October 17, 2019

Collaboration.

This week I am thinking about collaboration.

In thinking about my own work, I am recognizing the power of inviting co-created work and partnership. I am feeling the gut sense of wholeness that comes from releasing the worry of needing to create the right version of something on your own, in your own mind, without feedback or help or input from others. What drives us to do this? What in our culture reinforces the value of individual accomplishment? I am feeling grounded in the slowness and unfinished-ness that comes from working with other people.

After the experience at the Hannah Arendt center, I am wondering: what does it mean to really listen to one another - to open a conversation with curiosity and empathy, without the judgment or assumption that your way is the right way?

I’m interested in the complicated human story behind things. Paradoxes, inconsistencies, hiccups. These are the things that create the nuanced realities we live in, that stand between us and the ideal versions of ourselves, of our world. What can we do to better understand the ugliest versions of each other? How can we build experiences throughout our lives that create opportunity for getting to the root of where someone else is coming from?