Falling upwards

There are many ways to fall. There are many ways to end things. There are many ways to deal with the things that don’t work anymore. I have chosen a path of peace, playfulness and freedom.

I have spent most of my adult life working with novelty and innovation, as a startup founder, designer, researcher and an artist. But it wasn’t until recently that I realised that my deepest motivation all this time, behind all this, was a longing to show people how to journey into the new.

Who am I?

I have always felt called to go beyond what I knew. Even at times when I was shaking with fear, I still did it. Because I was so hungry for life. I did everything I could to get closer to something that I couldn’t name, but which felt more important than anything else; career, relationships, family. And for years, I was so very angry that I couldn’t get it. Life wasn’t showing up for me in the way that I wanted it to.

But then everything changed. I finally found the right door. It wasn’t what I expected it to be and the journey since has not been a smooth ride. But it has been fun, juicy and so beautiful I cannot begin to express it in words. And to be honest, I’m reluctant to put words to any of this, because who I am is still unfolding. But I believe it will always be this way. I am always moving into the new. This is who I am.

Metamodern literacy

We live in a time of high complexity. This makes the world hard to grasp as many things around us are not what they seem. One way to put words to this situation is to talk about tricksters and trickery. Because tricksters represents powers beyond good and evil. They can seem dark and challenging, but behind all that there is a mighty gift. They show us how to find our way back to our own agency and resilience.

Embracing the trickster

We are powerful creators/creatrices with the innate capacity to go into the unknown and to disrupt the status quo. Through out history, this has enabled amazing innovations and technological progress at an accelerating speed. At the same time, this part in us has a tendency to constantly want to push boundaries in ways that often lead to harm.

Think about AI and how this technology represents the biggest trickster of our time. It was created by us. We made it to mirror ourselves. Now its changing the world as we know it more rapidly than we can comprehend. It is beautiful and frightening, dark and light.

To deal with the darker aspects of the trickster, we cannot hide in fear of it. The only way is to show up with really strong and healthy boundaries and with crystal clear intentions. And say:

I’m ready. Come on, let’s play!

Here is my manifesto: Creating with Coyote