Project: Message in a Bottle
- Posted by: GOOD
- on May 22, 2009 at 10:43 pm
In 1977, a mere two years before Sting penned his classic hit, the folks at NASA were busy preparing their own intergalactic “message in a bottle.” The bottle, in this case, was the Voyager spacecraft, a vessel on a theoretically endless mission to explore the outer reaches of space. The message: a golden record (the most advanced storage medium of the time) containing samples of our planet and culture, from popular music to human brain waves. A statement from President Carter contained on the record read: “This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.”
As we continue to try and survive our time, we hope to renew this spirit of optimism that the Voyager Golden Record so embodied, but on a terrestrial scale. Given that our next issue is all about water, we’re asking you, our readers, to submit your best idea for a message in a bottle. It can be any sort of token: a written statement, a letter to a stranger, a piece of art you’ve created—basically anything that can fit on a page, and that would convey to whomever might find it, whenever they find it, that there’s reason for hope. We’ll display the submissions on our website, and the best entry will be printed as a page in the Water issue, with instructions on how best to tear it out, secure it in a bottle (glass please, not plastic), and send it on its way. There will be an additional prize for the winning entry, TBD, so check back soon.
At the time of the Voyager launch, starry-eyed astronomer Carl Segan remarked: “The launching of this ‘bottle’ into the cosmic ‘ocean’ says something very hopeful about life on this planet.” We have similar aspirations for this project.
the OBJECTIVE
To send a message of optimism out to sea, via bottle.
the ASSIGNMENT
Craft a message and email it to us. Your message can incorporate any kind of printed communication: text, graphics, photos, sheet music—whatever. We’ll pick one to publish in the upcoming issue of GOOD so readers can actually send it to sea.
the REQUIREMENTS
Your submission has to fit on a standard page. Email your submission, as a jpg or text, to projects[at]goodmagazine[dot]com. We’ll accept submissions through Sunday, May 31.
UPDATE: We just wanted to acknowledge the comments about littering. We’re certainly aware of the problem of trash in our oceans (see this recent Transparency). Casting a message to the sea in a bottle can be seen as adding to the litter problem. So could celebrating with helium balloons. We’re always trying to balance enjoying the world with taking care of it. Our hope is that our net effect is positive. Thanks for keeping us honest. And to the commenter who asked about our parents: They’re mostly at home.
DISCUSSION: 19 Comments
Dear Good:The website projects@goodmagazine.com I’m unable to access. So, I will submit my article for publication here.
PROJECT MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
It will take more than a song, poem or a dance to inspire hope in the human race with the type of problems we’ve been facing for over a year. The prior message in a bottle was to go into outer space to attract aliens to us to see if anyone was out there. To attract the terrestrials that live here on earth as I mentioned, will take more than a song, poem or dance, etc. mainly because you can find that any where like on the television. There has to be something to counter the abject fear we’ve been experiencing that has been perpetuated toward us by the bad news about the economy every day of the week.
There is plenty of reason to hope if you retain your dreams and aspirations. A quote by Franklin Roosevelt, “the only thing to fear is fear itself,” essentially means to have faith. There have been a lot of scary news broadcasts of the country falling into another great depression. One thing that will happen is that this planet will go on as it has for four and a half billion years. I believe we’ll still be here no matter if there is global warming or not because we are people and not animals and know how to deal with these and other types of emergencies. It was the dinosaurs that became extinct because they are animals with no resources to help themselves. We humans have made great civilizations on this planet. Any other alien that may come to visit this planet should be impressed. We may have experienced the first great depression and possibly have learned from that experience. So, therefore it may not get repeated. There is a saying that says “those that forget about history live to repeat it.” We have not forgotten the great depression. We may not repeat it. It has been reported in Business Week and other publications that the first shoots of spring are starting to sprout and we may be getting out of the recession. The government bail out may have helped. Hopefully, it has also been our own input as well that has helped that has been pulling ourselves up by our collective boot straps to ward off a second great depression in our history as a country.
Think of something that you love to do and pursue that goal. It will give you the courage to fight and not give in. This is something I’ve had to think about in other low points in my life when I was going through any particular crises whether it would have been about my finances or my health. It has been documented that many a cancer survivor has come out on top because mainly they may have decided to adopt a new attitude and do something they’ve simply put off their lives long. For example, I’ve read about some cancer survivors deciding to learn to play the violin. Just keep your eye on the prize or goal. That keeps you from being weighed down by scary thoughts and depression of any kind.
Another thing that has benefited me is to get more education, not to mention this fact. Forget about some of the touchy, feely things. To advance in your career or these days just to keep your job, you need to upgrade yourself. To give an example of this, I didn’t know that studying creative writing at a distance learning school was also going to help me to improve my writing skills when I hadn’t the slightest idea there was a problem. I’ve been communicating with customers at my job mostly through email these days, so the writing course paid off even if I’m not going to write that novel someday and become rich and famous.
I have to mention, the one thing that has been keeping me going for years as I’ve mostly been in my lifetime one of the “lifestyles of the broke and obscure,” has been religious faith. Pick a belief or domination and stick with that. Learn to focus on that. If you’ve ever had the experience of being down on your luck, you’ll learn religious faith and the right one for you. There are no atheists in fox holes. Actually, it is a focus and a one on one relationship with the higher power. There is really no one who is too proud that can do without it. I can testify to that fact because I wasn’t raised into any religion. My parents did not go to church but maybe a few times that you could count on one hand when I was a kid. But one day when I was fifteen years old and my parents separated is the year I started investigating religions like Buddhism and Christianity. Pick the thing that works for you that helps you keep the focus and you can walk through the fire.
You’d be happy to know that I clicked on the website spelled out in my article above and now was able to submit this article to the projects@goodmagazine.com. I tried to conform my article to the theme you were driving at in the original article to respond to. I can do creative writing but it may not be appropriate for what you had in mind for this article and the Good magazine. Thanks for the opportunity.
It should simply say “Peace and Prosperity to all” In about 15 languages.And printed in inks that resemble all skin colors.Theresa Smith
Don’t Litter.
How about… “Please recycle this bottle.” or “Don’t litter in the ocean.”
Why would you encourage all of your readers to rip a page out of the magazine, put it in a bottle and throw it in the ocean? Wouldn’t that mean like tens of thousands of glass bottles in the ocean? Is that a GOOD idea for the water issue?
I love the idea of your Message in A Bottle Project – but the execution is terrible – it’s not “GOOD” at all to be inviting people to throw garbage into the ocean. Can’t you do this electronically? Can’t you be good and green? I’m sure someone could create an “ocean” application for you – where people could launch their messages and then receive messages – and even better, it could be a sitelet where people could continue to connect with a kind of wonderful “purposeful serendipity”.
PLEASE. Actually BE “good” and DO “good” with this idea. There are so many interesting things that you could do with this idea without being so obvious or so wasteful.
It should say “don’t throw bottles of any kind into the ocean” are you kidding me?
Why can’t you do this electronically instead of physically?Why not create one bottle in a symbolic ocean as an art pieceand have the electronic messages scrolling beside it.Did you really think this out?I don’t think you did.Just because it’s glass you’re throwing into the ocean instead of plastic is NOT OK!Stop this project before you are mobbed by environmental activisits. Find another way!!!
DO NOT THROW TRASH INTO THE OCEAN!! how old are you?and where are your parents?
check out this video…http://www.pbs.org/kqed/oceanadventures/video/gyre
Thanks for sharing that PBS video. GOOD team, you should check it out too. This is a terrible idea. If you want to design a mass participation project, try something like the Target-Newsweek project where people tore out a page, crafted it into an envelope and used it to mail plastic bags to be recycled. Now that’s innovative
Smiles to Share =) =) =)Tiffany McAchran
All the various comments before this message are correct. Why throw the message in a bottle and put it out to sea? Not to mention the litter, but it is the same equivalent to throwing away someone’s work. There are better ways to convey and to distribute a message like they said. This is the 21st century.
Karen J Levy, do you really think the recession is our biggest problem, that dinosaurs went extinct because they weren’t humans, and that religion will get us through anything? Your unfocused rant left me completely confused and a little pissed-off. You and so many others argue that human beings are special, privileged, somehow apart from the rest of the world. The planet may survive us but will we survive what we’ve done to the planet and to ourselves?And GOOD Team: you have pissed me off too. How did this idea take hold among you? You say you’re always trying to balance enjoying the world with taking care of it: “Our hope is that our net effect is positive.” That’s exactly the kind of logic used by people who think it’s okay to waste water on a long-ass shower as long as they don’t buy plastic bottles, hoping that their net effect is positive. I thought you would be past that kind of backwards thinking–you’ve really let me down.
Message in a virtual bottle: Bring peace, accept all folks as they are, be you, and love water for its seasonal flow, purpose, change-able and unrepetitive nature that brings us drink, spring, nuturing and the ability to remind us that many things are much larger than any individual. Strive to be as wonderful as water!
I was so inspired by your project, I thought I would get a head start!Check out my photos!http://www.flickr.com/photos/39168658@N07/sets/72157619276620707/
George,I’m suffering seeing these glass bottles actually go into the ocean.
Were you collecting them afterwards? Please, say yes.
I still can’t believe that with all the trash that is there in the water already, GOOD had encouraged readers to do something like this.
Your photos are good, but executing the idea gives me a chest pain…
oh, irony.