So yesterday I wrote about this weird interview that I held with myself while I was trying to figure out some business systems stuff. While rallying it up at Rally (Rally!).

And what came out of that was something about needing to make a certain kind of folder. But I didn’t want to. And also that I should talk to the me who has already done this.

Now you’re up to speed. It just gets weirder from here.

And I begin, if somewhat reluctantly.

Me: Sooooo. I’m supposed to talk to the me who has done this. Something abut making a folder. Anyway. Hi. Can you tell me what happens once we make the new folder?
She: You mean, what happens once you have committed to being in a new relationship with order?
Me: Oh, right.
She: I have an idea. Let’s turn this around. How about I interview you?
Me: Uh, I guess that’s okay.

Something about tightness.

She: What are you worried will happen when you become the person who has made peace with order… when you become me?
Me: I don’t know. I guess I’m worried that I’ll be really uptight. Not that you are. Obviously. But it seems really stressful, all that order.
She: What happens if you become uptight?
Me: I’ll keep tightening and tightening and get angrier and angrier and hurt and more hurt and then I’ll crumple and break. I’ll be like _______________.

And the opposite of tightness.

She: Then it makes sense you’d want to avoid that.
Me: Yeah. I hadn’t thought about that.
She: Is it possible — theoretically — that order could end up bringing about less tightness?
Me: It could. It definitely could. Because I wouldn’t be creating more piles. And because I could find all the information I need. That feels kind of liberating.
She: So order and tightness are not the same. Just because they were the same for [these three people from my past] doesn’t mean things have to be uptight and constricted for you.
Me: Wow. You’re right! Like what Hiro says about radiating instead of contracting. I can have order and radiance.

We need a story.

She: Tell me what will happen when you have this folder and the Anthology. Not that this necessarily has to be the solution you stick with. You have creative freedom. But imagine. Tell me like it’s a story of something that already happened.

And I thought that was stupid. But then I told her a story and everything got better.

A story about radiating and not contracting.

Once upon a time, there was a Rally. Rally!

There were many Rallies. There were ten Rallies and the pirate queen loved hosting Rally because Rally is buoyant and sparkly and filled with love.

And also Shiva Nata: mad, hilarious, laughter-filled flailing and getting intentionally wonderfully lost.

The pirate queen loved collecting all the beautiful shivanautical insights and epiphanies, and all the understandings that came from being at the Playground.

From playing with her projects instead of trying to force them to go a certain way.

Remembering. And then remembering again.

She remembered she was a secret scientist running the most outrageous and amazing experiments on the ship and throughout the entire kingdom.

Except instead of having a neat shelf full of lab books, she had a messy, overflowing lab where she could never locate her important results and findings when she needed them.

And since new experiments and hypotheses are built on previous research, she was losing valuable information and access to valuable internal treasure.

One day she remembered something else. Not only was she a pirate queen, she was also a shivanaut and a master of repatterning. Patterns were her world. She knew about patterns.

So she decided to repattern the laboratory and make it new again.

She decided the laboratory could still be a) mysterious, b) magical, c) filled with weird cauldrons, d) beautiful, e) home to delightful surprises.

AND the laboratory would now also be easy to navigate, clearly marked, ordered and patterned, with everything getting a home and a Revue.

Secret ways to navigate! No one else would see the patterns, but she would. They would be hidden code patterns, readable only to her!

The laboratory wouldn’t lose its mystique. It didn’t need to become clinical and boring.

Instead there were new and secret patterns to light the way. A system of lights and pulses for the pirate queen to follow. The lights emit a smell like freshly baked bread.

Now she knows where to go and how to get there.

And when she doesn’t know, she asks.

And when she still doesn’t know, she invents a story and follows it.

Play? And comment zen for today…

I’m still not even sure about all the other stuff that happened. There was some metaphor mousing and some moments of bing! There was some hiding in the Refueling Station and napping in the hammock.

But if you would like to join me in some of this, that would be lovely. Like asking the you who has done the thing that you are not sure about.

Or writing an unlikely bedtime story about how you solved a problem. It might even be a good way to find the counterpart of something hard.

And it might be another way to be a fox in the video game.

Anyway, I’d love some company.

As always: we work on our stuff, we let people have their own experience and we don’t tell each other what to do (unless someone asks, of course!).

Kisses from the Playground where I am about to commence with the mad flailing again. Updates to follow!