Twelve Observers at the Table

What if the invitation wasn’t based on your name—but on how you see the world?

I came across a remarkable story this week. Ten strangers, all named Aaron, gathered for dinner in Seattle. The only requirements to attend? Share the name and live in the city. That was it. No job titles. No roles to perform. Just presence—and play.

The story, told by one of the Aarons, touched something deep in me. His gathering wasn’t just clever—it was moving. He asked a question I can’t stop thinking about:

What would your version of this dinner be?

My version of this dinner?

I imagine a table not set for a name, but for a lens.

A dozen people who, in one way or another, identify as observers—inspectors, photographers, reporters, editors, documentarians, even restorers of lost things. People who spot what others overlook, who wait for meaning to come into focus. People who care about what’s there—and what’s missing.

The only requirement to attend? At some point in your life, someone had to call you too thorough, or too sensitive to detail.

We’d bring dishes that told stories—field notes in edible form. Someone might bring an apple pie, but list the variety, soil, and growing zone. Another might bring water and speak about where it came from. A photographer might bring a dish that captured a memory—the way food looked when it first mattered.

Name tags wouldn’t say names, but verbs: Inspecting. Framing. Restoring. Noticing. Naming. Waiting.

We’d laugh about being misunderstood, or always seeing what others miss. We’d share the burden of being told to speed up, simplify, or lighten up. But we’d also find comfort in the appreciation of clarity, nuance, contrast, and care.

We wouldn’t need titles. Not even stories. Just the shared experience of seeing—and sometimes being unseen.

We’d leave having found kinship not in what we do, but in how we observe.

And perhaps, if the moment calls for it, we’d close the evening not with a photo, but with each guest contributing a single word to a wall-sized glossary. Not a signature, not a label—but a term they think deserves more attention.

---

That’s my table. My dinner. My mirror.

What’s yours?

You can read Aaron’s original post on LinkedIn here → https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7338603055707275265/

It was the invitation I didn’t know I was waiting for.

---