[OSList] Creating Space or Opening Space?

[Harrison via OSList]

Lots of good thoughts there Lucas... and I do believe space/time is a marvelously slippery critter. As St. Augustine once remarked (I think), “I know exactly what time (space) is until I try to explain it.” I do love the slippery bit. For example, most people would probably agree that we only have 24 hours in a day. But that bit of “solid wisdom” depends totally on where you are in the cosmos, and whose “day” you are talking about. Actually if you were sort of floating about, I guess you would be day-less?  As for creating space – we have an abundance of expressions that suggest we do it all the time, as in “my space,” “our space,” “your space.” And just when we think we have it all together, some idiot comes along and creates “cyberspace.”

 

Harrison

 

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From: OSList [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Lucas Cioffi via OSList
Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2015 9:48 AM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: [OSList] Creating Space or Opening Space?

 

That's an interesting thread you started, Daniel, about inviting non-invitation.

 

Harrison writes yesterday:

Here’s a thought... Space/time is infinite, defined by our minds, and limited by our imagination. So “constraints” are only what you make them out to be. AND... it is always nice to have as much “space/time” as possible. A “genuine invitation” creates a LOT of space/time.

 

Do y'all think we are creating space or are we opening space?  It's an important distinction, because creating implies a win-win but opening could be a win-lose situation.  I'd say none of us is ever creating space, just opening it, and that someone or something is always losing something else when we do.  

 

I'll do my best to explain...

Instead of "creating space" I'd argue that instead we are "creating space for" because the space literally already exists.  We are creating opportunity for voices to be heard and for people to participate.  But in some indirect way a space for X is at least indirectly a space against Y.  We are never actually creating new space, instead we are creating "new space for" by marking that space with an invitation/purpose, principles, and a law of two feet.  The space (the hotel conference room, the warehouse, etc) already exists.

 

I don't disagree, Harrison, that overall space/time might be infinite–I don't know :) –but each of us is limited to being in one physical space at a time, monitoring/interacting with a handful of physical spaces virtually, and having 24 hours in a day.  In that way we'd all agree that space and time are nearly zero sum at a personal scale, so when we open/create space for _________, and people accept the invitation, we are decreasing energy and time spent some where else.  There is a cost.  We don't talk about that, but I don't think we forget that either.

 

So, to take this argument full circle (pun intended), I'd say that whenever we open space, we do it by force.  Space doesn't open on its own (or does it?!-- what if we aren't really opening space and the space is already open, that we're just the first to see it?).  Well, even if space opens on its own and then if we're the first ones to walk into it and invite others, we are still inviting by force–this not a bad force or a coercive force, but it's a force nonetheless.  We know this, because we know how it requires force to launch an invitation into the world.  (Or is this not always the case?  Can someone invite by simply being?)

 

Any invitation displaces people's time: to read it (maybe just 30 seconds) and then much more time is displaced for people choose to attend (an hour, a day, etc).  What I'm trying to say is that I'm beginning to see opening space more and more as active, forceful (in a good way), and intentional.  When we open space that was previously closed, we are using force, and that might mean that someone else is experiencing something else closing (the old order of business in an organization or fewer people attending another event or doing something that they would have otherwise been doing if they weren't attending).

 

Bottom line: It's hard to argue with creating space because it looks like a win-win, but somewhere someone or something is losing our time, energy, and support in the short term.  In the case of an organization the person losing is the boss who wants to keep the old order of things.  When that situation isn't applicable, we're at least spending time away from other things we could be doing such as tending to a vegetable garden or taking Fido for a walk.  So it's always important to keep in mind who/what is losing when we open space, and perhaps using the phrase "creating space" is a good way to focus on the upside.




Lucas Cioffi

Founder, QiqoChat.com

Charlottesville, VA

Mobile: 917-528-1831

 

 

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