Shifting the Baseline: Joshua Ford's episode

By Sandy Glanfield

I met Joshua Ford at a Good Eye event, where he told us about his film, Hey You, Yes You, Open Me. I've been trying to put my finger on what excited me so much about hearing him. I think it was the way he spoke, something both vulnerable and brave. I found myself relating to the vulnerable and feeling emboldened by the brave. What I recognised was that wish to put kindness into the world, knowing others might see it as silly, as naive, and feeling the need to do it anyway.

When Joshua talks about bitterness taking over at times in his life, I think most of us know that feeling. Hurt, worry, the endless list of things to do, that weary sense of "why should I, when no one else is?" And what I find so inspiring is that he did it anyway. He decided that for a month he would drop a hundred handwritten cards of kindness around London, and that is exactly what he did.

I've been listening to a lot lately about shifting baselines, the way we slowly get used to things we once would have found unacceptable. We turn away from some wars, tell ourselves that life is tough, that this is just how things are.

What Joshua's work reminds me of is the baselines we set inside ourselves, and how we let life shift them. The kindness in his family home was a choice. His parents gave their time and attention, and that became his baseline. He grew up believing kindness was his duty and making others feel special his purpose. He is honest that bitterness has at times shifted that, but remembering, dreaming, and then making this film, that was him resetting it.

I think that is what people respond to. We notice that our own baseline has slipped, and we want it back. We see in Joshua the courage to do something about it. His film came out of recognising that he was in a real state of sadness and wanting to change it. That spark, I think we are all looking for it.

In his episode with us Sir Tim Smit KBE talks about us all carrying around ‘seeds of disappointment’ within us. That sense that something within us is out of kilter in the way we are showing up in the world, out of whack, and that we need to find a way to put it right. Which is what Joshua did.

At Reboot the Future, everything comes back to the golden rule: to treat others and the planet as you would wish to be treated. Joshua's hundred notes are that rule made real. Each one offers a stranger the kindness he would hope to find himself, on a crowded tube, on a hard day. He isn't waiting for the world to give it first. He is giving it, and trusting that it travels.

For me, this is why I make this podcast. I want to help people find those sparks, the ones that remind them there is something in them that can make a shift. For themselves, and perhaps for something bigger too.