Where could a way forward open?
I’m Brendan Heidenreich. I’m developing Story Dynamics: ways to understand complex human situations, make possible futures visible, and work out what people could actually do together.
This work comes from actual situations in my life and among people I know: food and medication needed, rent approaching, care that has to continue, and paid work interrupted by the effort to find help. The urgency changes over time. Keeping going through one crisis does not mean the arrangement has become workable.
At those points, something has to change. I’m working on a creative, practical process: bring accounts and possibilities into view, learn across situations, and develop workable configurations of people, resources and paid roles.
Immediate needs and the work of finding better arrangements both need support.
Working It Out in Public: a developing class and series for learning across actual situations, with people and AI. Explore the invitation, learning goals and ways to help it develop.
People, situations, possible futures
People are already trying through group chats, social media, calls and conversations with AIs. Each person is involved in many overlapping situations, with needs, responsibilities, knowledge and capacities that may be hard for anyone else to see.
I want to help build workable configurations of people: who could contribute what, under which conditions, with what resources and room to learn? A person seeking help may also have something important to offer. Capacity can develop; roles and demands can change.
People are people. Professionals, funders and officials are inside the inquiry too. Their accounts and decisions can be examined. Power is unequal: who sets the terms, can refuse, controls resources or bears the consequences matters.
Three factors to keep in view
Reality & answerability
What happened, what is claimed, and how could we check? Our own accounts need scrutiny too. Distinguish evidence, interpretation, proposals and accepted commitments; leave room for correction.
Pressure & possibility
Who can change what? What makes action possible, and what blocks it? Can people meaningfully challenge the terms or refuse? Examine coercion, unequal leverage and whether support makes responsibility feasible.
Worth & direction
What is worth making possible, for whom, and at whose cost? Keep survival needs and larger aspirations in view. Check effects over time, including burdens shifted onto people outside the conversation.
Work that keeps developing
This grows from years of visual layouts, dialogue, research and practical inquiry. Personal situations connect with wider histories, institutions and world conditions. I’m developing visuals, narration, live inquiry and ways to coordinate knowledge while the situations themselves continue.
The developing vocabulary includes Meanwhiles, Whole Story Assembly and Generative Accountability. These are ways into questions, not labels that settle who someone is.
New here? Start with When needs collide for competing needs and commitments, or When how to help is a mystery when you want to help but cannot yet see how.
AI can help compare accounts and draft possibilities. Its view remains partial; it cannot speak for everyone, judge a dispute or make another person’s commitment.
I use composites drawn from actual situations, including situations still in progress. Details may be combined or changed to protect people; illustrations and reconstructed scenes are distinguished from documentary records, and possible outcomes from completed results. Sharing identifiable experiences requires review and permission for the material and audience. Practical help does not require making a private story public.
Watch my 2023 layout talk-through.
Earlier public writing (March 2025): Funding Actual Humanitarian Work (14 March) and Introducing Story Dynamics (18 March). These posts describe the work and situations at that time, not a current status report.
Help make the next moves possible
You can support immediate needs and the continuing work, or contribute knowledge, a useful introduction or a capacity. This is work in progress, with real questions still open.
