Late last week I had a fantastic conversation with Pace and Kyeli Smith, in all of their excellent freakitude, and got to dig up lots of new information about their new website, Freak Revolution, which they launched this morning. We covered subjects like…

• The new Freak Revolution launch, what it all means and what y’all can do with it
• Unschooling and the education system, and our various opinions thereof
• How IMPORTANT it is to be different, and good at it!

And geeze, a ton more. What Pace and Kyeli are pursuing here is something very dear to my heart—the strength and proliferation of diversity, something I’ve written about in the original Tribes Casebook and at least a billion other times in my blog and elsewhere.

Freak Revolution Podcast mp3

Pour yourself a drink, browse to FreakRevolution.com, sit back and enjoy our 39 minutes of world-changing mojo! And, uh, don’t mind my circus ringleader opening, I promise the whole thing’s not like that…

I get a kick out of the way people look at me when I say I’m waking up at 5 the next morning.

Willingly.

Excitedly!

Or when I show them my (very) green vegetable juice for the day. Or when I announce that I’m embarking on a polyphasic sleep trial—22 waking hours for every 24. Or when I mention that I haven’t worked a “regular job” in the last five years at least, and I don’t intend to do so ever again.

You know. Stuff like that. Strangeness. Edges. Poking.

Is it possible that part of my motivation to do thrilling things is the fact that someone somewhere thinks I’m nuts? (In addition to improving my life, of course. Duh.) Is it just the exhibitionist edgewalker in me? (If that doesn’t give you a rockin’ mental image, I don’t know what will.)

Perhaps I should use this particular tactic to motivate myself more often? The ability to elicit strange looks and confused responses?

Would it work?

It might. It really might. But you know what’s better? The poking. I like to poke people. I get a kick out of poking people. Many people only ever experience real growth when poked, and without poking, I think we’d all get a little bit too comfortable. We need to be exposed to the things we don’t understand. Sometimes, we need to be confronted with them! We need to see that even considering our differences, we still manage to have things in common. We need to see that the diversity around us is healthy, positive—and more than that, essential to the forward movement of the entire world around us.

And maybe I’m just a little bit of a sadist. Because I admit it, poking people and seeing the freaked out looks on their faces when they’ve encountered a mindset they don’t understand, that’s entertaining. But it’s incredibly exciting, too. Because—what do you think will happen next? If poked often enough, forgetting isn’t an option.

Might they under go some kind of dramatic learning or new understanding?

Might they open up to more change and growth over the course of their whole lives?

God, it could be anything.

Doesn’t the growth potential just give you shivers?

Sometimes even the most reasonable people make some pretty unfair assumptions.

Assumptions about motive, background, pastimes, lifestyle, character.

I guess it’s the usual error (isn’t it always?), but in this case it’s particularly unfortunate. Assumptions can put others into difficult positions, weaken diversity, and tend to shut down communication. Once you make that assumption out loud (especially if you follow it up with a harsh opinion), you may never get to hear the real story.

Men, women, Christians, pagans, citizens of every shade and sexuality, Trekkers, strippers, tree-huggers, sex workers, hackers, kings, queens, burners, raw foodists, furries. (Lenses, Rick would say.) This applies to anyone and everyone. The trim femme at work isn’t who you think she is. Neither is the practicing submissive across the street. Your cousin Jan isn’t polyamorous for the reasons you’d assume, and she hates it when you call her a swinger. (The swingers don’t like it when you make assumptions about them, either.) That completely “normal” dude in your car pool who mentioned a favored fetish while drunk might be a little embarrassed, but don’t jump to conclusions. You might be surprised at what you really don’t know.

These are all real people with real lives, doing the best they can to find peace and happiness in a complicated world. Some of them have made mistakes (just like you), but chances are their preferred lifestyle isn’t one of them, and none of them deserve hasty judgment from a badly-informed source. Do you really think your uneducated opinion is doing them a favor?

Please think hard before you publish.

The Tribes Casebook PDF

The low-down: Email it, post it, print it! Please don’t sell it or change it. If you’d like to take a look at it, you can download it for free here.

The Casebook is a companion ebook to Seth’s release of his book, Tribes, this month. It was birthed from the collaborative genius of several thousand Triiibes members suggesting, creating, editing, and cheering on more than a hundred and fifty selected case studies (and many more brilliant riffs that didn’t make the final cut) over the last two months. Every one of us feels overwhelmingly lucky to have met and have the opportunity to encourage and inspirit one another in such a powerful space. Triiibes is likely the most intelligent, driven, creative, innovative group I’ve ever been a part of. I am constantly, consistently impressed by the quality of membership and the sheer brilliance of those involved.

For fellow Triiibers: If you’re reading this now, every single one of you is amazing. Thank you so much for being a part of my experience.

For everyone else: This group has proven to me that you—yes, YOU!—and everyone you know (I’m serious) is capable of absolutely astonishing things. You underestimate yourself. It’s time to realize how huge your potential is, how far your reach, the kind of growth you have available to you. Every freaking one of you.

So take a look at the Casebook. It has many different styles and personalities, but that’s what makes it wonderful—diversity again. It’s at points thrilling, heart-wrenching, and altogether intensely inspiring. These are good people who deserve support and praise for all their hard work. Enjoy their stories, visit their links, and give them mad props.

For my part, I’m looking forward to linking to their launch posts, too! ;}

The Tribes Q&A ebook was released to the world on November 16th, 2008 and is the second companion ebook to Seth’s Tribes. Please go take a look!

Pace Smith of Usual Error Project fame is also a member of the Triiibe, with a case study in the Casebook! It’s fantastic, you should read it. :}

Squidoo: The Tribes Casebook (by Triiibes). I started to list all the Tribes Casebook links I could find right here, and then I realized that Squidoo has a perfect function for just this purpose! If you’re a Triiibes member, please visit this page to add your link and vote. And whether you’re a Triiibes member or not, please take a look at the link list, visit them and say hi!

My favorite Tribes Casebook posts and link fu so far:

Pace Smith’s “I co-authored an e-book with Seth Godin’s Triiibe!” @ Pace & Kyeli
Seth Godin’s “Free Tribes ebook” @ Seth’s Blog
Jodi Kaplan’s “Tribes!” @ Fix Your Broken Marketing
Joe Noonan’s “Seth Godin’s free online book” @ Everyday Ecstasy
Barry Adams’ “The Tribes Casebook” @ Adamus.nl
“Seth Godin’s free ‘Tribes Casebook’ — including Trish Lambert!” @ SWIMBERT
Ed Welch’s “Seth Godin and Triiibes – Free Ebook” @ Tribe Building

There’s also a crazy Twitterstream developing about the Casebook, and two more if you watch “Triiibe” and “Triiibes” on Twitter Search. Huge amount of fun!