Welcome to R21.5 x MjR!

an orientation to the site + the work

May 01, 2026

What you want is a clue.

What you do about that makes a life worth imitating.

I remember the exact moment the work of R21.5 x MjR—and this site Be(com)ing—became necessary.

A colleague and I had just heard another story of failure: another leader, another institution, another gap between public profession and actual practice. And I said, out of frustration and resignation, what I suspect a lot of people think every time they hear a story like this: “I am so tired of looking around and not finding people I want to admire.”

And then, because exhaustion has a way of clarifying things: “I guess I’m just going to have to become the kind of person I want to admire. Nobody else seems to be doing it.”

I’ve thought a lot about that moment since. Not because the frustration was unusual (it wasn’t), but because of what it revealed. The problem isn’t just that specific leaders had failed. It’s that we’ve forgotten what to look for. We’ve been trained to look out there, at platforms and stages and curated feeds, and in doing so, we’ve stopped seeing the people immediately around us. We’ve stopped looking in here.

And we’ve also stopped seeing ourselves as worth watching.

Who we are is not who we have to be. If you want to change, that desire should be taken as a promise of capability. That you want it means you can pursue it.

That means that you are also someone worth watching, in the process of your being and your becoming. That’s what Be(com)ing is: a place to bring your hope, creativity, and wisdom in shaping a life that invites the rest of us to look again.

To support you in being and becoming, you’ll find several streams of content here. The main issues follow a rhythm:

SloDos: a short prompt to help you start reflecting on the theme for a multi-week cycle
Human Be(com)ing: a deep dive essay that explores what it means to both be and become
→ Read The Purpose-Focused Life
Sustainable Systems: a practice or practical application you can use
Character References: a look at examples from history, literature, and everyday life
Monthly Muster: a wrap-up each theme with reflections (and tacos)

You’ll also find the People Watching podcast archives, where I talk with real people who have discovered how to practice seeing the role models around them.

→ Watch scientific illustrator Charon Henning on authenticity and creativity

As It Turns Out sends occasional field notes from my own experiments in becoming.

And R21.5 provides updates, reflections, and announcements.

→ Such as my podcast appearance on Grief & Pizza.

Ready to apply this to your specific situation? That’s what Purpose-Focused Productivity is for.