“…beginning anywhere.”

This is an unplanned series of essays. Intentional, and not unexpected, but unplanned. That will turn out to be important in the end.

See, I need to talk about something I’ve been working on for a year. And twenty years.

On better days, I think of what’s coming as a kind of productive midlife crisis, changing my life and work and “personal situation”, and heading off in a new direction all altruistic and community-minded and exploratory and adventurous. On bad days I worry that I’m trying to change the world. Again.

Chet Hendrickson and Ron Jeffries taught me that recently, though they might tell a different version: Nobody minds much if you want to make your own life richer, especially if you do something helpful for others along the way. But if you set out to change the world, you’re bound to face opposition.

So let’s get this out of the way up front. This whole thing—this project, or new institution, or book, or approach, or community, or University-burning revolution, or whatever it eventually becomes? This is for me. I’m not setting out to fix anything in the world beyond my life, my family’s and friends’ well-being, my chance to spend time with people whose opinions I value, my ability to do useful work with style and grace.

Some spillage may occur, though. Even the best of us make mistakes that way.

In one way, this is all an answer to Katya Vladislavleva’s question, asked at an after-conference dinner 362 days ago: What would the ideal work be like?

I’m not sure, but I think I can find out.

Introduction: Ink to paper, and start scribbling

So we begin measuring a “circle”. A year, or twenty years, that’s a long time, and a lot has happened. It’s a complex story, but as with all complex things I should try to make it sound simple and obvious. Autobiographical background, in this case.

Every project is more fun with a good Founder’s Myth. And lots of jokes. Both strong arguments for autobiography.

Even with limited insight into where we’re headed, I have a feeling that this particular circle will ramify and fold, and bend back on itself more than once, and that anastomosis will kick in soon, and that it will eventually fill space entirely if I take the time. That’s not a feature, and might be a bug.

But it will help explain me to myself. I can’t vouch for passers-by who might get caught up in the process. I will make one promise: it may not hurt much.

Here’s the goal: This is where I explain an institution called Coscience, and the Collaboration Studio, and what I will be doing for the next seven years of my life.

I won’t explain it all right away—that will be in the center of the circle somewhere. But this week. Along with a Founder’s Myth, one likes to see a bit of ritual timing. July 13 will be the one-year anniversary.

Last year, come Friday, a whole string of light bulbs went off for me. Lit up the whole mental scene, the last 20 years’ work in context. I looked out the airplane window at the peak of Mt. Rainier standing above the impenetrable clouds, grabbed at my briefcase to pull out any paper I could find, filled most a page with the phrase ANSWER FARM. I knew within a few minutes what I wanted it to mean; now I’m going to make some of that happen.

Some spillage maybe… but I make it happen for me. To learn, someday, to work with grace and style.

For the next few days, I’ll draw out my uncircular circle. It will wiggle quite a bit. But keep in mind that it’s a closed curve, nonetheless. I think it wraps around something interesting.

[cont'd here]