You are a salvage specialist skirting the edge of the forbidden sector. A region of space where no-one is allowed to enter. Suddenly your proximity sensor starts blaring! Something just showed up just over the border, where no one travels. And it’s something big. Should you investigate? Should you break the treaty to see what’s there?

In many ways your life is like an adventure game. Unfortunately there isn’t much preamble or lead in. You’re born and, “bam! Figure it out!” Sure there are a few years of slow activity at the beginning. But most of that time is spent figuring out the controls work and learning the interface. How do you walk? How do you talk? What’s this body for anyway?

We have a limited amount of time on this planet. In that time, we need to figure out what we’re supposed to do here. It’s sort of like the ultimate adventure game. Adventure is out there waiting for you to explore and discover.

Here are a few tips to make the game better for everyone.

Don’t spend all your time at the inn bickering with the inn keeper. Go out and explore.

Don’t spend your time worrying about how other people are playing the game. It’s their quarter, let them play their way.

Don’t worry about others complaining about how you play the game. It’s your quarter, play your way.

Don’t spend your time in fear of what might happen. Lots of things could go wrong, and probably will. But on average many things will go right. And the things that go wrong are called challenges, they give you a chance to step up and earn extra points. Yes, we still don’t know what good those points will do us, but it can be fun just to see your score go up.

Do encourage other players. Sometimes someone else will be going through a bonus round and you won’t even know it. Maybe they need that extra power boost of a hug or just a kind word to help them level up.

Do be kind to yourself. If you run into a particular puzzle that you can’t solve, maybe you need to come back to it later. Without the cheat guide it can be really hard to solve some of the puzzles on the first attempt. Allow for mistakes.

Do remember, you’re here for the experience. Enjoy the mystery.

Namaste,

Kevin

Normal. Average. Expected Behavior. Common.

These words all have a very specific meaning. Oddly depending on the context the actions they describe could be drastically different. It’s easy enough to say that “Most people are average”. Or that “The average person acts normally”. Or even “That kind of behavior is expected and common”. But in reality we tend to edit out the expected. Ignore the normal. And backseat the average. We have a tendency to ignore that which we truly expect.

Conversely our minds are like hot pink highlighters for the outliers. When we see unexpected behavior alarms start going off in our heads with bright red flashing lights. Abnormal behavior triggers our minds into contrast mode as we itemize all of the flaws, errors or outright bloopers occurring in front of our eyes.

So when we spot that abnormal outliers, behaving in uncommon and unexpected ways, we speak up. Sometimes we correct. Sometimes we reprimand. Sometimes we just yell! “That’s a red light you just ran buddy!”, “How dare you treat me like this!?!”, “Would you talk to your mother that way?!?”.

Interestingly, it is much more rare for someone to speak up in support of behavior they expect. Our minds think, that this is the normal and civilized way for people to behave. So when someone does something we would have done ourselves, or would have expected, we tend to take it for granted. We believe, that the behavior observed, is the right way to behave. By taking it for granted, you are effectively ignoring it, and potentially discouraging it from happening again.

We really do want the world to be a better place. Additionally we truly need to believe that we are behaving in a way that makes the world a better place. So why not prop up the people that we see behaving in a way that makes that dream a reality? Why not become the voice of advocacy that encourages those normal, average, expected, common people to continue to be normal, average, expected and common?

We need to seek out a model of positive reinforcement. When you see something you like, say something. Don’t expect it. Don’t take it for granted. Don’t let the moment of sanity pass unremarked. Be the voice that speaks up and says “I like the world you’re building. Thank you!”

Namaste,

Kevin

I was thinking about legos this week… More specifically I was thinking about building blocks.

Imagine this hierarchy.

City

Buildings

Blocks

Limestone, Ash and Water with an Oven (or kiln)

This is a gross over simplification. But in many ways that’s feeds my point. We all tend to stand on the shoulders of those that came before us. Not everyone can make bricks. But many people train on how to lay bricks. Not everybody designs buildings, but a few people may be experts at planning cities. We have to work at becoming professionals in the context in which we practice most, but it doesn’t mean we become experts in all levels from chemistry to city planning. There are levels where we let our expertise shine and levels where we trust to the skills and efficiency of those that make it their trade. It does not mean we can not do it. It means we should consider whether we should do it.

There are master craftsman who can do it all. But they have spend years crafting their skills and learning each aspect. At some point they were a beginner and knew nothing. All they had was aptitude and desire to learn. So when you take on something new, but look at the expert who knows it all, it can be very daunting to expect yourself to know it all as well. You have to take off chunks at a time and allow others knowledge to fill in the gaps. Even experts focus their energies within a core area of passion. The keys are focus and patience.

Let’s look at another example:

Book

Chapters

Paragraph

Sentence

Words

Letters

English

Here is an example where the person doing the heavy lifting is master of most of the components in the hierarchy. When you write a book it is built of chapters. Those chapters are built up from individual sentences forming paragraphs. These sentences are all based off of words that are formed from letters. Then you have the abstract concept outside of this heirarchy of ideas for the book and translating those ideas into words. With all this skill and knowledge it’s still being based on the standing on the shoulders of the english language and of course the alphabet, concepts and ideas created long before us.

So what’s my point?

Well, when you consider being creative, it’s easy to get blocked by one level or another of the creative process. You don’t even realize that this is the thing holding you back, because you’re trying to do something new. You are in uncharted territory and uncertain how to proceed. Often the reaction is to give up and assume you can’t do it. When you may in fact need to determine the size of the building block that you’re willing to work with. Sometimes this means breaking the problem down and chewing off small chunks, this is often called reinventing the wheel. If someone else has solved the problem previously, you can benefit from their knowledge and utilize their existing ‘wheel’. Sometimes this means switching out your problem with someone else’s solution, eg: using their wheel.

Let’s say you’re trying to build a house and you start mixing dirt and water together and stacking slabs of mud to build your walls. For some reason instead of getting tall straight walls you end up getting low arched puddles. Your walls are really just mounds of wet dirt. What’s the next solution? You could re-evaluate your approach to using mud, research how dirt can be made into bricks, refine your knowledge on baking bricks, and start a kiln up to produce bricks for your walls. Then just produce enough bricks to build your house. Or, you could go the store and buy a load of bricks. Maybe brick building from scratch isn’t your forte, but stacking bricks is your thing. If you remove the hurdle in your path of having to build your own bricks you could find you build houses really well. You just kinda stink at making bricks.

So when you try to take on something new, be gracious and try to focus on the fun. Determine if you’re goal is to make your own wheel, or if what you really want is a better cart, but you can leverage someone else’s wheels. The problems you face can be less daunting when you learn to lean on others where needed. This doesn’t make you less creative, it makes you part of a community.

Namaste,

Kevin