Learning in a Creative, Experience-Building Way

The human brain has evolved to be capable of stunning feats of ingenuity and creativity! Most notably, when we interact socially with our peers and even those who are more knowledgeable and experience than us, we are capable of taking advantage of human language and communication so we can talk about and think about complex ideas. And the word 'ideas' doesn't even do justice to the complex models that we are capable of interacting with in the mind. We all use filters to consume information. We may primarily use our 5 senses but these are all filtered through the brain and processed which is what extracts meaningful information and patterns from what we are seeing. (on whatever time scale we are noticing them.) These filters are able to be developed as we apply discipline to our minds and our studies.

All of us are able to stand upon the shoulders of the giants who have come before us. They were the inventors, the great orators and authors, the philosophers, the captains of industry. We are capable of learning by their example, their biographies and autobiographies, their contributions to their fields, and so on.

The vast array of knowledge that society continually churns out is able to help us become more knowledgeable, more adaptive, wise, and capable. We can be more creative with these wholesome inputs being our inspiration. We can learn to really understand ourselves by understanding others and by getting in touch with various models of complex dynamic systems such as those found within Biological systems, planetary systems, and Quantum systems.

Being able to really connect with nature at this depth and being willing to change your own mind as you consume new information is capable of taking you on a journey through not just knowledge, but experience. Once you begin to see your mind as a changing, evolving system of models and information, you become a creator of information and you become capable of using this information to your advantage and to the advantage of your mental models. You actually begin to change your experience!

So many people seem to be caught up in the idea that they have to be *taught* everything in an orderly way. The problem with this is that it only gives you what you put in and nothing new. It also assumes that what you are being explained is fully what was in the minds of the people who really study these complex systems. It even assumes that they are fully correct about the systems in question. We should all be responsible for our own journey of discovery. Wisdom is distinguished from knowledge for good reason. The difference can be summed up in the word 'experience.'

Experience is more than a number. It's not just age. And it's not even the amount of time you've dedicated to studying a field. It's also the way in which you've approached it from an emotional and psychological perspective. Someone could be very dogmatic and skeptical and slow to change their mind about things and be very stubborn and really not evolve their mind much at all. Another person can be very insistent on continually modifying the mental models in their mind so they are consistently asking questions and maintaining some amount of humility and a huge amount of curiosity.

The process itself of learning can be an incredibly enjoyable and rewarding experience! When we maintain an attitude of truly caring about knowing more about our reality, even knowing ourself! (Know Thyself!)...we are setting ourselves up to find and know truth. Truth is one thing you can't really depend on anyone else for. Not just because people are bad communicators or liars or because of government and so on. It's also in large part because of the nature of truth. Truth is based on how a person experiences it and so if we collapse everything down to its core, we find that we almost completely lose meaning because we are not able to feel the need to interact with anything or anyone. But it's through our experiences in life that we discover that we are capable of bringing the light of truth to our daily actions and thus improving the lives of our fellow man and of ourselves.

Fostering within ourselves a state of constant curiosity and a passion for discovering how we can live optimally in harmony with nature is our duty, I believe. It is paramount that we learn to live in harmony with nature and with one another. It truly makes a difference how much pollution we create and how much waste we create from our consumerist lifestyle choices. I also believe that taking care of our bodies and maintaining optimal health is important for our well-being. But nobody can really put these sparks of desire and commitment directly inside you permanently. People can help you plant the seeds and even help you water them and so on but you have to maintain a cooperative spirit with the process of growth.

It takes intelligence and wisdom to be able to make wholesome, optimal decisions for ourselves and our family when we have so many choices and all the media wants us to buy into their product or belief systems. So it's as if we just need to be very selective about our inputs and take a broad variety of inputs into the mind. I believe that's in fact of the utmost importance. If we only get information from one source, we not only get just one perspective from a real model standpoint but we also only get it explained in a single linguistic way of communicating the complex ideas or models. One of the most interesting things we are capable of as human beings with large several pound brains and lots of energy is to actually hold multiple models in the mind simultaneously which interact with one another and to create the best of all worlds out of those multiple perspectives and models! Because we have to assume that the models we are 'given' or set out to use at the beginning or even the middle of our journey are incomplete, even flawed.

One should always be willing to modify the mind to incorporate information which generates more complete solutions or helps build the scaffolding needed to build our knowledge base. Another reason to keep coming back to the knowledge in its finest "gnostic" form is because if we are not "practically" using knowledge then it will decay and we will feel like we have an understanding of our reality but it will become too simplified. We must constantly be simplifying and then working towards a further understanding. If we are not pushing ourselves to constantly grow, we are going to slip into mediocrity and we will no longer be able to provide actionable value to ourselves, our family, and our community.

It's important we think outside the box. A personal motivation for me is to help other people live more optimal lifestyles and be happier, healthier, etc. So for me, I've been adding this tagline to my email footers for quite awhile now: "Think for yourself with others in mind." I think it does a good job of summing up the true motivation we should have when doing any kind of self-development or research. We should be really keen to learn from lots of different sources. (dozens) And we should go through hundreds or thousands to find those really amazing few dozen that we can really count on. Even if you don't go for those numbers, that's the basic ratio you should look for. If you want to make sure that the information you're using is of the utmost value and closest to the truth, you have to go through as many sources as possible and figure out based on all the extreme positions, exaggerations, errors, misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and so on, how you balance out for sort of the ultimate model which is a combination of what you have learned from all the competing voices.

Now, everyone is going to use their own system and that's the beauty of the mind. We all chart our own progress through our existences and we are all able to perceive reality in different ways and thus add our own unique values to the world based on what we each uniquely view from our perspectives. The important thing is that you aren't simply copying what the mainstream is saying or doing or just simply copying what one or two people (even if they are famous or mostly "right") are saying. The reason is because you won't really understand the system fully until you really process through a lot of material and basically judge what you see in an open-minded but intentional way.

Being a Philosopher is how you strengthen the mind. But people sometimes forget the "Philo" part of the word. You're going to need a good heart as well if you don't want to just be a copy of everything you read and see. A mind that is not willing to change or perceive the needs and desires of nature or people is doomed to the ivory towers and probably not going to change society to a large degree. And what good is knowledge that does not have an effect? Both on oneself and one's loved community and world?

Philosophy means, roughly speaking, "love of knowledge." But it actually means "love of wisdom." The wise person knows the value of experience because he has experienced it himself. The loving person knows that love is the emotion felt when you give or receive flowers, not the flowers themselves. The loving person knows that an advanced lover does not even necessarily need to buy flowers in order to create this energy of love. It can simply be conjured from within. So with Philosophy, a person does not always need external information inputs in order to increase in knowledge and wisdom. From what has been "planted" within in our neural networks, we can expand our knowledge, wisdom, and experience. We can begin to see differently through our "mind's eye" or simply through different filters and be able to observe patterns in nature or society or even simply in ourselves and our own behavioral patterns. We will be able to surmise possibly that the origins of some effect we are feeling or noticing personally may have been triggered by one or more "causes" many days or even weeks previous to this day. We may also begin to predict what good changes may come of our concerted and intentional efforts towards some end goal.

One of the wisest things I have personally learned is that there is never any real single cause or single effect. In essence, we create our own luck through preparedness and the taking of opportunities. We are able to prepare ourselves physically and mentally for the goals we wish to accomplish. Incredibly powerful is the will of man when fully engaged and incredibly limiting can be our doubts, negative self-talk, or self-limiting beliefs. If we engage in behaviors and patterns of thought and emotion--where we see only huge potential for growth in our own lives and the impact we're able to have on others' lives--we will be able to channel all our energy towards our success instead of that which possibly could go wrong. The subconscious is very good at bringing to our conscious awareness or even our external experience that which we are thinking about, whether we are imagining something undesired or desired. So we should absolutely be sure to, as much as is possible or practical, concentrate our energies and attention on those things which we desire to manifest in our lives.

So by building these mental models, we are able to more clearly see that there are not necessarily simple solutions for that which we desire but some set of conditions which must all probably be present for the likely manifestation of that which we desire.

I will end this treatise with this last concept of triangulation.

I present to you this quoted bit of text:

The Rotman School of Management defines integrative thinking as:
"...the ability to constructively face the tensions of opposing models, and instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generating a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new model that contains elements of the individual models, but is superior to each."[1]The website continues:
"Integrative thinkers build models rather than choose between them. Their models include consideration of numerous variables — customers, employees, competitors, capabilities, cost structures, industry evolution, and regulatory environment — not just a subset of the above. Their models capture the complicated, multi-faceted and multidirectional causal relationships between the key variables in any problem.Integrative thinkers consider the problem as a whole, rather than breaking it down and farming out the parts. Finally, they creatively resolve tensions without making costly trade-offs, turning challenges into opportunities."

So, a true thinker obviously is doing much more with their mind than injecting information into it through their eyeballs and their ears. A true thinker or philosopher is actually forming arguments (logical reasoning, discussion, communication) within their systems of processing information. This is both for actually consuming and forming responses or output through communication such as speaking or writing.

So triangulation, for me, means a couple things. Triangulation can be used in writing or any form where we are using human languages like English, Mandarin, Spanish, or German to communicated complex ideas and clusters of concepts.

As you can see in the above image, we have a network of nodes which are separated into general clusters, each with a unique color code. Yet these clusters are also interconnected and even within each cluster, there are differences or separations where the nodes are starting to differentiate.

So when you think about some complex system such as in Biology where you can have a disease effecting multiple organs and organ systems simultaneously and dozens of metabolic pathways directly related to the "root causes" you can begin to see how there would never really be a silver bullet because there is no single cause to begin with...

Also with words, we can't really assume which definition someone means when they use a word so it's important that we have some context or that we at least know the person so we have some context from previous conversations with them, etc. This tremendously deepens the ability we have of communicating and indeed for the communication that happens within our own minds which partially gives rise to consciousness itself. Good communication is important so to go beyond "buzzwords" we need to triangulate these nodes so that we can talk about certain custom clusters "on the fly" in the moment and constantly keep these adaptive neural networks moving and reshaping themselves. These networks are not meant to be static and never-changing. The whole point is that they are able to be computed with and interacted with. Being able to mix and match and recombine these different pieces of our knowledge web in different ways allows us to see new perspectives and come up with new ideas for the most effective ways to achieve a desired results or perhaps change a condition. Perhaps we want to take somebody from a state of disease to a state of being on top of their world and full of life. We can only make effective lifestyle changes if we are able to holistically understand psychology, emotions, physical biological systems, and more in a connected, interactive way.

If we want to truly optimize our lives, it's of utmost importance that we have clarity about the many interacting pieces in our lives. The simpler our models, the simpler a change might be but the simpler our understanding of complex issues will be. So we must create simple, effective results while also being able to see the bigger picture so we can work with those hard cases or achieve the "impossible."
I actually started writing this blog post as an introduction to nootropics and then it morphed into an essay about being responsible for our personal experience of educating the mind. If you haven't heard of nootropics, they are basically the next level after caffeine for helping you train the mind to learn new patterns and be more efficient at creating quality output, whether that's writing, designing, drawing, coding, taking tests for school, or working in any kind of office or work environment. Basically nootropics are a whole different beast from caffeine because caffeine simply speeds up your perception of consciousness but doesn't really increase the quality of your output. It also doesn't really give your body and brain what you need to create new connections in the mind (called neuroplasticity) The brain needs a good supply of oxygen, blood flow, neurotransmitters, and other chemicals in order to function at its best. That's what a lot of these herbs and superfoods provide which you wouldn't ordinarily find in average foods from the supermarket...

You may explore more at my website at

UHealingArts.com or follow me on Google+ at https://plus.google.com/+AndrewCarpenter/about
As always, Cheers to Optimization!!

Being Persistently ADAPTIVE (You are travelling THROUGH the Environment)

When on a journey of expansion or moving into new paradigms of being, we can get get tunnel vision and feel like the vision we are working to transform into existence is going in slow-motion. Those of us who identify as Type A personality can probably identify with the feeling that we are the odd one going against a lot of societal pressures and cultural norms. This is why we have to be independently strong and really believe in the vision we have for ourselves number one before anything else. We need ways of being personally validated about what we believe and being personally stabilized and persistent.

It can be an easy mistake to mix our business and culture-changing ideals with our personal sense of well-being and value as a human being. We may begin to feel as though we are victim to the cycles of business and culture which is actually far more "friendly" to our personal development process and attitude than we may realize. By friendly, I mean that the way that we experience the world and the way the world experiences us...is very dependent upon how we are living out our pattern. If we begin to believe that we should be owed more by others and the world then we are going to start placing the emphasis of action on others and upon the environment. We must take ownership of our actions and the results we get.

The wise course of action is to continually practice the art and sciences that we know are personally developing oneself as a human being on all levels of being including our spiritual self-development. The way we interface and interact with the development of our dreams and aspirations is highly-important. Many people have been close to achieving success and given up on their dreams shortly before they would have brought them to life.

Being able and willing to adapt in order to remain strong (or grow stronger and wiser) is one main key I believe is crucial to the long success game. Sometimes we feel like we just have to be more persistent. But if persistence morphs into negativity about the current state of things then it is morphing into a "give-me attitude" instead of a gratefulness attitude and positive work ethic.

Be like this water droplet that can flow as water and also refract light and shape our environment so strongly as water does. Also notice how water can cling together as a stream and also break off into a smaller bead drop and flow across a surface.

Water and light both follow cycles as well on an atmospheric, physics and biologic level which is another reason why these are both ideal analogies for how a person should ideally adapt throughout the process of creating business success in their lives and their community.

A person must have core-values and integrity and for this to exist within a person, they must believe in themselves and their value in whatever shape they take as a person. If they believe they are only valuable if they are acting in a certain capacity or way, they can become stubbornly set on a rigid view of how their life should be playing out. And that's following a script that is almost surely doomed to failure. Our actions and emotional/mental strategies should never be conditioned (or contingent) on such a fragile, singular result.

The essence of any creative pursuit is being able to see the big picture. I will add to this metaphor. It is being able to see the big, MOVING picture and being able to see it from multiple angles and perspectives. But what about when you can't? How do you move and create within a landscape when you are using imperfect maps? You have to be able to adapt to streams of information and to your surroundings as they emerge to you and be able to extrapolate extra data from limited, incomplete patterns. It also helps when you realize that preparedness is one of the greatest keys to the Universe.

We are constantly co-creating the conditions for our success. We are the creators of our lifestyle. The story we write and the movie we create is dependent upon us believing in our innate value and the value we transform in the world around us.

Launching out into the Creative Flow

There is the meme of the starving artists..those who are fanatical about creating for the sake of interacting with the creative forces, working with the beauty of natural archetypes and design patterns and such. And these are people who love to generate delight in those who view their artistry. They themselves are in love with their work. They are perhaps more in love with their work than any monetary gain. And yet the greatest business successes take advantage of the principles of artistry and delighting their customers.

When a businessperson truly harnesses the creative force within themselves and takes careful notice of the needs and desires of their target demographic..they become responsible for delivering something almost as sacred and natural as a swift summer rain at the peak of growing season. For their customers, they become the perfect answer, the perfect solution. They find the niche in the market space and they bring an energy to that space that wasn't there before.

Successful people live their personal lives this way. Whether they are conscious of it or not, they are in a kind of alignment with the forces of influence surrounding their lives and in their environment. They aren't playing victim games. The successful person sees opportunity where others would see nothing.

The successful person brings these seething forces of power and furls them into twisting vortexes of positive pulsating energy that becomes ready to burst forth with its seed and deliver value to their company and ultimately to society. And in return, as almost a natural law, there is the potential for profits to return to the creator of this value.

In fact, the successful value-creator or entrepreneur is more than a creative or a creator. They are really orchestrating these creative forces and designing larger flows of effect (or power) out of the combination and recombination of multiple smaller flows. The word "success" itself has its meaning rooted in going from one accomplishment to the next which is actually a related concept. But the true point of value here is that a value-creating individual is one who becomes adept in satisfying the needs of the many but doing so with a more generalized or efficient design pattern which is repeatable and robust.

What they are really doing is seeing the potential for transformation. The key to success is being able to have a vision for what you'd like but simultaneously being able to see past certain rigid mindsets and being able to flow "like water" around apparent obstacles. Being able to shift the mind and shift your actions..you..and your business..become unstoppable.

It's about the structure. It's about the structure but it's not. There's a careful tension..a careful balance of power that must be observed and maintained in balance and harmony. A certain amount of chaos and yet some amount of containment of that chaos. Some semblance of narrative, of routine, some absolutes. But even these are changeable.

The important thing is recognizing failure when it's there and yet not succumbing to its continuation. For that's exactly what seems like the default when you are in a failure mode, doesn't it? You're at the point where it feels like there's no return to basics. You feel invested in the way you've been looking at the problem or the goal or whatever it is that you're focusing your energy on. And it feels like if only you just put more energy into the thing you've been trying to get working that maybe you will hit success.

And this is why we need metrics..so we can see the truth of our position. If we have not map of what it means to be successful or now vision of what we are doing, we will become isolated in our ways of working and wrapped in the fears of loss..and being lost. Only when we create for ourself the surrounding vortex of power that we can come to depend upon as reckoning device..we will know high amounts of success.

It's important to have imagery in our mind to guide our way of thinking and our actions. The energy we surround ourselves with is like the clouds that cling to topographic features like mountains or along lakes and then precipitate our their various action potentials: rain, snow, thunder, lighting..Likewise, the man or woman can be surrounded with emotions that take him or her to the depth or height of his or her choice. Being persistent to send out value to your workspace and into the market and building connections of value..with sincere close friends, with potential customers, with other businesses that may tie in somehow with your field of choice..these are avenues--streams--pathways--by which you can channel a dynamic flow of energy. A stagnant energy doesn't have the capacity to create value. A stagnant energy cannot bring you a return on value delivery because it lacks the deliver and lacks the return.

There's a very real level of passion that must be kept in constant motion and yet be under a kind of control or containment. For each person, each business..this will be a different synthesis, a unique formula for your success. Every successful person and business goes through stages and lifecycles where the conditions for success change and the metrics change. If you run into failure, sometimes you need to find new ways of thinking and working.

Unlock your success. I hope this encourages you.

P.S. It's not all about the perfect process, perfect grammar, or a perfected synthesis or discovery of ideas that you can somehow package into the "one right answer" or "the way." It's also about the delivery of value. The sun comes up many different ways. The clouds rain many kinds of drops. And there are lots of different kinds of snowflakes. Make your successful process repeatable but not frozen.

PROCESS Your Way To Your DREAMS; Don't GOAL Your Way There!

The change of year is a time when a lot of people declare their life a battleground. People make goals. How successful are people at making these goals reality? Not very. Maybe for a few weeks. But why do people write off as a failure what they undoubtedly succeeded at for at least a few days? That should at least be seen as some kind of success. Or what if the goal is so big and intimidating that we fail because we measure ourselves in comparison to a finished product and feel hopeless? We are not merely products in stasis and we shouldn't underestimate the power of slow but consistent changes over a period of time. The tortoise wins the race...

If I say I have the goal of writing a book in the next year, most people find that a totally intimidating idea. How can we ever do great big things then if human psychology wimps out so easily? What's the secret? How do some people achieve success in their life? How come some people seem to be able to summon from deep within their will power the manifestation of their dreams into reality? How come some peoples' lives are so congruent with their dream world?

These questions are important if we want to make our dreams happen. If we want success. If we want to stay on the right path, the path we set before us. Rather than fall short of the full vision we have for ourselves.

I posit to you that it's not the goal that leads us to success but the process that guides our present actions on a daily basis.

If I want to write a book, I could have a process where I often write one page of text. Or two pages. I think it's important to be realistic though. If you're not good with consistency, I'm not so sure you should set out to do something every single day. Because you'll probably fail before long. Rather, you could look at it like an easy-medium-hard kind of game or expedition. I like the term 'expedition' because wrapped up in the definition of the word is the idea that there is some purpose to whatever it is you are setting out to do. So there is an aspect of 'goal' in the concept. But there is also an element of game or hunting or exploration involved such that you are looking for something; you are not just tossed around completely by external circumstance...you are exercising some will power...but you are also not completely sure what will happen. It's like if you go out into the woods and go hunting. If you get a smaller deer (or whatever type of animal you are hunting) than you are hoping for or have gotten before, you don't become discouraged and go home and ball your eyes out. If you don't even find a deer, you say "better luck next time" and go again in a couple weekends.

There are elements of our life story which we can change but we can't change everything all magic-like with ritual dark magick in our circle of candles in our basement. That isn't to say that rituals aren't important though. On the contrary...that's actually kind of the point of this article. Rituals, ie. maintaining a process that you can truly find delightful and joyful rather than some kind of heavy burden...that's your secret. That's the good news. That's the recognition that can take you from victim to victor.

To change our life requires will-power and experts say we only have a limited amount of will-power much like we only have so much we can pay attention to at any given moment of time. And we only have so much time. Changes are possible usually so long as we have the right kind of expectations and a healthy mindset.

But how do we MAKE these changes? Through goal-setting? No way. Goal setting might help us plan. But we can't completely accurately predict the future.

You have to make your process fun and enjoyable. You have to make it addictive. You have to build a habit that engages your attention...

Something as simple as a list of things to do in a word processor or Google Document which you paste checkmarks into after each complete task might be more compelling and engaging of your attention than some to-do app where you click a button. Maybe the feel of the click of the keys on the keyboard is more satisfying than the click of the mouse. Maybe you like the feeling of freedom when you use the word processor or Google document to track the things you want to do more than the perceived limitations in functionality of to-do apps. Maybe even interacting with to-do apps imposes a psychological perception of intimidation at the mere suggestion that you should be focused solely on producing and doing work, etc.

It seems weird but seriously research shows that our environment and what we interact with effects our brain and mindset in strange and sometimes subtle ways. A trigger for forgetting something on our mind can be something as simple as walking through a doorway from one room to another room. The reason seems to be that our brain organizes our memories based on what our location is and what the environmental conditions are like. We like to think that we are 'objective' and 'rational' whatever those are supposed to mean. We don't necessarily realize that our brains have a different idea of what is objective and rational. To our brains, it probably actually is rational and productive to be subtly effected by our environment.

Then there's the whole Dopamine aspect. What's the reward for making changes in our life? Change can be stressful. One thing we can do to reward ourselves is eat a small piece of chocolate after we do something that takes some effort on our part. Like writing a blog post :) Plus, I suspect that the simple action of tying together different kinds and instances of minor accomplishments in our life, via following the accomplishment with a small reward, ties certain neural pathways used to achieve each various minor task/accomplishment into a stronger related network in our brain which generally seeks out BEHAVIOR and REWARDS (OPPORTUNITIES & COSTS). I suspect this network pathway would make us more confident, successful, and have stronger more consistent will-power, etc. But you don't necessarily have to only use chocolate. And the beauty is that you don't have to even use chocolate every time. Once you do sometimes, your mind will automatically think of chocolate when you do something productive on a subconscious level. But you could additionally/alternatively use other means to reward yourself. You could read a chapter of a fiction book after you complete a task that you normally put off doing or find yourself frequently becoming distracted from. You could also play a game online or on your phone. A fun one I like is 'Bloons Tower Defense 5.' It can last a little bit longer than I'd sometimes like to spend on a game all in one sitting but once in awhile this is not at all such a bad thing. It's good to work hard but also to play hard.

Find a way to split up a task into a chunk just small/easy enough that you're confident you can probably achieve it without taking too much time (I'm thinking less than 45 min-1 hr.)

What you can take away from all this is that your work, your productivity, can and should be fun and exciting. Whether you have to spice it up by being creative and snacking on some highly pure antioxidant-rich chocolate or some other decadent treat or reading some fiction or using social media or playing a game or taking a nap...whatever...the important factor is the expedition, the journey, the process.

Your process needs to be designed for humans not for machines. You are a human, not a machine.

Be the change you want to see in the world. Your environment and your future are basically convoluted reflections of your inputs & outputs right now. The more that you can crystallize and focus on the vision of your desires/needs, the better this will be reflected in your actual outputs and your environment will be expressed by the deeds of your hands and the spoken words of your tongue. Let thy hands fulfill the deepest expectations of your mind. You gotta believe. Whatsoever you believe will become your reality. With few exceptions. You're one of the biggest influential players in the story of your life. If you don't enjoy the processes and rituals of your daily life, you're living in a system of massive resistance to your own creativity and your own capacity to effectively create the changes you desire. Be attentive to what you want and use each small step of fulfillment as fuel for further change-making. Your results are your reward. Don't like them? Morphogenesis that crap then.

Change the game. Change the process. Change the way you think about managing your life. The way that your body, mind, and entire life is instructed...or programmed...is not limited to only your conscious wishes or even your conscious awareness but by the deepest, most recessed aspects of your self, including your shadow self...the parts of you which you wished didn't exist. You can't continue to allow those parts to exist or to give those parts of yourself positive attention if you don't want them to rule your life. You need to purge yourself of those things which are doing you self-harm.

We can be our own worst enemies so often.

Nurture that part of yourself that is essential to your true success just as you would nurture the watermelon plant and cull the undesired weeds and toss them into the rotting pile to be restored to raw biomass potential.

Free yourself by removing the bonds of former patterns and reconnecting the aspects of yourself in other more productive configurations. This is the process that feeds itself with its own desires. Do you feed yourself the dung of beetles? I surely hope not... Mentally we need to feed ourselves and our own processes with that which will integrate us into a more deep union with ourself. This is called being self-consistent in systems terms. If we are not self-consistent, the results are horrible. We do that which we do not want to do and are double-minded like a bipolar person.

If we want the results that we want (to go meta), we need to see that the person who we are when we do not succeed at fulfilling our desires is the same person we are when we do succeed at our desires. Just different parts. And we have to prune back the parts of ourselves that are hurting us as a whole.

Seek those things which will give you lasting fulfillment. Those things which are sustainable. If what you say you seek is not sustainable or does not bring you fulfillment but you insist that it is better or best for your life, perhaps reconsider whether this is true to your inner purpose. Maybe this is not actually good for you, in other words. What is good for you?

Many times we have dreams and we immediately assume that they must be what we really want. As if the heart really always know what it wants. These thing we so often think of as truisms are more like mass delusions...

Just like the music you liked when you were a teen probably isn't the same as the music you like now...The heart changes. The heart doesn't know what it wants. Why does that matter for success? Success requires a strong consistency aspect. Search out your dreams and interpret them looking for flaws.

Before you change your life, change your goal. Before you change your goal, change your process. Before you change your process, change your attitude/mindset...your entire mode of awareness. Have gratitude. Be aware of negative valence emotions though. Look deep within you for that shadow self. That person you deep down know you are but wish you weren't. That psychological part of yourself that you project onto others but inwardly ignore in yourself and avoid admitting you have problems with.

We like to think we are better than average. Better drivers, better informed, better mannered, etc., etc. Doubtful. We judge the world. Others are so stupid, so ignorant, so lazy, so this or that... Yeah the world is ugly but we are not exempt from that ugliness.

You want change? WHO ARE YOU?

This article is meant to get you into a philosophical mode of thinking and really grapple/wrestle with what it means to be consciously aware of yourself. We humans like to pride ourselves with the idea that we are conscious but really I think we are far more blind to our inner workings than we would hope was the case.

Be Inwardly Aware. But don't over-think or flood your mind with worry and chatter.

I hope my thoughts on this matter fuels within you an urge to change your life circumstances for the better and maybe paints a better picture than the oft-recited memes about habit-change that give the illusion that life changes reliably snap into place like Lego bricks or K'nex rods.

Cheers to your bountiful success and to optimization!

Much Love,
Andrew

Seamless & Infinite App Ecosystem

A Dystopian Digital Experience, Why it Exists, and How to Fix it

I want apps to more or less go away and be replaced by dashboards and apps that control multiple company's functionality. I don't see the sense in having to open up an app just to scan a QR code, look at the weather, play music, etc. Furthermore, the data and the protocols for controlling devices should tie into a layer of abstraction on top of the Web.


So far...the "Internet of Things" is a "dystopia" of proprietary hardware and incompatible, siloed, experiences.


Digital odometers on bikes and the sensors on treadmills should wirelessly communicate with fitness trackers. Music and other media should be easily streamed to car audio systems or home theater systems. Eventually, more homes will be built with automation-ready technology for controlling the lights, fans, climate control, locks, appliances, windows, blinds, etc. and so far that is a dystopia.


Just as the Internet creates a unifying experience between different types of computers with the use of the Internet Protocol (IP system) and the Web unifies digital Web Resources like webpages, audio, video, images, text, CSS, etc....I have been a proponent for some time now, pushing for not only better open platforms for data compatibility (for Science and Semantics, etc.) along with a layer for unifying our Experiences as we use devices...predicting the use cases and features of devices and making open standards for using them...together...


Additionally, similar awesomeness will bleed through in the form of Venues...becoming more contextually relevant for the digital age. Classrooms, stadiums, homes, libraries, conference halls, workplaces...these areas could potentially make use of open standards as a layer on top of the existing Web standards for doing amazing experience based things. Such as...participating in a mobile based game/contest, etc. automatically at a sports event. A little alert pops up on-screen letting you know there is an interactive feature at your event. (tied into Google Now or something, for instance)

And you can probably imagine yourself how this would be used in other places. The point is...right now, currently, apps are reinventing the wheel all the time. And why should we have to search for an app, install it, and add a huge multi-megabyte app to our phone every time we want to participate in a new, experimental "experience" that has been designed.


These experiences are not so completely unique that it doesn't make sense for there to be a very special layer of abstraction on top of the existing Web as a starting point for this stuff.

Digital Currencies

Technically, digital currencies have been around for awhile depending on your perspective. That is, if you consider the fact that the world's currencies have been being traded and recorded in ATM networks, stock exchanges, and over the Internet for decades now.

However, what I'm going to write about today is alternative digital currencies such as Bitcoin. It is interesting, to me at least, to note that Bitcoin actually doesn't really differ much from traditional mainstream currencies in terms of how it spends. In technical terms, of course, it's quite different.

But what if we want to completely change the way that society uses money? What if we want to create a currency (or credit system) that actually gives us alternatives? Well I've been thinking about that. And I think I've come up with some viable ideas regarding alternative currency systems.

One of the main properties of traditional money seems to be the high degree in which it seems to be tied to the global markets and inflationary processes. It doesn't seem to be very conducive to decentralization strategies.

One of the main features that I would like to build into (or see built into) an alternative currency/credit system is a sort of natural independence from the whole...such that everyone can get a fair shake...an opportunity. Think about how each and every one of us has the same amount of time each day. We can spend it how we want. It's often one of the main determining factors of our monetary income, in fact. But what if there is a credit crisis/crunch, a bubble in a market or industry in which you are a professional, or some other global economic phenomenon?

The fact is that there are a lot of times where the opportunities (real opportunities) seem to be far more abundant than the cash that people have to trade for those opportunities. We need to notice the dichotomy between real natural resources and wealth and the artificial tool called money that we use to trade our skills and products for other products and services that someone else creates.

Of course, there's always the possibility to barter. Unfortunately, bartering can be time-consuming and this effect is amplified in our global and highly complex markets with tons of stuff being traded in the free market. It's just really hard to keep track of value when bartering. (not to mention...how would one save up value if you're bartering) I'm not discounting the role that bartering and negotiation can play in our lives. I think it can have tremendously good benefits in a lot of circumstances. But, let's be honest. Money is a highly useful tool.

Except when it's not. Money's not too useful if you don't have access to a whole lot of it. So what else can we use?

Keep in mind that we live and work in an open system. Our bodies and the plants and animals we eat are powered by the Sun. There's constantly lots of new energy being pumped into our environment. That's not to say that it's necessarily easy to capture that. But we are constantly building new infrastructure to help us capture more useful energy. And experts in every field are constantly finding ways to make energy do more useful ways and to accomplish the same task with less energy and less materials. Computers, for instance, can do orders of magnitude more calculations with a fraction of the energy input that it once took.

To cut to the chase, what I've been thinking about is a currency or credit system which would be completely digital (out of necessity) and which would have a minimum and maximum balance for all account holders. (people) Let's use the example of 0-100 being the range in which you could go. Everyone would start out with the same amount of credits and these would become immediately available for trade among your local peers, online bloggers, or whomever you want to buy from or support.

A term I've come up with that I think aptly describes this idea is Opportunity Credits. Why do I call it that? Well, the intent is that this system would be a more ever-present token with which people could trade with and which would be, by its very nature, more evenly distributed among people. By design, people would not be able to collect great piles of that currency. People would be able to collect great wealth. But that is not the same thing as the currency we trade with.

Wealth is the stuff that we use. Natural resources, land, water, air, a house, rare earth minerals, skills, relationships, health, etc.

Paper money (or digital for that matter)...or even Gold (especially just sitting in your vault) is not really inherently valuable. Admittedly, gold has more inherent value than paper money but how many people have a use, want, or need for a hunk of Gold. Sure, there's probably trace amounts of it in your smartphone but I doubt there are many people that have the capability or the interest in manufacturing their own smartphone. So is it fair to say that real wealth is pretty separate from the stuff we commonly trade in?

Anyway, back on topic. all currency is a medium of exchange which functions as a representation and measure of the value that we collectively perceive of certain things. And of course profits and savings are mechanisms which allow for upward mobility and wealth building.

Money transfers signals. Here's the thing...there's a plethora of different types of signals that people are interested in. There's a lot of different kinds of value. There's monetary value, all the different kinds of natural resources, brand establishment, customer relationships, trust, social capital, skills, time, opportunity, etc. Just to name a few...

It's safe to say that one single type of currency probably doesn't have the innate capacity to carry all those different signals very well. And, no, various country's currencies don't really count as different types of currency. Nor do I think that Bitcoin is different enough to count as a whole new style of market signal. Sure, it's a little different but it still has much of the same features. That is, individuals who are early adopters or who get lucky can easily have their wealth amplified inordinately beyond others who worked just as hard or harder or who have even more value to offer.

Not all currencies are created equal. Currencies are what basically "represent" us. They reflect what type of person we are, how skilled we are, or how much work we do. Or, to put it more accurately, money is meant to reflect the perceived value that we create for others. It doesn't always seem to hold true though.

Is money fairly and accurately representing us? You can make your own assessment and come to your own conclusions.

My vision is that we can come up with at least one new kind of currency or credit system which has the innate quality of supporting the local, individual, unique value and opportunity that each and every one of us is capable of. And hopefully it can help us each gain access to those opportunities in ways that traditional money doesn't seem capable of.

"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." -William Gibson

Let's distribute the future a little more evenly, shall we?

Cheers to Optimization...

-Andrew

Google Announces Calico: What does it mean for the future of Health?

With the notably vague announcement of Calico by Google, pundits and nerds alike are left wondering about the details of what this will mean for emerging healthcare trends and life extension technologies in general.

Larry Page, CEO of Google, who originally made the announcement on G+ here, had this to say: "I’m excited to announce Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being, in particular the challenge of aging and associated diseases."

The startup involves Art Levinson, the Chairman of Genentech and a director of Hoffmann-La Roche, as well as Chairman of Apple.

I thought that my good friend Gideon Rosenblatt wrote up a great encapsulation of what we know so far in his post over on Google+. Gideon suggests that Google may leverage their significant search capacity and expertise as an entry-point into the genomic (genetic) bio-informatic sciences. If there's one thing Google's good at, it's big data. They index it, graph it, and use algorithms to help people find what they're looking for within that massive set of data.

Gideon says, "What do you want to bet it has to do with smart approaches to managing the data in our genetic code? That's my bet, but it will be interesting to see how this story unfolds over the next year and beyond. I just don't see the company straying that far from its core competencies and this bet is by Google, not Google Ventures."

Some are wondering if this announcement has something to do with Google's semi-recent hiring of the famous visionary, Ray Kurzweil. Ray Kurzweil is well known in the Transhumanism circles and is well respected as an accurate predictor of famous trends such as his Law of Accelerating Returns. (definitely well worth your time if you haven't read about it yet)

And others note the similarities with the work of Aubrey de Grey, a renowned anti-aging researcher and evangelist...also well respected in the Transhumanist, technological, and life extension communities. He's the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Research Foundation, (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) a non-profit devoted to researching "negligible senescence" and rejuvenation therapies.

de Grey has come up with a framework for classifying, studying, and targeting various types of aging processes which he believes to be comprehensive:
Cancer-causing nuclear mutations/epimutations—OncoSENS
Mitochondrial mutations—MitoSENS
Intracellular junk—LysoSENS
Extracellular junk—AmyloSENS
Cell loss and atrophy—RepleniSENS
Cell senescence—ApoptoSENS
Extracellular crosslinks—GlycoSENS

Increasingly, the bottleneck in science and health is becoming information-based. We have so much data we don't know what to do with it all. Biological organisms are extremely complex from a "static" viewpoint and significantly moreso when you realize that biology and chemistry are anything but static. If we have any hope of reaching a more useful understanding of what causes aging and the associated diseases, we are gonna need a lot of professional research, the right digital tools, and a large research effort.

The truly beautiful thing about science these days...or any subject/field...is the incredible access we each have via the Internet. The World Wide Web is really changing the landscape of science. Ideas can come from anywhere; anyone. Projects can be initiated and supported by ad-hoc "virtual" teams from around the Earth. Questions can be asked from experts in fields we know very little about. An altruistic individual can help disseminate knowledge and raise questions and spark conversations about virtually any topic and anyone interested can chime in. Google+ is a fantastic blessing we have and I'm extremely grateful that Google built that amazing social network...and indeed this very blogging platform I'm typing this in.

Open-Source is a concept, philosophy, movement, and more...practically speaking, it is one of the many wonders of our digital age. An enormous opportunity for volunteers to achieve huge milestones, projects, or even breakthroughs by simply collaborating, hacking, and co-creating together. Small contributions add up to sometimes become world renowned public services, products, knowledge, etc.

So what am I bringing up this optimistic view of self-organizing online interest/topic-oriented communities for? Well, I think that citizen scientists, research hobbyists, and nerds who like to dabble in various subjects that interest them at the time...are a key ingredient in humanity's mission to get everyone healthier and (more) immune to aging.

There are scores of startups and even big established corporations moving into this space. There are numerous fitness trackers, such as Fitbit, the Nike Fuel Band, the Jawbone UP, and the MyBasis that have sprung onto the market recently and more to come. There is Watson by IBM. They are doing some amazing things in healthcare.

Not to mention the whole lifehacking movement and bio-hacking. (I find bio-hacking incredibly exciting by the way.)

I will shamelessly mention that I am also personally invested (time-wise...not so much financially) in this whole health/anti-aging scene. I spend a lot of time reading and researching about cutting edge science about disease and nutrition. This is an area I'm paying close attention to. I think we can each contribute in our own way. And indeed health really requires personal responsibility anyway. We can't just pay for it. We have to put in the effort, go to the gym, go on a run, do pushups in your room, do pullups at the local park, eat right, get quality sleep...whatever you've gotta do to take yourself to the next level.

So this definitely appears to be an area that is growing rapidly. I'd really appreciate some feedback and would love to hear what my readers have to say about this new venture by Google. Are you as excited about the possibilities and opportunities of radical life extension as I am? p.s. sorry if my thoughts are disjointed. I'm working on it.

Cheers to Optimization!

Think for yourself, with others in mind...