Nuanced Invitations in Tell Culture

It’s my birthday today. I’m throwing a party tomorrow! (A cuddle party (like last year) with also a dancefloor (an addition to last year)). Organizing the party has actually been fairly straightforward. What’s been more complex is figuring out who to invite. Or rather, who not to invite.

So first I invited a bunch of really obvious people: close friends and my partner, and a friend who I hoped would be down to DJ for a bit. A couple of friends who’d previously expressed interest in a cuddle party. Who else?

I’m part of a fairly close-knit community, living in an intentional house. One assumption might be that I’d invite everyone who lives in my house. I think, if it weren’t “my birthday party”, but just a general cuddle party like I’ve also thrown, then I probably would have. But it’s my birthday party, so I don’t need to assume anything in particular about the guest list.

I found myself reflecting: there were a bunch of people that I was totally open to having at my party, but whom I didn’t want to explicitly invite. Why was this?

» read the rest of this entry »

A portrait of Malcolm Ocean

I'm Malcolm Ocean.

I'm developing scalable solutions to fractal coordination challenges (between parts of people as well as between people) based on non-naive trust and intentionality. More about me.

Become more intentional
Check out Intend, a web-app that I built to help people spend their time in meaningful & intentional ways and be more playfully purposeful. Intend logo
Connect with me on Twitter!