Prepare yourself. Your Process will unfold

I can’t help myself of thinking about that.

Here we go:

Can you guess what’s the most important thing to be learning in life?

I’m a problem solver and I love to improve in doing things in a better way. Like, how to improve the ability of interpret reality and interpret the same patterns the insist in repeat in our lives?

It’s really something random? I’m one of the Creators of this whole experience in front of me?

I mean, the construction of reality is something that is under my power, in some way?

As a Designer I deal with Grids everyday. Sometimes I even go to sleep thinking about how to organize better my ideias and how to make them communicate in an effective way.

In my personal research in noticing what really calls my attention in everyday life, I’ve been facing questions about reality and the way our thoughts manifest and our choices change everything.

Experience, the word or the concept, is walking with me in holding hands those days.

And I’m heading to questions like: “what really differentiate what I experience and what other person experience, even when we’re living alike situations?”

It’s sort like, random things are happening often… to everyone. Most of the times, the same thing is happening to A LOT of people in the world at the exactly same moment.

How can do people extract different learnings and meanings out of the same kind of experience?

Okay. I got it… People are different and they don’t have the same background in life and this changes the way they will deal with “the happening random thing”.

I know that. You know that. We know that. It’s almost obvious, right?

But my question is:
What is the deeper difference about the structure on “perceiving”?

There is where the Grid play its most interesting part in the whole context of Life and Experience.

Oh, I didn’t enter the whole Grid thing yet, right? Let me recapitulate a little here…

Imagine that all we have is a blank space. In life, in reality, in perception. Just b l a n k.

You look around and there’s a infinite horizon line. Every breath you take is the only sound available. It’s your “best friend” at that moment, your companion.

Something about the rhythm in your “breath in, breath out” starts to make more sense than ever. Your surroundings, once empty, starts to move together with you internal movement.

(I always see this image as a mirage, like the ones people use to illustrate by the desert)

We are inside this field where nothing yet was built but at the same time is alive with you, moving with the only tool you have: your breathing.

We can say it’s a space of infinity possibilities. It’s blank and malleable.

Kind of threatening, actually. I feel the paradox here, too.

You can do everything and, at the same time, there’s nothing there. It’s infinity and empty.

(goosebumps)

I invite you to the starting point of this “Grid Journey”: The ability to be comfortable in just being in this blank infinity space.

We are gonna call it Virtual Playground.

It is Virtual cause we cannot touch it, right the way, with our bear hands. It is a Playground cause is where we can try a lot of things and, some how, play around with imaginary things.

Think of it as the right place to test your own assumptions of what’s possible in reality.

The place where you can do anything and everything will be manifested.

Okay, now we’re getting there…

The Foundations as modes of Building

We can define the Virtual Playground as a shared reality where everyone has access to the same foundations, the same “blocks”. That would be your thoughts, emotions, skills, experiences and the tools you learn along the way as your life goes on.

What differentiates any creation from each other is the way those once separated “blocks” are interpreted and placed together.

It’s like a reaction game. Indeed, it’s a reaction game.

You have things happening around you all the time.

Notice them and make something out of the ones you have contact with, being your interaction based upon what’s your background in life experiences.

“How does you react to the things around you? Which of those things are transformed in fuel for yourself to create, build and manifest in your life?”

So, you have an innate ability of transform those “blocks” and rearrange them. You’ve born with this ability!

Everything in life can be seen as a pixel of reality. When you change this little one piece in your interpretation, you change the whole landscape that it forms.

Take a puzzle as exemple; what if you change just one pice of it? You could go from a horse image to a dragon one.

To make the best use of this building capability, you have to see that it’s all a big puzzle game, and it’s indeed separated in other little pieces; and you have the ability to change those pieces; and those changes make all the diference in the image you’re creating from it.

At that time, you already saw the Grid, and you’re understanding how to move your life’s composing “blocks” on your favor to the final result you intent.

To understand all those moving blocks thing, changing perspective and creative potential, some Foundations Concepts are very very important.

Don’t mess up trying to accelerate the process.

Find the most bright and effective way in transforming the meaning out of the “blocks” that appear in our way.

How so? With the technics that follow, like a workflow blueprint, mixing them together and flowing with it in your day to day life:

⚲ Mushin (無心): “No Mind”

I like this concept.

It’s a Zen principle that represents the “no mind” way of living.

It stems from the idea of clearing the mind of unnecessary thoughts, emotions, and distractions to act with pure focus and intuition.

The main purpose here is to act pronto.

This is the way you prepare yourself to be more in tune with what comes from inside. And with that, become little by little and everyday, ready to react to the external happenings in alignment with your true self.

With a mind free of judgement and preconceptions, you become free to interpret the things as they are.

Right here.

Right now.

It’s not about having a mind that is empty, without thoughts.

It’s more like getting way from living in a zumbi’s state. Being aware of the things as they are and noticing the weight your mind has in the skewed interpretation constantly popping up in your own perception.

You train your mind so your intuition can act without effort and totally free to guide your actions.

Bringing back to the conversation the construction of The Grid concept, or reconfiguring the grid, we can say that clear the distortions (fear, doubt, perfectionism) is the first step to start to project your Brand New Patterns in reality.

Clearing your mental clutter gives you the power to notice new patterns in the grid and make better connections between the blocks.

So, the concept of Mushin allows you to find a blank state of mind, with purpose, that enables your intuition to be aligned with your actions and arise naturally.

“When the grid is clear, intuition becomes the architect partner of the Preparation Stage, crafting actions that resonate with your essence.”

⚲ Wu-wei (無為): “Effortless Action”

I’ve practicing and understanding this concept for years by now.

This one isn’t easy at the end of the road.

Like, how to act to get things done by doing nothing?

The paradox here always amazes me, but what helps my perception of this concept is thinking about it as I’m always navigating in a river.

First things first…

After you understand how to calm and center your mind;

After you make the necessary cleaning in your thoughts;

After you let your intuition helps you to discern things as they are, impartially;

(it’s a interconnected process the one of cleaning, reorganizing and flowing—it can take a little longer that it seems, but it’s rewarding)

After all that, you can start to build your life in a new perspective.

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Wu-wei talks about that: the ability to let your building process flows with ease.

In the Virtual Playground we were talking about, some blocks almost “call out” to be used together.

They have the best fit and the most harmonic flow interaction. It’s practically a sin to not make them work with each other.

So, instead of forcing pieces that don’t fit, Wu-wei teaches you to feel the rhythm of the Grid.

Building intuitively and harmoniously.

Use it in any kind of scenario you think it could be useful.

It’s the practical ability of “moving away” or “flowing together” that you perceive in your gut feeling. And just possible to be seen by the moment you don’t force things to happen… or not happen.

Doesn’t have anything to do with “await”, but everything to do with “alright”.

Your landscape preparation can be harmonious and fluid…

“It can be about setting the right intentions, gathering your blocks, and allowing the structure to reveal itself as you build.”

⚲ Preparation Stage (Jim Rhon): “Gathering the Blocks”

By that moment, you already have two ways of calming the mind.

One that helps you clean to the house, perceiving the old stuff and throwing away everything doesn’t make sense anymore.

And the other way that enables you to have fun in the building process, noticing the best fit of what has left after the cleaning and the new things that appear in a totally new mind room.

They work together, at the same time or in very distinctive stages.

Jim Rhon’s Preparation Stage is like sorting your blocks before you start building. It’s a form of organize what you have and think about the wireframe you can make from it.

You identify the Foundation Pieces, set them aside, and ensure they’re ready to use when needed.

By having a totally new space, in which you can see clearly what can be useful and how to combine things, the Preparation is about recognizing the structure of the Grid (the new one), understanding it and laying the groundwork for your creation.

Below you can read more about the exposition Failures by Raumplan and ACCC that is focuses in the process of creating and the struggle that lead to great insights.

READ MORE

The Blueprint to make this all possible

What if was possible to live life in a way that you could search for a map in your pocket that allows you to navigate life easily?

Better yet, what if this map could let you know the “right path”, but kept as a mystery all the surprises along the way?

What if the map and surprises were always bringing to you that “something more” you keep waiting from life?

Maybe this thing here can help you to expand your vision on that.

Let’s take Lego as a exemple of building, shall we?

Cause, at the same time we are talking about blocks in a Virtual Playground, everything is the same thing. Like, you should be able to think about this concept and apply it to any hypothetical circumstance, cause works to any.

Suppose that you want to build something with Lego.

That you want to make to someone a gift or want to make something to put in living room.

Something that takes you the creativity to create and makes you record of your incredible ability of playing with Legos.

For some reason, you never liked the green color of those pieces and also the yellow is not appreciated for your taste. The color palete will be not ok with those colors, so you take every piece in green and yellow out of your side.

With that, you decide to take a challenge for yourself. In all the range of different pieces, you choose the simple ones to build the basis of your object. I don’t know for sure, but something like just the pieces with 3 or 4 spaces. That will be okay for the beginning.

You see? From that exemple we can let Mushin make its first part in the building process.

You are preparing your space, trying new perspectives, defining what’s important and prioritizing the way you want to build with the essentials.

Doesn’t mean that you have to stick to it until the end of your Creative Process. But you’re delimitating what’s your first move. You’re cleaning the room, letting things more simple and choosing what could be important for this first part.

You don’t know yet specifically what you want. But you know you want to build something that could be meaningful, funny and creative.

So, you choose the first line of action, basically what you don’t want: colors and specific pieces (for this exemple).

From that it’s time to see it as a cocreation momentum.

It’s your turn to be flexible, be open and know the best part is here. Know that the best part is not knowing indeed what’s coming from that Creative Process, but you don’t force to get it done.

You don’t try to decode your thoughts and actions;

You don’t try to guide rationally what will emerge from your first moves;

You don’t know what you’ll have to learn to build that Lego funny thing.

Seems like you’re letting the pieces show themselves, dancing for you, and almost automatically trying to fit together in a way that don’t need to be too much rational aware.

It’s a kind of flow, without effort. We’re talking about Wu-wei here.

To the Preparation Stage you are able to start to recognize the patterns, noticing what are the best fits, what did not worked and what can be repeated and make sense to have a new decorative piece of Lego for a living room.

“Get out of exemples, give me the real stuff”

The Grid of your reality is malleable and totally dependent of how you want to set it, in your favor or not.

All that happens in your life, passes by some kind of filter, like a tangled web which moldes your perception about those happenings and makes you see or rationalize just the juice after its filter.

The way to change things is being aware how this filter, or even better, this Grid is being made available to you by yourself. What are you pre-design in your life that directly affects the way external stimulus are interpreted.

If you’re seeing the same life pattern happening over and over mostly like a loop in you daily life;

If it seems like, no matter what, where or with who, things always have that “something in common” or “I think I lived it before”;

If you see repetitive scenarios in your life, day to day, everytime something new was suppose to happen;

Well, if it’s bothering you, if it’s making you at least curious, you can test those steps:

1. Seeing the Grid

Recognize the structure of reality and how patterns, beliefs, and experiences form its framework.

It’s already a ongoing game. The Virtual Playground is already set, can you see it?

You have a way of doing things, react to things and express tings that generate the same results.

Everything in your life is attracted to this kind of framework. Everything already have a Grid that is in full operation in your life.

The Playground you’re in offers the default instructions for building—social norms, learned habits, or pre-existing “website templates”, you know?

Everyone, including you, starts by following these instructions to understand the basic structure of the Grid. This is the foundation here.

You have to be aware of the primordial landscape, the first playground that was given to us until now.

Recognize your patterns.

2. Clearing the Grid

Creativity isn’t adding more; it’s seeing differently.

Problem solving is probably the more accurate way to define (in a rough style) creativity.

And creativity thrives when face limitations.

You got this, right? You need much more creative action when you have lesse resources or limited ones.

Until this moment, the things you’re use to are the things that make sense to your perception of reality. It’s a loop where at the same time you desire to perceive things in certain ways, you attract more of those things.

Your brain act as a magnet to what you want to see. That’s include (or even is defined) by the grid you received to be able to live here.

The map. The instructions. The Guide Book on how to be human.

I believe that everyone has something to extract from previous family/friends/society experiences that can be useful to build a new life.

As our exemple of the Lego funny decoration thing, you receive a lot of pieces to build what you want, and most of the times they come with the instructions.

But your mission here is, after following the instructions and use all the pieces that are necessary to the original thing, to select what works for what you want to achieve and how to discriminate the pieces, colors and combinations.

You’re breaking the mold. You work with clarity, without mental clutter, and can see endless possibilities in the same blocks you used to have.

3. Building the Grid

Finally, you start to have the ability to let your building process flow naturally.

In this phase you are able to recognize the ease which certain blocks fit together and you allow the Grid to guide you without overthinking.

(What a bless, ram?)

In the Playground you stands now, some block almost “call out” to be used together. Instead of forcing pieces that don’t fit, Wu-wei teaches you to feel the rhythm of the Grid, building intuitively and harmoniously.

It’s again a process that repeats itself until can become more and more comfortable.

Each step is like a fractal of the previous one, where you’re always polishing what you already have or did, and starting again.

You can imagine it as a funil to get it right to the point when you realize that the pressure and clutter is gone and your state of mind is just flowing, experiencing and gathering useful notes for your building process.

Mushin enables you to work with clarity and precision, seeing the bigger picture, while still focusing on the details of your creation.

All fitting together and in rhythmic motion of perceiving, clearing, experiencing and building.

Website as a Metaphor for Life

Bringing together the concept of seeing this kind of Grid in your reality with the construction of a Website:

They start with the same tools….

— Fonts

— Colors

— Layouts

— Text

I’m sure you can relate something like that in your day to day life. As if the palete of your life existed long ago and follows you along the way when you’re living.

Or sometimes you hear the same phrase 3 times in just one week.

You life is like a structure of a Homepage of a Website; all the stimulus you receive are stored in the already existing rows, columns and whitespace that determine how the content flows.

How the manifestation of things in your life and the significance you give to them exists inside this whole system you build around you.

The more you understand this structure and what is really supporting it, the more creative and impactful your website (or life) becomes.

So, think this way:

How easy you can change things out in your own Website?

It’s exactly the same thing with your life.

“Your Life is a like a website’s design—structured yet customizable. The magic happens when you learn to balance creatively with functionality.”

Change your mental Grid and you’ll change your physical Life.

By seeing things this way, maybe you can have more valid experiences that help you to see life as a big malleable structure, which you can change you is not working anymore and bringing more meaningful insights to your day to day life events.

Every thought, habit, tool or resource is a block.

The Grid is the structure that organizes these blocks (you mind and how you give meaning to the things that happen).

The Virtual Playground is this illusion where you build and play with the blocks and how to organize them.

You’ve be given the opportunity to rearrange your life as you will.
You’re literally the Designer of your unique life structure, insights, thoughts and reality itself.

1. Clear the clutter. See the Grid for what it is. (Mushin)
2. Build with flow. Trust the Grid and let it guid you (Wu-wei)
3. Sort and gather your blocks. Play around and evolve as you build (Jim Rhon)

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Live the whole potential of your Virtual Playground as it is:

The gift you receive to be alive and playing around.

Start where you are, with the blocks you have and let the Grid reveal its endless possibilities.

Life, like a website or a Lego creation, is both structured and fluid.

When you master the Grid, you unlock to ability to build anything.