Life skills for peer production: Dancing together in a space of “not-knowing

The community of readers of the special issue, “City,” of the Journal of Peer Production—social activists, hackers, digital designers, radical academics, and students—will be seeking innovative ideas in commons-based programs at the urban level, particularly application of technological devices and concepts designed with an alternative, post-capitalist, communitarian orientation. The process of developing an innovative idea into a practical viable application is well understood within this community, and there are many templates to follow. These might be thought of as “soft skills.” However, such templates dance around the uncontrollable moment of inspiration. There is a space of fear, where there is no control, no certainty. The community must abide in not-knowing until the moment of inspiration. There are no templates or programs that offer assured outcomes; however, there are technologies of a different type that can help to keep the community attentive and open—to what is observable, to one another, and to new possibilities. These might be thought of as “life skills.” They are not reducible to rules that can be learned by rote, rather, they are infinitely variable and only can only be instilled as they are lived. It is to be demonstrated that inspiration arises not from a “lone genius” but rather from a like-minded group with a capacity to hold each member in the moments of fear before innovation is made real. Louis Pasteur suggested from an individualistic point of view that “fortune favors the prepared mind.” We suggest that “fortune favors the prepared community.” The proposed communications piece will take an interactive approach to understanding the value and application of these contemplative life skills. Written as correspondence between the two co-authors, the piece will explore the physiology, neurophysiology, and social effects of contemplative attention, and will define ways that these skills can be lived and learned in common in a community. Through mixed online media, the correspondence will invite participation by the reader in further elaboration of the power of the skills presented. For example, after a short introduction of the theme of the correspondence, readers will be invited to participate in a five-minute mindfulness meditation practice, guided by an audio file. They will be encouraged to respond to their experience by turning to a comments section to read the texts generated by others and to add their own from their own experience. This will assist in bringing together the online community through reflection on the relationships of the texts and the others encountered therein. The phenomenology of attention, relationships to others, and the generation of new texts as explored in an ever-changing document, will add a further dimension to the scientific evidence on the effects of contemplative practices. The infinite breadth of the term “text” as what is reflected upon and generated from the group’s unknowing will be illustrated through examples of reflective visual art and improvised musical exchanges—also as participatory, ever-changing files open to readers. Finally, the correspondence will be opened to the readers, through an invitation to begin again with a contemplative practice—leading to threads of “texts” exploring possible innovations in three possible commons-based programs in urban contexts.