Hi Kai,

I live in Richmond, Virginia, USA which is about 1.5 hrs drive south of Washington D.C. There's a wide range of stereotypes about American's but I'm probably in line with many of the young professional male ones: thirty years old, upper-middle class white male, married to my college sweet heart, with a dog and a beautiful one-year-old little girl, in a house close enough to the city center to walk around but big enough for a yard and a couple of cars. I started my own consulting firm for digital business automation this year. In many respects, I live an unremarkable and privileged American lifestyle. However, I do my best to engage with my community and strive for positive change in the world in various ways. Medical trips serving the poor in Honduras, helping Afghan refugees settle locally, simply raising a child with love and care. Nothing game-changing but I try not to just sit on my privilege like Scrooge Mcduck. Recently, Offscreen has been an integral part of my life journey...

A community where I frequently have honest open conversations is my (Christian) church. That community consists of about one half young people – mostly liberal leaning – and one half old people – mostly conservative. It's this crazy microcosm of what's going on in America in a community of about a hundred people. We're brought together by our shared faith in God, but sometimes (like how much of the rest of the world views Christians and/or Americans) we look at 'the other side' and think "WTF is wrong with them?!?!". In spite of all this, our community has begun to acknowledge that the world is changing rapidly and society is becoming more divisive and one way for us to figure it all out is to talk respectfully and frequently with people we don't agree with. Often, people in this particular community bring secular topics to the table to discuss. In that spirit, I've been sharing Offscreen with folks and the ensuing conversations with people have been deeply moving.

Some highlights of conversations involving Offscreen:

The Jocelyn K. Glei interview might have changed dozens of people's lives in just my own community. Mind you, almost all of the folks in this group of Americans have zero familiarity with the whole world you live in as you daily reflect on technology's impact on society. So when you drop into the lap of the average technology-addicted and attention-enslaved American this incredibly insightful discussion on technology and how it impacts us, it's like this veil is lifted. I shared my copy with a usually exhausted mom who works at a bank and when she gave it back to me the next week she said she cried because it all cut to the core of so many problems she's been trying to sort out.

My pastor has an amazing gift to connect with our diverse perspectives each Sunday. While some people picture preaching as some judgement-day holier-than-though speech, his are pretty much like weekly TED talks with Christian themes woven throughout. You might find it interesting that he's indirectly drawn from Offscreen about a half dozen times this summer alone to highlight various points about slowing down. A few times, he mentions the "Day in the Life" stories highlighting how slowing down helps us open our eyes to the right way to care for ourselves and treat others with kindness.

Personally, I think the big take away has been that you are collecting content which people are thirsty for as they try to navigate such a rapidly changing world. I've yet to share my copy with someone and it not result in this crazy deep reflective conversation with them afterwards. Even folks who are much further right politically than your interviewees (or even the overall voice of the magazine) are able to have the core messages resonate.

I'm sharing this with you because I think it's important for you to know what your doing is advancing humanity. Even if it's just in this tiny stereotypical pocket of America, the work you are doing forces meaningful conversations and healthy reflections at a grassroots level. It is breaking outside of the bubble of your peer and professional network and is actually penetrating into the society that feeds the beast needing to be tamed.

Thank you,
Matthew