We imagined seven days without the internet, WhatsApp or online payments. Ismar expected peace—until the quiet reached his mother, the supermarket and the rest of the city. By Atlantic Corridor Ritesh’s chair was empty before the experiment had even begun. He had cancelled fifteen minutes before our Atlantic Corridor conversation. His absence altered the balance…
At the Atlantic Corridor table, a conversation about sleep moved through pillow sizes, noisy motorcycles, missing mosquitoes, childhood darkness and the simple conditions that allow a person to wake restored. Ritesh started this conversation a week earlier. He had said that he wanted to become more aware of his sleep. On Monday evening, he tried…
At the Atlantic Corridor, a conversation about active rest became a conversation about hammocks, walking, learning after school, family pressure, sleep, and the strange modern habit of measuring peace. The Question Was Already Suspicious The Mayor began with a confession. He had no idea what active rest meant. This is sometimes the safest way to…
A conversation about digital balance, paper bills, trust, safety, and the contradictions of ordinary life When The Mayor began the conversation, the topic was digital balance. But digital balance is not only about phones, computers, social media, or how many hours we spend looking at a screen. Sometimes it is about control. Sometimes it is…
We began with a simple question, but it did not stay simple for very long. Ritesh had just come home from work, so it felt natural to begin with him. Before we even entered the topic properly, there was a small interruption of ordinary life. Did he get the promotion? Did he get the new…
We began with weather, because sometimes weather is the easiest way to make strangers less strange. In Campo Grande, Ismar said it was 18 degrees Celsius. In Aleppo, Abdullah said it was 35 degrees, and then he added, almost with a smile in his voice, that their heads melt under the sun. In France, The…
When Work Becomes a Game, Someone Is Always Keeping Score When The Mayor asked Ismar about gamification, I was already smiling a little inside, because I could imagine where Ismar would go with it. For him, this idea itself sounds like one of those modern things where people take a simple responsibility and make it…
Ismar: I Think We Had More Interesting Childhoods When The Mayor asked about the games we loved to play as children, I did not think first about something very special. I thought about soccer. Maybe this is normal in Brazil. Maybe not only in Brazil. The first memory is not always the most important one,…
I suppose playful thinking is not so easy for me. The Mayor said this at the beginning, more or less, and I think he was right. Not because I don’t like playfulness, but because sometimes when someone asks me a funny question, my mind goes to the practical side first. I try to understand the…
When Ritesh appeared on the screen, the first thing was not really the subject of the meeting. It was darkness. The Mayor joked with him, asking if his wife was planning some romantic evening with candles, but Ritesh explained it was not romance. It was a power cut. He was in his native place, not…
