A framework

Upon entering our community, you will be presented with a view of the world's ongoing armed conflicts. There are about 32.

By choosing a war to resolve, you will see a mix of the work by I Am War's research and action wings. Information about the war will be provided by the research wing, whose role is to look at a specific conflict, and answer the question: What are the fundamental causes and tensions underlying this conflict? What problems of scarcity are at work, here?

Clearly, these are difficult problems. It is going to take thousands -- perhaps hundreds of thousands, likely millions -- of people to take them on, with thousands of ongoing projects, large and small. These projects will be presented along-side the work of the research wing: Here are the fundamental causes, and here are our solutions to create what's missing, to address these problems.

This is the action wing. Choose your war; now choose your action, targeted at root cause. This will not be the work of a few. This will be the work of all of us. Some will work full-time, some part-time -- but the vast majority will be on the weekends, during our free time. I Am War stands for the notion that we can all participate, create, respond, and lead, while we continue to care for our families, continue to create our homes and our selves.

Beside a pillar of engineering, a second pillar of the action wing will be our education projects. We see violence as a symptom of failure, a breakdown in communication and a loss of power of self expression. Beyond I Am War is this more-difficult problem of violence and force as a whole; we won't pretend to have a solution to this, here, but we are willing to bet that learning to communicate -- to speak honestly and to listen without judgment -- will play a key role in sustainable success.

The tip of this iceberg, the face of I Am War, the glue that keeps us connected, is our website. Leaders -- all of us -- will have the tools to create projects, to put forth our ideas, to communicate with and request workers -- volunteers or non. While the real work is done on the ground, there are many existing tools and sites that we can build upon, and the Internet will play a key role in our success.

We see now as the time to bring these ideas together. We see now as the time to learn. We see now as the time to act, to create, to build this community and to do something the world has never seen.

Related essays:

• A simple notion
• I am war

Good as I been to you

December 28, 2007
12:38 a.m.

Time to go back to my roots. To the cold. To the barren trees and softly falling snow. To the bitter, shivering, relentless, shattering cold. To the muffled crunches of solitary walks in the drifts, where the value of a warm hat and warmer thoughts is known.

Brush yourself off before going inside. Stomp your feet; kick the ground; kick the door.

"Why did you walk in the slush? Don't do that. Hurry, shut the door, shut the door. Take off your boots. Come in, come in!"

pink cheeks, runny nose, numb hands. hot chocolate. marshmallows, tiny; don't burn your tongue; too late. soft smiles, sniffles. oily hair. exhaustion. content.

close your eyes; they burn; your cheeks ache. Time to write, time to be, at your desk with the wind behind you, with your soul in its place, calm and comfortable, sinking into your chair, writing on your knee, writing on the arm, writing on the floor, on your side, on your back. it's dark, you're out of ink, your family asleep. time for a walk.

lay on the ground, on the white. cmrrmmmrphhhhbbbmmpphhhh. look up at the clouds, up. make an angel. stop. look at the flakes; they sting your cheeks again in the darkness, in the moonlight. mind your lower back. mind your neck. then relax. keep your thoughts warm; you can stay longer that way. so quiet. so still.

breathing and breath. breathing and breath. breathing and yes. close your eyes.

laughing and breath. so still. quiet outside racing within. a smile. alone. almost there. there. now.

time to go.