The other day I was listening to NPR during my long drive to work. The topic was how the melding of different types of instruments and musical styles can create surprising new sounds. In general, where the edges of the two musical genres meet, wondrous new melodies may appear.
This got me to thinking about how edges are everywhere seen and unseen; and how they can be can the source of much of our creative energy and that much maligned word, diversity.
Consider the edge of two ecosystems; a forest and a marsh. The region where they meet can create conditions where new species might flourish. The marsh itself may give way to bodies of water where further biodiversity is seen. While such regions are clearly opportunistic for some type of plants and animals, these ecological edges can also introduce invasive species which might disrupt the food chain.
The boundary between air and fluid can form a physical barrier seen as surface tension. We recognize this natural force in the thin film of soap bubbles or in beads of mercury as they race along a flat surface. Rain drops are tiny balls of water given shape through surface tension and pulled back to mother Earth in gravity’s embrace. The water strider insect has evolved the perfect shape and buoyancy in its footpads, allowing it to skate across the water without sinking and thus become a literal example of “living on the edge.”
And what of us, the tribal peoples of the world, living in our comfort zones of similarity and identity? When different societies meet, the cultural edge that forms can bring its own kind of surface tension with a resultant turbulence that can be terrible and destructive.
Yet there is a growing body of evidence that suggests cultural mixing can generate ideas neither group could have achieved alone. Like a bagpipe player in a jazz quartet, the result can bring surprise and delight and wonder. We stand astride our edges, moving from place to place, from idea to idea, listening to the great world and making the music no one thought possible — until it was.
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