Imagine a life as a point—one single vertex suspended in a larger structure we can’t fully see. In geometry, a point becomes part of a form only when connected to others. A line, a plane, a solid—none of it exists without the act of projection. And I’ve been thinking lately: parenthood might be best understood through this kind of geometry. Not as building a life for someone, but as offering the suggestion that structure is possible. That connection is possible.

I think about my son. I can’t build his shape for him. I can’t draw his lines, or define his surfaces. What I can do is say: there are vertices out there—others like you, others unlike you. I can say: this is the frame I’ve discovered, these are some of the angles I’ve learned to measure. But the form itself—the thing that can be lived in, grown into—that’s his to construct.

In this way, I’m not the architect. I’m the projection. The gesture toward possibility.

What I’m really offering him is a kind of math: not arithmetic, but mapping. The geometry of aliveness. It’s the same thing I find myself offering to others when I’m working, when I’m teaching, when I’m simply showing up. A kind of spatial reassurance: you are not alone in this grid.

And maybe the most beautiful part of this map is how it isn’t static. We don’t build the same form over and over—we connect, we stretch, we change. I look at my own life and I see all the people I’ve encountered who became part of my structure. Some were points I connected to briefly—moments of insight, acts of kindness, necessary ruptures. Others became fixed parts of my framework, anchoring the shape of who I am now.

What strikes me is how often those connections are formed through skill—through the generous offering of knowledge. I have so many people in my life whose expertise I don’t possess and could never replicate. But I know how to see it. I know how to ask. And in that asking, something beautiful happens: I don’t become an expert, but I become capable. Their skill becomes accessible through relationship.

This, to me, is the art of connection. We don’t need to own every tool. We just need to know who holds it. And we need to believe in the network that holds us.

I know I love it when someone recognizes my skill—especially in the arts—and asks for my help. Not because they’re trying to get something from me, but because they see me. They see what I’ve spent years developing. They see that I didn’t just stumble into it—I was interested, I did the work, I failed and failed and kept going, and now I hold something that can be offered.

There is dignity in that. There is healing in that. And there is no money that can account for it—not really.

That’s why I’ve never resonated with the idea that everything must be monetized to be valuable. Service isn’t always a transaction. Sometimes it’s just projection again: I’ve mapped a piece of this space. Let me show you the path I took.

I think a lot about the difference between service and servitude—how often they’re confused, even by those of us doing the offering. But they are not the same. Service is an act of clarity and generosity. It’s chosen. It asks permission. It responds to need. Servitude, on the other hand, is what happens when power removes the choice. When the offering becomes expected, unreciprocated, or invisible. Artists, caregivers, teachers—we’ve all been mistaken for servants when we were simply offering ourselves in good faith.

So much of being alive is about showing each other where the edges are. What to watch out for. Where to leap. What to gather.

And it’s not just about parenting. It’s about art, too. About living in a way that makes your internal geometry visible enough that someone else can feel their own shape shifting.

Maybe this is the deepest kind of offering we can make—not to solve someone’s life, but to say: it’s possible to build a form from this. Even from this.