I’ve been thinking about my path, your pathway, the wander, the wonder. And I’ve been contemplating that — the journal, journey — in the sharing community. Content, containment, contentment: found.
A Wanderer stone, drawn on hardened clay, smoothed by the sea, with scribed details, set in the crux of a Yew tree, Decatur Island.
And what is the path? It might not anything but simply that — going where you go, being where you are, becoming what you shall be.
But, to me, the Wanderer is an archetype, a metaphor of examination; if you are looking for something, it is out there to be found, even if the path is something that brings you back to yourself. No path is straight, alone — there is a meander; any wander is a labyrinth. Any path, too, is shared — no one truly goes alone.
Over the last number of decades, the beginnings — the 70s, the emerging 80s, as I’ve come from the roaring 90s, to the emergence of this century, I’ve changed — and my change comes back to the heart of the life, the work, the exploration. One decade ago, I’d forgotten about where I was, and what I was studying. I reached to the sense of big, forgetting about the smaller, the closer at hand — making GIRVIN, the firm, the biggest, the top. But being at the top is a game of endless movement to one goal — which might not be about the work, the craft, the art, the beauty; but instead, it’s about the big.
The evolution of the other challenges, the bigger life transitions suggests that in examining the meaning of the work, you might be — I shall be — I have, wandered back to the heart upon which once my flowering soul first blossomed; that is:
• Consider design as a signature, an illustration, a ligature — of humanity, of connectedness, the curve of being.
• Fire curiosity and presume its unquenchable character.
• Keep learning — study and exploration as immanent.
• Risk everything, all ways.
• Change everything, all the time.
• Consider flow, fluency, flux — and what can be found in the rightful resilience.
• Look for what lies beneath.
• Examine the symbolism of everything.
• In the work, think of brand as fire, as story, as human, as sign, as evocation.
• In being a designer, the synaesthetic weaving — in sentience — is everything we do.
• Leadership is strategy. And to lead is to be in front, at the edge.
And, to it all, wander, in wonderment.
Eyes wide, in marvelment. It’s all out there; and it’s all right here.
Wander, on, Wanderers.
Wanderment, a way of finding.
Wishing well | all ways | tsg | decatur island
More, here:
https://tim.girvin.com/illuminations/wanderer.html
https://tim.girvin.com/writings/thewander.html
And to another Wanderer, the metaphor, without:
https://tim.girvin.com/?p=556
A Wanderer watercolor, painted on handmade paper.