How did you get here? What’s an aerospace engineer doing leading community-weaving efforts?

Questions I am asked all the time! The expectation often seems to be that there must be a specific incident, some personal difficulty or epiphany, that led to efforts so focused on public good. What else, in our modern, hyper-capitalistic society, could possibly lead someone to devote time and energy to community?

I’m not the only one who gets such questions. Anyone involved in the Weave community (Weave: The Social Fabric Project) faces the same. Which led to a series of talks titled “Weaving in 400 Seconds” in which Weavers describe their journeys. The stories vary tremendously. Some people can indeed point to a specific, powerful moment that changed their lives dramatically. For many others their current efforts stem from an accumulation of happenings, the result of a complex, meandering story.

My own journey is very much an example of the latter. There were many significant moments. Many of which can only be labeled as significant in hindsight: unexpectedly resonant teachers, invitations to meetings from near-strangers, books that you find yourself thinking about years or decades later, little projects/experiments with surprisingly powerful effects, and so much more. Way too much to go through in under 7 minutes (!), but here are the highlights:

For more on “Weave: The Social Fabric Project”: https://weavers.org/

For more “Weaving in 400 Seconds” talks: https://vimeo.com/user94475327/videos

Top photo: Winding River, Northwest Territories, 2012, by Eamon Mac Mahon