THE Ö-LEGEND: WHERE IT BEGINS

[FAITH over profound doubt and fear...]

Chris was a passenger. It was a weekday morning in Atlanta, the kind of ride that starts with small talk and goes somewhere unexpected. She asked the driver what he did outside of Uber.

The driver told her he'd spent thirty years — and was still spending them — following his gut, fighting the fear and doubt that comes with FAITH in the uncertain, believing that winning that daily fight, moment by moment, like rounds in a title fight, is the success more than the outcomes, he said. That's a tough process. They call it following your dream. And my dream has me driving Uber this moment and sharing it with you.

Chris was quiet for a moment. She felt that dream. And it activated her own — a nonfiction, journalism dream. Something her gut had been telling her to get back to for a long time, though she'd told herself that life had passed her by long ago. Following her gut now and immediately feeling that same fear and doubt the driver had just described, she fought it and asked the driver if he would share more of his dream in an interview. The driver said yes. This is that conversation.

Atlanta, Georgia. 2026.

The apartment of 1 of 13.

The room looks like a research project that never ended. Books stacked on books. Notes on a desk next to a laptop. On the wall — two paintings by T. Mance.

The first: three large trees with rich orange-brown trunks rising from dark earth against a deep blue night sky. Full moon upper right. Between them, centered, a large stump. Ancient. Before language. In the rings of the stump — a circle with two marks above it. No figures. Just the site before anyone arrived.

The second painting is the same site. Time has passed. The trees are fuller. New markings have formed in their trunks. And now — thirteen figures work the ground around that same stump. An archaeological dig. Some stand examining what they've found. Some sit on the ground. One holds a map. One stands near an open blue chest marked OFAAFO, overflowing with scrolls and documents. A gold shovel rests near the stump. At the far right edge, the front of a white Jeep. The trees dwarf everything. The figures are small against them — not diminished, just in proportion to what they found.

The man sitting across from Chris turns sixty this year. He looks at the paintings for a moment before turning. He moves like someone who has been carrying something heavy for a long time and learned to make it look easy.

---

CHRIS

Thank you for agreeing to this. Before we get started — you've asked to go by the name 1 of 13 in this interview instead of using your name. Why?

1 OF 13

My name tells you who I am. And that's second to what I feel I am — at this moment, and for this interview, 1 of 13. Interviews I've done in the past were perceived by some that I was speaking as THE Ö representative when I was one representative. This is one perspective. There are twelve others.

CHRIS

Got it. On our Uber ride you mentioned your dream — following your gut, fighting and winning against the doubt that comes before and with pursuing dreams. What is your actual dream?

1 OF 13

It's called OFAAFÖ. O-F-A-A-F-O. O-fa-fo.

CHRIS

(repeating aloud) OFAAFÖ. What is OFAAFÖ?

1 OF 13

You'd think by my daily answering that question — especially driving with the ads on the headrests, riders asking me about it — that the answer would instantly pour out without much effort. It doesn't. Not because it's complicated. Because the honest answer keeps getting bigger the longer we excavate it. OFAAFÖ is a word formed from the phrase One For All All For Öne. We started using it in 1995 in Pittsburgh — thirteen of us. Friends. We played sports together. Hung out together. Looked out for each other. We felt an energy moving through all of it — something that made each of us stronger the more we committed to the group. The same energy winning teams feel. Winning organizations, winning families, winning movements. It shows up wherever people are genuinely committed to something larger than themselves. We didn't have a name for it yet. We just knew it was real.

The longer answer is — OFAAFÖ is also a map for something that has existed far longer than the word itself — and what we've spent thirty years trying to understand. Where that feeling comes from. How old it actually is. Who else has felt it and what they did with it. What we've uncovered is that it goes back much further than 1995. And the story of how it traveled to us — and what it cost the people who carried it forward — is what this legend is about.

CHRIS

How far back are we talking?

1 OF 13

Further than most people are comfortable with. A creation story older than most religions. A mythology that historians connect to pre-dynastic Egypt. Folklore that survived the Middle Passage in fragments — carried by people who had everything else taken from them but managed to hold onto this. And a phrase hidden inside the most celebrated adventure novel ever written by one of history's most overlooked heroes.

CHRIS

Is any of this true?

1 OF 13

It's a legend. And like all legends it's built on what's real — documented history, ancient mythology, and the kind of folklore that travels through generations because it carries something true even when the details shift. We've been following that thread for thirty years. This is what we've uncovered so far.

CHRIS

Why does any of this matter today?

1 OF 13

Look around this room. Forgive the mess. Look at how you and I got here. Two strangers. A chance conversation in a car. Your dream activated by mine. Now you're in my apartment asking me about something I've been spending thirty years on. That's not an accident. That's what happens when people are genuinely pursuing something real.

Why does OFAAFÖ matter? Because every person walking around is carrying a dream. Some are chasing it. Some buried it. Some lost everything following it. Some gave it up and call that being practical. Some fantasize about how their lives would be if their dreams came true. Some are happily living in the rewards of accomplishing theirs. And many of them — at some point — ask the same question underneath everything else they're doing. Can I be truly me in this existence?

OFAAFÖ is for that question. Not an answer. An activator. We didn't invent it. We excavated it. And what we found belongs to everyone willing to pursue it honestly.

CHRIS

How is OFAAFO for that question?

1 OF 13

OFAAFÖ uses art, history, and clothing to inspire authenticity. And authenticity — genuinely pursued — is what activates collective energy. That's the connection. That's what the map shows and the mechanism supports.

CHRIS

So OFAAFÖ is a word, a lifestyle, a brand, a map and a mechanism.

1 OF 13

And a dream. Still being pursued. Thirty years in.

CHRIS

And a dream?! That seems like a lot.

1 OF 13

Definitely a dream for me. And ideally this interview will bring all those together. Reminds me of Biggie — rest in peace — it was all a dream.

They both know the next line. They say it together. We can't share it here — copyright — but the laughter that follows tells you everything about the energy in the room.

1 of 13 rises from his seat.

1 OF 13

You want something to drink?

CHRIS

Yes.

He walks to the fridge.

1 OF 13

Juice okay?

CHRIS

Yes.

He hands it to her.

CHRIS

You got me interested in how OFAAFÖ began. Where do we start?

1 OF 13

With a morning in Pittsburgh. 1995. A fourth floor apartment in East Liberty. A fish tank full of piranhas. And a word that had not been spoken aloud before — waiting, patient and quiet, for exactly the right person to do enough internal work to activate it. A man came out of his room that morning and shared it immediately. That's how you know the activation was real.

This is one perspective.

There are, at least, twelve others.