Horizontal Dream Transfer and Keeping it Small

Most of us have heard the quote “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” but many of us do not know that full quote, by Oscar Wilde, is “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” Now, all credit and respect to one of our original anarchist forefathers, but I think he missed the mark on this one when it comes to collective liberation. I’d like to counter his point with the concept of “horizontal dream transfer.” We are dreaming of ways to liberate ourselves and each other from these oppressive structures, and to do that, we need to share the dream. We need to live our dream and maintain it, so that others can replicate that dream in their communities. And while it is always important to honor those that first had the dream, no one “owns” liberation. No one “owns” feeding people or sharing political education or sheltering the homeless. We need to detach from our ego and our investment in intellectual property so that others can modify our dream to fit their communities’ needs. 

We also need to fairly and equitably recognize our own limits and the limits of our collectives. I prompt you to shift from the nonprofit industrial complex (NPIC) mindset and white saviorism. It is not inherently better to have one massive collective serving 1000 people. If we scale it back and have 10 collectives serving 100 people each, then we preserve the integrity of our emotions and value. It is better to model integrity and have that replicated than to dilute our integrity for the sake of stats. adrienne maree brown said “we can measure our work by the way our relationships feel.” When you have large orgs and collectives, there will mathematically be more opportunities to lose values alignment and have more interpersonal conflict. 

I’m encouraging you to keep it small, keep it beautiful. When you and the people you are working with have created something where you feel joy and integrity and the work is sustainable and durable, pause and ask yourself if growth would impinge upon what you have built. 

The point is: have confidence in small is all. 

More on horizontal dream transfer. You have created something beautiful. Let’s focus on that beautiful thing we created and do that well. Let the focus not be how big it can get or how many people you can personally save or fix. But let your personal focus be that you do your thing so well and enjoy it so much that others are inspired to replicate your dream. What are the limits of your collective when we consider three tenants of “success”: enjoyment, integrity, and duration?

So often, scale is actually the problem. From globalization to bureaucracy. Take for example, the unemployment department and how shitty it feels to be swirled and caught up in a system that claims to serve those who need care but instead get tied up in red tape, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. The unemployment departement doesn’t, can’t, put their relationships at the center of their system of care and that harm is replicated in the ways they serve the population. We see this same thing in the NPIC. Getting bigger and bigger, running more and more like a business, the care and concern and actual community gets lost. 

However, if we do practice measuring our success by how our relationships feel, I invite you to reflect on when your activism has felt successful to you. A small group of friends maintained over time is one of the greatest joys in life. I’m sure you understand how difficult it can be to truly maintain those friendships over time but authenticity necessitates conflict and it takes genuine intimacy and duration to grow with nuance. Our collectives and orgs should feel like a good friendship, filled with growth and laughter. Consider the Nishnaabemowin word “abawaadiziwin”  which means “the art of being together.” To be truly together artfully takes skill and practice and a little bit of magic. We need to preserve that art form by focusing on each other, each individual and each bit of togetherness in our collective. 

Let’s consider a mutual aid project that has scores of volunteers all running around the entire city to feed people when instead there could be five or so collaborative mutual aids divided up by neighborhood so that each is feeding the people in their local area and it stays smaller but no less effective. A switch should flip in your head at some point telling you to keep it small. We need to learn the skill of replicating the good as well as inspiring replication but replication should not be the goal. The goal is to do your work so well and with so much joy and integrity that others pause and ask themselves how they could be getting in on that feeling. Replication is a natural consequence of your integrity and joy. 

We need to keep things small for the sake of enjoyment, integrity, authenticity, and intimacy. It’s not about the numbers; it’s about quality. The mainstream culture is about growing your business, your non-profit, or whatever. That’s a problem. With size comes bureaucracy and with bureaucracy comes emotional emptiness. Bureaucracy strips away the beauty of being human, which is our diversity. We should all be striving to connect with people in such a way that our diversity complements one another. Let’s focus on that rather than growth for growth’s sake. I want to emphasize how important it is to keep it small and enjoyable. Keep it small and do it with integrity. Copy what you love and let others copy from you. Lateral inspiration, not hierarchical growth. 

-Fiadh Leigh