Meme and mutation.

"Are we as persons not capable of transcending the social structures in which we find ourselves." 

Gardo
via @GardnerCampbell and @FrancesBell





The child picked up the object, turned it around in his hands and tossed it into his basket.

It had caught his curiosity. It was enough for him to reach out his hand.

Quite what this object was was a mystery to him.

It looked like it might be a source of conversation in the tribe.

If only he could think up a good story.

He was sure that the object would attract the others' interest and he would, for a moment be the centre of attention.

If only he could think up a good story.

I was fed up with monuments, in the space of four months, I had been stunned by Venice, exhausted by not finding the front door of the Vatican (even the smallest state in the world is tiring circumnavigated on foot), wowed by the Colisseum, bored by Geneva, stuck in a lift in a Budapest tower block,  whirled around Vienna by Ramses....

I was fed up with monuments.

I decided to introduce randomness into my travelling.

The Grand Tour was all very well but it wasn't all that adventurous.

I took out my map and found a pin, (stretched out paper clip).

I closed my eyes and whirled my hand expansively around the map.

With a determined movement of my finger and thumb I thrust the pin into a place on the map.

PISO. in Southern Italy.

Where on earth, what on earth was Piso?

I promised myself that no matter the place on which the pin would land, I would go there, that day.

PISO or bust. 

When I got off the train, it was late, it was dark, I was alone.  I trudged up a long slope to what appeared to be a village.  On arriving there appeared to be a group of people sitting around a light in  a square.  I didn't have a clue what would happen next.

I didn't speak Italian, they didn't speak English.

Our inability to communicate brought us closer. 

Somehow we managed to understand that I wanted to find somewhere to sleep for the night.

They had a sort of hotel even if there was no 'hotel sign'.

They found someone to open it up for me at five past midnight.

The following evening, I met the locals, we managed to recognise a common interest in football. We shared a number of names of footballers and they translated them into players for AC Milan, Roma, Sampdoria.

The small connections were greeted on both sides with laughter and joy.

We were starting to become friends.

A few hours later, the village girls came over to promenade, they could not believe that anyone English would choose to come to their village, therefore they decided it was a joke set up to trick them.

I was officially Italian. I was an annoying Italian pretending to be English.

They didn't have the means to check out their hypothesis.

It didn't matter, the joke added to the feeling of becoming a part of a story.

What do you do? 

I am a teacher.

Immediately there are associations which are made with others who understand this word. I work in a classroom. There is a blackboard, there is a whiteboard.

Where are you from?

I am from England.

Immediately there are associations which are made with others who understand this word. I live in a country with a Queen, with people who drink tea and don't know how to cook.

Little mutations of the memes

• Grand Tour
• Teacher
• Classroom
• England

can arouse peoples' curiosity, can change the stories that they will tell.

# What is that? 

It is a hashtag.

Immediately there are, or there are not (most likely) associations which are made with a tag.

A hashtag is what we make of it.

It is an empty basket into which we can toss our differences.
It is an empty basket into which we can toss our stories.
If we are curious, if we develop our imaginations, we can perhaps avoid recreating our own monologues.

A hashtag is like a child, it is what we enable it to become.

A child is more than a basket.

It has the potential to change our world with its stories.

 If only we would stop to listen.

Nothing very much.

Twenty seven seconds.

Twenty seven seconds.

It took twenty seven seconds of singing Happy Birthday and then it was done.



They thought nothing of it at the time.

Nothing much, they didn't do anything much.



By the time the twenty seconds had been tweeted around the world, it was already too late.

It was a pretty simple meme, nothing to write home about.

It was sufficient to make a message clear.

They were not alone in the room.

There was a wider meaning to their actions.

They had had an effect on a real person.

They had done something with their time.

There were tears in their eyes as they listened to the heart-sang reply.

Extraordinary how such a simple meme can move people to tears.


Thank you Maha.

Thank you Kevin.

Thank you Terry


They now know others care about them.

Twenty seven seconds is nothing.

Twenty seven seconds is all it takes to change someone's life.

Thank you Maxime. 

Thank you is a powerful meme.

This is just the beginning.

Life beyond the meme.

Trembling apprehension, fearful expectation, beyond the meme lies open space, breathe deeply. 

In, out, connect scribble dot. 

We have no time my friends to cheat ourselves. We have no time to unbuild, to deconstruct, to rebuild, to repurpose Jersusalem. 

We are left with this connection. 

Friends, family, gardens, rivers, homes, the birds as friends, the time as breath. 

Little as I have tried, the time spent learning has unchanged the joy, the secret of unconsidered sketches, ill-considered ventures, misspent schooling. Connect, don't judge, let it out, let it out. We are nothing, we are nobody, we are all we have, don't judge, let it out. 

He was there, he gave me gruff reassurance, he is my secret, he is buried, he is alive in this, in this.

Nobody will capture, nor repurpose our connection, our meaning. 

Beyond the meme, beyond the meme, down along the river, to the sea. Sea-change, heartfelt, gale, storm, spray, fear, we are walking afar on the beach, on the shore, on the edge. 

No don't try, you won't, I can't, you wouldn't like it, I won't insist. 

This will rest, when he will not, his ashes now a futile mist. 

But we have meaning, we have hope, we have time, we have time, my friends. 

So little, so little. 

Give up and dream, give up to dreams, give up to us. 

You are us, never forget, the river, the river, the river, the waves. 

You are gone. A meme lives on. REPURPOSE it Now. REImagine ours now. now. now.

For us.