Experience, Strength and Hope - 2023 07 07

My dog, Adele.

How does sharing our experience, strength and hope increase our imaginative capacity and our technological capability?

Adele is lying on the bed looking back at me. Behind Adele, the closet door is open. Adele on the bed is drawn in black pen. The closet door is drawn in blue pen.

We share our experience, strength and hope so others can benefit from our story. They identify with some or many aspects of our story (belief, value system, history, culture, shared interest, etc.) and make sense of it in relation to their own. This sense-making involves a cognitive mapping process - there are elements of our story that map seamlessly on their internal schematic, other elements may not be an easy fit.

I never know what drawing I am going to make or how much I will be able to get done on it. My time is continuously fragmented and interrupted with caregiving Mom.

Similarly, as we tell our story and articulate our experience, strength and hope, we are not only telling it to others, we are also telling it to ourselves. As we tell the story, our internal schema is also evolving and adapting as we make sense of our story through the storytelling.

I have been learning to make fast simple drawings that can take layers over time. I can tell how much a drawing speaks to me by how many layers I end up applying.

The process of sense-making is a creative process. We make sense of things by imagining external events, objects, activities in relation to our internal schema. When the external does not have a corresponding match in our internal schema, we are forced to broaden our perspectives or deepen our understanding to expand what is possible for our internal schema to comprehend. This broadening and deepening of what we know is a creative process of imagination, we bridge the gap between what we knew and what we are experiencing with new connections. Formulating new connections between familiar knowledge and new knowledge is an act of creativity. We engage in increasing our imaginative capacity because we want to make sense of unfamiliar inputs.

This drawing of Adele refuses to be left behind. In fact, it is inspiring me to install a wall hanging system in my tiny office so I can look at it and work on it.

The act of putting our story into words and sharing it with others increases imaginative capacity for both the storyteller and those who are taking in the story.

Adele looks at me with deep, soulful eyes. Her body is turned away from me, her foot is poised to push off the bed. It looks like she could leap into the open door of the closet. The closet could be a portal to a different world. Like the closet in the Narnia stories.

Our increased imaginative capacity gives rise to new perspectives and new understandings. These new perspectives and understandings, in turn, inspire new ideas, initiatives, connections, possibilities.

Everyday I am confronted with existential questions of life and death as I live each day with my frail, elder Mom. It is this constant subterranean flow of questions and uncertainty that can show up at any time during the day or night.

Implementing new ideas, initiatives, connections and possibilities into the world calls on skillful know-how, including technological know-how. When we are implementing new ideas, initiatives, connections and possibilities into the world, we are going to need new technological know-how to bring these efforts to life.

The palliative care nurse assured me that Mom is being kept on the registry indefinitely even though she has outlived expectations set in November, 2021. Her recent cancer diagnosis has contributed to her renewal on the palliative care registry. At the same time, we have no idea how much time Mom has left.

Sharing our experience, strength and hope increases our imaginative capacity because this activity engenders sense-making, which entails broadening our perspectives and deepening our understanding. As we increase our imaginative capacity, we need to adapt our technological capability to bring new initiatives to life. When we focus our storytelling on sharing our experience, strength and hope, we improve the possibility for new emergence of imaginative capacity and technological capability. We change the world as we understand it. 

"Jenny, I need a hand." Mom was out on the back porch, enjoying the afternoon in her chair. "I think I have had an accident. I need to get to the toilet."

"Ok, Mom, no worries. Here we go."

It turned out we had caught her in time and there was no big mess to clean up. I said to Mom, "That must be a very bad feeling, that you might not make it to the toilet in time." She nodded her head sorrowfully. "Well, Mother, every day is worth more than the last." She brightened. "Yes, I will go lay down now. I feel fine. No pain."