Beta Readers Still Needed for Do Better

This Project is nearly ready, but cannot grow the Project without more Reviews .  Until then, I cannot publish and release this work into other hands.  I need help, please.

   This post is the start of the rough draft of  Chapter 8,Chapter 8, section II. E.: 5/5 of a map for the early years of Phase II,  of my non-fiction WiP, Do Better, fka Baby Floors.   This chapter will begin the early years of mapping out a path to get there for Phase II, with a potential new adulthood rite of passage.

Sorry, Dear Readers, I forgot that this chapter has 5 sections per early and late, rather than the usual 4.

The overall objective remains that of putting a floor on poverty so that each and every baby born can have a safe childhood.

Outlines for chapter 8 will attempt to match with each section, at the bottom of each post.

Once again, by way of disclaimer, the overall goal is now to explain why we need both equ. + justice, & why in 4 phases.  This chapter is part of showing what Phases I-IV could look like as potential roadmap for a fully inclusive society for all of us.  This vision is laid out in the hope that All HumanKind  will eventually have each person’s basic needs  met, without taking anything from anyone, and without violence, intimidation, nor coercion of any kind. 

(Chapter 8, II. D. was last week)

II. E

II. E (1129/1000 wds).

 

1. (260/250)

The first 5-7 years of Phase II, where recognition of having succeeded in passing the requirements of a given community for the Adulthood Challenge is concerned, will involve, in each community, educating and advocating for a ritual that will represent the successful completion of a useful and needed modern rite of passage.  In these early years, there may not yet be many volunteers on this part of the project, so educational work will need to build on the bonds created during Phase I, and the volunteers from those parts of this project.  Recognition for the work done back in those starting years on our preliminary sets of infrastructure can lead to further education around the need for empathy and critical thinking skills.  While those skills were important during the first phase, they will become not only crucial, but crucial to demonstrate, during this, the second phase of our project.  Finding ways to demonstrate recognition of that work and those skills, during the beginning years of Phase II, will set the state for communities with volunteers whose work back during that first phase drew notice, or more importantly, may have gone unnoticed, as those volunteers quietly went about doing the work of putting others into the spotlight, or putting the project ahead of themselves.  Advocating for “Adults for Empathy,” for example, via rides on the metro or Amtrak, must also remember to include recognition for those whose work has gone unseen.  These volunteers could be among the first recognized “Adults” in this project, if those communities are ready to do so.

 

 

 

2. (261/250)

The sets of measurement tools, and the milestones for the early stages for Phase II, should be helpful for recognition of community members who have proven their dedication to building meaningful progress in Human Rights for all of us.  These tools should also, ideally, help to form additional communities around this idea.  Each community should set measureable milestones for what they require of candidates wishing to be recognized as “Adults” in that community.  Activities to meet those criteria can be developed jointly, or even left up to the candidates themselves to propose.  One example might be the organizing and shepherding of a pilgrimage of “Adults for empathy and Human Rights across the USA”  led by some of the volunteers who led the work during Phase I.  Keeping track of some sort of statistical information will be important, most likely, both for the candidates and communities themselves, as well as for the larger public watching these events at the time, and looking back on them from a future date to learn from the experiences.  Increasing the numbers of people from all walks of life who become and remain engaged in the overall project should also be recognized as part of the work of each candidate.  Some of these could even be given in steps, as a smaller part of  recognition of the steps being taken toward becoming a successful candidate in a particular community.  Communities could even start to recognize “Adults” at this stage on voice vote or via social media, with the numbers published to a community and overall project portal.

 

 

 

 

 

3. (253/250)

Again, in the first years of Phase II, the tools and some of the 1-minute activities developed to recognize volunteers who have succeeded in The Adulthood Challenge for a given community must both define that community, and the criteria that community has set forAdulthood.  Walking, as always, is a powerful tool, particularly when used to draw attention to Human Rights.  Using mass transit to build support for human rights, likewise, can be powerful when done creatively, like coordinating “flash mobs” to give recognition to a particular volunteer whose work has contributed to the healthy growth and security of a particular community, for instance.  Social media tools, obviously, are also still an important means of giving recognition to contributors and candidates, and could even be used to publicize the granting of the status of Adult to candidates who consent to this, by any given community.  The participation in and especially organizing work that goes into setting up and running an online or other type of portal or clearing house for sharing community information should not be forgotten in the recognition for volunteers, of course, whether they reach the status of “Adult” or not, in every community working on this project.  Most likely, the criteria for the Adulthood rite of passage candidacy and status, in various communities, will coalesce more tightly as volunteers continue to bond, and as communities continue to work together to define their needs and their resources, while sharing their experiences with other communities involved in this part of the project.

 

 

 

4. (338/250)

In these early years, the purpose, both practical and symbolic, of recognition of having succeeded in passing The Adulthood Challenge within some particular community hinges on commitment.  A community giving its recognition to a candidate of having succeeded in meeting its criteria for this new rite of passage will be showing, among other things, that the candidate has a proven commitment to upholding and promoting the respect for the Human Rights for each and every human being in a practical and useful way.  The practical value of this recognition may only be, at first, that all of the involved parties will now know that there is one more person that we can trust to be able to solve difficult community problems in a practical and empathetic manner.  Symbolically, the importance of this recognition may only play out in terms of an emotional payment of prestige within that community for the candidate.  Yet, this is an important payout, nonetheless.  When one has gone to the time, effort, and sweat to meet the needs of an actual community of people, some sort of recognition is both merited, needed, and also serves to meet the emotional and psycho-social needs of both the newly recognized “Adult” as well as the community itself, and sometimes even also members of the public at large, who are observing this project.  These early years of Phase II have, most likely, not yet seen the full formation of more than a few communities with a well-developed set of prerequisites, criteria for declaring intent to attempt The Challenge, a complete ritual, and heavy responsibilities to those recognized as “Adults” to this point, about 7 years into Phase II, now roughly 25 years into the overall project.  This is about to change, over the next 5 to 7 years, in the later half of Phase II, as understanding grows of how this new rite of passage can help to change our cultural paradigm from one of blaming the other to cooperating with each other to solve our planet’s problems.

 

— (Next Wednesday: Chapter 8, section III. A. )

 

I’m considering this Rough Draft as the block of clay from which my book will eventually emerge, obviously, and some ideas for phases III and IV are still becoming more  fixed in my mind as I write, so the final version will likely look pretty different from this Rough Draft, and will need updating once I get to the very end.

 

And once again, yeayyy( !!)with regard to audience, I may have at least a couple of comps:  Walden Two meets The War on Poverty: A Civilian Perspective (by Dr.s Jean and Edgar Cahn, 1964).  I know that lots of people consider Skinner’s writing to be stilted, but I like the tilt of most reviewers, in that the idea is that a community should keep trying policies that members agree upon until they find what works for all of them.

As for genre, I’m still wondering:  clearly part of  Non-fiction.

  Many thanks to Dr. Garland for suggesting Philosophy! 

Maybe also: System Change, Causes, maybe even Inspirational, but I doubt it.

Action Items:

1.) Share some ideas you may have on how our society can solve homelessness and child abuse, starting right now,

2.)   Write a story, post or tweet that uses those sources and your thoughts.

   JYP, this photo’s for you!    🙂

Chapter 8   II. and III. E. outlines …

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Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.