Introduction
I have been thinking about how my life has been changing in the last couple of years. I have gone through some significant shifts, moved countries, quit my career and got married. With all this musing, I have been coming back to an idea I had about 5 years ago, which I will call the Cairn Model.
Background
When I was eighteen I got a tattoo that symbolized my family; my mom, my sister and I. It was deeply meaningful to me and grounds me to this day. A couple of years later I wanted to get another tattoo, but explicitly wanted something without meaning, just something fun. I had been following a tattoo artist and one day they put up some flash which included a pile of stones (a cairn) and for some reason I liked that. I got the tattoo, quite a big one, on my thigh and went on with my life. But as tattoos tend to be, it was a source of conversation and many people asked the meaning of it. I found that over time what started as a meaningless tattoo, became a tattoo which represented one of the core models I live my life by.
What is the Cairn Model?
It is nothing revolutionary. It is simply a clear metaphor for how one builds up their life and adjusts it as the winds of the world buffet it. Cairns are inherently meaningful, as guides to hikers and travelers, they represent knowledge being passed between strangers and safety gained from a known path. This is not the meaning I take from them, but it is a powerful one nonetheless. For me, cairns represent a simple structure that can be built from surrounding objects and which is easy to maintain because if they get knocked down, they can just be built back up, one stone at a time, starting from a good foundation.
I like to think that I am building my life as a cairn, each action, job and relationship I make is a part which I use to build my cairn. At the bottom, there are the solid foundational bits added in childhood or early adulthood. They were placed there by my mom and other mentors. Above that you have the bits that I added by going to university to gain knowledge and make friends or the learnings from my first job. And at the top, you have the new bits that are not stable or bedded in. This would be the new company that I am starting or any new friendships I have created. These bits may be with me for the rest of my life, or they may not.
What happens when it all comes crumbling down?
Life is not static, it has its fair-weather days and its storms, its quiet passersby and its careless destroyers, just like the life of a cairn. One day a big gust of wind may topple a couple of stones, or a careless hiker may put a boot through the lot. But ironically, that is the beauty of it, something will still be there, still providing guidance. From this something we can build anew. Maybe, we expand the foundation to ensure that it is more stable in the future, maybe we change the position of various stones for better alignment, but nonetheless we rebuild.
Final thoughts
This model calls to me specifically due to its ability to show that not all is lost, even if we may think so. More often than not, we still have a foundation and parts to build back from. It may not be easy, and it may take a while, but we have something to restart from, and it is not zero.
Finally, we can come back to the true goal of cairns, guiding others. Hopefully, once you have built and rebuilt your own cairn a few times, you are able to use it to guide others in their lives. Taking all your learnings and sharing those with others, which for me personally, is one of the biggest joys of life.