Singles and Plurals

It started like this:

I was making heavy and conceptually profitable use of Csikszentmihalyi's concept of Flow. I needed another model. Csikszentmihalyi's focuses on the individual experience of being "in the zone." I needed something that would illustrate the collective experience, of being in the zone together. Ultimately, I came up with the idea of "CoLiberation." It wasn't a perfect word: at least half determined by the fun of finding a word that sounds like "collaboration" only goes beyond. But maybe it's very silliness made it work. Anyhow, it became "my" word, and I use it whenever I get the chance.

Next, to illustrate the concept of CoLiberation, I came up with yet another design that was influenced at least as much by the pun as it was by its descriptive powers. It's silly because it should really be Me/Us, grammatically speaking. If grammar is what one ever speaks. But it worked and gradually it became so central to my, um, centrality, that I used it everywhere I could. My sacred son and daughter-in-law even made me a cut-out me/we for my birthday. I even made these very expensive, full color, folding me/we business cards....

Recently, prompted by one of my favorite mentors, Joyce Searls, who shall remain unnamed, I developed a program designed just for singles. I was having problems with the word "singles" though. It seemed somehow awkward to me. Too restrictive. Disparaging, even. So I came up with the idea of Singles and Plurals: you know, the idea being that no one is really ever actually single; that we all function within a plurality, and within that plurality we are loved and supported and made complete.

And in trying to explain this concept to a group of singles, I used my Me/We card. Singles/Plurals. And it was perfect. As if that was exactly what I had designed the card to express.

This was one of those moments for me. As if someone had taken a conceptual needle and thread and sewn together 20 years of my thinking and then turned it inside out. All the pieces brought together seamlessly. As if, all along, this is what I meant. Or was supposed to mean.