Machines
Things that can help me hold, carry and take care.
Machines are things that can help you hold, carry, and care. You name what needs to be cared for and build mechanisms for how care can happen — grouped into movements, with insights about what is being held. It’s a place to shuffle thoughts about what caretaking could actually look like, rather than pushing yourself into action.
Why this container matters psychologically
When something needs holding, it’s often hard to see what good care would actually look like. We reach for action, or feel shame about needing support — without being able to articulate what we long for. A machine gives room to model caretaking: to try out how something could be held, carried, and cared for, at a pace that doesn’t require you to be finished.
What happens without a container like this
Without a place like this, caretaking remains vague — something we want, but can’t picture. We push into action without support, or leave it alone because we don’t know what to ask for. What needs holding is either overlooked or thrown into “solutions” that don’t actually carry it.
- Create a machine for something you want to hold, carry, or care for
- Build mechanisms — ways care can happen
- Group mechanisms into movements
- Follow the building of a mechanism step by step
- Add insights about what is being held
- Share or copy a machine when you want to show what good support could look like
- You know something needs holding, but you can’t see how
- You want to shuffle thoughts about caretaking rather than push yourself into action
- You want to prototype what support could look like before asking for it
- You’re tempted to act, but something fragile needs care first
- You want to articulate what would actually help hold something