Voices of Reason

The Project

The Voices of Reason Project (or VORP) is something that’s been rattling around in my brain, in one form or another, for a several years now. It has its roots in my own personal creativity and the fact that I believe strongly in freedom, respect, and peace. The project will involve interviewing creative people about all of these topics, in an effort to promote the arts and show how they shape our culture.

Here’s how it’s going to work:

I’ll be starting with someone I cur­rently know. I’ll interview this person by sending them questions via email, and then I’ll post their responses here on the blog. The person I interview will then electronically “introduce” me to another creative person, someone that I don’t already know. I’ll interview that person, post the responses on the blog, and then have that interviewee connect me with yet another creative soul that I haven’t met yet.

I think of it as a combination of “Six Degrees of Separation” and “One Red Paper Clip”.

Creativity, respect, peace, and freedom are vast topics, I know. My intent with this project is not to try and define or compartmentalize them, but rather to get different perspectives on them and, in the process, clarify my own feelings about them and put some food for thought on the table for any one who might read this blog.

At this point, I should probably try to clarify my reference to “One Red Paper Clip”. In embarking upon this project, one of my goals is to meet people of increasing influence. That would be the equivalent of “trading up” in the paper clip universe. I realize that this sounds incredibly self-serving, and in a way it is, but I in no way mean to imply that the people I interview early in the process are any less important than any one else I interview.

Everyone has something to say, and by eventually meeting and interviewing people who are fairly well known, I stand a fair to decent chance of increasing readership to this blog, thereby increasing the potential readership of all the interviews. So every­body wins.

The Nuts and Bolts

If you don’t mind a bit of legalese, here’s a detailed explanation of the ground rules for the Voices of Reason Project.

Each interviewee will agree to:

  1. Answer a series of questions, via email, about creativity, his/her creative endeav­ours, and larger societal issues such as peace, respect, and freedom.

  2. Return the questions, along with his/her answers, via email, to the interviewer (aka Faltarego, aka myself).

  3. Provide, via email, a digital copy of a photograph of himself/herself (i.e. a “headshot”).

  4. Grant permission for his/her answers and headshot to be posted on the faltarego.com website in the form of a blog entry.

  5. Contact another creative person, whom the interviewer has not met and who is likely to be interested in the project, and provide that person with the internet address of this page and the email address of the interviewer.

In exchange for this kindness, the interviewer (that’s me) will agree to:

  1. Conduct all correspondence in a courteous, respectful, and professional manner.

  2. Keep the questions short, relevant, and to the point.

  3. Post the interviewee’s answers in their entirety, editing only for spelling, gram­mar, and punctuation, provided said answers contain nothing that could be con­strued as hate speech or endorsement of illegal acts.

  4. Provide internet links to any websites, articles, images, or videos the interviewee wishes to promote, provided those sites are relevant to the interview and fall within the general spirit of the project.

  5. Send the interviewee a Faltarego.com t-shirt as a token of gratitude for his/her participation in the project.

Let the interviews begin!