018 — Building Spiral Staircases

All Play w/ Ryan Hefner

During my run this morning I was thinking about all the different projects I have up in the air, and how some of those can help to provide a foundation, or utility, to the other projects that I am working on, but at the same time can feel like a waste of time to work on in the moment. Then, out of no where, I started to think about the construction of a spiral staircase.

At the start of the project, you have the choice to either build up, or build down. Building up seems like a world of endless possibilities and freedom—very positive. Or, you can build down, trying to tackle some of the hairier issues people face in the world, simplifying the overly complicated, or unifying the scattered or incomplete information in the world. Every decision offers a choice, and every choice has a starting point.

So, back to spiral staircases, whether you decide to build up or build down, you also have the opportunity to build a very tight spiral staircase that does its job, getting you to the next level or two in a nice confined space. Or, you could build out, going wide and building a staircase that takes you on a journey. A grand structure that is circling your idea, while not confining it. The wider the structure, the more materials and time it’s going to take to build, and the longer it will take you to complete the initial spiral. Each type, either tight or wide, provide their own set of pros and cons.

The tighter the staircase, the quicker it is to build, and the faster you can circle around the idea and get to where you want to go. You can go up several flights, with multiple rotations around the center post for each one, to ascend to each floor. It’s an efficient structure, but once you get past the first couple of floors, and then decide you might need to broaden your scope, or the size of the staircase, your initial structure won’t be able to support going very wide without some additional supports being put in place to carry the load. Depending how high you went when the idea was tight, the longer span those supports are going to descend. And, depending on how wide you want to widen the scope, the more supports that will have to be put in place to help this top-heavy structure that is now spiraling out.

On the inverse, deciding to go with a very wide structure, making long, wide swooping loops as you ascend—or descend—to where you are going can be slow to build, requires a lot of material, and you may never complete a single loop. And, depending on whether you choose to tighten or wide the circle as your ideas and feedback push and pull you to new places, it can be harder to quickly tighten that circle once you have decided on the "new" direction to go. Although, unlike the tight structure that can be hard to support expansion later on, your wide idea that is circling this ever pulsing vortex can expand and contract more freely, with a structure to support it, but may never reach its clear center, and is hard to get their quickly.

Along the way, regardless of whether you are going wide or keeping it tight, you have the option to build platforms or landings along the way, that can fork off from that core idea. These can add structure and stability to the initial idea, but also offer a starting point for a structure or journey of their own. Depending on your staircase, the placement of these landings have a different affect as you are walking up the stairs. A very tight staircase could probably only support one–maybe two–along your path to the first floor. But, too many on a very tight structure would no longer be a real staircase. Where, if you were building a very wide staircase, you could potentially have several platforms or landings forking off along your progression of a single rotation. When I think about these landings I equate these to being the side stuff that you build along the way to support your efforts, both now and into the future (ie. packages, services, tools, etc.). They support the core idea, but also have the opportunity to spiral out to be their own thing.

Depending on the decisions you make and where your projects take you can drastically change the scope and shape of these structures. When I start to think about where these can go, my mind instantly drifts to the abstract worlds of Dr. Seuss and how a very tight and tall staircase that later decides to spiral out wider and taller could start to bend and sag over it’s poorly supported structure. Or, the very wide and expansive staircase that slowly then quickly spirals to its conclusive center can come to a sharp point.

I feel like I have been going wide, and building a lot of platforms and structures that I try to convince myself are in support of a grander vision of the future, but not sure if I will run out of materials, or effort, to get those ideas to circle in on a sustainable structure I can support in the future.

So I ask you, what kind of staircase are you building?

To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Twitter @ryanhefner, and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplayfm.

Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM
Fathom Analytics