Rules for (re)Cognition Summer

live touch love

Writing this on two hours of sleep, a biscoff cookie, and an 8 pm cup of coffee, but I know you all love an arbitrary seasonal set of rules, and the ny heatwave proves it's officially summer 𖤓°⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

What is (re)cognition summer?

1. Mitigate Screentime ♡♡♡ practice off hours (certain hours of the day where you use no screens and/or social media), and/or social media office hours (times of the day where you do use social media)

2. Lend and give, don't just recommend ♡♡♡ in an era of influencing, referrals, and recommendations, it means so much more to give someone a tactile version of the thing you want them to engage with. Give them a vinyl, a physical book, a piece of candy.

3. Don't over-coordinate plans ♡♡♡ stop texting your friends to tell them you've arrived as you arrive. Just enter and deal with the awkward dissonance of looking for the person you intend to meet. You could meet the love of your life, a new friend.

4. Outside, no phone time ♡♡♡ take at least one walk a day without your phone. I promise it will feel very strange at first but the more you do it the better it will be.

5. Engage with art without distractions ♡♡♡ put your electronics into a different room and get into a book the way you did as a kid. Actually watch a full movie, go to a little theater. Sit and look at one piece of art for twenty minutes. It is possible. I promise.

6. Reflect on your sensory experiences ♡♡♡ Think about the texture of the things you touch every day. Your sheets, the door handle, people's shoulders. Get in touch with your senses again. What scents do you like? Why? What color is the sky today? Think about how much more interesting all of these textures, scents, sights are in combination with one another. So much more interesting than a screen.

7. Eat without screen ♡♡♡ I know it feels so good and numbing, but that's exactly why you should swap this for a book or for eating outside in the sun.

8. Stop giving out your social media accounts ♡♡♡ It's a phone call summer. Normalize people not being able to find what your parents do for a living and your freshman year (in high school) book report before actually getting to know you.

9. Print this list and hang it somewhere in your living space ♡♡♡ It is so beautifully childlike to put things, projects, art, out in the open where you could see them. Didion used to sleep with her manuscript. I hung annotations on my wall as a child. A Rilke quote on my door at 17. A digital folder is subconscious. A poster is fervent, and as far as visual memory goes, forever.

All summer we'll be sharing tasks for the (re)Cognition Summer Challenge. Each written piece will have a related task (all tasks will collect on this page). Anyone who completes all of the tasks by the end of the summer will receive a special prize.

This first task is related to number 9.

Print out 2 versions of the (re)Cognition Summer rules. Hang one in your room. Write why you're participating in (re)Cog Summer on the back of the second version and mail this version to us.