Play in the Overlaps
When 2021 began, the word that appeared for me as one to explore for the year was edges. Five months in, I continue to be surprised by the nuances and unravelings that edges are inviting me to notice and explore—to play, invent, re-see, release, unknow, giggle about, abandon, allow. I feel from a place of grounded clarity that this present time is here for us to reimagine the layers of edges we have in our lives and our world.
To reimagine—dissolve, reframe, shift, unknow, revise—edges, we need to expand how we notice for them and delight where we find (see, create, allow) anything that overlaps (physical and nonphysical, including ideas, beliefs, feelings, concepts, senses, energies). Bring on the Venn Diagrams! Transformation begins with our play inside the overlapping space of two or more edges.
Let’s start small.
Look at the Venn Diagram to the right. Notice the two objects.
Let yourself notice the names you give for these two objects, the attributes you describe. Begin to think about the overlapping space to find what’s the same, then return to tease out more about what’s different. Allow yourself to play a bit more and wonder about the origins of both objects and what you might create/learn from them in the future. Let yourself unravel the names you originally called them and loosen up what you might know about what they are. Keep going. When you think you have found all the possible overlaps or start feeling like you might be “bored,” you have found the beginning of what I mean by playing in the overlaps.
The most important thing we can do right now as citizens of this world is to be exceedingly curious about everything.
Now try one of the combinations below. Go through the same process as you did with the two objects. Keep going until you find yourself in a space of feeling lost or bewildered as the edges begin to blur/collapse/transform into something else. Notice what happens for you in this space. How do you feel? What are you thinking? Do you want to keep going or are you eager to stop? Has anything started to shift?
It’s also revealing to play in the space of separation/s. When you take time to notice how you see/understand/explain differences, this allows you to find out more about your assumptions of overlaps that may seem “obvious” or easily embraced without question. Try these combinations and see how you might tease out more separation at the edges to find more nuances in the overlap.
Here are three more for some extra delight. You might see the differences more clearly at first or you may only see overlap and struggle to tease out some differences. The way you approach each Venn Diagram is itself something to notice.
This moment of 2021 is full of opportunities for us to feel and think strongly about many things, including our health, children’s learning, government systems, naming of groups and identities, environmental policies, and foundational democratic principles. It is vital for us to be vibrant, awake, and use the fullness of our creative gifts at this time. It is also vital for us to expand our ways of being with others and deepen our listening, especially with those who are vibrant, awake, and full in ways that may trigger us to want to become louder about how we see and know things.
The most important thing we can do right now as citizens of this world is to be exceedingly curious about everything, especially all that we name, hear, see, or understand as right-wrong, good-bad, new-old, true-false, fact-fiction, here-there, us-them.
When we allow ourselves to notice the edges of our own naming of things, we can begin to play in the overlaps and find new questions, shifts in thinking, surprising connections, expanded awareness, and an overall expanse of beingness with all that is possible.
Allow yourself to play and delight to:
Be wrong
Not know
Feel bored
Feel lost
Be surprised
Release your names
Unknow yourself
Shift your location/s
Bewilder
If you’d like to discover ways for your organization to notice more about itself and how knowledge operates in its system/s, and for people inside your organization to be more playful in shifts of thinking and approach, please contact me for a conversation.
