TheListServe Blog

— On storytelling, climate change, and playfully exploring our futures. — There’s a glitch in the software system in the near future – what sort? How should I know, it’s in the future. The important part is that this glitch sends voicemails back to our time. And what do we hear? We hear voices from the cloud of many possible futures. We are eavesdropping on the many parallel paths our world could take. We get to listen to the messages that people leave for each other – by turns banal, mysterious, tender, and terrifying. —— Ready for a CHALLENGE? —— Take a moment to think about what one of those voicemails might sound like. PEOPLE: Who is calling? Who are they playing phone tag with? What’s their relationship? THE AUTHENTIC FUTURE: What clues you in that this is taking place in the future? What’s different? So why did I ask you to do that? Well, I think fiction can be a powerful tool to think about the future. Great technologists can tell us that when we network computers together it’ll...

A story for the readers of The Listserve: For 32 days last fall I was a ghost. Watching people go about their day-to-day lives around me while time seemed to stand still. My son was born 41 days early and spent 32 agonizing (for me) days in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. One Friday night my wife and I were sitting on the couch relaxing after dinner when *POP* her water broke. 6 ½ weeks early. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Women having their first NEVER go early we were told. It did happen. We rushed to the hospital where our fears were confirmed: Her water had broken. My wife was not leaving the hospital until she delivered the baby, but it was not happening that night. Over the next 6 days we talked, hugged, and tried to stay calm. In the moments I found myself alone I cried. Fear of the unknown can be terrifying. For 6 days I was terrified, but I didn’t show it. I put on a brave face for my wife and the son I hadn’t yet met. Six days later, once the doctor’s felt the baby’s lung...

Wow! I never thought I would be picked, let alone know what to write. I look back at all the emails I have received since joining Listserve and I still can’t figure out what to write. I guess a good place to start is to introduce myself. Hi, I’m Corrine and I’m 17 years. I live in Illinois with my aunt and our two cats. I started to live with my aunt back in September when my mom ended up in a nursing home. My mom is unable to take care of herself anymore. I go to visit her once a week in nursing home. Just yesterday (Saturday) we went out for dinner. I like to do a lot of different things in my free time. I listen to music. My current obsessions are Tegan and Sara, Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, and Tame Impala. I am also obsessed with Netflix. I’m currently working my way through Orange is the New Black and Supernatural. Both those shows will be the death of me. I also watch a lot of movies. I just watched The Boys Are Back. I hope to be able to get to the li...

Hey, so I got picked to do the listserve and I was super surprised. I was sitting in my dorm building watching a movie, Step Brothers to be precise, and as soon as I found out I shouted in the middle of the movie to my friend I got picked. All of my friends present were amazed that I was chosen to write an email to so many people! A little bit of background knowledge on who I am before I get to my story. I am a freshmen at the University of Minnesota and have no idea what I want to do with my life. I am originally from Colorado and I love the state. I wanted to spread my wings for college so I took a tour early fall last year of the campus. I loved it, middle of a city and it had 50,000 students. I couldn’t be happier! (If you can’t tell I love people!) Now onto my story... So being that I took a tour of the University in early fall it was a nice 50 or 60 degrees out. I assumed it would be getting colder in the Winter but I enjoy the cold so I decided I would buy a new jacket some unde...

My nightmares typically reveal my fears of insecurity, especially about failures, what people think of me, the fear of being the last person on Earth as a pulsating sun speaks to me, going to the supermarket and collecting everything I want to realize I have no money. Then when I was younger it was the fear of public nudity that suddenly occurred in the hallways of my school. Now, to live a nightmare. I've lost friends, I've been in the "hole", I learned to drink tap water again after years of filtered snobbery. I will share this so called nightmare... My laundry was all dirty so I looked in the closet to find a pair of black corduroy pants to wear to work. Work was a clean room, where I processed microprocessor chips in a "bunny suit" (a fully encased body suit). The button came off my pants so I grabbed a safety pin to attached my pants and rushed to work. Two hours or so I was ready for a break, I left the line to go to breakfast and stored my bunny...

Much like the rest of you, I had no idea what to initially write about. I thought about writing about what I do for a living, my interests, my hobbies, but all of them seemed pretty monotonous to a large group of people I probably don’t know. So I just decided I would write my favorite quote and my favorite, go-to joke: Quote: The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny…” –Isaac Asimov This one strikes true to me after being a math major who worked over a year on a lab-based microbiology senior thesis about C. Diff. I found that things never went right when I wanted, and always went right when I least expected. I had a knack of ruining the simplest of experiences, but accidentally coming up with other results that yielded new insights. Joke: Always remember, camping is intense. Definitely a go-to, and those who know me well know that I will drop this line randomly on a fairly regular basis. So if anyone has any ...

Hello! I can sit here and bore you with uninteresting facts about me such as I was born and raised in a city that’s famous for dropping a dead carp on New Year’s Eve. I work for a company called “Trust Point, Inc” where I am a financial planner, dabble in photography, reading Hunter S. Thompson, John Wooden and Mike Krzyzewski. I’m passionate about teaching basic personal finance, running and being on my motorcycle. But none of that’s important. I love bringing to light and praising the accomplishments of others; and with that, I’d like to tell you about my best friend. Even though he was 3 years younger than I, we grew up together, often going up to our family farm to help my Grandpa milk cows. He was more of a “Davey Crockett”, I was more of a “Michael Jordan”. Despite these differences, we always got along well. After college he got a job in a small town working at a farm implement fixing tractors, combines and the like. I was working hard to finish my Master’s degree at UW-Madiso...

Hello Everyone, I can't believe I won. I mean, I never won anything in my life until recently. The only thing I won was a discarded medal from my school sports day that no one wanted and my friend thought it would be cool to take it. I still have it until now :) . Anyhow, I am from Mauritius, a tiny island (48km by 60km) in the middle of the indian ocean. My dad ended up here when there was war in China and my grandparents got onto a boat and hoped that they would reach a better land and they did. Mauritius is where I was born and after spending 12 years in London, I decided to go back home. I earn one fifth of what I used to earn back in London and I don't regret it at all because Mauritius is a lovely place to live where you have African descendants, Muslims, Indians, white and chinese all living together without killing each other off. This is also why I thought that I should give the chance for someone else who doesn't have the same luck as I do to pass a quick message ...

Freshman year of college is when my pain started. The doctors prescribed me every antibiotic you could name, until I was throwing up in bed and couldn't eat a thing. I walked around, wondering why I couldn't be happy like everybody else. I wondered why I had to get a discharge from the Army, why I couldn't serve my country. I wondered why my dad who has money says my doctor appointments were too expensive, but my mom who has no money paid for $500 doctor appointments out of pocket when insurance didn't cover it. I wondered if it would be easier to kill myself by swallowing pills or by running the car in the garage. I wouldn't say I'm exactly healthy now, but I don't wonder these things anymore. Instead, I thank God for my pain. I thank Him for my mom, I thank Him for my church, I thank Him for allowing me to wake up in the morning. I thank Him for bringing me to my knees so I could realize that some people have it much worse than me. I thank Him for my ama...

Hi everyone! My name is Maggie and I'm an English major at Princeton University, currently in my sophomore year. I love writing, photography, traveling, meeting new people and being in the outdoors. I have no idea what I want to do with my life and I'm currently in full exploration. Sometimes it's hard feeling completely lost, especially when so many people are focused on finding that one set path to success -- but recently, I've been learning to trust myself, and it's been a fantastic journey. 2014 has been a great year for me so far. I've been learning how to be more genuine and authentic to who I am, and I've started to search for that same sincerity in other people as well. Instead of being all over the place and restless to meet new people or see new things, I'm beginning to see the value in simply investing in what I have and making more time for who truly matters to me. This has been a beautiful thing. I want to share several of my favorite quotes...

Hello, world. My name is Valerie. I'm 19 years old and I live in Ottawa, Canada, but I'm moving to Montréal this summer for school. I work as a cashier at a grocery store. I am a transgender woman. I like good tea and bad coffee. I like waking up slowly to bright skies and frost on my window. I like warm summer nights spent with friends that go on and on, until everyone starts to feel dawn approaching and gets very candid, as if the sun might just not come up again. I like getting lost in cities I've never been to before - or places I thought I knew like the back of my hand until I met someone with a different map. There's a couple of things I want to ask you to do, followed by questions. First off I want to implore you to be kind to the people who serve you - your waiters, your dry-cleaners, maybe even your grocery store cashier. We know you're having a bad day. We've met a hundred people today who are having a bad day. Your frustrating ten minutes in line is m...

Work hard. Sleep well. Read Proust. Everything else is just details. Wyatt Kirby kirby.wa[AT]gmail.com Seattle

Oh my god I won When I subscribed to The Listserve, I was immediately afraid to win. I hate writing! I love reading though, so I took the risk of winning the Listserve lottery and subscribed. And now this is happening! When writing or creating anything I always start to doubt myself. What if people don't like how I write? What if they think I am not creative? And this does not only apply to writing, but also to speeches, improvised acting, dancing, etc. etc. What makes this kind of funny is the fact that I practice various 'cultural' hobbies. I do theater, dance and I play the piano. And I enjoy it really much, I just never 'create' anything because that makes me feel uncomfortable. So now me, this person who hates writing, is supposed to write an email for thousands of people. I decided to ask my friends for help. That's what friends are for, right? I asked them what they would want to say if they could reach 10,000 people. Here are their answers: (I don't ...

I received the email about winning the lottery while I was standing on the platform of Oktyabrskaya station of the Moscow Metro. It was 30 minutes past midnight and I was completely shocked by the talk I had had an hour ago. I spoke with my ex-girlfriend about our future, no matter how weird it sounds. Three years ago we parted and have not said a single word to each other for all this time. She asked me not to call her, and I have not. A few days ago we met almost by accident, talked for a while, went to the cinema and today had a dinner in a restaurant. As we set down to the table she struck me with the following: "I have a boyfriend, I am almost married, but I don’t want to be with him. What do you want from me?”. Wow, to be honest, this was not a talk I was prepared for. We spoke about career plans, immigration, everyday domestic problems, money, children and treason. She has plans, she wants a stable future, but I cannot say I am ready for all that stuff. And now I have to ma...

I have no insight or wisdom for you today. But I have something better: statistics! I've examined the content of all posts to The Listserve since April 2012 - thanks to Simon Weber for the archive! I'm not sure whether this is the beginning - if anyone knows how old The Listserve is, or who is behind it, I'd love to know. Anyway, I spent a couple hours hacking on the dataset with Python, so let me hit you with some SCIENCE FACTS: First, the average Listserve post has 384 words, and the median has 356. The longest of all time was a 1,950 word rant called "Volatile Software" in April, 2012. The shortest of all time was a 2 word post in August 2013, which simply said "Be kind." Here's a list of the top 10 words appearing in the Listserve, and the number of times they've appeared: the: 9215 to: 7654 i: 6820 and: 6742 a: 6208 of: 5041 in: 3720 you: 3623 that: 3076 it: 2795 Well, that's not very interesting. Let's filter it to words that are 4 ...

Look at your watch. It’s broken. Do you remember that summer night? A group you weren't part of, a world right next to your own but so different and apart that you couldn't possibly understand how the people inside it worked. It was late, maybe midnight. You can’t know what time it is now. There was a thunderstorm, and a tornado watch—or a warning? What’s the difference?—and someone suggested a game of capture the flag. It was a stranger. They were all strangers. But you joined them, cast off your rationality for one night of mindlessness, because it felt nice, and because it seemed the thing to do at the time. What time is it? You don’t know, the watch’s face is blank. All their faces were sort of blank, because they didn't know much, just the safe little world they’d grown up in, with themselves and no one else. No one strayed, no one questioned, no one forced truths upon them and made them see that the world was big, and not always comfortable. You are sitting uncomforta...

"When I asked my boyfriend what I should write, he simply replied 'everything'. I thought this was an asinine suggestion, but when I pressed further, he simply shrugged and repeated it. After thinking about this for a while, I thought; what is important? What does everyone have in common in here? What should I cover? Everything. Everything that ever was and ever will be. Everything that everyone thinks, feels, sees, or hears. All of these things is but a fraction of everything that actually is. A small fraction in our corner of the universe. Everything is important is a drop in the bucket of everything, and that perhaps makes our everything special. Everything is our home, it's the place that we have, for better or worse, chosen to share..." When I asked my boyfriend what I should write for the listserve, he wrote to me the above.I liked it so much, I decided it was a an excellent idea to share. I guess that means he's on the listserve now too. My own thoughts...

Two testimonies to our collective ingenuity: 1. I went to a bathroom stall and found a small whiteboard on the back of the stall door, with a magnetic dry erase marker attached to it. This was to mitigate the problem of bathroom graffiti by allowing people who feel the need to express themselves to do so in a way that is considered socially acceptable. 2. Someone had directly scratched into the whiteboard in order to vandalize it. I think I had a good day today, but I try not to think about that. Just because I feel good doesn't mean that I'm doing the healthiest steps to handle my depression. The reverse applies too; I can have a productive and exciting day and still feel like shit the entire time. But one of these is better than the other, for me at least. Overload this with salt, as you should probably only take advice from people you want to end up like. I try not to think about results whenever presented with things I can't control, so that my actions are more importan...

Hi everyone! Almost like a coincidence, I am today in the process of writing a list of my life rules, in order to achieve all my goals and become the person I want to be, and suddenly an email from the Listserve arrives to my inbox, like sent from heaven!. My name is Javier Sanchez and I´m from Mexico City. I´m 26 and I work as an auditor in a Copper Mining Corporation. I love to work out at the gym, read LOTS of books and walk my dog. But who really I am on the inside? I am a dreamer, a goal setter, a go-getter; so that is what occupies my mind all day, everyday. Stuff like: ¿How to become the perfect version of myself? ¿How to achieve the life I wish for? ¿How to lead, inspire, and help the people? I´m craving to know the whole world, and as a secret between us, my BIGGEST dream is to live someday in NY, but I still don't have a plan for achieving that u_u. Such kind of things are my life quest. I was reading the other day "The Great Gatsby" (which you should read if yo...

Hey all... So I'm actually American but I'm currently studying abroad in Ireland for a semester. I'm from Ashland, Oregon, where we have a really amazing Shakespeare festival (you should all come). In college, I'm studying comparative/international politics. I'm kind of obsessed with travel. So if you have any recommendations for unusual but awesome places to visit, by all means let me know. I also like reading, baking, doing puzzles (of all kinds), walking, writing poetry, and other activities that I can't think of right now. I've also kind of abandoned my plans for the future. I haven't given up on my future or anything of that sort. Rather, I have just accepted that I'll probably end up bouncing around between locations/careers/goals because I'm easily swayed by chance. If you have any ideas of awesome jobs that involve travel, let me know! Since I haven't come up with a cohesive idea of what to say, I'm just going to list some ...

I think it's fascinating that I signed up for listserve, without really expecting to win. I guess I just thought it's so unlikely that I never gave it a lot of thought. Anyway. I'm a 22 year old Geology Student in Vienna, Austria. All I want to say about Geology is this: We don't just study 'boring' rocks, what's really fascinating is getting the big picture about everything on this earth, understanding how almost everything is connected. What i really want to talk about is this: I love good books, i really do! So some time ago i came to the conclusion that i should read more. What I did was to try if I could read one book per week for a year. No matter how thick, just one book per week. (I also kept a list and wrote down how many pages I had read, just to see how much it would be in average) So I ended this last year with book number 58. And I'm continuing in this year with a new list. The interesting thing is this: Once i got used to reading a lot, you...

Tyler Durden was right: "You met me at a really strange time in my life." My life changed drastically in the last 72 hours, including this email. So, if I may, let me ask for a bit of help. Here's my story. I am a 22 year old graduate of MIT from Scarsdale, NY. In 6 weeks I am supposed to leave for the Army Special Forces selection and training. It's been quite the curious road, initially declining service academies and attending MIT, then spurning more "traditional" occupations to enlist. I have spent months with family and friends trying to help them understand and cope with my decision. However, 16 hours before being told it was "my turn" to speak to all of you, I was informed that my application was placed on hold because my vision (I'm colorblind) wouldn't pass muster. It got me to quite a bit of thinking - I wanted to enlist to serve and help those in need in a direct manner. For those of you who find this incongruous, I urge you to l...

Hey Listservers! Wow, my turn. I've been meaning to write this down for a while, I guess I just needed you all. Sometimes in our lives, we are given a little extra time with ourselves. A time to think or reflect. For me, that time is the 45 minute drive back from my girlfriend’s house. The empty roads and dark night combine with the hypnotic beat of Tiesto, or whatever CD I have in, to create the perfect atmosphere for thinking about whatever pops into my head. I recall one such night that stands out in my mind, I was driving home on the virtually vacant highway under the vast night sky, the beat pounding in the background, and I started to feel small. There I was, alone, insignificant, flying towards home in a little metal box across my little piece of our grand earth’s surface. It was a kind of solemn feeling, a little sad. But then, someone passed me. Another person, driving a small black SUV, passed me on that otherwise empty highway, and everything changed. Who is this person?...

for a long time, i needed the attention of strangers on the internet to feel good about myself, but i don't anymore. have a good day, j Indiana

Hello everyone, the great thing about listserve is that it is based on such a simple idea. I enjoy this random-based, non-hierarchical way of interchange since half a year. Searching for simple ideas, for the idea that suggest itself, is what occupies me most as an conceptual urban artist. One day I entered an art school out of curiosity, smelled its atmosphere and knew what I want in life! That was 25 years ago and since then I got so many chances to develop and refine my artistic practice and have been able to travel the world with my partner as an artist couple for all kind of projects. To me, art is all about dealing with freedom. To pick whatever is interesting or unsettled, to research on it and to create a comment through this vast variety of media available nowadays. I wish that everyone who feels the desire to express and to create finds the courage and the means do so. To succeed and to fail and to start over again. And I am convinced that cultural exchange is a superb contr...

Hello World! That sounds SO good to me. Considering I rarely get out of my routine, our neighborhood…rarely meet new people, I can’t stop smiling from the idea that I am communicating with nearly 25,000 people (if all read this). So here goes… I come from a family where most relatives in my generation have sloughed off the dysfunctional aspects of life in which we were raised. Me? Racism is non-existent in my heart and behavior. I replaced the word never with more hopeful vocabulary because experience has shown me that hope, like enthusiasm, is sticky. So I touch everyone and everything and leave hopeful enthusiasm everywhere! Some of the most powerful words I own are YET! WHY NOT? and IF… From the age of eight I knew that I wanted to teach. School was always our first play choice. When the weather was warm my sister, Donna, and I would hang blankets from trees to create walls. She pretended she ran the school…I pretended that EVERYONE, like me, LOVED learning. Hahahaha Scratch that,...

I have lived my life the past few years and now just realizing that I am being this “do things for approval guy” or “nice guy” that is neither truly me nor making me happy. I have realized over the past few months that this attempt to make everyone happy is not only hurting myself but with the people I interact with. Some may say "Hey, being a nice guy is not bad and you will get what you want in the end." However, I find that it isn’t necessarily the act of being “nice” that makes you a nice guy. It is how we treat life and what we expect. Our act of being nice to people and our obsession with pleasing people causes us to expect the same in return. If we do not get it, we put ourselves down for feeling we didn’t get what we deserved. Whether we are with a group of friend or with our spouse, we do things that will give us more credibility and prevent ourselves from doing anything that may subtract value from us. Part of this requires more empathy towards others rather ...