The Big Things (vol. 7, no. 3)
Here are a few things I’m sharing this month:
1. Question:
Excerpt from “How Would You Live?” by Mary Oliver:
What if you finally saw
that the sunflowers, turning toward the sun all day
and every day – who knows how, but they do it – were
more precious, more meaningful than gold?
2. Quote:
- “I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ast. And that in wondering bout the big things, and asting about the big things you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more bout the big things that you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love.” – Albert (Mr.____) to Celie in The Color Purple (from bell hooks‘ book The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love)
3. Poem:
Excerpt from Poetry by Pablo Neruda:
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
4. Something Inspiring:
- “My father, Bassam, taught me to see the past and always aspire to life. And indeed, he triumphed over his guards with his steady smile, his thundering tranquility, his unshakeable pride and unwavering modesty. He taught me that I am not a man who kills and that vengeance is the way of the weak and cowardly. We shall not take revenge. We will fight for a noble cause. We will fight for life and not for death.” – Arab Aramin (talking about his father Bassam on the OnBeing Podcast)
5. Project updates:
April 7 marks the culmination of a year-long body of work — a set of ideas, tools, and provocations gathered within the growing Sidekick Manifesto ecosystem.
- Last Month: Do-Goodernomics — a short book interrogating the incentives and identities behind doing good
- This Month: The Mismatch Game — a classroom and workshop game on scarcity, volatility, and the cost of being poor
- Next week: a refreshed version of the original Manifesto’s (redesigned as a printable poster) along with translations into multiple languages.
And then on Tuesday, April 7, 2026, the release of:
This edited volume brings together eighteen practitioners from across the Majority and Minority World. Each returns to the original manifesto’s preambles or promises. Not to polish them, but to interrogate them and decide: Keep. Reimagine. Or Discard.
Thanks so much. And, have a great day! – shawn
