Sowing Seeds
Sowing Seeds
A short conversation With Beauty Seed's Abram Max about Over To The Youth and how you can get involved.
Over To The Youth’s
recently sat down with of Beauty Seed Studios to give an overview of Over To The Youth and how we’re operating.We initially set up the call with no intention of recording anything, instead to simply explore each other’s work and what we were both doing. However, Abram spontaneously suggested towards the beginning of the call that we record a short piece about what Over To The Youth is doing. Although I agreed, I must admit I had a little trepidation in me from this being so sudden, but I am very glad we did record the to-the-point discussion that followed.
~ Tom
You can watch the piece in full below:
You can help!
Over To The Youth is a global, youth-led organization dedicated to preparing young men and women to navigate the world we live in. Stand with us at the forefront of tomorrow, and subscribe to stay up to date with our latest developments. Find out more about our unique mission and consider contributing a paid subscription to help us achieve our goals.
Tom,
Lluvias,
OTTY,
[Please excuse a little silliness here.]
A seed, a seed, my kingdom for a seed.
How do I sow thee, let me count the ways. I sow thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can teach...
OK, enough silliness. I've got ideas. Big ones. You might say I am skilled at coaching self teaching.
...
Independent Study Idea:
One of my basic big ideas is encouraging active literacies. Yeah, active. We hear about literacy as reading comprehension, but that's the passive kind.
Try speaking your own mind to one or more people, continuously, for over 3 minutes at a stretch, without memorizing anything, without responses, without notes.
Easy? OK, stretch that to 20 minutes. There's a taste of active literacy. Public speaking. Thinking on your feet in front of people is like mental calisthenics.
Or:
Try writing continuously, non-stop, for 3 minutes. At first, no rules except one: write English words, even repeating your own name as many timrs as you like, but the pen must not stop, not even for a second. Just go. Write.
As you get accustomed to 3-minute exercises, work up to 20-minutes at a time.
When you consistently squeeze out a coherent paragraph in your 20-minute sessions, aim up. The next logical step is to find an essay theme and write and rewrite a 300- to 500- word piece.
Give yourself a week if necessary and get help proofreading as you do the rewrites. Publish, email, or post the finished product. Then move on to other writing.
...
If you are new to these kinds of active literacy exercises, it helps to practice with a supportive but critical audience who are ready to ask questions of clarification, and point out errors.
It also may help to give some time to choosing a topic. Both dreaming big and organizing carefully will help.
You might search for a list of writing prompts or you may want to try my 99-year-old self on the death bed prompt.
The death bed orompt is your future self, 99 years old, with days to live, reflecting on a long and meaningful life.
So imagine you had lived your best life, and you want to tell the world about it. Use all the questions you can think of...
Who
What
When
Where
How... and most importantly
Why
Personally, I especially like the "What if..." questions, to get started.
Some people prompt their writing in a slightly different way, as in: For the rest of my life, no matter what happens, what will I always want to have as a part of my life, or what will be my reason for getting up in the morning?
...
Me:
Confession time.
[Actually a joking confession and a bit more silliness follows.]
I'm selfishly using all you readers. [HHHH... The crowd goes wild.] I desperately need this pracrice because I was schooled so thoroughly I never learned to read or write properly.
So whether you laugh, or cry, or yell, or vigorously roll your eyes (my personal favorite), I appreciate your attention and your time spent trying to figure out what I'm talking about.
One last warning:
If you dare ask me a question, could be any question but those "why" questions really get me started, I must warn you that there is likely a 3-hour lecture waiting for you as an answer. So proceed with caution.
Best wishes,
mark spark
[ :-)
.