The idea, in one paragraph.
In the host city of POST AI, on a piece of ground set aside for the purpose, a garden is being built. The garden is made of paths and quiet corners and walls. Set into the walls are blocks of steel, one for each person who has chosen to contribute a story. The block carries a name and a single sentence. Next to the block, a small square reads a code with a phone, and on the other side of the code is a short video of that person telling their story in their own voice. Every year, the garden grows. By the time the children of this generation are old, the garden will be one of the few places in the world where you can walk among the voices of people who tried to live their lives well.
The library that POST AI builds is digital. That is the right form for what it does. You can search it. You can read across it. A teacher in Nairobi can sit with a story written in Osaka. The digital form is what makes the library global, and global is what we need it to be.
But a digital library has no place you can go. It has no quiet corner. It has no bench you can sit on while you read what somebody wrote about losing their wife. The project about the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next needs a place. The garden is the part of this you can still find in two hundred years.
“A century from now, somebody walks past, scans the code, and hears a voice from a hundred years ago saying what mattered to them.” POST AI
What a stone holds.
Each block of steel is small. The size of a paperback book, set flush into the wall. Engraved on the surface is the person’s name, the year they contributed, and one sentence they chose themselves. The sentence is the part of their story they most want a stranger to read. It is not a quote from somebody else. It is not a slogan. It is the thing they would say to their grandchild if their grandchild were standing in front of them, asking them what they had learned.
Below the name is a small square code. A phone reads the code and opens a short video. The person, in their own home, in their own voice, telling the story behind the sentence. Five minutes. Sometimes less. Sometimes a little more if the story needs it. The video is unedited beyond what the person themselves wanted edited. We are not making a documentary. We are making a record.
The story does not have to be dramatic. It does not have to be tragic. Some of the most powerful stones in the garden will be small. I was a baker in this town for forty years. This is what I learned about getting up early. My son was difficult. We did not speak for ten years. This is how we found our way back. I grew vegetables on a balcony in a city for three decades. This is what the plants taught me.
One stone per person, per lifetime
You can contribute once. The reason for this is not technical. The reason is that a person who is asked to choose one story chooses well. A person who is asked to contribute three stories chooses worse. We want the story you would tell if you knew it was the only one anyone would ever hear from you, because that is the story that turns out to matter.
The story is yours. We do not edit it. We do not improve it. We make sure the recording is clean and the sound is clear and that the engraving is correct. The rest is you.
What it costs.
A modest contribution toward the cost of the stone. The project does not work if the people whose stories most need to be there are the people who cannot afford a stone. Where cost is a barrier, the cost is covered. We have been clear about this on every other page of this site and we are clear about it here.
Name, year, one sentence engraved in steel. QR code linking to your video.
All of the above. Your contribution also subsidises a plaque for someone who cannot afford one.
If cost is the barrier, write to garden@ccef3.com. Your story matters more than the number.
“It is not a graveyard. The people whose stones are in the wall are mostly alive. The garden honours the practice of honest telling.” POST AI
How to contribute.
Write to garden@ccef3.com. Tell us your name, where in the world you are, and a sentence or two about the story you would like to tell. We will write back with what happens next. We are starting small. The first year of stones will be modest. If we cannot place yours in the first year, we will place it in the second.
If you are a city interested in hosting a garden, write to host@ccef3.com. We are in conversation with Izu for the initial site. We expect, in time, that more than one city will host a garden, because the project will outgrow any single piece of ground. If your city is interested in being part of that conversation, we would like to hear from you. There is no application. There is a conversation.