Happy Friday Everyone,
I will be going live today at 10am EST per usual, tune in, let’s have coffee & chat!
Wangechi Mutu
Suspended playtime, 2008
Garbage bags, twine 44 parts, variable sizes
from 2” to 8” diameters
tune into the live or watch the recording if you want my thoughts on how this picture represents agency.
I hope you have been well. I took the week off from writing to focus on some other things, namely the topic I mentioned to you would be on my mind: treating agency as if it were a living creature, and nurturing it. I wanted to explore the topic actively rather than just writing.
agency: Agency is the capacity of individuals to act on their own will and shape their lives, influenced but not wholly determined by social structures, resources, and personal beliefs.
If we approach agency (personal and collective), not as something to be gained, or exercised, but as a living being to be cared for and empowered, we can see it will respond to how it is treated.
Negelect it and it retreats back to not get harmed, force or micromanage it and it resists, or lashes out in preemptive self defense.
Give it what it needs to sustain itself, and it will thrive.
Constrain it, and it will still grow to an extent, but the question becomes how.
The self-imposed constraints is what I examined in myself this week.
I’ll be going live at 10am today as usual where I’ll discuss this topic, after which I’ll write up a bit longer piece for you to read when I send out the recording.
See you soon,
Chris
P.S., a quick thank you to my mentor, Grace, for subtle pushing me forward in exploring how I think about and communicate my ideas.
Contour Lines is my anecdotal newsletter segment that weaves whats going on in my life with my thoughts on leadership as well as personal and organizational development.
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