Now, imagine you’re quietly humming along as life goes by, building your web as you always have. And then something disrupting happens.
Maybe the main fence post supporting most of your web rots and falls down, tearing many web strands connected to it.
Maybe you encounter another spider from a different web, and you notice that somehow they are able to weave stickier strands, and weave them tighter together. Because of this, you notice, they can catch far more flies to munch on than you.
Or, maybe a spider from the edge of the web of your own colony raises an issue. She tells you that the way you’ve been building on your part of the web has been pulling the whole web so tightly, that out on the edge this spider keeps having its web torn and ruined by what you are doing to make yourself safer and to catch more food for yourself.
If we envision that our goal is to build the strongest web that safely feeds the most spiders, then every disrupting event becomes an opportunity to build a stronger web together. We don’t fear disruption, or difference, or data that calls into question what we’ve always believed. We don’t try to rebuild rotted fence posts.
Instead, we work with others. We embrace the new data points, and find new ways to build the web, connected to more and more points which are rooted in the physical and social world, this world in which we taste and touch and experience community.
In this way of looking at things, difference is not an enemy to be ignored or destroyed. Difference helps us make a more effective web. Foundations don’t make things strong; more diverse connections do.
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