Before encountering the possibility of authentic adulthood and archetypal initiatory processes, you live in the comfortable space of the ‘marshmallow zone’. A smooth, warm, cosy, safe space where things are predictable and in our control. You tell ourselves “I go to school, I have good grades, I will have a good job, I will find somebody who loves me, we will have beautiful children, who will also go to school and have good grades and have a good job when they grow up. We will have a beautiful house and money to go on vacations. I have it all planned out.” The marshmallow zone has the ability to make us believe that life can be secure, predictable, controllable and safe.

The marshmallow zone is protection against life’s greatest paradox: death. The marshmallow zone gives us the illusion that death does not exist, or at least “does not apply to me.” Life in the marshmallow zone is a life in a cage that we barbed wire with our own fear. Incapable of approaching the door to freedom without feeling terrified, you run around in circles convincing ourselves that this (whatever this is) is the best way to live. Edges are constant reminders that the possibility of death surrounds us at any instant. Therefore, we avoid edges like the plague because why? Because what is the experience of approaching an edge? Fear.

Think of the experience of walking on the edge of a mountain, on one side is a steep mountain wall, on the other the infinite descent to the valley. Your heart is beating, your hands are sweating, your attention focuses on where you are putting your feet. This is the common experience of walking on a physical edge. The experience of finding and walking an intellectual, emotional or energetic edge elicits similar emotions to walking a physical edge. It is the feeling of fear, a natural response from our system warning us about the danger of falling off the deep end and dying.

Do you remember the last time you reached an edge? Perhaps you accidentally found yourself in a homosexual apparatus shop (intellectual and energetic edge). Or your boss asked you to give a speech to the Board of Directors (intellectual edge). Or your partner accused you of having an affair (emotional and energetic edge). Or an ill friend asked you to accompany her as she approached death (emotional and energetic edge). Or you turned a corner and were suddenly face to face with a rough looking gang of teenagers (emotional edge). Or you clicked on the wrong icon and found yourself in a triple-X sex website (intellectual and energetic edge). Or you got a tax bill from the government for several zeros more than the balance of your bank account (intellectual and emotional edge). Or you got a flat tire in a ghetto neighborhood alone at night (emotional and energetic edge). Or someone misinterpreted what you said, considering it to be seriously flirting (intellectual and energetic edge). Or you thought your lottery ticket contained winning numbers (intellectual and energetic edge). Or someone at the train station tried to sell you heroin (energetic edge). Sometimes, you consciously choose to go at your edge, for example, by traveling to foreign countries where they speak a different language and maintain a difficulture culture than your own (intellectual and energetic edge).

Out “there” beyond the edge of our marshmallow zone is the scary unknown. Finding yourself at the edge is risky! Control slips through your fingers, and mysterious and unending, although nameless, dangers wait for you. Long ago, perhaps out of your awareness, you decided that the best place to be was far away from those scary edges, in the safety of the marshmallow zone. Because what has modern culture taught us about feeling fear? It is okay to feel fear? Are leaders allowed to feel fear? We have been hammered from an early age that feeling fear is bad. In kindergarten, other kids might have made fun of you “Ha ha he is afraid, he is a pussy!”, or your own parents might have denied your feeling of fear “There is nothing to be afraid of”, and advertisements promoted hip sports as “not for the faint hearted”. In modern culture, it is clearly not allowed to feel fear, short of being publicly ridiculed with contemptful insults.

So what do we usually do when we feel fear? We put as much distance as fast as possible between us and the thing that made us afraid. We jump like a cat in water straight back into our dry marshmallow zone.

Isn't it crazy that we remain in denial about feeling fear that we don’t even question it as one of the reasons for our lifeless days? If you are honest too, you must admit that the marshmallow zone is restrictive, boring, frustrating, and in some ways dead. The marshmallow zone is the insane paradox of choosing to play dead because of our fear of death! We might think of yourselves clever, thinking that we have outsmarted death. But at what cost? Unless we are aware that at some point all life inevitably comes to an end, we are not really living. Life thrives at the edge where the old dies and the new is born, the intersection between what is and what could be. In other words, life thrives at the edge because it is at the edge that lively evolution happens.

Finding yourself at the edge opens the doorway, the possibility to look in two directions. Look ‘in’, and see the construct, the thoughtware, the conclusion, the idea, the storyworld you were a second ago walking on. Look ‘out’ and notice the vast endless ocean of possibilities. Looking ‘in’ at the modern-culture constructed gameworld has the immediate evolutionary effect that the certainty of the Linear Life Plan that you were standing on for your entire previous life dissolves, leaving nothing under your step but the void of the unknown.

Edges can be physical, intellectual, emotional, energetic and archetypal.

There are new concepts, intellectual distinctions and words that your mind does not comprehend yet. Intellectual edges have to do with new concepts, distinctions, assumptions and stories that are outside of your current understanding.

Physical edges.

Emotional edges have to do with feelings and emotions. Being at the edge of your emotional territory might be, for example, experiencing and expressing feelings in front of somebody. Another emotional edge might be to let your heart speak to your partner and experience your heart get bigger consequently.

Energetic edges have to do with energetic spaces and the purpose of thoughts, words and actions. Getting to an energetic edge can happen by asking an authentic question you’ve never asked before and really wanting an answer, like “what is really the point of life?” or “what do I really want?” or “why do I keep repeating the same patterns?”

Archetypal edges have to do with your identity as a space through which archetypal forces and characters can come through you. An archetypal edge is speaking as the representative of Love in the world, or for the future of next-generations, or taking a stand for the stand that you take.

What? Modern culture has an edge? Yes!

The gameworld of modern culture, its constructs, its rules of engagement, its beliefs have an edge. They are not omnipresent and omnipotent because they are, as any gameworld, only a game, only one possible interpretation of the world. It is dangerous and shocking to say such things. It might very may well be considered heretical in the eyes of the believer of modern culture.

Modern culture does not consider itself as one of the cultures. No, the others, out there, those who live in the forest and drink from the rivers, those are the cultures. Modern culture is the ultimate civilisation that other culture should aim at becoming. Only in its own eyes, modernisation is the best thing that human beings have ever invented and the logical evolution of any culture. Suggesting that modern culture is just one of the cultures and therefore is not omnipotent will make you look crazy in the eyes of most.

The one who reach the edge of modern culture and stayed there are Edgeworkers. Edgeworkers breathing, living and working at the edge of modern culture, one step inside of modern culture and one step out.

What?! I have an edge too?

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