Thu September 20, 2018
Secular Ritual Design Working Group (aka. Infidel Happiness Bootcamp)
SEE EVENT DETAILS
This is an open working group for anyone interested in creating and prototyping secular rituals.
Huh, what?
We have a serious paucity of secular rituals to aid us in creating communities, and managing meaning. Most of our common rituals come from religious roots and historical times, and are no longer capable of supplying our sensemaking, meaning-making, and tribe-making needs. Many are now actively sources of stress and toxicity instead of joy.
We lack tools for dealing with death, breakups, difficulties at work, depression, healing, and moving, to name a few. We're most often left to our own devices to deal with these moments or issues, and we live in a culture which valorises the individual feat over the collective achievement.
Let's take a page from Alain de Botton's "Religion for Atheists" and start creating our own rituals that anyone can use, regardless of their beliefs or origin culture.
I'm with ya, but why rituals?
Rituals are bounded, liminal, transformative events that almost always involve other people. They are a quick way to bring resources to a person, and more manageable and impactful than going through a weeks- or months-long process.
We've got very few cultural tools of this type.
Think "getting rid of anything related to your ex" type of thing. It's easy to understand what is involved, doing it takes effort and changes you, you can include others who can support you in this experience, and there are clear roles for them and you.
That kind of sounds interesting... but what does this involve?
There are basically two streams of work
1. Find moments where we need support, and generate some ritual ideas that might help them. Then try them out and refine over time with some sort of participatory or user-centered design methodology.
2. Understand how rituals function: get into the literature and find useful frames and stories that we can use in design. Seek and catalog emerging rituals and use them for both insight and inspiration.
This is very nerdy and intellectual.
You're welcome.
This is awesome, I want to be a part of this.
Yay! We don't have too much of a plan yet but for now the idea is to establish a basic rhythm of meeting up and working on ideas. If you have ideas on rituals you want to create, bring them. This is also the first meetup, so you'll be helping set the program for the group, and suggest venues for future meetings.
show less
Huh, what?
We have a serious paucity of secular rituals to aid us in creating communities, and managing meaning. Most of our common rituals come from religious roots and historical times, and are no longer capable of supplying our sensemaking, meaning-making, and tribe-making needs. Many are now actively sources of stress and toxicity instead of joy.
We lack tools for dealing with death, breakups, difficulties at work, depression, healing, and moving, to name a few. We're most often left to our own devices to deal with these moments or issues, and we live in a culture which valorises the individual feat over the collective achievement.
Let's take a page from Alain de Botton's "Religion for Atheists" and start creating our own rituals that anyone can use, regardless of their beliefs or origin culture.
I'm with ya, but why rituals?
Rituals are bounded, liminal, transformative events that almost always involve other people. They are a quick way to bring resources to a person, and more manageable and impactful than going through a weeks- or months-long process.
We've got very few cultural tools of this type.
Think "getting rid of anything related to your ex" type of thing. It's easy to understand what is involved, doing it takes effort and changes you, you can include others who can support you in this experience, and there are clear roles for them and you.
That kind of sounds interesting... but what does this involve?
There are basically two streams of work
1. Find moments where we need support, and generate some ritual ideas that might help them. Then try them out and refine over time with some sort of participatory or user-centered design methodology.
2. Understand how rituals function: get into the literature and find useful frames and stories that we can use in design. Seek and catalog emerging rituals and use them for both insight and inspiration.
This is very nerdy and intellectual.
You're welcome.
This is awesome, I want to be a part of this.
Yay! We don't have too much of a plan yet but for now the idea is to establish a basic rhythm of meeting up and working on ideas. If you have ideas on rituals you want to create, bring them. This is also the first meetup, so you'll be helping set the program for the group, and suggest venues for future meetings.
This is an open working group for anyone interested in creating and prototyping secular rituals.
Huh, what?
We have a serious paucity of secular rituals to aid us in creating communities, and managing meaning. Most of our common rituals come from religious roots and historical times, and are no longer capable of supplying our sensemaking, meaning-making, and tribe-making needs. Many are now actively sources of stress and toxicity instead of joy.
We lack tools for dealing with death, breakups, difficulties at work, depression, healing, and moving, to name a few. We're most often left to our own devices to deal with these moments or issues, and we live in a culture which valorises the individual feat over the collective achievement.
Let's take a page from Alain de Botton's "Religion for Atheists" and start creating our own rituals that anyone can use, regardless of their beliefs or origin culture.
I'm with ya, but why rituals?
Rituals are bounded, liminal, transformative events that almost always involve other people. They are a quick way to bring resources to a person, and more manageable and impactful than going through a weeks- or months-long process.
We've got very few cultural tools of this type.
Think "getting rid of anything related to your ex" type of thing. It's easy to understand what is involved, doing it takes effort and changes you, you can include others who can support you in this experience, and there are clear roles for them and you.
That kind of sounds interesting... but what does this involve?
There are basically two streams of work
1. Find moments where we need support, and generate some ritual ideas that might help them. Then try them out and refine over time with some sort of participatory or user-centered design methodology.
2. Understand how rituals function: get into the literature and find useful frames and stories that we can use in design. Seek and catalog emerging rituals and use them for both insight and inspiration.
This is very nerdy and intellectual.
You're welcome.
This is awesome, I want to be a part of this.
Yay! We don't have too much of a plan yet but for now the idea is to establish a basic rhythm of meeting up and working on ideas. If you have ideas on rituals you want to create, bring them. This is also the first meetup, so you'll be helping set the program for the group, and suggest venues for future meetings.
read more
Huh, what?
We have a serious paucity of secular rituals to aid us in creating communities, and managing meaning. Most of our common rituals come from religious roots and historical times, and are no longer capable of supplying our sensemaking, meaning-making, and tribe-making needs. Many are now actively sources of stress and toxicity instead of joy.
We lack tools for dealing with death, breakups, difficulties at work, depression, healing, and moving, to name a few. We're most often left to our own devices to deal with these moments or issues, and we live in a culture which valorises the individual feat over the collective achievement.
Let's take a page from Alain de Botton's "Religion for Atheists" and start creating our own rituals that anyone can use, regardless of their beliefs or origin culture.
I'm with ya, but why rituals?
Rituals are bounded, liminal, transformative events that almost always involve other people. They are a quick way to bring resources to a person, and more manageable and impactful than going through a weeks- or months-long process.
We've got very few cultural tools of this type.
Think "getting rid of anything related to your ex" type of thing. It's easy to understand what is involved, doing it takes effort and changes you, you can include others who can support you in this experience, and there are clear roles for them and you.
That kind of sounds interesting... but what does this involve?
There are basically two streams of work
1. Find moments where we need support, and generate some ritual ideas that might help them. Then try them out and refine over time with some sort of participatory or user-centered design methodology.
2. Understand how rituals function: get into the literature and find useful frames and stories that we can use in design. Seek and catalog emerging rituals and use them for both insight and inspiration.
This is very nerdy and intellectual.
You're welcome.
This is awesome, I want to be a part of this.
Yay! We don't have too much of a plan yet but for now the idea is to establish a basic rhythm of meeting up and working on ideas. If you have ideas on rituals you want to create, bring them. This is also the first meetup, so you'll be helping set the program for the group, and suggest venues for future meetings.
show less
Date/Times:
100 Carl St, San Francisco, CA 94117
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Great suggestion! We'll be in touch.
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