Categories
General

Letting Go in Mastering Creativity

Understanding the fractal process of creativity and how it allows us to master it in an ever increasing context, even allowing us to let go of our constructed Self.

I mentioned in my last post a personal “altered state” experience from many years back. Why I decided to fully share this experience now is because I noticed similarities to how this experience was so extremely difficult to replicate for myself (that I was never able to do so again) and how it mirrors the extreme difficulty in achieving aspects of the triple-loop learning process as described by Markus F. Peschl in his paper entitled Triple-Loop Learning as Foundation for Profound Change, Individual Cultivation, and Radical Innovation.

As I mentioned in trying to replicate my experience, my greatest fear was in not being able to return to my sense of self and identity because I had to let go of my sense of self and identity and fall into this space of both emptiness and everything (extreme darkness and light). The following excerpt from the paper is what caught my attention, as it seems to mirror this same very thing on an existential level.

The Fear of Letting Go

Letting go. In order to reach this state of emergence it is – at first – necessary to let go what one has discovered in this process of redirection and exploration of one’s own premises, assumptions, etc. “ […] you have to change from voluntarily turning your attention from the exterior to the interior, to simply accepting and listening. In other words, […] you go from “looking for something” to “letting something come to you,” to “letting something be revealed.” What is difficult here is that you have to get through an empty time, a time of silence, and not grab onto whatever data is immediately available, for that’s already been rendered conscious, and what you’re after is what is still unconscious at the start.” (Depraz, Varela, and Vermersch 2003, p. 31) Of course, this process can cause existential fear in some cases, because one loses the (epistemological) ground on which one is standing and which normally provides a rather stable cognitive framework. This is a well-known state in the constructivist framework (if it is adopted in a reflected manner). Being in a state of receptivity always means being in a relatively passive role which brings about a higher chance of being (epistemologically and existentially) hurt. However, surrendering into this rather receptive and open state does not imply that one is completely passive; rather, the contrary is the case: in a way one finds oneself in an active state of extremely high attention towards what is coming up without trying to project one’s own expectations, plans, knowledge, etc. It is a slightly paradoxical situation: on the one hand one is waiting seemingly passively for what is going to happen and on the other hand this is a highly active state concerning one’s attention and receptiveness. These processes of trying to get empty and at the same time to be attentive towards what is going on “out there” are well known from art and religious traditions as well as from Husserl’s phenomenological approach (e.g., the concept of epoche).

This is the closest description I’ve seen to describing the moment just before I’m ready to try to cross over into this altered-state. Experientially I’m cocooned in this rhythmic experience of deep breathing and visually seeing “waves” of something (or nothingness) drifting across my eyes, even though they are closed. As I said, it is in this in between space where I am neither where I am nor where I want to be. I’m just letting go, letting things happen, and letting things emerge. Again I’m totally passive, letting things emerge but at the same time very awake, attentive, and receptive to what is trying to happen. I believe this may mirror what is also known as “holding space” for others but on a different lower level of being.

But of course, again at the point where this “portal” of feeling emerges, as though I am being pulled through into an altered state that is greater than my Self, that’s where the “existential fear” strikes. The fear that if I let this happen, I will lose my self and identity and not be able to return to my Self. In effect, “I” will be lost forever within this in between space.

The Process of Creativity

One can describe that process as a U-shaped curve that is realized in a series of states: the left branch going down the “U” focuses on issues of observation, perception, sensing, discovery of patterns of thought and cognition, and on how to leave these patterns behind oneself in order to be cognitively and emotionally “prepared” for profound change. At the bottom one finds him-/herself in the state of presencing: it can be characterized as a condition of high receptivity and openness and as a state where radically new knowledge/ change can emerge. The upward branch deals with issues concerning the realization, prototyping, and embodying these changes in the (external or internal) environment.

Going beyond the excitement of seeing words that describe this altered-state experience I had decades ago are seeing words, like the ones above, that also closely mirror what I’ve been trying to articulate as the process of creativity for past five years or more. In effect, the three “branches” of this U-Theory (or as Peter Senge refers to it as “presencing”) are what I refer to as the Connecting, Empowering, and Inspiring stages of the creative process.

The Fractal Universality of the Creative Process

Finally, it has to be mentioned that this way of looking at profound change processes can not only be applied on an individual level (“individual cultivation”), but also in the collective domain of organizations, social systems, etc.

What’s even more remarkable is seeing the above words which I’ve reiterated time and again that the process of creativity is mirrored universally at both the individual and collective level. In effect, it is a fractal process. That’s why it’s not so much a linear process as it is a cyclic and spiral one. When one begins to see the “multitude” of themselves individually (and later how this actually leads to the Future of Work with multi-potential people working in a completely new context), one begins to understand this.

Learning to Master Creativity in New Ways & Contexts

If these methods were combined with approaches from other fields (such as phenomenology), a highly sophisticated and powerful paradigm for radical/profound change could emerge. This paradigm would not only have a deep impact on the process of how profound change can be brought about, but could also trigger a new understanding of science that is compatible with the constructivist approach and that has a broader perspective on knowledge, its dynamics, and its permanent renewal and innovation.

This closing paragraph really surprised me though because when I read the words “a new understanding of science”, I immediately thought of Dave Gray using the scientific method for his Lab of the Possible. And when I thought of that, I immediately realized I was seeing a bigger fractal pattern here, one that I was able to step back from and see it rippling outward at a broader and broader scale.

You see I have been realizing more and more that while the process of creativity has this universality to it, at the same time there are these differences with it as one evolves and grows through the stages of human development (ie Cook-Greuter, Frédéric Laloux, etc). In effect, yes everyone is obviously creative but obviously not all in the same way. What I’m referring to here is how a person learns to master creativity. In effect, like everything else (even understanding your passion and purpose in life), it’s not an off or on state but rather a process of learning, articulating, and mastering it over time and, more importantly, applying this creative capacity in new ways and in new contexts.

And if you look at and understand the evolution of moving from single-loop learning to double-loop learning to triple-loop learning, this same fractal pattern of changing creative context can be seen. In working towards mastering single-loop learning, one realizes and learns that the things within our reality are creatively constructed. In working towards mastering double-loop learning, one realizes and learns that the reality around them is creatively constructed. In working towards triple-loop learning, one realizes and learns that their very sense of Self is creatively constructed. So again collectively, one is learning to master creativity in an ever increasingly greater context.

Categories
Vertical Development

My Experience

In light of some recent research that has verified a higher level perspective of the creative process that I’ve been intuiting for some time, I thought it important to relay an experience that occurred to me back in the early 1990s. Why it is important to do so is because aspects of this experience seem to closely mirror the descriptions I’ve recently read in a research paper. In effect, my life seems to be coming full circle and this experience seems to be a foundational moment to it.

Back in the early 1990s, I was living with my wife in Vancouver, having been together at least two or three years. While going to sleep one night, I feel asleep in an unusual sort of way compared to normal. I was lying on my back with my arms crossed in front of me and my legs and feet next to each other touching firmly. As I drifted off to sleep, I thought to myself that I felt like I was lying like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh being buried and passing on to the afterlife. 

As I drifted off to sleep though, I also noticed my breathing was very deep and rhythmic. The blankets on the bed had been pulled up enough that they were close to my face and mouth but not close enough to be touching. So there was this gap, a space, where my breathing was channeled and focused, making it more noticeable. As I breathed and listened to myself breathing, this sense of being in between this space amplified. So I was not thinking of myself in bed, nor thinking of the room around me. I was in a sort of in between empty space between both.

When I finally drifted off to sleep, the locations within my dream seemed very apocalyptic. I was on an abandoned highway that was climbing higher and higher into the hills and into a mountain range (reminiscent of the California hills used in the TV series MASH). Destroyed cars and school buses lay strewn alongside the roadside. In front of me, an overpass lay broken and crumbled on the roadway, as I continued to slowly climb up and up. 

Imagine being able to feel every single atom in your body and every single atom floating around you.

Eventually I neared the top of the hilly mountain range and stepped up and onto its peak. When I did, something shifted profoundly in the experience. It’s like I was no longer in a dream but what was happening to me was now very real and vivid. As I stepped up onto the top of the hilly mountain range, my body just lifted up into the air and I began to float forward off the edge of the mountain. My gaze shifted to what was in front of me and what I felt was so vivid it is hard to describe. 

Imagine being able to feel every single atom in your body and every single atom floating around you. That’s what it felt like. I felt completely naked, being able to feel everything at the tiniest detail. I could feel the air around me…the space, the emptiness, the environment, the flow (reminiscent of the Amy Adams scene in Arrival shown above, where her hair is flowing as she floats). In the background, I could still hear my breathing but it became a rhythmic part of the breath of this space. Small chimes could be heard in the distance as well. 

After the feeling of the space, I looked up and experienced the visual grandeur of it. It was like seeing nothing and everything at the same time. Around me, the black emptiness of space engulfed me. It was enormous, beyond comprehension. And yet in front of me in the far distance was a light, so great it was blinding. So there I floated, between a space of infinite emptiness and infinite light. I remember someone telling me it must have been scary, yet I felt completely safe, like I was floating within my mother’s womb. 

It was like seeing nothing and everything at the same time.

And then I “awoke”, if it can be called that. I opened my eyes and I felt like I was both back in my bed but also still in the space I envisioned at the same time. I could feel every cell in my body, hear the rhythmic breathing and chimes fading as I slowly looked around my bed room. 

I can’t remember if I told my wife of the experience after it happened the next day. I don’t think I did until years later. Where it gets really interesting though is that I tried to replicate entering this “altered state” again later, lying and breathing in the same way. I always came close to it, to the edge of it, but failed to fully cross over though because of one primary thing. A fear of losing myself in the crossover.

It was like when I opened this space in between spaces, I felt like the stability of who I was started to vanish. In effect, to enter into this space, this state, I had to fully let go of who I was. I had to be nothing and everything at the same time. The fear that arose in doing this was never the fear of letting go, which I thought it was at first, but the fear of never coming back to what I was. So this fear of being lost in this void with no sense of self, no solid, stable sense of identity. That was the fear that prevented me from crossing over and experiencing this experience again.

Categories
Quotes

The Group Within

This is simply to say that for innovation we need diversity of group, which includes the “group” inside each of us. We must each foster our own internal collective.

Beau Lotto
Categories
Quotes

Seeing Different Paradigms of Meaning

But the literal meaning does not convey the larger meaning unless both speaker and listener share the same foundation of understanding about the topic and belong to the same paradigm.

Morten Rand-Hendriksen
Categories
Web

Considering Web Design Again

WordPress Gutenberg and CSS Flexbox & Grids are seriously making me consider doing web design again.

After being ecstatic about the future direction of Gutenberg and even more excited about the future direction of CSS Flexbox and Grids and how they both work together, I’m at a point in my life where I’m seriously considering getting back into web design again.

Having said that, over the past few days I’ve been reviewing where all of these things are at in terms of their development and usage to see if it’s worthwhile to start working with these now. Based upon what I’ve found, I don’t think it’s worthwhile getting on board just yet, at least for myself, due to the following reasons.

  1. Gutenberg is still probably at least a half year away from completion.
  2. While Flexbox seems to be gaining traction, there doesn’t seem to be many style editor plugins that incorporate it yet (i.e. Microthemer does include it).
  3. CSS Grids almost have little to no adoption yet, so I haven’t really seen any developer tools that I’d like to use incorporating them yet. Even more so, very few theme developers seem to be developing with it either.

All said and done, if I can find a theme developer that is really breaking new ground with Flexbox and CSS Grid within their themes (even providing customizations due to their flexibility) then I’d seriously consider web design again. The key thing in all of this is that I don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel and relearn everything from scratch. Rather, I want someone else to invent the wheel for me, as a foundational tool, that I can then build upon and modify to my needs, as well as for the needs of others.

Update Jan 17/2018: Completely rethinking this.

What I just realized is that I’m no better off if I wait to dive into this all. In effect, I have needs in terms of my website right now and I’m finding most WP themes don’t meet my functional needs no matter how great they look.

All said and done, to meet my needs right now, I’ll may as well dive in building templates with WordPress right now since certain aspects of it will still exist when Gutenberg is launched, whereas other aspects will completely disappear. The key thing is to not to lose track of what will disappear when Gutenberg is released, so that I don’t waste too much time learning it, only to discard it later.

Whats clearly evident though is I need to map out both my current needs and vision of what I would like WordPress to become (i.e. my next gen CMS vision).

Update Jan 19/2018: Seems I’m not alone in this situation. Spoke to PixelGrade, a prominent WP theme developer, and they are in a sort of holding pattern as well, waiting for Gutenberg to stabilize and finalize before they fully test it and update their existing themes for it. Seems to me there’s not too much I can do if I want to work on web stuff for Gutenberg until it actually stabilizes. In effect, the foundation of my work will be based upon it, so can’t do much until that foundation is stabilized.

Update Mar 6/2018: Having spent the time trying to get a theme that works the way that I want it to for this site, I’m realizing that WordPress has a long way to go before it has the tools and structure that work the way I want it to. Based upon what I’ve read, it looks like Gutenberg may emerge out of beta by mid 2018 and I’ll reassess by then. In the interim, I’m quite happy with this Scrawl WordPress theme and the modifications I’ve made to it. It almost has a Medium.com feel to it. Even more so, it will allow me to easily add content in a variety of forms, long or short form.

Update Mar 15/2019: More than a year later after writing this post and after reviewing a variety of themes, most with mediocre Gutenberg support at best, I believe I’ve finally found a theme that has the design & functionality that I’ve been looking for which is Authentic by Code Supply Co. While this theme isn’t 100% perfect, it is amazing and way, way, way better than many other themes I’ve reviewed. In fact, the back end Customizer area is awesome, especially with regards to the customization that can be achieved with the Header, Navigation, and Featured Image areas. In fact, I’d even go so far to say that it meets the design & functionality I experienced when using Squarespace and even surpasses it in certain areas. Therefore, in going forward, while I will probably not do full web design work again, I’d definitely like to use this theme to help other people “get online” in a simple yet empowering way.

Categories
Web

My Past Towards The Future of the Web

In the 1990’s, I was fascinated with the emergence of the Web, as well as the emergence of online multiplayer video games. I built online communities around these video games in my personal time which eventually lead to professional work as a Senior Web Developer building communities hubs for notable video game publishers such as Sierra, Activision, and Konami.

Discovering Squarespace

After the Dot.com Bomb period though in 2001, I went freelance and eventually discovered Squarespace in 2004 as a web publishing platform and I absolutely loved designing with it. As an integrated platform, Squarespace was light years ahead of the competition, incorporating a way to structure, layout, and style a website, all within a browser. Because of this, you could rapidly develop a website in just a few days or weeks instead of few months. At the time, I saw so much potential and evolving possibilities for the platform.

With the release of Squarespace Version 5 and Version 6 though, it was becoming more and more apparent that the platform was not going in the direction I had hope for. When Version 5 was launched in 2008, I remember being told you could build “anything” with it but after addressing my concerns, no public admittance of the limitations of the platform came out until a Squarespace 2010 Roadmap post. Hoping Version 6 would address these concerns in 2012, the platform as a whole was almost completely neutered for a rebuild, losing most of its flexibility and functionality to become more of backend developer platform, rather than the stellar front end designer platform it once was.

What I Had Hoped Squarespace Could Be

Throughout the years using Squarespace, I had been asked what I wanted it to become and I think in 2012, when I launched Evolution for Squarespace Version 5, I think this was a cumulative last ditched attempt at articulating what I had hoped it could be. Evolution was basically a javascript-based framework file that you loaded onto your Squarespace site, thus empowering it with more flexibility and functionality, thus overcoming the limitations of the platform.

The idea and inception for Evolution actually started out years earlier when I was much more involved in the Squarespace community forums. At that time, I kept seeing different people coming forward with the same problems and yet nothing ever got fully resolved or made easier. While I tried to help people out solving specific problems, I found that it was like sticking a finger in a dam that kept sprouting one leak after another. In effect, to solve all of these problems, a completely new way of working with the system needed to be devised.

While I tried to help people out solving specific problems, I found that it was like sticking a finger in a dam that kept sprouting one leak after another.

While Evolution includes features for incorporating Grids and additional Styles (i.e. magazine style elements such as hero images with text overlay options) on your Squarespace site, it was its Placement feature that was its primarily selling point. In effect, it allowed a person to move Squarespace content blocks anywhere on their site rather than just within the page or post content area. This was something not even Squarespace Version 6 could do.

Alas, while there was evident community interest for these features within Evolution, once people realized they had to manually activate these features using CSS “Activator” classes, they quickly lost interest. In effect, people wanted these features integrated into Squarespace, not hacked on top of it. Unfortunately most of these people didn’t realize that you couldn’t modify Squarespace core features, only Squarespace could do that. Therefore, without much further ado, my professional web design career ended.

Common Conventional Problems

What is interesting to note though is that after web design, my interests gravitated to community development and how that related to organizational development, more specifically The Future of Work. What’s amazing to realize is that upon reflection of both of these interests, web publishing and organizational development, both at their core have very similar problems. They both try to force people to work in limited ways with predefined behaviours of functionality “hard coded” into the system, rather than letting people flexibly construct their own behavioural functionality that works for their own unique needs.

They both try to force people to work in limited ways with predefined behaviours of functionality “hard coded” into the system…

For example, most web publishing platforms let you create a blog which is a collection of posts, formatted in a typical fashion, and sorted in reverse chronological order. The beauty of Squarespace Version 5 and earlier was that it didn’t limit you to this. Any end user with no coding experience whatsoever could create a collection of posts sorted alphabetically or chronologically by making a few adjustments to the block settings, thus allowing them to create an alphabetic company directory using categories to define the different departments of the company. In comparison to achieve the same simple modification in Version 6, you would need to be a Web Developer with years of experience under your belt.

Another example is the usage of blocks for content creation, which Squarespace itself introduced as its Layout Engine in Version 6. This was truly a ground breaking leap for Squarespace but it limited its usage to just the page and post content area, rather than letting the end user layout and build their entire website with it (i.e. header, content, sidebar, footer).

WordPress: Gutenberg

After leaving Squarespace, I did try to find an alternative platform comparable to it but nothing came close. I did eventually settle on using WordPress for my own site but I found its community highly fractured, all using different approaches, thus making jumping from one theme to another highly frustrating. In comparison, switching themes in Version 5 and earlier of Squarespace was a breeze, as all of the templates utilized the same HTML structure and CSS class Selector names, thus making it extremely simple to modify a new theme.

When WordPress initially announced Gutenberg, it first came across as a “new editor” that would provide enhanced functional and flexibility to WordPress. This somewhat peaked my interest and gave me hope for using WordPress for design and development again but what I really wanted was something that went beyond just the content area. Low and behold, after being out of the loop on the status of developments for Gutenberg for a while, I was stunned to watch a December 2017 WordCamp presentation by Morten Rand-Hendriksen in which he articulated capabilities within it that mirrored my own idea of a next generation CMS (see 18;00 minute mark of video), similar to what I had wanted Squarespace to become.

This to me is The Future of the Web. It is what I had initially envisioned a decade ago. That this same vision is being seen, understood, and accepted by WordPress, the most popular open source web publishing platform on the planet, just blows my mind even more so because it means they are building it for a community with easy sharing and portability in mind. I can hardly wait!

This to me is The Future of the Web.

In closing, let me just say this. While I’m thankful for Squarespace for truly breaking ground in using LEGO-like blocks to build a website, initially with “blocks” being page modules and then later creating actual block elements on a page / post level with the Layout Engine, I’m so glad it is an open source company such as WordPress that is taking this next big leap, as it will hopefully open up a new accessible frontier for the Web as a whole.

Categories
Photos

Birds Within Tree

The higher you fly, the farther you go.

Quick snapshot of birds within a tree in Vancouver.

Categories
Creativity

Describing The Seemingly Indescribable Aspects of Creativity

Over the past five years or so, my work has been culminating and really starting to take on form for me.  To put it another way, it’s been synthesizing and crystallizing into clarity. As I’ve noted in my last post though, while this clarity has been emerging for me, it’s been difficult and a struggle to relay it to others though.

Articulating The Unknown

Particularly I remember one conversation with someone, where I expressed my desire to write my research all out into a cohesive form but how difficult it was to do so. This person had written some of his own fictional work already and said to me, “What’s the problem? You just need to write it out now.” The problem I think people like this are missing is that I’m not writing a fictional story, where I can just make up elements to make the narrative work, nor am I writing about something fully known, like writing a technical manual for some software. I’m writing about something that is unknown, yet struggling to be known.

The closest comparison I can give to trying to understand creativity is trying to understand quantum physics. You can’t just easily write out what you know and are observing because what you know and are observing often goes against everything conventionally know. As it was noted in an article I found the other day, this is because creativity destroys paradigms. So it’s like trying to explain something to someone in which you can’t use a basis of knowledge (i.e. an existing paradigm) to describe it. This is why people often have to use metaphors instead, saying at best it is similar to this or that.

Metaphors Bridge The Unknown

For myself, I’ve used metaphors existensively over the past years to try to encapsulate what creativity is like, yet I find trying to find and use just one metaphor often doesn’t fully encapsulate all of creativity. Thus I’m continually going in this loop, using different metaphors to describe it, yet unable to find a metaphor that encompasses it all. Because of this, I’ve been quite hard on myself, saying things like “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I figure this out?” But that all changed recently.

A few weeks back, I came across a new book entitled The Storm of Creativity by Kyna Leski and John Antonelli which I’m currently in the process of reading now. What pulled me to the book was the metaphor of creativity as a storm, as I’ve used similar metaphors describing creativity like a maelstrom, tempest, tornado,  and hurricane which has chaos on its outside, yet a calm stability within its core. What really excited me was the book structure though. In effect, while the storm metaphor was the overarching theme, each chapter tried to give a different perspective of creativity, thus helping you truly understand creativity only by synthesizing all of these diverse perspectives into one.

Why this is remarkable is that I’ve used this same metaphor to describe the creative process as well. In effect, the creative process is like virtually walking around something unknown, seeing it from different perspectives, and then synthesizing those differing, almost contradictory, perspectives into one integrated perspective which helps you understand it as a whole (which mirrors the often told Blind Men and The Elephant parable).

Being Comfortable With Ambiguity

So today, I now feel much more relaxed with my work and with my struggle to articulate it. In effect, if some of the leading people on creativity research are having difficulty articulating what it is, I shouldn’t be so hard on myself for my struggle in articulating it as well. To put it another way, this struggle is a normal part of the creative process itself. So while it may feel like you’re doing something wrong and failing, it’s actually a normal part of the process. Best of all, I’m excited because many of the metaphors I’ve used to try to articulate creativity are similarly being used by others to try to describe it as well. Thus collectively our differing perspectives are merging and finding a commonality with one another, helping creativity to take shape with even more clarity.

Categories
General

Tools That Limit My Creative Momentum

I feel like I’m at an important point in my life’s work, a point where it’s momentum needs to shift and change, transforming into something else, so that it can naturally evolve. The key problem I’m encountering with trying to increase this momentum is energy, specifically trying to maintain and increase this energy, thus increasing my momentum in turn.

For example, right now I have a process whereby I collect and gather information by reading it in digital Kindle book form or PDF form, by archiving website articles using PrintFriendly. This process is very fluid and easy, letting me highlight text using different colours to signify importance and also to annotate highlighted text with my own notes to connect them to this larger picture that I’m seeing. The key problem with this approach is that all of my research is hidden to everyone else though (yet it’s very portable, always with me, even offline).

I’ve tried other services to replicate this process publicly but my main concern as always is maintaining the life and portability of my research. I’m tired of my research being stuck or locked within a third party service and if that service goes out of business then I’ve lost all that work (at least from a public perspective, since most services allow you to export an archive of your work for yourself).

I’ve likened this throughout the years to constructing a telephone every time you want to make a phone call.

Of course the flip side of this is using open source software that you host yourself (i.e. WordPress) but with which doesn’t offer the same fluidity and ease of use compared to other third party services. So then I have to jump to trying to figure out ways to emulate this functionality within the software which deviates from my research itself. I’ve likened this throughout the years to constructing a telephone every time you want to make a phone call. It’s ludicrous and frustrating, as from my perspective, web software and platforms, haven’t really evolved that much over the last couple of decades.

All said and done thought, it’s where I have go though if I want to continue forward, building momentum. In effect, I need to stop, modify my own platform to my own needs, so that I can progress forward.

Categories
Creativity

The River of Change

Conventional thinking focuses on crossing a river of change.

Post conventional thinking focuses on immersing and becoming the river itself.