Here’s what happened with an experiment I ran with the new council members in 2016.
In Florianópolis, each council member had a gross monthly budget of R$15,759.66/month to hire between 4 and 10 advisors.
To promote transparency and public participation, in early November 2016, I sent an email suggesting they adopt an open and transparent selection process. The goal was to avoid political favoritism, foster accountability, and give well-qualified individuals a fair chance at these positions.
But this wasn’t just any email. I included a “reading check” to track how many times the email was opened and who actually read it. The results? Some politicians opened it multiple times, while others didn’t even bother.I also tracked the response rate; let’s just say I’m still waiting for answers from most of them.
Do you still remember who you voted for? Why not ask them to publicly share who their advisors will be and what roles they’ll have? Transparency starts with us.
Definitions for “did” include: carry out, undertake, discharge, act, behave, suffice, to serve a purpose, prepare, make, organize, create or produce, decorate, style, present, grant, pay or render, work out, calculate, solve, to be employed at, manage, cope, succeed, move at a particular pace.
Boat from Manaus to Belém on the Amazon River in Brazil
This is another one of those ideas that I’ll never actually pursue, but I enjoy dreaming about it.
A few years back I crashed at a scout headquarters carved out of Brazil’s Amazon. Concrete floor, hammock hooks, and a soundtrack of rain beating down like it had cash on the game. A couple of local scouts, barely taller than my backpack, offered me a plate of arroz e feijão and a crash course in tying a bowline one‑handed.
I went to bed with a mosquito net for walls and the smell of camp‑stove coffee in my hair. By sunrise I could rig a tarp faster than I could scroll Instagram, even without cell coverage. That overnight stay felt less like lodgings and more like a life cheat code.
That’s the magic I’m chasing with Scoutel. Scout halls as pop‑up hostels where travelers trade a few bucks and a chore for shelter plus a slice of practical wisdom. Learn a knot, patch a canoe, pick up “always leave it cleaner than you found it.” You leave stamped with low‑key bragging rights and maybe a tiny blister from the rope.
Scouts get fresh stories to tell around the next campfire and a hand tidying the gear closet. Travelers get a bed that comes with lore instead of laminated checkout rules. Everyone walks away a little more prepared for whatever wild shows up next.
It worked in the Amazon. It can work anywhere. Pack your sleeping bag and curiosity, let’s turn every scout hall into the world’s chillest hostel chain.
This was the place where I had a near-death experience similar to the one in Stand by Me.
I am still breathing, which feels like decent breaking news. Chris McCandless is not. That detail hit me only a few months ago, even though he checked out over a decade back. His ride is chronicled in Jon Krakauer’s book and Sean Penn’s film Into the Wild. No spoilers here. Chris dies in the prologue too.
I ran into the story while my head was already juggling big feelings. Folks love to label the guy without reading the footnotes. Online you will find every take from heroic dream‑chaser to flaky drifter with a loose screw. I am still standing in the aisle of that legendary bus, watching both camps argue, not sure which seat fits.
Risk is a coin toss
Chris tossed the coin. Heads gave him epiphanies, tails bit him hard. Smart dude, well read, still human. He reached a few conclusions, just not the ones he planned, and by then his clock had stopped.
The catch in his dream was nonnegotiable. No modern crutches. Family, car, IDs, cash, even his birth name, all gone. Hard to call that right or wrong until you see where the breadcrumb trail ends. For him it was simply part of the blueprint.
A quick detour
Someone accused me of being obsessed with “wild” lately. Guilty. I ranted about it in another piece over here. Evolution breeds some odd backslides. People pretend they get themselves.
So is wandering into unknown terrain with duct‑tape gear and half‑baked prep just a loud way to sign your exit papers? Maybe. Same odds as chain‑smoking, binge‑drinking, or commuting by bike in Brazil.
Humans need rulebooks to keep from nuking the joint. Do not smoke. Do not drive drunk. Do not do drugs. Do not lie. Do not kill. Do not off yourself. We still rip the warning labels off, bend the jail bars, pitch the rulebook out the window, occasionally launch a toddler after it. Funny how we never jump ourselves.
Chris was that rule‑breaker in high‑definition. He even warned everybody he might not be coming back. He did not. The tale did, though, and that might be the point.
Trying to hack the world
The guy questioned the script most people follow. Maybe he aimed to change the world, but “world” here was personal, bite‑sized. Everything and everyone inside his bubble. He just misjudged how much a single decision can rewrite that bubble.
Nobody in his circle fully backed the plan. Makes sense. They wanted a cameo in his future and he was busy slashing pages from the script.
