Deanna, who are you or how would you describe your life’s work/play?

I’m a generally entertaining human. I like to make things that connect with people.

Thrivability. How are you relating to the world through a thrivable society lens? What story do you have about thrivability and why are you being named a thrivable society fellow?

I use thrivability as a guiding principal in a ton of places in my life, but especially in social justice work because so many people get so focused on harm reduction but using the metaphor of thrivability “Do you want to sustain or do you want to thrive” really opens up people to expand their big picture. What’s the thrivability goal here?

Personally, I ask myself am I getting by or what do I need to thrive – and sometimes that is to do nothing.

What do you have/want/dream of contributing to a thrivable society?

I dream of helping my fellow society members discover and celebrate their inherent self worth. Sometimes I do this through creating web comics, other times it just giving big hugs.

Aliveness. What is fostering aliveness in you? 

These days, one thing fostering aliveness for me have been working on a couple of project with Jim Hightower addressing the abandonment of people by the political machinery. Looking at and supporting the work that is going into rebuilding human relationships in which people can thrive. That’s alive for me.

Another thing is seeing so many people come around to the idea that our notions of productivity and self worth and what we bring to the table as humans need unpacking – an example is this graphic I saw that listed time throughout history that employers have exclaimed “Nobody wants to work anymore,” the jig is up though, the young people have figured out the productivity is bullshit. I appreciate that.
On that note, Trisha Hersey’s book: Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto, is incredibly alive for me right now. It is a praise poem, a sermon. She’s writing particularly from black liberation theology lens – there is so much to learn from that lens which really relates to how we view thrivability. Rest because it is a gift, not because you have earned it.  You don’t have to earn it.

What question could I ask that would be the most interesting to answer right now?

I don’t know, do you have any backup questions?

Imagine we are living in a world in which the whales were in charge, what would your life be like? What would you be/do/have? 

If I have prior consciousness when humans were in charge and now the whales are in charge I would just be like: what do y’all need? Whatever we need to keep the humans from being in charge – sign me up. I’d like to be a whale nanny.