The Learning Edge

This blog post is an excerpt from “Braving Uncertainty”, a book of Jim Ewing’s work, which was published in summer 2024.

My work is based on engendering a creative relationship with unknowing. When we are skilled at exploring uncertain spaces and finding meaning and direction and learning there, we are better able to handle the uncertainties when the world pulls the rug from under us.

I started to see that at our learning edge, one foot anchors us in the rational light of what we believe we know. The other foot probes the dark beyond the edge, into the unknown, the unfathomable vastness of life. The creative tension between these two spaces brings our learning edge alive.

To keep our balance at this edge is like riding a bicycle. On a bike we are always in danger of falling over, pedalling forward to give enough velocity to steer the bike underneath us and keep it upright. We are balanced only when we are in motion. So it is in our lives.

In my experience, those who seem to be able to handle this uncertainty of learning, of innovation, of staying, of leaving, and all the rest, and carry on with enduring faith in realising their purposes in life, share a couple of things.

First, and absolutely required, they are clear about their strengths. They trust them. They are always in the equation. These powers will be used over and over in our lives. They are our birthright. They will be put to work in different contexts and ages and manners. They give us our fundamental life in the world.

People who are comfortable at the learning edge are always consciously aware of their strongest abilities, their powers, talents and skills. They will not sacrifice those for anyone or any situation.

Second, they understand that beyond the edge lies the unknown. Whatever new they are experimenting with is just that, an experiment, a learning journey, a pursuit of discovery which will produce a wide set of novel conditions. Some conditions will build on, amplify, and provide contrast and depth to their core strengths. Other conditions will seem to diminish or de-energise the core and call forth other capacities so far hidden or denied.

Part of balancing at the edge involves calling on all of our faculties, our ways of knowing and being. It is a challenge, for example, to really desire something from our hearts and yet stay conscious enough actually to evaluate in a disciplined way the range of conditions which then arise and which need to be navigated in order to realise our desire. People who handle the learning edge well do both. Their hearts and bodies give clues for pushing into the mists, while their minds remain engaged, making considered choices not merely determined by the heart.

Sometimes we may wobble, or worse. Everything tells us that turning the bike or pedalling harder will bring us upright. But we did not see the patch of oil on the ground and we fall on our head. It happens. Does that bring into question our value to the world? Should we doubt our capacity to ride a bike? Should we give up trying? Should we draw back from the learning edge? Or do we learn to see more capably, to find more in every moment to notice and be aware of and to feed our purposes?

In practice we live at the learning edge all the time – even if we sometimes need to be called up short, shaken awake, to realise it. Navigating upheaval, disruption, renewal and redesign are a required course in this life. Stuff happens – and when it does our minds will be changed, along with our choices and the stories we tell ourselves of who we are and where we are headed. This is truly challenging work.

When healthy people choose to experience change as a dark, scary drama, or a pathology or sickness to be gotten over, they waste angst, time and resources, with victimhood, bad feelings and sub-optimal choices thrown into the bargain. This dark view of change is a heritage of Western culture.

My work transforms this cultural assumption and habit. For me the inner journey to make an authentic transformation is identical with the journey of the designer, the artist and the learner.

Authentic design, innovation, learning and transition, at their core, are much the same. Something outworn or unavailable from the past is left behind, abandoned. Something valuable, also from the past, is reframed, re-imagined, and re-contexted to serve us again, in a new manner.

Uncertainty is a constant companion. Exploration, experiments, and imagining based on inklings, nudges, inspirations and passions sketch out a direction. Bets are placed, and choices taken guided by pragmatic, informed hope.

If we are fortunate, and chance does play a role in this, we can see a bit more clearly, we are at one with the world, aligned within ourselves and making some headway on our deeper purposes for being in this life.

The artist and designer can cultivate a creative relationship with unknowing in this way. We will not know the outcomes when we begin. We may not even know what we are working toward. Even the time required is not predictable, taking moments or months.

Every tool I have developed over the years leads us to this learning edge. For me, it is a discovery place I look forward to entering, where we can find meaning, direction and learning and genuinely create better choices out of uncertainty. It is an environment I find I can create with another person at virtually no cost. It is a place of high play.

At the learning edge we discover that a deep, inner wisdom about what is right for us, now, is always somewhere within us.