Responsibility

Feedback, in talking with some of my "1 of 100", involves the word responsibility. There is a sense of being responsible, for making sure their book (and this project?) are successful. It is manifested in different ways from connecting and then collecting it back in a group, to one on one interaction like a temporary loan of the book.

"Responsibility" is not what I had originally intended this project to be about. It is a heavily loaded word associated with accountability and consequences that dates back to the 1590s, answerable to another for something. It's etymology, though, is rooted in the word, respond, c. 1300, which sounds much more friendly. It means to answer to, promise in return, relating more to interacting and/or reacting. The ability to respond, interact, react to other people is connecting to them.

My hope for the participants in this project is that the contemporary understanding of 'responsibility' will hone their selection process, to find someone who is also willing "to promise in return", to connect to another person, who will do the same, and continue that connection forward to others who will do the same. In that end, the process will continue to write our collective story into being.

References take from: Online Etymology Dictionary