For the past two weeks I have been doing most of my thinking in “collaborative space”.

Generally I do more of my thinking than I ever realized in what I’ll call “collaborative space”.

I do a lot of chit-chatting in public places to people I don’t know, but who I come to know something of to varying degrees. Sometimes I think I know people I don’t know because I am very poor at distinguishing faces and in thinking this I have sometimes come to know them because they happened to be uniquely responsive, rather than flustered by the stranger misidentifying them.

I inherited this tendency towards chit chatting from my mother. She is a very helpful woman who always inquired after people if they were upto something interesting or looked like they needed help, she would not watch a person struggle, she’d have the other handle of the bag lifted.  She also has a ripe sense of humour and would banter into the sunset if there was such a thing where she lives. Thus her banter isn’t contained by controlled social gathering and familiarity. In this regard she is the most liberated person I know. She could literally talk to any man or woman any place about any thing. And if there wasn’t a man or woman to talk to she’d still be fine. I think she could have a rich exchange with the branch of a tree.

When I think of the way my mother moves through life it reminds me of Joe Strummer’s line “without people you’re nothing.”

During these past two weeks, without people I’d a been nothing.