The Human Constellation
None of these observations belongs to me alone.
There are people all over this constellation.
Closest to me are my wife and daughter.
None of these observations belongs to me alone.
There are people all over this constellation.
Closest to me are my wife and daughter.
They have given me something I understand more deeply now than I probably did while receiving it: space to explore.
They have allowed curiosity to engulf me at times, as it can. They have given me the freedom to follow an idea before I could explain where it was going, and the shelter to return to once I had constructed enough of it to share.
They have given me something I understand more deeply now than I probably did while receiving it:
space to explore.
They have allowed curiosity to engulf me at times, as it can. They have given me the freedom to follow an idea before I could explain where it was going, and the shelter to return to once I had constructed enough of it to share.
And then they do something equally important.
They question it.
They critique it.
They tell me when something makes sense and when it doesn’t.
They listen to ideas that may have started somewhere completely different hours earlier and allow me to bring them back into our lives, turn them over, explain them badly, explain them again, and eventually understand them differently because they were there.
I am incredibly thankful for that.
And then they do something equally important.
They question it.
They critique it.
They tell me when something makes sense and when it doesn’t.
They listen to ideas that may have started somewhere completely different hours earlier and allow me to bring them back into our lives, turn them over, explain them badly, explain them again, and eventually understand them differently because they were there.
I am incredibly thankful for that.
Beyond home, there are countless other people across my constellation: people who managed me, people I had the privilege of managing, people who worked beside me, people who challenged me, and people who gave me room.
Some entered my life briefly and left an imprint anyway. Some have come and gone. Some I am fortunate to still work with—every day, occasionally, or now only rarely.
My colleagues have done something essential for me as well. They have challenged my assumptions, shared their own perspectives, and helped me see possibilities I would never have recognized on my own.
Every one of them changed the observer doing the observing.
Beyond home, there are countless other people across my constellation: people who managed me, people I had the privilege of managing, people who worked beside me, people who challenged me, and people who gave me room.
Some entered my life briefly and left an imprint anyway. Some have come and gone. Some I am fortunate to still work with—every day, occasionally, or now only rarely.
My colleagues have done something essential for me as well. They have challenged my assumptions, shared their own perspectives, and helped me see possibilities I would never have recognized on my own.
Every one of them
changed the observer doing the observing.
I am grateful for the organizations that gave those relationships somewhere to happen—and especially grateful for the organization I currently get to call home.
Not because it is perfect.
Nothing is.
But occasionally an organization creates an unusual combination of trust, challenge, opportunity, stability, movement, leadership, and room for people to change.
I was fortunate to occupy a particular place inside such an environment at a particular moment when the world around all of us began changing very quickly.
I am grateful for the organizations that gave those relationships somewhere to happen—and especially grateful for the organization I currently get to call home.
Not because it is perfect.
Nothing is.
But occasionally an organization creates an unusual combination of trust, challenge, opportunity, stability, movement, leadership, and room for people to change.
I was fortunate to occupy a particular place inside such an environment at a particular moment when the world around all of us began changing very quickly.
For anyone else who experiences these periods when an idea can suddenly envelop them—when one question becomes five and five become fifty—I hope you are fortunate enough to find people who understand that part of you.
Not people who simply agree.
Something better.
People who encourage you.
People who question you.
People who challenge what you have made.
People who give you shelter when an exploration leads somewhere difficult.
And, most importantly, people who help cultivate the ideas you seem destined to explore.
Those relationships are part of the work even when their names never appear on the finished artifact.
Before turning toward the other grains of me—the habits, places, questions, losses, and practices that shaped the observer—I wanted to begin with the people who made room for the looking.