Wednesday and Thursday evenings featured back to back Squish events. The first was this year’s third Arthaus12 experience, featuring Casey Logan, which I shall write about in another post. The second Squish experience was a collaboration with Omaha Creative Institute hosted at Brix in Village Pointe. Rather than endeavor and likely fail to capture the breadth and depth of the conversation, let me quote from some of the participants’ postcards that they self-addressed on the evening and which will be mailed back to them…
“Whether or not the glass is half full or half empty, you can always use more wine.”
“Food is polite, it does not have an opinion – don’t be food.”
“Love or fear?”
“Love more. Listen More. Smile more. Give yourself to the universe. Give more praise. Give more agreement.”
“Balance of life. Choices between life and death. Abortion. Challenge status quo. Talking politely through discussion.”
“Religion. Lies/Deception. Conversation. Politics – abortion/capital punishment. Bring out your inner child!”
“Imagine how much real estate that thought occupies in her mind.”
“Status quo. Lying. Faith. Liberty. Choice.”
“Keep it real.”
As you can see, we let the natural meanderings of whim, curiosity and intimacy into our discourse, and it was all the more rewarding… And as for why you should not be food? The essence of that pithy bon mot is that we often tend towards the uncontroversial, which does little for personal and social growth, inspiration or change. By all means talk about simple things to grease the wheels of social harmony, but learn through conversation to grow your tolerance for difference if you hope to be different.