Cultivated Brilliance · CMI Living Library

Somebody should have written this down.

Every generation loses what the one before it knew, and then spends years rebuilding it from scratch. The Living Library exists to stop that. Eight questions. Fifteen minutes. Whatever you have carried, said out loud and kept.

Record & Submit See the Questions

What This Is

The Living Library is a permanent archive of what working people know. Not experts talking about their industries. People talking about their lives and the work they have given their days to.

You do not need a title, a degree, or a field. If you have raised children, cleaned buildings, run a company, answered the phones, driven the routes, taught the class, or sat with the dying, you have something in you that no one has ever asked you for. We are asking.

Your Recording Structure

The same eight questions, asked of everyone.

Every person in the Living Library answers these, in this order. That is deliberate. When everyone answers the same questions, the archive becomes something you can listen across, one life against another, for as long as it is kept.

How to record

  1. Use whatever video/audio recording you already. Audio only is fine.
  2. Read the question out loud, then answer it.
  3. No need to polish or script your answers. The first time you say something true is the best take.
  4. If a question does not fit your life, say so and move to the next one. That is an answer too.
  5. Silence is allowed. Take the time you need to think.
Segment 01 Origin ~ 5 minutes

Where you come from

  1. Who taught you how to work? Tell us about them.
  2. When did you first know this was yours to carry?
  3. What did it cost you to get here?

Start with the person, not the job. Most people find that once they start talking about who taught them, the rest comes on its own.

Segment 02 Practice ~ 5 minutes

What you know

  1. Walk us through an ordinary day. What part of it does nobody see?
  2. What do your hands know that no book could teach?
  3. Tell us about a day you almost walked away. What kept you?

Be specific. Not what the work is like in general, but a particular morning, a particular hand movement, a particular day you remember. Specifics are what survive.

Segment 03 Horizon ~ 4 minutes

What you leave

  1. What do you know that you are afraid will be lost when you are gone?
  2. A young person is sitting across from you right now. What do you want them to carry forward?

This is the part of the recording most likely to be listened to twenty years from now. Say it to a real person, not to a camera.

Segment 04 The Last Word ~ 1 minute

Before you stop recording

  1. Is there someone you want to say something to? Living or gone, named or not. Say it now, into the record.

You can skip this one. Most people do not.

Start your recording by saying:

  • Your name
  • The work you give your days to, paid or unpaid
  • How long you have been doing it
  • Where you are recording from

One or two sentences is plenty. Something like: "My name is Ruth Adeyemi. I have cleaned the same hospital for nineteen years. I am sitting in my kitchen in Montgomery."

When you are ready

Send us your recording.

Upload directly through the link below. No account required. Video or audio, any standard format.

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