How can a planet of 7 billion people be shared as though we are
a population of 6 billion?

By voluntarily taking a day off from our energy hungry cars, machines and gadgets and our “restless” pursuits one day a week, the human condition can become more secure, connected and intimately fulfilling.

This practice reveals the infinitely pleasurable rewards of
direct human experience with the world.

It’s not an ideology – just an opportunity to create a space for all
of what make us human.

Learn someone’s story, practice a language, take long walks. 
Plant a garden, learn the flowers, chop some wood, make some music.

There’s even a loophole – you can catch a bus, hop a train…

 This is what’s called a meme. An idea put into the world that scales into something meaningful.

And it’s your own story. This is where we will collect one-page essays of your inspiring experiences off the grid.

But unless we practice living the life we imagine it will be doubtful we can create it.

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme.
A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.

– Mahatma Ghandi

It’s not a rejection of capitalism outright – just planetary resource and human exploitation and recognition that political solutions alone cannot solve our problem. And, though with imagination much is possible, if we don’t acknowledge certain limits then nature absolutely will. And does increasingly.

Still it’s right to ask how much should be sacrificed today for generations to come with so many present needs?

Practicing a day of rest should appeal to any political persuasion – the personal responsibility of libertarian and conservative inclination and the mutuality of liberalism.

So this is really a way for an individual to physically experience their connection to the wider world rather than a virtual and mediated one.

We need 24 hours off in a 168-hour week. You need 24 hours off.

24-6 Project is simply a thought experiment that can make a profound difference in the quality of a person’s life and the condition of our planet. A perfectly rational 24 hours a week, set aside for leisure and rest, so humans can enhance coexistence.

I suspect theology is a way that humankind organized civilization and laid down some boundaries. So, while not a particularly new idea, 24-hour increments off the grid and work/commerce cycle in a 7-day week is.

I am not a Sabbatarian or religious but where credit is due, we all deserve a day’s rest. Our ancestors understood the prerequisite of diurnal rhythms and that human beings require a regular day of rest. At any rate the biblical commandment to keep a day apart from the rest was a gift from the Creator to enjoy creation as is commonly understood.

Why? Because we exist in a completely new sphere where 24/7 is the new reality, except we evolved with a need for interstitial brain tissues to assimilate learning through rest, which lends a sliver of reason to our instinctual habits.

Downtime replenishes the brain’s stores of attention and motivation, encourages productivity and creativity, and is essential to both achieve our highest levels of performance and simply form stable memories in everyday life. A wandering mind unsticks us in time so that we can learn from the past and plan for the future. Moments of respite may even be necessary to keep one’s moral compass in working order and maintain a sense of self.
– Ferris Jabr, Scientific American 10/15/2013

Reclaiming this day for a global technological era just might take our foot off the gas, literally, and get you and me a break from the doomsday machine and back into our individuality and creativity. So the idea is;

How can a planet of 7 billion people seem like 6?

And, can we get through the bottleneck described by the biologist E.O. Wilson of perhaps 10 billion people before having an all-out-liquidation-sale of our home planet? I regret the sky is falling quality of the carbon atmosphere situation but this actually is an existential moment for humanity that so distorts our thinking that we entertain energy extraction at all costs. That we must consider less-bad half-measures of nuclear and so called bridge fuels of extreme oil and gas extraction. Finally reducing it to a jobs/environment tradeoff is really a lack of political will to transition labor and resources.

Does this really make sense to you when we are the big-brained mammals running a planet?

So if you can afford taking a leisurely day a week and unplug (unless it’d risk your health) you can practice an effective and liberating act of civic disobedience. So what if time is (someone else’s) money. The work will get done and you’ll still buy stuff – but maybe with a little more enlightened approach and a lot less energy consumption.

Have fun.

That’s how it works.