Social Gatherings
Social gatherings can be temporary places of belonging, and temporary communities of love—if done right.
I often wonder: How we create sense of belonging and purpose? How do we create supportive communities? How do we foster human connection among each other? How do we find the right people who share our values?
How do we find/create a culture and environment to align our attention and resources?
How do we foster connection so we can take better care of each other? To feel connected to be bigger beyond and collective of all life?
How do we translate feelings into tangible mediums?
Ida Benedetto’s “Patterns of Transformation: Designing Sex, Death, and Survival in the 21st Century”
“In previous eras, social gatherings and ritual experiences were the domain of religious institutions, cultural organizations, or the state. Now, they increasingly fall within the realm of design as it expands to address challenges of human emotion and connection… Experience design offers a possible solution to our fundamental human craving for connection and meaning in the face of increased isolation and diminishing social cooperation.”
Art of Gathering
The Great Escape: Escape Rooms
It’s not just escape rooms; it’s rage rooms and ax-throwing bars and underground supper clubs and high-concept branded pop-ups, where online retailers will sell you whatever they sell you but in real life. People are hungry for in-person experiences that have some kind of depth, some level of interaction, a little intimacy, a dose of emotion.
“Do you ever think about how the word belonging has the word longing in it & how easy it is to imagine belonging as a fantastical land where all yearning comes to an end? Maybe it’s not like that, maybe it’s finding community with those who also yearn, in similar ways.”