the growth spiral
Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago 2023
They fired the CEO at my job. It was the private equity firm’s decision. They are hell-bent on doubling profits this year and didn’t think she could do it. The new CEO has that Silicon Valley energy. I wonder if she listens to podcasts at 2x speed.
I’m quick to denounce this kind of striving for exponential growth, knowing full well it is a suicide mission.
And yet, and yet
I still wish it for myself. I am greedy for growth. To be better, more evolved. Give me the straight line with the upward trajectory, please. No backsliding.
But a few weeks ago, I did just that.
or so it seemed.
A perfect storm of circumstances kicked up an old version of myself; a version I thought I had mostly let go of. I was humbled and embarrassed by her arrival. She broke in so loudly, so unapologetically, manifesting in what can only be described as a tantrum.
Days later, I would refer to this outburst as childish. Raw, unfiltered emotion. urgently expressed.
I wondered how long it had been building. weeks or months, maybe. I had ignored all signs again. I did not see the wave coming until it was already breaking at the crest, my agreeable self buckling under its pressure.
Misdirected? 1000% yes. But upon further reflection - childish? no.
This version was younger. Bright & fiery. Rebellious. Vocal.
She came back, exasperated, pointing out all of the ways I am still playing machine, obediently chipping away at my own precious metals and alchemizing them into palatable forms. Depleting my own reservoirs.
She was my aliveness. upstream & crystalline. Pre-contamination, before the cultural pressures and best intentions took root.
Which brings me back to the spiral.
What if growth is a spiral?
Not a heightening, not a stretching towards the heavens, but a deep, downward spiral. Burrowing and burrowing until we meet our essence.
The further I spiral, the less I live in denial. deeper rungs reveal all of the rules I have made up and then measure myself against, the beliefs I mistook as truth, the opinions I thought were my own.
At times it may appear as though I am backsliding, the same old wound firing again. But a closer look reveals I am not quite in the same place. impossible. I am at a different turn in the spiral, seeing from a new angle - below, behind, above. The wound has transformed, profoundly or ever so slightly.
There is no direct path, no best practice on how to spiral. I can loop along for years or a sudden flash of insight may plunge me towards my center in seconds.
Within the spiral nothing is wasted, forgotten or discarded. Like water rippling outwards, everything is integral to the unfolding.
I thought what I was seeking was up, up and away, but it is more grounded than ever. And the best discovery - there is nowhere to get to. Like rings on a tree, my true essence has been at the surface this whole time. a moment away. just an unraveling, a letting go.
References:
- Madison Lang describes in detail growth is a spiral
- Marta Rose refers to spiral time as rings on a tree