⚱️✨The Nexialist #0037
Everybody Dies | Ask Your Parents | The New Rules of Gathering | See More Each Other | Time is Your Home | Love to Remember
Welcome to my weekly attempt to catch ideas and find some nexus between them, The Nexialist:
Today I’ll start by sharing with you that I'll be taking a short break from The Nexialist for the next month. My parents are coming to visit my siblings and me in Amsterdam. I haven't seen them for more than 2 years and I want to spend as much time with them as possible. I'll see you in a few weeks, as I’ll recharge and be back with more brain-sparking content and some stories.
Also, I want to invite you again to The Best Social Conference, which I’m helping organize (and I’m already nervous that I will be moderating some talks). Some of the creators I have mentioned here in the Nexialist will be there, such as Matt Klein (Zine), Beryl Sherewshewsky, and Gustavo Nogueira (Torus Time Lab). We want to create a space to talk and interact about the future of social media, focusing on creativity, innovation and impact. The program will be out soon, and you can expect quite a few Nexialist touches in there.
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😭We Have to See More of Each Other
“How much time will you spend with the people who matter to you?” Ruavieja is a Spanish liqueur brand that made one of those ads that change how you see things. At least for me. They had a calculator (which sadly isn’t working) to show how much time you have left with someone, based on your age and how many times you meet in a year.
👋Ask Your Parents
I love Esther Perel and I was so happy to see her as the first remote 73 Questions from Vogue last May during the first lockdown. I watched her with a smile until the last question (SPOILER ALERT!) was like a slap on my face that left my eyes watering.
So, what do you suggest I do if I'm living at home with my parents and they're subjecting me to going through bins of my childhood memorabilia in their basement in a perpetual memory lane that evokes a scene out of Groundhog Day?
- Listen, I think that every, many, many people are in a state of regression at this moment, you know? People forgot that there's been 10 years between the last time that they've lived at home. But I also think that would be a unique opportunity is for you to ask them what are the moments that stand out for them as parents when they raised you and the challenges and the celebrations and the glories and the pains. Because the dead are not there and if one day you have your own kids, you're gonna really want to remember, not just what it was like to be a child, but what it was like to be your own parent.
This inspired me to make a list of questions to ask my parents when they come to visit. I’ll see how that goes and I can share it here.
🫀The New Rules of Gathering
Not Corona Rules this time… Author Priya Parker (The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters) shares 3 steps to turn everyday get-togethers into transformative gatherings. If you have ten minutes, I would recommend pressing play, since she brings concrete examples on how to do this. First, she starts saying we usually start with “off-the-rack formats: birthday party, cake, and candles. Board meetings, 12 white men. Assuming the purpose is obvious, we skip too quickly to form. This not only leads to dull and repetitive gatherings, but it also misses a deeper opportunity to actually address our needs.” So here are the steps:
1- Embrace a specific disputable purpose: What are my specific needs from this gathering? In her example, she brings up a baby shower and how the future parents realized the purpose would be to address their fears transitioning into parenthood. That way, they created games and activities to connect their family and friends to that.
2- Cause good controversy: Here, she suggests that at a family gathering that we “try for a night banning opinions and asking for stories instead. Choose a theme related to the underlying conflict. But instead of opinions, ask everybody to share a story from their life and experience that nobody around the table has ever heard, to difference or to belonging or to a time I changed my mind, giving people a way into each other without burning the house down.”
3- Create a temporary alternative world through the use of pop-up rules: “Rules are powerful, because they allow us to temporarily change and harmonize our behavior.
And in diverse societies, pop-up rules carry special force.” Here, my favorite example would be for having a rule such as not saying your occupation or talk about work in a gathering.
⚰️Everybody Dies
I know I have brought my favorite Dutch boyband to The Nexialist a few times, but I’m in love with their song Requiem. I don’t think it’s common to find music about death with humor, especially in this style. In the chorus, which Juan and Google helped translate, they keep reminding us of the thing we all know: Everybody dies: and you too, and you too, and you too (Iedereen gaat dood, En jij ook, en jij ook, en jij ook).
⌛️Time is Your Home
In this song by Francisco, el hombre, we hear a beautiful poem about loss, grief and missing the person who left, making them eternal through time.
I bring stitched on my chest
Beads of fresh memories
Warm bread on the table
The smell goes up the stairs
I wake up and don’t see anything
Time is your home
…
I won’t forget,
I’ll celebrate you
I won’t forget,
I’ll celebrate you
🌹Love to Remember
Gaby Amarantos and Liniker share with us their voices in Amor Pra Recordar (Love to Remember), another beautiful memorial song about cherishing the good memories of our loved ones that left. The video is filmed in Belém (and São Paulo) so we get to see the riverside communities in the Amazon.
Maybe you don't remember me anymore
Maybe you don't want to remember anymore
But know I haven't forgotten you
I prefer to have love to remember
From everything we experienced
From everything you gave me
I know it was fate that didn't want it
And despite everything, we were happy
💌I would like to dedicate this Nexialist to my partner Juan and his family, and to Maria José, his mother, who left us recently, too soon.
❤️If anything made your brain tingle, click like and don't hesitate to share it with the world. It helps The Nexialist to reach more curious minds. See you next week!🦦
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🤙Call me…
If you like what you see here and your project, brand or business needs some ideas or inspiration from outside your bubble, maybe you need a Nexialist to help you out 🙋🏻♂️ I can participate in brainstorms and workshops, guide inspiration sessions, or provide you with creative research. You can always send me an e-mail to figure something out together.