Lavender Software and the Smell of Belonging
Less tools for thought and more tools for connection
“The idea that people could use computers to amplify thought and communication, as tools for intellectual work and social activity, was not an invention of the mainstream computer industry or orthodox computer science, nor even homebrew computerists; their work was rooted in older, equally eccentric, equally visionary, work. You can't really guess where mind-amplifying technology is going unless you understand where it came from.”
— Howard Rheingold, writer of Tools For Thought1 published by MIT Press in 2000
It’s 2017 and I’m sitting in the living room of my two bedroom apartment in Bedstuy, Brooklyn. Residing above a local dive bar owned by a black woman who also happens to be my landlord and sharing space with a cat that isn’t mine in a city of 8 million people. My imagination could never have pictured a portrait of loneliness this agonizing. Sugary and without flavor, I should be excited but all I can taste is disappointment. You see, living in New York was a childhood dream I carried around in my body as I came of age, arguably this dream was the only constant. My first attempt was my freshman year of college, this was my second attempt. And this time I came with a renewed mission and an exaggerated resume. The exaggerated resume got me a job managing a restaurant in Manhattan and the renewed mission had me working on a social media platform for artists, or was it a dating app for artists, or was it a LinkedIn for artists? Desperate to re-establish the connection to my creative community that I lost after graduating college I turned to building software “solutions” instead of picking up the phone, instead of writing the love letter, instead of bringing flowers to your door because your place is on my way home from the farmer’s market. Months later I was fired from the job I was unqualified for and unable to pay rent. Gallons of tears later, I was swimming in a grief I didn’t yet have the language for. A loneliness so deep I could no longer feel the ocean floor, I returned to my hometown. Sometimes the community you need is the community you have. I closed my laptop and fell into the laps of my people.
What happened? I was so focused on building the tools for belonging that I forgot to actually practice belonging. Call my family, show up for my friends, support the art shows of the brilliant folks in my circle, volunteer at the community garden, attend the programming at my local library, walk down to the bar that was literally underneath my feet. This is the slippery trap of building software for deepening connection without actually being connected. Existing on a social media platform doesn’t mean we’re engaged in a social practice, showing up on Zoom does not mean we’re present and increased awareness of all the potential events you could attend this weekend might actually increase your felt sense of loneliness. The church of techno-optimism would have us believe that software can solve suffering but there’s no solution for that, only a salve. The salve is the practice of returning to each other, ourselves and our local ecosystems again and again. Most of the time it requires a knock on the door, a phone call, handpicked herbs from your garden in outstretched hands smelling of rosemary asking for permission to hold you.
I’m most interested in the software that helps sustain this salve, a dewy micro-climate of lavender and memory, music and belonging. Tools for Return. What are the aesthetics of this software, a better question, how does it get cultivated and maintained? Yesterday, in a letter I was writing to a cousin serving a life sentence in prison I told him how I’ve been thinking so much about speculative practice and the ontology of blackness — how it makes room for a way of being that is beyond human. Like how a best friend becomes a sibling, an anonymous southern folk tale becomes everyone’s family history, a family friend becomes an Aunt. The violence of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade made relations elastic, in the absence of biological ties the world became our kin. Fractured and scattered. Related to everyone and no one, computers become cousins and trees become uncles. Related to the world, bodies surviving in residence time, our code is still floating around in the same ocean where internet cables reside. Inside this poetic possibility of being, a beyond human cosmic slop of connection and relation, what is lavender software? How might I hold you without ever knowing your name?
I have questions for you…
Last week, on my Instagram stories I asked “What are technologies of care?”. The responses I got back were: Shared iCloud Folders, find my friends (for safety), playlists/mixtapes, online resource sharing, and art. I wasn’t surprised, but I was warmed by noticing how none of these responses are about tools for productivity — instead there’s a focus on technologies with the capacity to deepen care and connection. Remember how I told you I’ll be releasing an offering in September around creative coding for writers? Well, during this summer break I’m realizing the reason we might be turning to code in our writing practices is a result of this unexpressed longing. This unexpressed longing for outstretched hands smelling of data and rosemary, the salty memory of internet cables. This familiar but unrealized kinship we feel with our computers as cousins and software as a space to let the lavender in — holding us all in one single breath.
When do you feel most held by loved ones?
When (if ever) do you feel held by software?
Is there an activation of your sensorium that supports these feelings of being held through taste, smell, sound, touch, vision, feeling, etc?
Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear from you and respond to your reflection in Wednesday’s podcast episode.
If you’re curious about cultivating a healing relationship with technology and learning how to code through a framework and practice that centers memory, belonging and the body I want to invite you to book a free 1:1, no obligation discovery call through Seeda School where we will discuss your all questions, visions and goals around code.
Until next time…
I want to invite you to:
Check out and share last week’s podcast episode on imagining technologies of care where I respond to the comments/reflections left by folks on Instagram and also decide to change my mind and elaborate on something I wrote.
Subscribe to and share Seeda School’s YouTube Channel.
Follow Seeda School on Instagram.
With care,
Ayana
Published by Forefront Podcast on Feb 03, 2023, “Collective Intelligence & Tools for Wisdom | An Exploration w/ Charles Broskoski of Are.na” is the episode that got me googling the phrase “Tools for Thought” and thinking about software that centers the body instead of the mind.