We are living in an age of manufactured information-scarcity.
Authoritarians shrink the field of information so they can diminish and dominate reality. Destroying archives and banning books is never enough because documents don’t consider meaning – communities do. Authoritarians try to use closed systems to separate people from shared meaning. But no system containing humans can ever be closed to information leaks. Not even the blockchain.
The human ability to detect significance and consider it within the context of the past, present and future is species unique. Homo Sapiens seem to have emerged alongside meaning. We have always been Children of the Information Age.
And so, after the archives are torn apart, authoritarians destroy us too. People, especially children, die when information scarcity is imposed by the government. This is intentional. Each loss depletes a community’s ability to process reality beyond authoritarianism’s fragile framework.
Every action the authoritarian program can’t easily compute is an action that drains their power.
We need to keep our world too big to be captured by their code. For most of us, this work will manifest through small acts we perform every day, with the skills and resources we have at hand. Every action the authoritarian program can’t easily compute is an action that drains their power.
As you find ways to act outside the authoritarian script, I am asking you to include the work of preserving information and cultivating shared meaning. Keep records of what you know, what you learn, what you observe. Find communities where you can give and receive knowledge.
Mariame Kaba, activist, author and archivist, includes record keeping, educational pamphlet making and community knowledge sharing in Some Actions that Are Not Protesting or Voting. It can be difficult to know how to do that work. That’s where Pocket Observatory comes in.
Drawing on years of research and reporting, I've developed a pocket-sized framework designed to help you reclaim your attention, preserve information and share knowledge. This framework includes pocket practices like daily notes, a monthly curriculum, and a (much improved) dynamic archive of human experience.
Pocket Practices
Pocket Notes
First I pay attention. And then I tell you about it.
Each evening, I share contextualized observations on culture, care work, politics, community, history, and the economy. This daily newsletter offers subscribers a simple model for cultivating shared understanding in an age of information scarcity.
Attention is the beginning of devotion - Mary Oliver
Pocket Observation
A monthly curriculum focused on preserving information and cultivating community knowledge.
I create one half of Pocket Observation. The other half is created by you. As you interact with each Pocket Observation, it will be transformed into a piece of your personal archive. Add blank pages, write in the margins, tape in ephemera, sketch impressions.
Each Pocket Observation is uploaded to the Internet Archive, ensuring long-term preservation and public access. You can download the Pocket Observation to a device and interact with it in a digital space. Each issue can also be printed at home, requiring just four pieces of paper. This dispersed, non-digital, local implementation model will protect your personal records from digital decay and other online hazards.
Follow along as I work through each Pocket Observation. As part of my own observance each month, I send out exclusive writing, audio notes, free art downloads, and recommended resources.
Pocket Constellation
A dynamic archive devoted to the human experience
This archive contains cultural objects that interact with one another and the observer. Objects include articles, etymology, literature, ephemera, profiles of organizations, research notes, audio, video, newspaper clippings, historical profiles and high-resolution art files available for your downloading pleasure.
Pocket Constellation is organized with tags that decay over time. This structure makes unexpected connections visible while also illuminating how categorization is a perspective that shapes information.
Plus, it’s full of lots of cool stuff that I know you'll like.
(Currently being moved from a private platform to the Internet Archive. Will be available soon!)
About Me
Hi, I'm Meg Conley. I am a researcher, writer, and caretaker. I create Pocket Observatory, a not-for-profit attention reclamation project.
My work also appears in
Publications like Harper's Bazaar, Columbia Journalism Review, The Gloss, and Slate.
Books like Jessica Grose’s Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood, Katy Kelleher's The Ugly History of Beautiful Things and Pooja Lakshmin’s Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included)
Podcasts like BBC Radio 4 The Coming Storm, Vox’s Today, Explained , NPR’s It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders and documentaries like The Rise and Fall of LulaRoe
Pocket Observatory by Meg Conley is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
