Retreat, Reflect, Recharge, Recenter, Reclaim
Every society experiences the pendular swing of cultural forces, as standards, morays, conventions, and the like move from one extreme to the other. And it is during these periods as the old gives way to the new that we are most adrift. Gord Hotchkiss, writing over at Mediapost, talks about an information deficit—our inability to know where we’re going, and particularly how to relate to where we’ve been—in the swing of the pendulum. And, even more importantly, the challenge that this presents to us as we try to be thoughtful about our present and our future. Without good information, we have a hard time creating a “more tolerant, and empathetic society,” to use his words. I think that’s right, and has something to teach us about design.
Pendulums will of their own accord, at least in the real world, settle finally between extremes. Ultimately, that’s where we need to be: recentered and responsive, rather than off-kilter and reactive.
In tennis—a sport I know a little something about—so much is about getting back to center to be prepared for the unknown trajectory of the next shot. The game requires fitness and agility. These days are challenging our fitness for what will now increasingly be required of us in a less predictable time—one that requires we be more prepared, nimble, agile and and responsive.
This recentering—or, if you prefer, coming to rest—is a necessary exercise for perspective and strategy on every scale. And as designers, we can help. As we all discover the need to pause, and as we appreciate more and more the transitions from one activity to another — from chaos to calm, from sociability to solitude — what we have to say about how products and spaces should function and contribute to balance and resiliency, becomes ever more important.
Lisa Simeone of Simeone Deary Design Group recently suggested that because we’ve been spending more time with ourselves and getting more comfortable with that, we’re gaining an appreciation for what it means. I call it a reclaiming of self — reclaiming home (or wherever serves as ‘home’ in a given time)… a validation of being still, being home.
Of course, self-time feels almost hypocritical in a time so rife with calls for solidarity, for action, for departing from self to lend support to those that need it, and must have it. But if we don’t understand ourselves, why we react or respond (or don’t) as we do…what our convictions are, and what we can do with them for positive, collective good, it will all be for naught. We must claim the space to do our own self-inventory, and that requires solid footing. As many generations before us, we are living amidst times of significant gravity. How great our capacity for the unknown might be, both individually and collectively, is our challenge. And there hasn’t been a better time for extolling the virtues of equanimity.
And as we emerge from this period—and we certainly will—I am hopeful that design will be at the forefront of creating and applying the lessons we are all learning about what is essential, what is truly important, and what offers us a core around which to build what comes next.
—Steffany
