Sangha of Auspicious Companions

This Week’s DailyGood Digest

This week’s inspirations remind us of the interconnectedness embedded in our existence.

Storyteller Leena Wilde Ryan delved us into the power of standing at the threshold of a new story, complete with plot twists and the punctuation of our intentions. Following a World Cup match, we witnessed the selfless act of Japanese fans cleaning the stadium on their own accord, a testament to the ripple effect of consideration for others. In France, some companies offer a reminder of the humanity in everyone through the practice of sharing their office space with the homeless at night. Grassroots changemaker Christopher Lowman offers a window into the power of accepting life’s unplanned offerings — both the joyous and the devastating — as two sides of grace. In Copenhagen, the power of listening to a fellow human unlocks a movement of human libraries, where live stories unveil life’s opportunities for courage and creativity, consternation and caring. In Florida, the enduring kindness of an unassuming carpenter and the boy whose life he saved decades ago highlighted the lasting impact of compassion. Along the webs we weave, therapist Ashley Glowiak draws parallels between mycelial networks and the vital connections within our family lineages. Finally, the discovery of rare bongos that were thought to be extinct celebrated the resilience of wildlife. Seeped in the spirit of interdependence and hope, this week’s stories continue to seed new lenses of possibility in our lives and communities.

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Ireland Is Now Paying Artists a Basic income. Will the Idea Catch on?

When Cork multimedia artist Elinor O’Donovan was working part-time as a receptionist just to pay rent, an entire film career was waiting, unrealized, on the other side of financial precarity. Ireland’s newly permanent basic income for artists — the first such trial in history to become permanent — changed that, and in doing so, raised a question that reaches well beyond arts policy: who gets to create, and what does a society lose when the answer is mostly those who can already afford to? The scheme’s €25m investment generated €100m in measurable social and economic returns, but its subtler yield is harder to quantify — artists taking risks, making work that is, as O’Donovan puts it, “better and more ambitious.” As AI erodes creative livelihoods and arts funding collapses across the UK, the Irish model suggests that underwriting imagination is not charity but infrastructure. “Imagination and creation are products of time and space,” says Arts Emergency CEO Neil Griffiths, “but there isn’t the time and space anymore” — and in that absence, whole voices go quiet before anyone hears them.

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Think of a local artist, musician, or creative whose work you’ve enjoyed — someone making things in your community, perhaps without much recognition — and send them a direct message today telling them specifically what their work has meant to you.