Ode to Edge

Whats an inflection point? It is a math term. A point at which something changes. Its where your second derivative (how fast the rate of change is changing), is zero. It’s a very important point.  It means something is in between two, very polar, opposite states. You’re between slowing down and speeding up.

An inflection point is a math term you can turn into a beautiful metaphor.  It applies to life. If you’re at an inflection point, any slight shift is going to be monumental. It will decide the length of your travel. You will either slow down, or speed up.

Katherine [Jones], whom i got to know through a set of many synchronicities, invited me to spend a month in the beautiful redwoods of Northern California. I flew out, and over my time got to know the ins and outs of Edge City. What is Edge? It calls itself a societal incubator. 

But it felt like so many things. A good word is indeed environment (a very broad word though). Edge is an environment, where everything is optimised to help push that second derivative to a positive value, towards speeding up. 

The first push, stems from the place. Any place where edge happens, is an oxymoron. The place is removed of the traditional stress of a big city, but confines a big city’s worth of inspiring people into that place. Its both calming and energising. 

The second push is edge’s ability to give you clarity about self. It gives you the uninterrupted time to go deep, reflect and ponder. Both at a physical and mental level.

I remember sitting on a bench in Healdsburg looking at a tiny bird, a pygmy nuthatch. It moved around really fast in these seemingly discrete time steps. Birds process input frames at 120hz (frames per second), whereas we only do at 60hz. These birds see twice the amount of world that we do. Edge taught me to be a bird, and ingest more of the world.

The third push is energy. It’s the least tangible from the three, but definitely the most powerful. There is a certain state that being at edge makes you enter. A state of self-belief, power and ability to do. You will leave…very different.

While energy is the least tangible to explain as a feeling, it often leads to very tangible futures. Edge brought me to people I instantly knew I want to work with. And with many I now do, for way beyond edge..

Everyone at Edge will do whatever they can to help push you towards exiting your inflection point. And they will make sure you exit speeding up, not slowing down. 

I am writing this to motivate a reader to go to edge. I won’t give you a discrete list of things it helped me achieve, thats cliche; and isn't even the right metric to judge the impact by.

But find me. And whatever i am doing at your moment of reading, just know that i am way further, and moving way faster, than i could ever be without edge. 

For me, there was a before edge. And there is an after edge.

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