About Exploring Edges
Exploring Edges is a venue for thinking partners--Mary Nations and Kerry Studwell--to think out loud, in public. Mary and Kerry are both life-long learners. They have degrees in technical fields (statistics and chemistry, respectively) and after successful technical careers, they started pursing studies in the areas of organizational, human, and personal development. In 2003, they met and immediately recognized in one another a kindred spirit. Since that time, Mary and Kerry have been discussing ideas on all fronts and--at this time--have particular fun researching and discussing the age-old questions related to what it means to be a human being.
This blog is a publishing medium for our materials, and as such, offers our perspectives--synthesized and distilled from many disparate sources--on why we do what we do, does it matter, and so on. You can expect the content of this blog to change as we learn, explore,and discover more through our studies and through our relationship with each other and with you.
Some favorite quotes...
People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like. ~ Abraham Lincoln
Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age, and to imagine right up to the brink of death that life is only beginning. I think that is the only way to keep adding to one's talent and one's inner happiness. ~ George Sand
Ripeness is all. ~ William Shakespeare,” King Lear”
The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves, they find their own order ... the continuous thread of revelation. ~ Eudora Welty.
In a conversation of equals, there is all to play for. Something can occur that neither side could anticipate: predictability, routinization, boredom, and powerlessness are all in abeyance. With a healthy outlaw approach, we are outside the laws of predictable cause and effect and inside the intensity of creative originality. We have a gleam in our eye; we look to the edges of things; no one really knows what we are up to. We see with the eyes of those who don't quite belong. We are dangerous again, and glad to be so. ~ David Whyte, “Crossing the Unknown Sea—Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity”
Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity. ~ Gilda Radner
The aim of life is to live and to live means to be joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. ~ Henry Miller
It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the end. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin
And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~ Anais Nin
I’m an ass; you’re an ass. ~ Anthony DeMello, “Awareness”
Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. ~ Colin Powell
To love what you do and feel that it matters—how could anything be more fun? ~ Katherine Graham
All models are wrong; some models are useful. ~ G. E. P. Box
The most visible creators I know of are those artists whose medium is life itself. The ones who express the inexpressible - without brush, hammer, clay, or guitar. They neither paint nor sculpt - their medium is being. Whatever their presence touches has increased life. They see and don't have to draw. They are the artists of being alive. ~ J. Stone
In the beginner’s mind there are infinite possibilities. In the expert’s mind few survive the weight of assumption that knowledge and experience have placed on them. ~ Adrian Savage
I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen, heard, understood and touched by them. The greatest gift I can give is to see, hear, understand and touch another person. When this is done, I feel contact has been made. ~ Virginia Satir
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Of all human talents, among the most precious ones is the ability to discern opportunities around oneself when others do not. In a given situation, one person will say, “there is nothing to do,” whereas another will find dozens of things to do and enjoy. The individual who is truly engaged with the world – interested, curious, excited – is never at a loss of opportunity to experience flow. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in “Good Business – Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning”
If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe. ~ Abe Lincoln
We’ve come to believe that the core capacity needed for accessing the field of the future is presence. We first thought of presence as being fully conscious and aware in the present moment. Then we began to appreciate presence as deep listening, of being open beyond one’s preconceptions and historical ways of making sense. We came to see the importance of letting go of old identities and the need to control and…making choices to serve the evolution of life. Ultimately, we came to see all these aspects of presence as leading to a state of “letting come”, of consciously participating in a larger field for change. ~ Peter Senge, C. Otto Schwarmer, Joseph Jaworski, Betty Sue Flowers, "Presence--Human Purpose and the Field of the Future"
The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities. ~ Maya Angelou
If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts. ~ Albert Einstein
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~ Lao Tzu
Through the resource of power we are able to show up. Through the resource of love we are able to pay attention to what has heart and meaning. Through the resource of vision we are able to give voice to what we see, and through the resource of wisdom we are able to be open to all possibilities and unattached to outcome. …When we open to being powerful, loving, creative, and wise, we experience the world and ourselves as the many splendid things we are. ~ Angeles Arrien
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. ~ Rumi
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