Topic: Human = Artisan
Description: The solarpunk society of the future also celebrates important festivities. To tell the truth, people celebrate an even greater number of them. Since frantic productivism has been abandoned, everybody has much more time to socialize and relax. It is December now, and people get ready to celebrate a variety of festivals: Hanukkah, Yule, Christmas, Kwanzaa - the more, the merrier. The solarpunk city is a hive of activity: some people decorate their houses and neighborhoods, some prepare enough food to feed a small army for the community banquets and, clearly, some think of the presents.
Unlike in the Late Stage, people don’t feel pressured to show off by spending tons of money to secure the latest gadgets and fashion. People take their time to create something. Here Ginny puts together a necklace for her grandmother out of foraged material from the local woods. There, Marcello is in the zone, spins some yarn while headbanging to power metal: a friend has given him some wool from the commune’s alpacas, and he wants to give it to his boyfriend, a veritable knitting fiend. Lori, instead, doesn’t have much talent for handcrafts, but for the best part of the year they have accumulated LETS credits by looking after pets and children and modelling for life drawing classes. Now they have enough to barter them with a consortium of artisans and have them make a pair of Oleatex boots for their little sister.
People have learned that who they are is not what they own or how much they spend and that love shows better through time and care than through money. People celebrate and create leisurely, savouring the process as much as the results.