Sitting at lunch with Stan Greene this afternoon, getting caught up. Stan asks about my father and says that he (Stan) still uses a story that my dad told him about six or seven years ago, one about the importance of structure and boundaries in an organization.
“Is this the Playground story?” I ask.
It is and I tell Stan about using his Maze illustration back when I was at Northwestern a few weeks ago.
While I’m telling him about it, my phone buzzes on the table and I ignore it.
Afterwards, in my car, I check messages. It was my dad calling. I call him back…
“Hey, guess who I just had lunch with.”
“Stan Greene.”
“Yeah. Guess who we were talking about when you called?”
“Me.”
Swings and roundabouts, mazes and boundaries.
Emotional shorthand and convergence.