What's Found While Wandering
- Brian A. Kavanaugh
- 20 minutes ago
- 3 min read
There are things we go looking for.
And there are things that find us.
Most systems are built to reward the first.
Clear questions.
Defined outcomes.
Efficient paths between the two.
You identify what is needed, you move toward it,
you acquire it.
It is measurable.
Confirmable.
It feels like progress.
But there is another kind of information.
It does not present itself as an answer.
It arrives.
Unannounced.
Mid-process.
Often while attention is placed somewhere else.
It feels inefficient.
Easy to dismiss.
Because it does not look like what we were trying to find.
At times it may even appear that it is in the way.
It is not in the way.
It is part of it.
Imagine someone learning to use scissors.
The goal is clear: Cut along the line.
They begin.
The line wavers.
The other hand searches for its place.
The grip shifts.
The hand forgets to squeeze.
Then the scissors catch.
No longer cutting really, more like pushing the paper until it tears.
The sound changes.
The resistance changes.
The map provided by the line disappears.
Attention shifts.
From the line to the accumulation of paper between the blades.
The relationship between a material and a tool, held together by focus, becomes more clear.
They slow down.
They adjust the paper, bringing it closer to their body.
They try again.
Or they begin to tear by hand.
Or they reach for a different pair of scissors.
They listen.
They feel.
They find.
They are no longer cutting toward completion.
They are in contact with something.
Gathering information on what it can do.
In many environments, this is where intervention happens.
“Start over.”
“Stay on the line.”
“Finish the shape.”
The moment is redirected.
The task gets completed.
But not every moment calls for redirection.
Frustration can be read.
Sometimes it signals that something is being worked out.
Sometimes it signals that the process is close to collapsing.
The role of a facilitating artist is not to remove it,
but to recognize where someone is within it.
But something else was trying to happen.
The catching of the scissors was not just an error.
It was information.
About pressure.
Angle.
Material.
Control.
None of it was asked for.
All of it arrived.
This is the moment a facilitating artist has to recognize.
Not everything that looks like “going off course” is a problem.
Sometimes it is contact.
Sometimes it is the beginning of a relationship with something that was not part of the original plan — something I’ve explored further in After the Sock Is On.
To intervene too quickly is to decide, on someone else’s behalf,
what kind of information matters.
It can place completion ahead of discovery.
It can reinforce correct over wrong.
When that moment is rushed past, the task improves.
But the relationship does not.
Moving forward is not the only way something is understood.
Sometimes it is where attention lingers —
where something is returned to —
where something unexpected is noticed —
that gives the experience its depth.
But there are forms of knowledge that do not emerge through pursuit.
They emerge through contact.
Through staying with something
that has not yet explained itself.
Sought information builds structure.
Arrived information alters direction.
A practice that only values what is sought will become efficient.
But it will also become closed.
A facilitating artist develops a sensitivity to what arrives.
By noticing when attention shifts — when someone lingers, repeats, or returns to something on their own.
By allowing space before stepping in — resisting the urge to redirect too quickly.
By learning when not to help — even when stepping in would lead to a cleaner result.
By loosening their hold on the expected outcome — so the work can declare itself.
This sensitivity can be sharpened.
In The Dance of Negotiation: Reading the Room, Reading the Individual , I included a simple Facilitator Reflection Checklist as one way to begin noticing these moments more clearly.
There is a form of knowledge that can only be reached this way.
Not through marching,
but through wandering.
Not by seeking,
but by staying.
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