Questions for crossing boundaries
Just over 12 months ago, I stepped into a life phase that I’m chiming in - perhaps belatedly? - to articulate more fully.
Autumn bulbs give plant species pacing to this human pause.
Taking space for a pause that I was able to manifest intentionally is a privilege I don’t take lightly.
While I honor my good fortune, I also recognize how there is truly no outside or refuge to the seemingly relentless perpetual motion that these times present: to people, missions and organizations dedicated to equity, inclusion or sustainability in the public sphere.
As the planet speeds quickly (as if on reverse) towards undesirable horizons, staying present on this pause has surfaced some productive discomfort around temporal (and maybe timely) questions that follow.
How much time is warranted (am I deserving?)
Is it possible to pause for too much time?
How will I define or justify this period (a gap year? a sabbatical?)
What measure will determine that I’ve reached my aims - and is it possible that I will - as so often happens with productive missions - I will find I have not given myself enough time?
My initial intentions evolved into these on-line pages: a provisional scaffolding into which I sought to externalize and exchange ongoing inquiries, with hopes to generate paths forward with interlocutors from distinctive local contexts on similar trajectories.
While this pause resisted the speed of production towards impact which is foundational to work for purpose, it was rich in dialogue.
Pitching the inquiry at a social innovation forum, 11 March 2025 (Brussels)
Participation in communities of practice convenings - formal and informal, live and virtual - included Brussels-based Network of European Social Entrepreneurs and Innovators (NESEI), where in March 2025 I first dared to share this inquiry with a cohort of social innovation leaders working with communities with roots in Africa, Europe and Asia.
I’ve since endeavored to enact what begins inevitably as a personal reflection in ways that look back, inward, and forward in ways that are communally shared, interpersonally expansive, potentially generative and whenever possible, prompt reciprocal exchange.
NESEI Social Innovation Forum, Brussels
Across these many encounters what I heard has prompted me to wonder about the attention on the massive scales at which deeply challenging questions manifests as entangled issues straddling planetary geographies across our current present.
Critical response to my inquiry shared in digital notes over lunch, Brussels.
Three provocation frameworks emerged from this inquiry across boundaries.
Might decisions arrived at slower but empowered for agility in these relentlessly uncertain times (offer dexterity instead of quickness?)
Might foresight diffusing visionary conceptions across collectives foreground multiplicity of insights - and in so doing grapple with the inherent uncertainties these times manifest?
Could softer notions of frameworks enable/allow innovation conceptualized as nurturing ground not rigid structure (something akin to the tactile, tangible, rooted and flowing contexts that sustain us - light, air, water, but also kindness, joy and love)?
I’ve stopped quite short of definitive answers or silver-bullet solutions to these recurring gaps. Instead I’ve sought to identify patterns and recurrences that have surfaced as I’ve listened.
I’m not done crossing boundaries to ask questions about how my strengths in practice might come into service against still formidable gaps and obstacles - with an aim to nurture more viable and desirable shared futures.
BALLOON-FRAME is still, like my own journey, a work-in-progress - please don’t hesitate to connect with me to push these questions further.
toddpalmer@balloon-frame.com