In some ways, partnerships are ‘bridging’ institutions, providing different ways of being in relation to different people. Ben Okri (in his Astonishing the Gods) describes a traveller on a journey who meets a guide. This guide speaks of change as a bridge, visualises it as something constructed by the traveller; seeing change as a bridge that is visible in front of you as you cross, but disappears behind you as you cross. In an image of exhilarating nightmare, the bridge collapses behind you – conveying the emotion of ‘burning your bridges’. Okri writes:
‘What holds up the bridge?’ he asked his guide.
‘Only the person crossing it,’ came the reply.
One might wonder, how vulnerable does it feel to be a bridge?
Posted in partnerships, society
Slingshot