THE WORK OF THE FLOCK IS THE ROOM THE SKY MAKES

100 PRAISES / 100 PRACTICES OF FLOCKING

1. Share info about food sources

2. Look to have someone in your tailwind

3. Trust that someone sees the predator, even if you don’t

4. Follow the rule of seven

5. Peel off to the back when tired

6. Go to the front when you have energy

7. Smell changes in weather

8. Stay behind if you are sick

9. Sleep close for warmth

10. Don’t say, “it was my idea”

Praise from prize:

to value,

to assign value to.

To praise is to point and say yes!

more of that.

what we praise grows.

11. Signal that it’s time to turn south

12. Signal that you can see the lake

13. Signal to the waitress across the room
the one you’ve worked with for years,
that high top three needs water

14. Cry where others can see you
not to signal that you need help
just because you need to cry

15. Feel in your bag to see if you have a tissue

16. Look around to see whether anyone else on the subway car is going to offer the person with the wet face a tissue

17. Offer them a tissue

18. Don’t ask why their face is wet

19. Get off at your stop as usual

A group of larks is called an exaltation.

To exalt meaning,

of course,

to praise. So you could say the larks are the experts on praise work.

Except my species invented language

and I assume larks don’t care about Latin roots.

And I hate it when people use animals as metaphors.

21. Do a sun salutation and try not to pay attention to the butt in front of you

22. Do a sun salutation and pay attention to the butt in front of you

23. Do a sun salutation and feel annoyed at how intimate it is to have this butt in front of you

24. Forget about the butt

25. Let the butt become scenery

26. Recall various exercises in intimacy you’ve had with strangers

27. Recall the time you put your head in a stranger’s lap in Zürich

and he spoke words down at your face

in a room so loud with other people doing the same thing

that you had to try and read his lips

28. Do a sun salutation alone in your house

29. Feel the freedom of being unobserved

30. Notice how you have to decide to keep going, decide to finish the video

because you are not in a crowd of other butts

It’s not a metaphor.

It’s more like,

I watch other people all the time to learn how to behave;

why not watch the other billions of creatures around me?

31. Crowd closer to see the baby

32. Crowd closer to see the video on the phone scree

33. Crowd closer to see the guy on the floor in the dance battle

34. Crowd closer to get a slice of pizza before it’s gone

35. Crowd closer in case the ball comes this way

36. Get close enough to feel others breathing against you

37. Jostle to get comfortable

38. Be still

39. Jostle

40. Be still

Practice = repetition

What we practice grows.

41. Put your eye mask on at the same time as the person next to you as the airplane goes up

42. Open your tiny packet of crackers at the same time as everyone around you as the airplane cruises — crinkle x 100

43. Groan in unison with one hundred other strangers when you find out your connecting flight has been canceled and you will all have to separately travel to one of three Best Westerns
and spend the night there

44. Deplane and scatter to your taxis

45. The driver doesn’t need google maps, this is his usual flight path

46. Voucher, credit card, room key, elevator button, hallway, swipe

47. 100 passengers settling into 100 memory foam mattresses within a five mile radius of each other

48. 100 passengers settling on soft grass

49. 100 passengers settling on the sandy water’s edge

50. 100 passengers settling in a farmer’s field

I am not saying it is always so good to be a flock.

I am saying repetition is the only way a muscle grows.

I am asking what muscles you want to have built when the storm comes.

51. How big is the flock? This is not your concern.

52. Pay attention to the seven birds around you.

53. Seven is the best number for conserving energy and also adjusting quickly to changes.

54. If you’re lucky, you won’t even see the hawk.

55. You’ll just dip because the bird to your right dipped,

56. who dipped because the bird to their right dipped,

57. dip,

58. dip,

59. dip

60. The flock is whatever size can dip as one.

I don’t actually prefer to get specific

about what the storm will be.

There are all kinds of storms

61. Keep doing something even if other people are doing it.

62. Don’t worry about looking unoriginal.

63. Don’t say “it was my idea”

64. Don’t try to do it in a way that is uniquely you

65. Consider this an act of magnification

66.. Imagine the goal is to be seen from space

67. Follow the leader even if you know the moves

68. Simon says

69. Switch leaders

70. Don’t try to decide who is copying whom

How can I run from the burning building in a way that is uniquely me?

How can I stretch the nutrients of these drought-ridden vegetables to feed a room full of people in a way that is uniquely me? How can I express my values of diversity, equity, and inclusion in a way that is uniquely me? How can I vote in a way that expresses my deepest and most individual values? How can I feed the algorithm something that is my truest and most genuine self?

71. Repost an infographic you’ve seen on at least a dozen friends’ stories.

72. Like comment and reshare

73. Like comment and reshare

74. Mic check

75. Consider going to the protest and think about how, even five years ago, it felt like street marches mattered more than they do now. Now it feels like all they do is generate energy for the people participating in them. As if that is a small thing.

76. Remember literally dancing in the streets in the summer of 2020.

77. Remember taking cookies to the plaza for Laleh’s birthday during Occupy

78. Remember walking to the Port of Oakland.

79. Remember the aerial views, seen later online, of the crowd stretching from the courthouse down Adeline, Mandela, to the water

80. Mic check

I’m saying,

I feels very clear

we less so

82. How many can be in a flock? This is not your concern.
(But also — the sky is full of birds. Too many to count. Too many to be in your flock.)

82. A flock is not sentimental.

83. A flock has purpose.

84. When there is no need, a flock scatters.

85. When there is need — converge.

86. There is no headcount.

87. There is no wristband.

88. If you move together, you are flock

89. If you think you’ll be too late

90. It has to happen faster than thought.

I’m saying to loose the bounds of self,

just temporarily,

91. The sky is full of birds. Too many birds.
And birds are always falling.

92. Don’t think about it.

It’s not a thought thing.

93. It’s a felt thing.

94. It’s a body thing.

95. Go out onto the street.

96. Get in your car and drive til you get to the freeway. Join the flow, going all in the same direction.

97. Imagine your car is gone and it’s just your body moving this way,
forward, at a carefully held proximity to other bodies.

98. Not because you know them, or love them,
just because it makes sense, in this moment, to move together

99. Can you imagine that?
Do you think— no—
do you feel that is something you could learn to do?

100. Good.
That’s one.
Now 100 more.