“I mind the gap. Every darn day. When I speak to somebody, I mind the gap. Don’t get me wrong: I do not try to challenge the person I am chatting with nor do I speculate about some upfront coded strategy to achieve my ends. I simply stay aware. As a famous Belgian gap enthusiast named Jean-Claude Van Varenberg would say: “I believe in the moment.” Everything is a gap. It’s essential to see any gap as a probability, something that does not exist at the precise moment but can materialize at any moment in the future. It’s not about right and wrong. It starts by becoming one with the moment and surely not staying apart from it. When you stay apart, on purpose or not, you dig the gap. Thus when you become one with it, you fill it and give meaning to the moment. Brené Brown reminds us “we don’t have to be perfect, just engaged and committed to aligning values with action.” So you mind, then you fill. “Who am I and where I stand right now” is the only reality that entails my own future. Everything else is a delusion. As you need to be vulnerable, as in being “aware of”, perfection is to a certain extent counterproductive. When I mind the gap, I’m vulnerable so I’m ready to achieve. I do not judge myself, I evaluate my options and I act. And if I fail, I try again, changing the process to change the outcome. As an active gap minder, I endeavor minding the gap at a family scale with my uninhibited four year old son. He doesn’t mind the gap… simply because there is no gap for him. He lives and breathes the moment. You remember? He’s like a mirror to me. Each day with him brings an opportunity to learn something new, something different forcing me to “MTG”. By extension, at a community level with my team-mates, nurturing my kind-of-unaware-peers to embrace vulnerability as a dynamic gathering power has become an effective pattern. Achieving goals together has become easier and less stressful. At a livelihood level, lastly, minding the gap has become henceforth my primary step: what achievements can I pledge to, what outcome can I reach while aligning to my values, how much time do I have to accomplish my artwork. MTG as a motto.”

Written for Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly tribute led by Jérémie Claeys featuring Andy J. Pizza, Erin Baker, Grant Kratzer, Tine Modeweg-Hansen and myself.