I'm grateful for this morning's UW-MANIAC breakfast, "Pieces of String Too Small To Save," as Kent Lesandrini sparked some creative stories that had lain dormant within us. Much was inspired in the conversation, and I hope we can continue to share some of these ideas on this blog. A few inspirations:
* What are our intentions? If we focus on the things we care about in our lives (and our work), we might actually be able to approach tasks with greater pleasure, yield fuller enjoyment from the experience, and identify some new ways of being and Knowing that can inform our future Self.
* 'Pieces of string' allow us to explore Values in a new, less threatening way, one that exposes narratives that help reveal deeper meaning for our relationships. This can be a great way to access cultural experiences that otherwise lie beneath the surface of our work lives, thus helping us work more effectively (and efficiently?) together.
* "What else might work?" That's a great question! We can benefit so much from S-T-R-E-T-C-H-I-N-G ourselves with this question. It allows to examine unstated expectations that, while reflecting our personal 'comfort zones,' may also inhibit our creative responses to new challenges and opportunities.
* Time is experienced in vastly different ways. One discovery was the experience of Time over the years, in the 'elevator stories' people shared this morning (e.g., kids pushing all the buttons and riding the elevator for hours, adults pushing the single button repeatedly in a hurry, seniors not pushing the button and being pleased to be together on an elevator that might not be going anywhere in particular.) Time is also experienced very differently across cultures.
Our understandings of 'pieces of string' opens our capacity to understand one another (it was referred to as a Portal at one point) and make connections that are otherwise elusive. After many had gone, a few members of the group lingered and kept revealing new 'pieces' in our conversation, as well as rituals that might be helpful to incorporate into our lives and work that flow from these insights.
What 'pieces of string' do you have to offer? What are a few catalysts that you might add to those that were generated thus far? Please make a contribution! If you add a Comment, that's easy enough, but if you'd like to offer a new 'thread' for this blog, let me know and I'll give you authorship rights to move ahead!
-Harry
Thanks for an excellently refreshing start to my day, although I think I ingested too much coffee!
ReplyDeleteI had a couple of snippets of string to add to the heap.
1. When ripping apart the walls in our old house, or gardening we often find glimpses into the past lives of the people who came before us. In the walls we see the previous wall colors, wallpaper and linoleum scraps, we've found German newspaper scraps, playing cards and little plastic trinkets (no stash of gold though!) In our garden toy soldiers, marbles, shards of meat bones, plants and glassware. We too shall pass and will be known only for these little pieces, so we always leave notes written on the wallboard before we close up the walls.
2. I was wandering in Goodnight Hall while my kids were being guinea pigs for a speech project this winter and found a note taped inside a student's locker which was from the previous "tenant" of the locker stating she had a great experience at the UW and had found lots of friends and had been able to do some really interesting work. She was wishing the new locker tenant that her good luck would continue to the next, unknown tenant of the locker. What a wonderful idea for a resident hall to try some time! Time capsules from the person who lived within the walls of a dorm room to the next person who would live in that space.