As humans, we have a confused relationship with edges, boundaries and limitations, which can be seen as one and the same thing, unified paradoxically by their dividing potential... We seek them even when, as a psychological or relational construct, we recoil from their necessity, and will often find ourselves drawn to and entranced by the water’s e... See more

Being alive in any meaningful sense is a balance of feeling and staying safe, and taking and overcoming risks. In safety, we have a vital place to rest, be comfortable and build the foundations of a life, and through risk we are expanded and grown... It is through taking risks that we expand our safety – widening the boundaries and limitations of o... See more

This imaginative interpenetration of experience is necessary for the greatest challenge of consciousness — understanding what it is like to be another. Without it, there can be no love, for we cannot love whom we do not understand — then we are pseudo-loving a projection. A sign of healthy love, therefore, is the ability to be reliable and responsi... See more

Reaching our boundaries is not the same as limiting our growth. Sometimes we find our edges and an amazing thing happens; capacity is rebuilt, old wounds are healed and we grow further and more beautifully than before. The process is analogous to mineral growth in rock. Without a surface and a set of containing edges, minerals that we prize for the

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Limits may slow us down long enough to breathe in what we already have, but they do not reduce meaning. In some cases, they may generate more. We’re not designed to be at capacity all the time, endlessly stimulated by activities, saturated in tasks to tick off... To remind ourselves of our limits is a kindness.

At almost every conceivable level of our imagining, it is impossible to create a change without a discontinuity, without a moment of not knowing who we are, or what we are going to become. Rupture precedes revolution.

“There can be a real meeting between two people at the point where they always felt marooned. Right at the edge.” Allen agrees:

In the overlap between people’s boundaries there is potential for interesting meetings and the potential for collapses.