Calyx: A Not So Occasional Documentary
Kirk and I spent 3 hours discussing our documentary series. We discussed how we ought to present this on fresh-produce.exchange. It should be obvious on the menu bar, and it’s about being authentic, and perhaps even raw, as we have to launch TRIBE in 2 weeks; yet we have to hold the bar high as we aspire for our documentary series to be a thought leadership production.
Thought leadership is about deep listening and thoughtfully formulating innovations from insights. Insights can’t be had from a straightup logical processing. It comes from an aha. It’s a new perspective. If we keep banging our heads on the zoom screen, it still won’t work. It has to emerge when the insight is ready. Collaborations must have this component of resonance. No chemistry, no resonance. No resonance, no magic. No magic, no ohwow.
So, we went through quite a few names. Red Bricks, for the story of a building in Rochor that doesn’t look like Rochor. And about laying foundations, but it might be too concrete and we are about organic growth. Sprouting new things. One Something Revolution in reference to One Straw Revolution by Fukuoka. Kacang Putih was politely made to disappear from the discussion.
I liked something something Dialogues. But all dialogues must find its core. Kirk believes it is all from the same place. He is beginning to remind me of an owl perched on the Tree of Wisdom. Come to think of it, anything Dialogues is also overused. We need Action.
I suddenly thought about something that we typically educate regarding fresh produce as that which is evidential of freshness: calyx.
From a flower to bearing fruits. From beauty to bounty, which is really beauty personified, and gifted. From the farm vines to your doorstep. The Calyx Series might become canons.
Kirk cautiously says, “working title”. Sigh, I guess he needs to get to his story boarding! Or maybe that’s how stories go. They keep going. And they always pause on a cliffhanger. Yes, that’s what make great stories!
Follow our Occasions and our pedagogical documentary series. They will tell our stories. And they will deepen our insights as we unfold our dialogues and discoveries in a virtuous cycle of growth, and hmm, some thrilling suspense (during our post-production blackouts, that is.)
OUR FIRST DOCUMENTARY SERIES WILL LAUNCH AT THE SAME TIME AS TRIBE!
Occasions Podcasts
I then sent Kirk all the podcasts that I had recorded during the first 3 Occasions. I realised I might not have recorded about fresh produce, nor about freedom from pesticides. I realised too that when we follow the flow, things have to surprise us. Insights and refreshing engagement must have its own flow, form, momentum, purpose – passion.
Authentic daring comes from a place that cannot be templated. So, these podcasts are like soundscapes of the minds of our common formulation of food sustainability leadership. It isn’t always going to begin with the what. It begins somewhere that it wants to begin, and it shapes itself.
So, what I am going to do is to organise how the occasions podcasts sprung itself out of trust and the caring to take time, and take heart by all the good folks to come together to share a meal and moment of dialogues & nourishment. Perhaps, when we try to define something like thought and action leadership, perhaps, it is elusive, until we live, breathe, witness it:
1. What is it that you do?
2. What drives you?
3. Leadership
4. What do you think of Occasions?
5. Chef Shweta’s Solstice Menu
6. What do you think of the vegetables?
I recall now how our poetry anthologies would evolve. I am an Editor. I listen, and I organise, and this time, I record it, and publish it on fresh-produce.exchange.
Because we are beyond just vegetables. We are about an exchange of our ideas, hopes, dreams, learning, desires to make our existences, so much more. So much more beyond just ourselves.
I was thinking the other day, after organising 3 Occasions. What makes me keep going? It’s the intrigue. And when we do something, make something, there is something that is defining the creations, especially the co-creations. That’s what I call a drive. And the results, even if of a different form, it is still embodying these core somethings.
I understand now that fresh produce is actually the result of this definition, or attributes. More critically, an exchange of these expressions of attributes.
Perhaps, it named itself. Fresh-produce.exchange named itself out of nowhere but definitively from somewhere – the core. And the results, the produce – will always be an exchange of FRESH:
Goodness. Accountability. Traceability. Care.
I guess, that’s how we dance with each other.
TRUST.
And have a great ball of fun on the dancefloor!
And along the way, make something good of ourselves and our world.
I think my deepest, honest to goodness measure of a good day of work well done and spent: laughter. There has to be genuine fun and ineffable joy. We don’t know what makes it, but when it’s there, we know it’s fresh – living water.
And always, a twinkle of sweet mystery.
LISTEN TO OUR FIRST PODCAST DURING THE LAUNCH OF TRIBE. Who are our first TRIBE members?
pek@fresh-produce.exchange
from The Chronicles of PEK
(always in search of something something,
and this time, very seriously, in food sustainability)
January 2022