Just Start

Creating and transitioning to a new paradigm is almost as challenging as solving climate change issues. There are endless avenues to travel, none guaranteed to take us most efficiently to our destination, if at all. 

But maybe that doesn't matter? Maybe the thing to do is just start and through that beginning, reflect on where we're going. For those of us who are better editors than creators, having something tangible to evaluate is essential.  

Last weekend I went to the Museum of Art & Design. On the 6th floor there's an artist studio. An artist is ostensibly stationed there during museum hours. (The idea is to offer accessibility, dialogue, and the thrill of participation. The reality is a little bit of a zoo-voyeur experience that is antiseptic compared to scuttling through the damp halls of warehouses in Dumbo during open studio weekends.) The artist last week told me that first she makes a lot of pieces, e.g., cuts ceramic tea sets into pieces, without knowing what she intends to use them for. Then she groups them in order to catalog what she has. Then she incorporates the pieces into an artwork. Her first goal: just start.

So when I was sitting in a company meeting, listening to people talk about their projects I thought, I need to start building a platform here and now. The words that came out were politick for the moment, "I'd like to reinvigorate a culture of sharing." Cueing past success, shared benefit, and providing a scapegoat for potential failure. So far the idea is off and running. A bunch of us will sit down once a month and hear from each other --- we'll start sharing in earnest. People will go back to putting their proformas on the shared drive. We'll remember to ask each other out to lunch. We'll be aware of other's challenges and successes; we'll stop reinventing the wheel.