Healthcare, capitalism, prisons, education. Four systems, one common thread: they disconnect us. What would it look like to design from connection instead?
This is really, really deep and profound stuff, Jeremy. Two things it calls to mind for me: (a) the work of Brené Brown, who focuses on connnection as the key to personal as well as communal healing, and (b) the power of restorative justice vs. the prison industrial complex. Thank you for sharing your deep thinking/feeling with us.
Thanks Kharma! Funny, I have been thinking a lot about the word connection recently. I am actually starting to question if it is a word I want to continue using as much as I do. I like disconnect, but have been thinking differently about connection.
Connection can be one-way.
I can feel connected to you without you feeling connected to me. Someone can feel a deep connection to a person who doesn't even know they exist. That's not a flaw in the word. It's what the word actually means. It describes how energy moves in one direction. From me to you. From you to something. But not necessarily back.
Relationship is different. Relationship is always reciprocal.
At least that is how I have been thinking about it. Just some thoughts in my head in real time.
My business school dean Joe White said once (and it’s stuck with me) “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” We can’t just stop at intentions; we have to look at actual impact. And to see impacts (especially beyond first order), we have to zoom out. A lot. Like stand on the balcony to see the stage. You’re doing this here.
The cover image used with the post is modernist stark. Disconnection. The threads you weave together are powerful — healthcare, economic systems, and beyond — show that we’re surrounded by systems whose outcomes lean to/ result in/ actively promote disconnection.
When you take a step back with curiosity, it is hard to not see these things. So many of us walk through life believing this is just the way things are. I can’t help but thing of the RKF quote, "There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" I think now is the time for us to start asking why not!
This is really, really deep and profound stuff, Jeremy. Two things it calls to mind for me: (a) the work of Brené Brown, who focuses on connnection as the key to personal as well as communal healing, and (b) the power of restorative justice vs. the prison industrial complex. Thank you for sharing your deep thinking/feeling with us.
Thanks Kharma! Funny, I have been thinking a lot about the word connection recently. I am actually starting to question if it is a word I want to continue using as much as I do. I like disconnect, but have been thinking differently about connection.
Connection can be one-way.
I can feel connected to you without you feeling connected to me. Someone can feel a deep connection to a person who doesn't even know they exist. That's not a flaw in the word. It's what the word actually means. It describes how energy moves in one direction. From me to you. From you to something. But not necessarily back.
Relationship is different. Relationship is always reciprocal.
At least that is how I have been thinking about it. Just some thoughts in my head in real time.
Excellent thoughts. Reciprocity and mutuality are so important.
My business school dean Joe White said once (and it’s stuck with me) “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” We can’t just stop at intentions; we have to look at actual impact. And to see impacts (especially beyond first order), we have to zoom out. A lot. Like stand on the balcony to see the stage. You’re doing this here.
The cover image used with the post is modernist stark. Disconnection. The threads you weave together are powerful — healthcare, economic systems, and beyond — show that we’re surrounded by systems whose outcomes lean to/ result in/ actively promote disconnection.
When you take a step back with curiosity, it is hard to not see these things. So many of us walk through life believing this is just the way things are. I can’t help but thing of the RKF quote, "There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" I think now is the time for us to start asking why not!