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WorldChanging Book
Well, my contributor's copy of the WorldChanging book -- WorldChanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century
I find it hard to express the complex jumble of emotions I feel when I look through the 600+ pages of the tome, though. There's some pride, to be sure, along with sad nostalgia for a part of my life now ended, all mixed with what I can best describe as disconnectedness: much of the book comes from my words, yet they aren't, quite. I don't think any of my articles -- whether new pieces I submitted during the book's construction, or pieces derived from posts at the WorldChanging.com website -- survived the editing process intact. Sometimes the new versions sound like my writing, and sometimes they sound utterly alien (with recognizable phrasing remaining as memetic flotsam and jetsam); in a few cases, I even spotted familiar phrasing showing up under somebody else's byline (an understandable result of the hurried and dynamic editing process).
I suppose this dislocation comes from encountering a new version of something I poured my life into for over three years. It's more than just the unfamiliar form, though. Considering how much of myself I put into WorldChanging, holding this book in my hands is like encountering an alternate-universe version of myself.
Comments
Great reviews on Amazon! So you have left Worldchanging? Is it being sold or shutting down somehow? Sorry if I'm behind the news, maybe you should update us with a blog post on what is happening with Worldchanging, exactly.
Posted by: Michael Anissimov | November 6, 2006 7:35 PM
Yeah, Michael, I left WorldChanging at the end of March. WC is not being sold or shut down or anything like that; it was just time for me to move on.
Posted by: Jamais Cascio | November 7, 2006 1:01 PM
I had no idea the edits had been so extensive! In any case, congrats :) Looking forward to reading it soon --
Posted by: green la girl | November 7, 2006 3:20 PM
"...the goal is to show that (nearly) all of the solutions we need are available now"
Now we just have to put them into practice.
Good on you all for the Worldchanging book. It helps.
Thanks.
Posted by: gmoke | November 7, 2006 4:35 PM
"It's not as aggressively future-focused as I saw the WC site in my time, but that's probably appropriate: the goal is to show that (nearly) all of the solutions we need are available now, not in some future scenario we just decide to wait for."
Jamais,
Thanks for putting my vague feelings into words. The content at the WC site has changed, for good reasons, into a more present, action-oriented focus. And that's good and there's definitely a need for that but, I kinda miss the old, quirky, techy, future-oriented feel of the old WC. I never viewed such a focus as something "we just decide to wait for." I always viewed it as a call to work towards.
It's hard to find decent techno-progressive, tech-green sites on the Web. I worry that WC, if it keeps going the way it seems to be going, might loose that edge that distinguished it from so many other green sites out there.
Maybe I'm worried about nothing. I still read it frequently and still comment there on occasion but I'm beginning to be drawn toward Treehugger, Sterling's stuff and this site for the tech-green prospective.
Posted by: Pace Arko | November 7, 2006 7:00 PM
Nothing a bit of tape couldn't fix, but my slip-cover was a bit mangled as well.
Posted by: Tony Fisk | November 7, 2006 7:27 PM
Pace, I didn't mean to imply that the future focus in Jamais-era WC told us we could wait for solutions; I could imagine, however, that the reason that future-focused stuff was pulled from the WC book was to avoid that perception.
I think the one thing to bear in mind about the new WC is that it's really no longer a blog, it's a digital magazine.
Posted by: Jamais Cascio | November 9, 2006 9:58 AM
Ditto on the somewhat mangled slipcover, ah well.
Jamais, there would be no Worldchanging and no Worldchanging book without you and your contributions. So, congatulations on the achievement.
I'm still counting the days until we get to work togther again, and you're still broadening my horizons (which tended towards the here and now) via Open the Future.
Posted by: Emily Gertz | November 12, 2006 10:37 AM
Thank you, Emily! I look forward to working with you again, too.
Posted by: Jamais Cascio | November 12, 2006 12:37 PM