The Living Library
I'm finally letting on what Symphonia meant
There comes a time in the journey of every project where someone has to tell you that no-one knows what the title means.
That day came for my law practice in 2015 (Symphony Law became Cowan Litigation) and now it has come for this Substack.
I realise now, in my immense maturity, that it is all very well to name things after cool, values-aligned concepts you read in a book once in 2010. However, when that word already has a centuries-old OTHER meaning, it can mean everyone thinks you’re a classical music lawyer, or a classical music Substack writer, and nobody gets what they want.
So, with a not small degree of relief, I usher you out of Symphonia, across the drafty hallway, and into: The Living Library.
The Living Library is a much better name for what we do in here - share ideas we carry around in our living bodies and systems, and put them together with other ideas like a beautiful idea Lego set.
I am pleased for the new name, and I am even more pleased for how the Ls underline the rest of the words in the font I found for the logo. 😌
And so, today, as we send Symphonia on its funeral ship out to sea, hand on heart and eye on the horizon, it seemed fitting to share, properly, what I have meant by “symphony” and “symphonia” all this time, not least because they continue to be foundational to what I’m doing in here, name change or no.
[Murmuring and clearing of throats.]
A reading from , book A Whole New Mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future, Chapter 6, page 130:
“Symphony, as I call this aptitude, is the ability to put together the pieces. It is the capacity to synthesize rather than to analyze; to see patterns rather than to deliver specific answers; and to invent something new by combining elements nobody else thought to pair.
Symphony is also an attribute of the brain’s right hemisphere in the literal, as well as the metaphorical, sense. As I explained in Chapter 2, the neuroscience research conducted with functional MRIs has shown that the right hemisphere operates in a simultaneous, contextual and symphonic manner. It concerns itself not with a particular spruce but with the whole forest - not with the bassoon player or the first violinist but with the entire orchestra.”
🫡
May you, and all who come here, now know what is happening.
May you rest assured that I continue to clasp “symphony” (all meanings) close to my bosom.
May you and all your friends join us as the symphonic Living Libraries we are, going forward into the future.
Till next time.
Katie
I have been walking about like a stack of books since reading this. Love the idea of Living libraries all over the place. Symphonia - the whole forest, the whole orchestra, the whole person. A great umbrella term for your work.
That is an interesting title. I am highly right brain dominant myself. 🦊