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Factual: “a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. Fractals are useful in modeling structures (such as eroded coastlines or snowflakes) in which similar patterns recur at progressively smaller scales, and in describing partly random or chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth, fluid turbulence, and galaxy formation” 

I attended one of SFU’s various events this week within the theme titled Future of Work—The New World of Work:Thriving or Surviving? The two keynote speakers/ panellist: Van Jones and Anne Marie Slaughter, did an incredible job painting a picture of what our future looks like in the next twenty years, with 42% of our current Canadian jobs becoming automated. One of the key themes Jones discussed was the concept of time. He said that Indigenous folks and those living prior to colonization/industrialization viewed time circularly- that time moved through seasons and in those seasons folks attempted to obtain heritage. Through the impact of capitalism time moved into a linear understanding—we set a goal and we worked towards it. Pull up your boot straps and go! Or we ask today “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Which Jones suggested is an outdated question. Today, due to technology, time is moving towards us. Even though it is still linear, time is moving fast—faster than an app is being uploaded, meaning that we are constantly pivoting. Our ability to flourish today and within the next couple of decades—within this quasi automated horizon is having the capacity and tenacity to pivot.

I share this because one of the key themes from Brown’s work was adaptation. Where is our own bottleneck? Perhaps what I am curious about, digging at, trying to uncover: what goals are we so focused on that we don’t realize that we have forgotten to pivot, to move out of the way of future slamming into us? Get out of our own way? A future we didn’t even notice just bashed up and slapped us in the face… OUCH!! We’ve become so focused on the outcome, we have lost the process. Meditation, as Brown explores is a way for us to get out of our own way. It is a way to force us to sit in the present and stop unconsciously shoveling the heavy sediment (i.e., our past) into our future.

A consideration or thought I had about pivoting as the future is moving towards us, is the idea of murmuration. Brown points out that murmuration is a collective dance “through the air –to avoid predators, and, it also seems, to pass the time in the most beautiful way” (p.71). I think that murmuration, a collective and community driven movement is what we most definitely need to cultivate moving forward.