Million Minutes Vlog4Peace: January 2006

I am doing the Vein of Gold of Julia Cameron, a companion book to the The Artist’s Way when I thought of this vlog project. It is a book on nurturing and enhancing creativity. I was in the Kingdom of Sound when I got this inspiration. The idea was reinforced by the other vlogs and blogs I’ve seen especially those concerning the impeachment campaigns on George Bush.

In the book of Cameron, she described the healing power of sound and music. Also, when people articulate and express themselves they invite and encourage communication and transformation. Sound is energy, a vibration. I wonder if a collective sound energy could make a ripple of vibrations that translate to action and change. Will the sounds coming from vlogs make a difference? What are the potentials for vlogs to educate and advocate for issues and concerns that confront humanity?

Then I questioned my motivation for such a project. Why should I inspire Bush’s impeachment when in the Philippines we also dislike our president? People are calling for her resignation and others are advocating for her ouster. We put her in power when we deposed then President Estrada. It was through the spread of mobile/cellular text messages that gathered a crowd of protesters so quickly on a single evening. The protest carried on for days forced Estrada to quit. We call it People’s Power 2, others dubbed it as “Text-message Revolt”.

The original intention for this project was to collect a million minutes of impeachment vlogs in the form of shout, chant, slogans, songs and other creative forms or expressions. What would be the outcome of gathering such vlogs on the net? Or say put them together as vlog collage?

But with so many people doing those things already, it is better to do a different and an alternative vlog. I believe there should be balance of vlog rants and shouts with that of vlogs on silence and peace. Impeachment is so close to being mispronounced as in-peace-men!

So trusting that both sound and silence have potentials for healing, positive influence and maybe magical powers this idea of vlog4peace came about. Definitely it will not eradicate peacelessness, but, through the effort of vloggers creating vlogs for peace I believe they can make a difference. They could contribute in spreading the message of peace. Imagine the first thing vloggers would see and watch is a peace vlog, that will definitely set the tone for them to be calm, at ease and more focused.

This vlogging initiative will be called as the Million Minutes Vlog4Peace. It is a vlog project dedicated for personal peace in particular and world peace in general. It will be vloggers contribution to making a peaceful and better world for all.

It is a global project owned by no one but by everyone. The vlogs will be a one-minute vlog on peace. Why one minute? The idea of small is wonderful– one-minute that makes a difference, especially when it accumulates to a million. Also, on the part of the author it would be much easier to produce and submit a one-minute peace vlog. And on the side of the viewers, it would be much easier to download and watch such vlogs. It won’t take so much time of the person to view the clip as well. Perhaps by the time the millionth one minute vlog had been watched vloggers had become by then a lot more peaceful, creative and made the world a much better place.

The mechanics is very simple. Anyone with a video camera can join. Create a one-minute video on peace. As much as possible it is an original work, so that it could be considered as public property (should you be amenable) or a creative commons. Like peace it is not copyrighted. An author can submit as many peace vlogs s/he could make so that the one million mark will be achieved. The only considerations, be as creative and artistic as you can be, and have peaceful intentions and motivations doing your film so that it will communicate peace to people. Send email link of your vlog to this address: vlog4peace@gmail.com. Always include in your tag vlog4peace. For those who do not have websites, blogs, and webspaces (it is high time for you to sign up for one), your videos could be emailed to the same address and I will post it on this blogsite: http://vlog4peace.blogspot.com.

The start is today 18 January 2006 and the end date will be on 28 September 2006, the United Nations International Day of Peace. Definitely this is not a UN related project. The date is celebrated by most nations. But you can inform and submit Mr. Kofi Anan the vlogs for his information. Or if you had trouble with your friends, loved ones, or maybe your boss, and you would like to make up for it why not make a collage of the peace vlogs as peace offering for a change.

A yahoogroup is also available to discuss issues and concerns regarding this project. You can sign-up do this egroup - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vlog4peace shoul you want to fully engage yourself for this project. An FAQ is being developed for the other details of the project. So visit the blogsite, the yahoogroups for updates or send email for your inquiries.

What you can do: create and submit your vlog, spread the word, ask questions, and translate this information in your language so that others may get informed about this, invoke peace and try to be peaceful always.

Vloggers of the World Unite! Let us Vlog4Peace!

(The author is Pete Rahon who believes that the internet should be made as a free international space for all to communicate. Like air which is free, the internet should be the breath of communication freedom for netizens. Visit his blogsite : http://peterahon.blogspot.com for a glimpse of his person.)