisted on a long workout, massages for everyone, and on a three hours brunch with no mention of any sort of work. That was why the team missed the news that at eleven past eleven, all public tickets for the conference, several ten thousands, were sold. Just after noon, a journalist reported from the Connections Day, writing: This campaigns valid points are: If you buy your ticket from a person every day, you form a connection. If another person helps you to get your luggage or shopping from the train to the bus, you forge a connection. If actual people announce the next station, they can do so with humour which relates to today’s weather, news, or the full train — and you get a connection between driver, staff and travellers, which is only fair since they are all on the same train. And if you have either bars or snacks trolleys, you have potential connections between travellers and sellers. And if you bring musicians, storytellers or thinkers, then tired travellers might dance, laugh or think together. And as I write this, I hear people shout: ‘But who will pay for all this?’ And here the town project shows just how well prepared they are for experiments. They calculated the costs of fitting trains with digital displays, electronic doors and blinking lights, and included maintenance costs and replacements. Those costs are way higher than, to quote: ‘giving people a job that creates connections.’ And they added: ‘Besides, humans are not made to be efficient. They are made to connect, to live and laugh.’ In the afternoon, Alice and Raiden left London for Jellybridge. 

© Charlie Alice Raya, book 4, building, 2025