The shape of a reflective turn
Six lines of a reflective-projective turn, out of order. Put them in the order that moves back, then here, then forward.
- By then I will have been in the same field for fifteen years.
- Since then I have moved four times and changed field once.
- Whether that happens depends on a conversation I have been avoiding since March.
- Ten years ago I was doing something I have since realised I was quite good at.
- If nothing changes, in five years I will be doing this with better equipment.
- Where I am now is competent and slightly airless, and nothing is wrong, which is the difficulty.
What a good five minutes sounds like
Ten years, in both directions
Ten years ago I was living in a different city and doing a job I have since realised I was quite good at. I left it for reasons that were correct at the time and that I could not now reconstruct honestly.
Since then I have moved four times, changed field once, and learned that I am much worse at endings than at beginnings. That is the thing I did not know about myself at thirty and would have benefited from knowing.
Where I am now is a period I would describe as competent and slightly airless. Nothing is wrong. That is the difficulty.
In five years, if nothing changes, I will be doing this with better equipment. By then I will have been in the same field for fifteen years, which is long enough that a field stops being a job and becomes an identity.
The version I would prefer is not dramatic. This time next year I will be working four days instead of five, and by the following summer I will have finished the thing I have been not finishing since 2022.
Whether either of those happens depends on a conversation I have been avoiding, which is the same sentence I would have written ten years ago.
Three questions about how the turn is built.
1. What does the second paragraph give that the first does not?
2. Why is nothing is wrong followed by that is the difficulty?
3. The last line does something to the whole turn. What?
Five moves
The turn made five moves, in order: a past point, described from there · what has happened since, and what it taught you · now, named honestly · the projection if nothing changes · the version you would prefer, and what it depends on.
The fourth move is the one people skip, and it is the one that makes the fifth believable.
Eight phrases. Match each to the move it makes.
Two minutes of assembly
Two to five words per gap. Some are tenses, some are the moves.
Ten years ago I in a different city. Since then I four times and changed field once. Where I now is competent and slightly airless. If nothing changes, in five years I this with better equipment, and by then I in the same field for fifteen years. The version I is not dramatic, and whether it happens a conversation I have been avoiding.
Five sentences of the kind that appear when somebody is reflecting and monitoring at the same time.
1. Since then I moved four times.
2. By then I will be in the same field for fifteen years.
3. Ten years ago I have been living in a different city.
4. This time next year I will work four days a week. — inside that time
5. I have been avoiding this conversation since March, and I will have avoided it next month too.
Both directions, then somebody else’s version of you
How the twenty-six minutes run. Four minutes alone, twelve in pairs — six each way — eight for the reversal, and two to move between them.
Stage 1 · Alone · 4 minutes
Fix three positions in time: a point about ten years ago, now, and a point about five years ahead.
Four minutes of notes. One fact at each position, and one thing that changed between them.
- The past point needs a date or an event, not "a while ago".
- Now needs an honest adjective. Not "fine".
- The future point needs a date too, or the perfect will have nothing to look back from.
- Mark the one thing your projection actually depends on.
Stage 2 · Pairs · 6 minutes each
Give the turn. Your partner may say only one thing, and may say it as often as they like.
Six minutes, five moves, three positions clearly held.
- Listener: the only thing you may say is "where are you standing?"
- Say it whenever you cannot tell whether the speaker is at the past point, at now, or in the future.
- Speaker: answer by repairing the sentence, not by explaining. Set the vantage phrase and carry on.
- Listener: count how many times you had to ask. That is the number.
Stage 3 · The reversal · 8 minutes
Four minutes each. Give your partner back their own five years — as your projection of them.
Speak about them in the third person, using the futures, and let them correct you.
- By 2031 she will have been… — build it from what they actually said, not from what you would want for them.
- Include the default projection and the preferred one, and keep them separate.
- Speaker being described: interrupt whenever a hope has been reported as a projection. That distinction is the point.
- Finish by saying which sentence in their version you would sign.
How often you were asked
Two questions.
1. When your partner asked "where are you standing?", what was usually missing?
2. In stage 3, what did your partner get wrong about you most often?
Forecast and preference
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. What does move four — if nothing changes — do for move five?
2. What sets your position in time?
Next. Your own tenses from today — and a consolidation of the word stress that has been quietly wrong since Unit 15.