Welcome!
Dear world,
Welcome back to wholesome indie internet. The world has done a lot to make it seem like this place doesn’t exist, but now that you’re here, you can breathe easy. It feels like a shaded glen for the time being, and I don’t want to think about how long it will last. For now, there is some anonymity here. There is also intention and care that seldom exists on the current state of doom-scroll-forward design. If you’re here and you’re reading this, you must really care about what I have to say. So thank you for being here <3
I wanted to start this blog because of a convergence of many things. First, I was inspired by a YouTube video about indie web design. Second, I have been in a constant rollercoaster of emotions reading Love in a Fucked Up World by Dean Spade. (Wow, I can’t believe how refreshing it is to Italicize without scrolling and searching for the italics button. I can just keep writing because it’s all just code!) Third, I’ve been over saturated with emotions, my own intermingled with others—I think I have to face that truth. The current state of the world, people I know who are frequently under-resourced and struggle to pay the bus fare, people I know caught in a hurricane of shame, despair, rage, and grief, people I know just trying to keep their head above water. People like me, who want, on some days, nothing more than to fall endlessly into a warm, dark void, where no one asks anything of you, and you don’t have to be anything but a falling entity in a void.
I listened to an episode of Surviving the End of the World today where adrienne and Autumn have a conversation with actor Deneé Benton. She jokes about being a late bloomer, and now that she’s hot and vibrant, the world seems to be ending every day. She also talks about taking care of yourself so others aren’t the only ones to enjoy the fruits of your labour. Easier said than done.
Dean Spade talks about romance myths being powered by patterns stemming from childhood. That we are constantly caught in cycles because we are chasing parts of ourselves that were lost while simultaneously battling the ways we understand love to be.
As a result of all of that beautiful serendipity passing through my life, I created a tool to facilitate better conversations with people you love and love you back. I wanted to synthesize all of these amazing ideas and bring us back to compassion for ourselves and others. It’s not designed to “fix” anyone. Conflicts can still occur—my trauma speaking to your trauma can be a battle between titans—but by having conversations about what helps and how to help each other, we can hopefully be better prepared to face the world together and grow our capacity for liberation.
In the first week of conversation with friends and colleagues, the tool has led to many interesting conversations. It’s very quickly clear to me that only an infinite number of iterations of this tool can expose its potential in every given situation. Honestly, some of these questions were tough. To answer them, I dug deep to find answers I was not ready for. I learned more about myself and my friends. Tears and laughter were equally shed. In many ways, I think the tool did what it was designed to, but I’m still uncertain about assigning meaning to something so vast.
In the next few posts, I will be exploring different ways of using this tool and I will do my best to try to capture its potential in a myriad of different relational configurations. If you have any questions, concerns, or helpful feedback, feel free to flip me a message at florenceng@protonmail.com.