A few days ago, I was asked (in a private collaborative space) who my work is for.
I wrote the following response.
My work is in bridging between communities and community members who are hidden from view because of intersectional hardship.
For those in hardship, this connects them with people who want to know, understand, and collaborate fruitfully with them.
For those who aren’t experiencing the same hardship intersections, this brings valuable knowledge and lived expertise into their world — because it is our relationships with those who have overcome great adversity that allow us to learn to prevent unnecessary suffering in or around our community spaces;…
…the same way it is valuable to know and honor our elders;…
…the same way it is valuable to coordinate pre-emptive solutions so that we need not experience compounded extremity before we take action…
…to ensure safety, kindness, health, and well-being in our communities.
This work necessarily centers relational integrity and forthright communications as a means of beginning to bridge diverse forms of languaging. I am certainly finding it to resonate considerably with the fir tree theme. (Unexpected bonus.)
This is a set of connection points that has stabilized our ability to coordinate solutions and collaborative resourcing with severely disabled community members; survivors of violence; those who have experienced neurological injury; our friends and loved ones encountering wartime circumstances; those in poverty; and many others who can become invisible to the communities around them because of their difficulty communicating what they’re experiencing.
Future flow (a flow from the future! on 21 November 2023)…
I went searching for a good link to hat-tip Scott Perry, whose insight has been instrumental for my process in developing the above conversation — a conversation that has continued and expanded in wonderful ways. (I’ll share more in subsequent posts here at IPR.)
What I found when I went searching for that link was a more recent post that Scott made on his Substack about First Principles Thinking, of which I am especially fond.
I feel moved to include a particularly relevant quote from his post here on this page:
“The fact that no one wins alone is one of the least recognized first principles in today’s disconnected, lonely, and cynical landscape.”
Hear, hear.
Let’s keep going.
Days 30-31; Who This Work Is For