Editor's Note: This month, Thor Hansen introduces us to Seeds and their core characteristics that have helped the survival and evolution of pretty much all land based living beings on earth. And the Moustachians introduce us to a radical way of life in which they spend less and less to live better and better. As we read these authors, why not interrupt them? Experimentally, from this edition S+T becomes writable! Embedded within the featured articles are many Editor’s Notes, denoted as “EN” to which you can add your own thoughts. Read. Write. Co-create :) --Ragu & Nisha

We live in a world of seeds. From our morning coffee and bagel to the cotton in our clothes and the cup of cocoa... Without seeds there would be no bread, no rice, no beans, corn, or nuts. Roll back the clock and we find seeds evolving as trivial players in a flora ruled by spores... From this humble beginning, the seed plants steadily gained advantage—first with conifers, cycads, and ginkgos, and then in a great diversification of flowering species—until now it is the spore bearers and algae that watch from the sidelines. This dramatic triumph of seeds poses an obvious question: Why are they so successful? What traits and habits have allowed seeds, and the plants that bear them, to so thoroughly transform our planet?

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Here in the MMM family household, we live a lifestyle that could be considered unrecognizably oddball, or classically familiar depending on who you ask. Although the fairly well-appointed house in an expensive area probably does a good job at reassuring certain neighbors that we fit in, our lives are pretty different. We spend most of our time within a 2-mile circle with home at the center. The car is just starting in on its third tank of gas for the year, and I’m expecting this one to make it through December. We often go months without visiting any store besides the grocery, and the half million dollar house contains no TV set, clothes dryer, powered lawnmower, ties or suit jackets of any sort, and no items of clothing (other than great hiking shoes) worth more than about $50.

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Be The Change Idea

Find a seed and keep it with you for one or more days where you can see it. Observe and record whatever interesting thoughts and emotions it triggers in you. Walk around your neighborhood and chat up with someone about creating a Happy Urban Tribe. And of course add your thoughts to the Editor’s Notes in this month’s featured articles.