The Nature of the Church of Earth Platform
Web application development provides opportunities for a coder to think really hard about things
<TODO: clean up imported post. Change URLs and update images. See this post for details.>
Right, so, earlier today I said I’d be talking about the goals module tomorrow. But then I realized I need to broadly describe the website before I do that. So in this bonus issue of this newsletter I’ll explain what the Church of Earth Platform can do and why I built it that way.
It’s worth noting that I have immediately changed course from the plan I laid out earlier this morning regarding the content I would be posting, so that’s embarrassing. Also, a bonus issue after only 2 issues? That seems ill-considered and unsustainable.
This is part 1 of an ongoing series of posts explaining the various components of the Church of Earth.
The current focus of this series is the Church of Earth Platform.
I use a lot of project management software.
I know that’s not exactly an inspirational vision for a website, and there’s obviously a lot more going on here than just that, but I’m always impressed when I’m able to use technology to increase my ability to succeed at things. I work in tech and it’s always part of my job.
Every job I’ve had for the past decade has had an element of project management technology involved in it. There are also options to do this stuff for your personal life. There’s lots of apps for this.
The Church of Earth Platform isn’t doing anything new, it’s just custom designed to work alongside the Helpful Ideology, as part of a Spiritual Humanist Movement.
Deliberate, effective helpfulness
I know that might sound weird. That’s how I look at all of this sometimes, but I don’t think that’s the only way to look at it. I hope that I’ve built the platform to account for other ways of viewing helpfulness.
Helping someone is about establishing a connection with them so that you can support their growth. Sometimes the growth boosts their quality of life, other times it just slows the deterioration of it.
Sometimes the impact of a specific helpful act is negligible, and it simply exists as a little nudge along a helpful path. Other times a helpful act can make all the difference in the world and forever changes a life for the better.
It’s important to help ourselves
You have a limited capacity for information, energy, and support. Giving out these resources can harm you. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t offer help, it means you should put deliberate thought into the help you offer and the outcomes you expect.
Every skill you learn that can help someone else can first be used to help you. Taking care of yourself emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually, makes you more effective at taking care of others.
Project manage your helpfulness
A tool that helps us manage and understand how we grow and connect in the world, that works for us, is invaluable. The 7 modules of the Church of Earth Platform are designed to help you grow or connect.
It looks complicated because it is
How we solve problems is a complicated process. We all have different problems and we can all often them differently, but we are equal in regard to the fact that we all have to solve problems.
Whether it’s the problem of “How to replace the broken handle on my cabinet” or “How to talk to my family member about conflict in our household” the amount of variety is incomprehensible.
But for all of that variety there are a handful of key elements to all of this:
We
inform others (if necessary or desired)
ask for help (if necessary or desired)
work toward something (through collaboration if necessary or desired)
form long term connections (if necessary or desired)
This happens to some extent wherever humans connect. Failures in this sequence of event represent failures to achieve growth or solve shared challenges.
We have all experienced failures in this chain of events. It’s a normal aspect of life. We can learn from it.
There’s no right way to do any of this
The modules of the Church of Earth are designed to allow us to share energy, information, and support. We all need energy, information, and support in order to thrive.
The modules of the Church of Earth exist to accomplish specific tasks. They can be deliberately chained together in order to amplify their helpful impact.
You can combine modules to achieve personal goals:
You can combine modules to achieve collaborative goals:
The power in the Church of Earth Platform, from a project management perspective, is that the modules can be chained together in complex ways. One individual module can represent something significant and meaningful, and then the impact of that post can be amplified as a result of connections in a broad, helpful ecosystem.
We’ll get there.
In the coming posts I’ll go into greater detail about the individual modules of the Church of Earth Platform. There’s a lot to unpack here. I’m happy you’re interested.
Thanks for reading.
The next issue of this series is available here:
https://thechurchofearth.substack.com/p/the-goals-module
Check out the Church of Earth User Guide for additional reading on these subjects.