Octobern — ya dig?
And the unveiling of The Project!
Is there a word for a type of word that doesn’t exist but because the tweak is minimal you can still work out what the writer/ creater means?
I just wrote ‘Octobern’.
“These Octobern words are an attempt to codesign a Syntropic Project. Storytelling for a world with a future.”
Simply meaning: The words I’m writing in the month of October.
The above quotation is my new Medium ‘status update’ (a phrase that needed to get in the sea in 2003).
Using Octobern makes me chuckle a little bit.
Potentially for the Poshish wank factor or possibly because it rhymes with ‘Koburn’
Ironically about 2003, a hotted up muscle car, doused in mustard flavouring wore this personalised number plate.
‘KOBURN’
Always parked just outside my high school,we’d go past it on the bus both on the way in and out.
We convinced the other kids on the bus that the guy’s name was ‘Koburn Mahoburn’ and he was a full time drug dealer and gangster that ruled our suburb.
It was a lie, but potentially — being the Central Coast at the time — a well educated guess.
The vague point I’m attempting to make is that like food preferences we’ve built up over time, there are certain word preferences we have too.
Most of us like the sounds and even the structures of words.
Think about dog and baby names. The level of your boganness will determine whether you make sure it can fit onto a number plate. E’s for 3s n’ that.
One of my favourite sayings, that I’ve no doubt lifted from somewhere is:
‘Nostalgia is a drug’
Octobern hits some nostalgia receptors in my brain and if I can be fucked; I can take the time to work out why.
And so…
The Project
This morning as I awkwardly shuffled through the sequence in the farm’s yoga studio (yeah didn’t think I’d say that sentence — but rad) and finished off with a little bit meditation — I asked myself the question:
Why haven’t I just said what The Project is?
My answer at first:
“You see Benny” said the mystical voice in my head.
“You’re a wanker.”
Somewhat true, but I uncovered the real reason being more likely
A road block that I’d created.
Like we all do.
Because our site is half built and I’d like to invite people to experience the site before experiencing the project.
“Bullshit.” Said myself and mystical voice in unison.
As I realised we don’t need the site and if you stumble across these words you can book in and experience The Project first hand.
Just like the other ‘close to 100 people’ who’ve now had a crack at it. Some have now turned it into a daily practice on their own volition (that’s an underused word that sounds sick!)
And the Project dovetails nicely into the wafflecopter I’ve just launched above because drumroll.
Its real name pumps memory chemicals from the heart and into the nervousness system.
And maybe nostalgia isn’t the right word, because in my extensive ‘four different source search on google’.
There’s a bit of a difference between a wish to return to how it was ‘Back in the Day’ and just merely feeling the radness of how it was ‘Back in the Day’ of which I’m in the latter camp.
Mainly because the former sounds like miserableness and the latter can be used as flow trigger for feeling and performing like a champion.
Thus the drug metaphor. ;)
As usual I’ve kept you waiting, but I’d like to release the hounds of The Project and play a little experiment with you if you’ll oblige.
Please get comfortable. Relax shoulders and anything else you need to slow everything down.
Take a deep breath in through the nose and breath out completely through the mouth.
Now as you read the words below, I want you to draw in another full breath and hold it. Just notice the sensations that the word evokes, if any…
Breath in…. Hold.
Look down.
‘BEEP-BREATH’
Focus on the word and feel the sensations…
And back in the room.
The Project is loosely based on the infamous BeepTest.
The two words when put together have been striking fear into kids and athletes for decades.
You may know it as the PACER test, but if you have no idea what it is.
It’s a diagnostic tool for measuring a person’s VO2 max (Volume Oxygen Maximum) and subsequently observe their endurance threshold.
The idea is that you do shuttle runs back and forth (approx’ 20mtrs), tracking to a beep sound.
As you go along the beep intervals get smaller so you have to continually speed up until you don’t make it to the other side.
Then that’s your score.
Cool 😀
The BeepBreath is a similar exercise, but for breathing.
Like the running version, it’s a diagnostic that can tell us a bit about our current state of being as well as what training we could do to improve ouselves.
Except we’re interested in CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) tolerance. AKA how well you can tolerate carbon dioxide in your system, which links to a bunch of other performance metrics in the real world benefits.
Most notably your stress tolerance.
If we train this up, the less likely we are to snap at our loved ones or react poorly in dangerous situations AKA road rage, arsehole bosses or King Kong attacks etc.
Anywho… That’s enough for this entry, because we did the big reveal. I’d love for you to let me know what happened while you read this and if there are any words you absofuckinglutely love.
Like putting ‘fucking’ in the middle of words. My favourite is bullfuckingshit.
And the beepbreath.
If you want to play, you can join us for some live action on Monday mornings.
Live from the above farm yoga studio (730 AEST).
ttps://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcqfuuuqTIsHNKszV2rgP5QFHNbf7DMqV9J
I best get my ass into gear and get this website cranking.
It’s coming ROBDOG! 😀
