Friday, 10 July 2026
Thirteen years ago, in July 2013, I published a rough, hopeful post titled The #ISupport Project. It was more question than plan — born from conferences, community work in Western Sydney, Emotional Intelligence studies, Positive Psychology, and a stubborn belief that local communities could do better together.
The core questions I asked then were:
1. Can we engage a local community through shared education and experience?
2. Can positive change be created through a whole-of-community approach to education and leadership?
3. Can we build a more resilient community that caters for the greater good — inclusive and understanding of the science of what it takes to flourish?
4. Can we explore the strengths of a community through a belief in Appreciative Enquiry?
5. Goals yet to be determined…
Today, that same set of questions lives at the heart of The Adaptive Bridge — a graphic novel project and living reference framework that has been quietly growing in the background for years.
What Has Grown
In 2013, #ISupport was about forgetting to “DIS” things — disability, respect, ease, appointments — and focusing instead on commonalities, strengths, resonant leadership (compassion, hope, mindfulness), and creating conditions where people and communities could flourish.
The Adaptive Bridge takes those seeds and grows them into a coherent world.
It introduces the Floor — a material baseline of security (grounded in Modern Monetary Theory and real resource thinking) that removes the constant survival calculation so genuine contribution becomes possible. This is the practical answer to creating conditions for flourishing.
It shows the Resonance Network — distributed, relational agents who accompany rather than control. This is whole-of-community leadership reimagined: not top-down, but reflexive and re-embedded in local trust (drawing on Giddens, Beck, and the biological wisdom of Darwin’s earthworms).
It demonstrates devolve to evolve (or more accurately, revolve) — returning, with accumulated knowledge, to distributed, regenerative patterns that were always there. The Hinewai Reserve story, earthworm soil-building, and “gap as ground, not problem” principle are pure Appreciative Enquiry in action: focus on the living seed bank, remove the pressures, and let the system do what it knows how to do.
From “Forget to DIS” to “F = R − A”
The Natural Ethics framework at the centre of The Adaptive Bridge — Free Energy = Reality minus Awareness — gives a precise way to measure unnecessary suffering and coherence. It asks: what gap between reality and our awareness is generating friction? How do we close it?
This is #ISupport matured. Instead of fighting deficits, we reduce the unnecessary resistance so strengths can express themselves. The graphic novel doesn’t preach this — it shows it through story, imagery, presence, and ordinary moments (a strawberry tasted, a vine still fraying, tigers acknowledged but not dominating).
Why a Graphic Novel?
Because stories and images reach people in ways plain text and policy documents often cannot. They invite co-creation — art → observer → personal meaning. This mirrors the participatory, strengths-based spirit of the original #ISupport vision. A community reading together, drawing their own panels, or mapping their local “thinning floor” experiences turns the story into shared education and collective reflection.
The Bridge Is Still Being Crossed
The Adaptive Bridge is not a finished utopia. It is a living document and an invitation — exactly as #ISupport was. The goals are still, in many ways, “yet to be determined.” That openness is the point. Communities are invited to adapt it, localise it, and keep building the relational infrastructure that makes resilience and flourishing possible.
From Western Sydney in 2013 to wherever you are reading this in 2026 — the question remains:
#DoU?
Do you support the conditions in which people and communities can flourish?
If the 2013 post was the planting, The Adaptive Bridge is one expression of what has grown. The earthworm was always there. The seed bank was always present. Now it is time to keep tending the ground together.
I’d love to hear how these ideas land for you. Have you seen examples of “resonance networks” or “barely enough floors” in your own community? Share your reflections, adaptations, or questions below. The bridge builds through many hands.
F = R − A
The Adaptive Bridge.
#ISupport → #WeSupport → #TogetherWeFlourish
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