Spaciousness is a primary ingredient in incubation. If there is no empty place, nothing can emerge and take root.
Spaciousness may look luxurious or even like something we don’t deserve. It seems extra—what we do after everything is done. We equate empty intervals with waste or reward. So when pressed, they’re the first thing to go. We do more and not less, close down rather than open up. And become less curious or able to tend what’s emerging. Mystery looks like the enemy as we zero in on what’s proven. And this makes us more of what we already are—a faster version of the past.
If we were as intelligent as a forest, we would do this differently. A forest casts thousands of seeds for the one that survives. There’s superabundance, redundancy, and wild experimentation. This lavishness is its genius—how it thrives through changing conditions, threats, and harsh impacts.
What holds us back is not time or money, though that’s what we are likely to say. The real culprit is the story we tell ourselves: good things come from us and not to us, doing is more important than non-doing, and exerting is more productive than playing. We matter if we are busy. And reality is serious stuff.
The cosmos doesn’t agree. And if you don’t want to play, it may ignore you. Alchemists make themselves available and intriguing. They follow the tug. Over a year, there should be many things you explore without knowing exactly why or where they will go. And in no day should every moment be allocated or dollar spent.
People rarely reinvent themselves “one day” when they are away from the press of life. And, organizations don’t either. We leap in the thick of things. But the more intensity, the more we must protect empty intervals. Nothingness is the next something. The Void is the Plenum. And, the space in-between makes the way.