The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - Share Your Story: A Call for Responses to The Great Simplification | Frankly 84

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Link to record and submit your story There are further directions on the video submission site to set you up for success when recording. Most of all, we are looking for real stories from real people. We ask that you simply show up as yourself.  The link to submit videos will only be live for a few weeks, so if you'd like to share your story for this project, the time is now.   ---   (Recorded February 5th, 2025)   In an era of compounding global challenges, many ask "What can we do?" While The Great Simplification podcast explores the systemic nature of our predicament, some of the most creative and impactful responses are emerging directly from our audience. From educators weaving systems thinking into their curricula to entrepreneurs redirecting carbon project revenues to local communities, TGS viewers are already cultivating meaningful change in diverse and inspiring ways. In this special Frankly, Nate launches a community-driven project to capture and share these stories and examples of transformation - from small to large scales, with personal and global impact. We invite you to submit a short video (maximum three minutes) sharing how engaging with TGS has influenced changes in your life – whether through community projects, career shifts, consumption habits, or local initiatives. These submissions will be compiled into an upcoming episode, creating a tapestry of responses to, in turn, creatively inspire others to imagine how these ideas might 'rhyme' with possible changes in their own lives and communities. What paths are you forging in response to what you've learned? How might witnessing the diverse responses of fellow viewers spark new ideas for your own action? And what emergent responses to our cultural/ecological challenges might arise when we share our stories of transformation and change?   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future Join our Substack newsletter Join our Discord channel and connect with other listeners  

Greetings. Many of the listeners of this show often ask, what do we do? What to do? And I'm trying to set the table of the constraints and challenges that our culture, our biosphere, our species face, which seem to be getting larger and thornier and matter by the day. But that I don't have the answers or the solutions or the or the responses. And I believe in emergence. And I believe that many of the things that we will do, that scale in the future, are unknown yet and untried. And I also believe that understanding and caring about the future kind of infuses us with

the ability to beat new paths forward through the times that we're. we're alive. As such, this is a special episode, a special request, where I'm going to invite you, the viewer of the Great Simplification, to submit a short video up to three minutes, but preferably shorter, about what you're doing in response to what you've learned on this channel. I have several reasons for doing that. One is I'd like to create a montage of 30 or 40 of those to make a special episode, maybe an hour and a half episode that gives you the sense

of the different nationalities and ages and races and creeds and ideas and frameworks and actually what people are doing on the ground around the world to show the diversity of humanity that's following this show, paying attention and responding.

Because I know, I know that's the case, and I would like to highlight that. Secondly, is I think humans are imitators. We're mimickers. And so to see a wide spectrum of what people are doing might give you all, I can do that in Topeka, Kansas, or Ipsolante, Michigan, or Wellington, New Zealand. So it's giving people a sense of possibility of what can be done. And third, if it really takes off and we get tons of submissions,

I may craft a dedicated open source website to the horizontal and vertical categories of response to the human predicament that we face. So don't submit long videos. There is software that we will share in the description where you can upload a video. Don't worry if you're not used to being on camera. There are further directions on the submission site on what to do. The link to submit the videos will be up for a few weeks. I think we'll go till the end of February and then cut off submissions.

And, you know, this is a general thank you to when I travel or when I read the inbox. I'd like to thank people who are already voicing and writing what they're doing in response to what they've learned on the Great Simplomple. Some things that I've heard is people are redirecting the revenue streams from their mangrove CO2 sequestration work towards local villagers instead of towards their own bank accounts. Teachers are integrating the wide boundary systems thinking into their curriculum. Individuals have started planting community gardening gardens and sharing tools where they are. People are changing their backyards to plant for more pollinators and paying attention to their local species. There's citizens who are learning practical skills, farming, woodwork, mending practices, kind of less complex, more simple skills and responses.

People are actively reducing consumption, becoming more energy aware and therefore energy efficient and learning to live well with LAS. And actually, I've heard some really inspiring stories about people leaving their careers, moving away from jobs that reinforced the economic superorganism towards more meaningful careers. So thank you all for your continued support for this content. Please submit a video, and I will see you next week with another, frankly.