I got married!
If you look at the wedding photo above, you’ll see us doing paper-scissors-rock to determine who says our vows first (I lost).
You’ll also see me wearing a white robe, called a kittel, which comes from Jewish culture.
This item symbolizes, for me, a view of life that I’ll call the collaborative universe. This is in contrast to a view that I’ve held for much of my life, which I’ll call the competitive universe.
In the competitive universe view, each of us is an isolated individuals who competes with other isolated individuals for limited resources. This view, for me, has its roots in competition of various flavors:
- academic — grading on a bell curve, giving students a class rank
- sports/games — races with clear winners, games (like hockey or paper-scissors-rock)
- capitalistic — an emphasis on winning in business, beating the competition
- genetic — an emphasis on spreading genes (spelled out in books like The Selfish Gene) rather than collaboration (spelled out in books like Finding the Mother Tree)
The collaborative universe view sees each of us as part of a universe that is highly interconnected and creative.
Rather than wax philosophical, let me use the kittel as a concrete example:
The idea of wearing the kittel was suggested to me by my friend Avi, who wore a kittel in his wedding. Avi and I met in Hawaii. We were introduced through a mutual friend, who I met at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. I went to Dancing Rabbit to pursue a longstanding interest in intentional community and sustainability, as part of a sabbatical. The idea to even do a sabbatical had diverse influences — a podcast I listened to, my partner instigating a move to Hawaii which freed up time to do a sabbatical, someone I met at Wonder Wander who said after the event that she wants to join an intentional community, shows I watched as a kid about environmentalism. Lab/shul, the temple I was part of in NYC, was another influence, as it modeled a thoughtful remixing of Judaism — keeping the baby and discarding the bathwater. At a Lab/Shul event, I met someone in an intercultural relationship, who introduced me to a rabbi who was our premarital counselor, who ultimately made me feel better about using the kittel. My mom was hesitant about it, but she came around, and a conversation with our rabbi / premarital counselor helped me feel more confident that I was using the symbol respectfully. My decades-long contemplations about death were a reason why the symbol resonated so much with me: you only wear it during marriage, Yom Kippur, and when you’re buried. My background in Judaism (going to Jewish day school, and Chabad after-school programs) was the reason I was interested in using a Jewish symbol in the first place. So those Orthodox rabbis who would not approve of an interfaith marriage were also collaborators in me wearing the kittel.
What it comes down to is this: it wasn’t me as an isolated individual who made the choice to wear the kittel. It was a tapestry of influences from the universe that conspired in me ultimately choosing to wear it.
Reflecting on the festivities of my wedding week, I am glowing as I think about the contributions that every guest made. The wedding was a labor of love created by many hands. There’s a term I’ve been thinking about a lot: scenius. This is a portmanteau of scene and genius. Scenius is collective genius. Our wedding week was an example of scenius. It was an event created not by one single person, but by the collaborative universe.
My intention in the years ahead, is to see life through the collaborative universe lens.
And to be a good collaborator in the helpful, creative, and beautiful projects that the universe is working on.
danscreativeoulet 