“The first draft of anything is shit.” – ERNEST HEMINGWAY.
“We were all thinking the same thing: Holy shit, this guy’s gonna kill himself.” – THE RISE OF SUPERMAN, STEVEN KOTLER.
a. That moment in time was the beginning. Little did I know at that time, but somehow I had an intuitive grasp that everything was about to change. This is a story about how it changed.
WHY? IS EVERYTHING! VERSION 2.0
Something highly unusual happened to me around 10-years ago. And reflecting back over those past 10-years now, I can say with confidence it was the single most significant positively charged event that took place in my whole entire life. I, unconsciously, produced a piece of writing that seemed to make no sense to anybody whatsoever. The very piece of writing you have just read before clicking on the link at the end. I wrote it on Saturday 7th November 2015. It was my first attempt at a long form piece of writing. But because I hadn’t yet started to read books other than a couple of personal development books, I was still completely illiterate, which explains why it probably made no sense. However it was a very important moment as it was:
THE START OF THE 10,000 HOUR PROCESS
I attended a music conference in Berlin, Germany called Ableton Loop Berlin. And something magical seemed to have transpired the moment I arrived home. I was noticing myself somehow writing for the first time, unconsciously. As in, words were flying everywhere without me even thinking about them. I noticed that hours were flying by whilst my head was stuck to pages and the ink was literally flowing. I couldn’t pull myself away from paper: something I had never experienced before. It was beautiful, and it felt magical. Then out of nowhere, I started to run three times a day. Every single day. Everything was starting to change.
THE ENERGY WAS UNREAL
In these moments I started to say and do things which to observers seemed totally strange and unusual. Some people were even worried about me. Yet I felt like I was floating. Over the course of the weeks that followed, I couldn’t sleep. Because I was drawing on whiteboards all through the night. I was reading all through the night. I was writing all through the night. What I had yet to discover though was what was happening with me, to me, I was immersed in experiencing:
FLOW FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER
I had never felt or experienced anything like it before in my whole entire life prior to going to that event. And one of the things that took place at that event was I attended a talk called:
FLOW: ON IMMERSION AND FOCUS IN MAKING MUSIC
So there I was. At this conference, all alone in Germany. And there was this chair in the corner of the room which seemed to baffle everyone, including me. We thought it was a game. To this day I still don’t know what it was. And while I’m not sure if it had anything to do with anything at all, it was a headset you wore in front of a screen with instructions that read:
Select the elements by flying low or flying high. To fly high, think of complex things. To fly low, think of one thing only. Give the installations a bit of time until you feel that you can control the flight with your thoughts…”
We all had a go at it. Then the people before me said it’s not working. I had a go at it. Then I thought it wasn’t working. But clearly it was there for a reason and doing something was always my assumption.
HOW HIGH WILL YOU FLY?
So here I am. At a conference in Berlin. This weird headset thing that asked you to think deep thoughts whilst wearing it. Then I went to a talk on the subject of flow, something which I knew nothing about, never heard of before, and even after I left I felt like I had no idea what the hell that was about. It just didn’t make any sense. And so, I left at the end of it feeling confused. Not really knowing what the point in that was. And heard others in the corridor saying the same thing. And yet, I felt something.
What I realised, but this didn’t arrive until many months after was this was a seed being planted in my unconscious. For how else could something that made no sense start to manifest itself into coming home and reproducing what I now know to be are the symptoms of and conditions for flow and starting to experience these states daily for months on end, without knowing:
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?
How am I suddenly able to read books with concentration fir the first time ever for hours at a time? How am I writing nonstop for hours at a time? How can I be running like this without even feeling myself doing? How can you produce work without any conscious thought or effort as to where or how? It’s still somewhat of a mystery. However ,I don’t care. I was desperate to learn and know as much as possible. And because of that maybe the angels of inspiration felt it, then carried me away, took me home and set me off in the direction I didn’t understand prior but needed to go in order to advance and make progress. Because after I came home, it felt like I was literally flying. I was racing buses up and down the road all day. Sunshine or rain. It didn’t matter.
Headphones on. Locked in the zone. Off you go.
I used to drink, and experimented with drugs back whenever I was young in nightclubs. And back then, I was on a road to nowhere. So I’m familiar with the effects of cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy and LSD. And for the record, I’m a 37-year old happily married father of two in a deeply loving relationship with my girlfriend back then who is my wife, and extremely hard working. That was 18-years ago. But my reason for needing to bring it up here now is in reference to this, for those who can attest to what it feels like being on these substances, I started to notice that by engaging in physical discipline and creative mental activities, I was experiencing what can easily be compared to the same levels of euphoria that you could otherwise only achieve from drugs.
WELCOME TO EUPHORIA
It was pure euphoria. Highs of unlimited energy and blissful pleasure all from simply challenging myself to become a little more than I was before. I had somehow managed to learn how to achieve the same sensations from within my own mind and body that previously could have only been felt when on drugs. This was not a mental breakdown. This was a complete breakthrough. For this had never happened to me in my entire life prior to being at that event. And I would bet my home that if I never attended that event, then these significant moments never took place after. Whatever I went seeking when I left for that conference, I came back with something that has since altered the trajectory of my life, in a really amazing way.
Flow has since helped me to get through absolutely anything and everything in life since. It is widely known as the most blissful state of experience that can be achieved in consciousness. If you are wanting the cure for depression, then flow is about as good as it gets. In flow, it’s impossible to be depressed. You are literally living on the opposite side of the spectrum. Anyone who is in flow or knows how to get in flow, is truly alive and living their best life. They can also never feel bored.
NOTHING COMES CLOSE TO IT
You somehow get to be miles ahead of yourself, long before you’ve even caught up with yourself. I know that sounds kinda crazy and paradoxical, but unfortunately, I don’t have any other way of explaining that. It’s almost like magic fairies come along in the middle of the night and guide you somewhere that you yourself couldn’t go or get to alone. It’s a strange, magical, euphoric destination that always elevates you to a higher level in whatever it is you are doing.
And so, as you would expect with this kind of projection, the more you can get into flow, the higher up the ladder you will go, physically and mentally. I never knew that you could produce the same sensations in your own mind that used to take drugs to achieve the same or similar experience. Not only does flow elevate you, but unlike hard drugs that are always bad for you and only ever make you worse after continually taking them, each time you arrive in flow, you not come back out of it with a stronger concept of self, but also a greater skill level than before you went into it. Flow is always an extremely positive experience.
I was running several times a day, and all without even feeling my physical self doing it. I was forgetting to eat. Even though I hadn’t eaten the whole day. I was forgetting to sleep. Even though I hadn’t slept. Forgetting that I even needed to go to the toilet. I can’t count now how many days I watched the nights turn into mornings whilst I sat on the floor writing and drawing all night long. Going into the following day, with no food, or sleep, then running again.
NOVEMBER 2015
Was perhaps the most magical time of my life. It was also the most unusual. And there was an event that took place recently which was the exact same thing that took place back then. The difference now however is I’m on a higher scale of awareness and consciousness and I wasn’t as intelligent back then to understand or be able to fully articulate. That moment was the start.
The beginning of my 10,000 hour process.
THEN SOON AFTER ALL THIS FLOW: MONTHS LATER, I DISCOVERED FLOW
I don’t think I knew though until February 2016 when I serendipitously discovered a blog about flow that was describing everything that was happening and what I was experiencing. That was the “Aha” moment. Holy shit! I’ve been in flow this whole time. The whole thing was about becoming wildly productive, which in essence means to achieve flow. And what is flow?
It is quite literally defined as the ultimate state for productivity.
Marathon reading sessions followed shortly after and with running actual marathons alongside it. And ever since I do my best to strive for and always be in flow. It’s the happiest mind state one can be in. The way to always be in it is to have something that is constantly challenging you. And the only way to stay in it is to keep increasing the difficulty level.
Some people couldn’t understand what was going on. And rightly so, how could they? Because even I didn’t know myself until months later. And I still couldn’t quite pin point how? I know now though. Or at least if I don’t, I’m certainly not complaining if I’m wrong. I went away to something and came back changed from it. And everything I’ve been doing for the last decade now all draws back to and links to being at that conference where I was formally introduced to flow.
The reading, writing, endurance running, music, high intensity physical exercise, discipline, discovery, all flow experiences.
Even this right now. When you see me producing pieces of writing to this extent, you know I’m in flow because I’m achieving my goal. And my goal is to write long form pieces of writing. So imagine what it feels like when the goal is to also write about flow?
Metaflow.
WAS THIS WHAT BEGGED THE QUESTION WHY? IS EVERYTHING!
I’m not sure. Although I don’t really care now either. For that was 10-years ago. I wasn’t making sense back then. 10-years of reading and writing later though and I’m making sense now. But still, it was a confusing time. I didn’t know what was going on. But other people seemed to think they knew. That’s the problem with other people. Many people find it easy to make assumptions about things they know absolutely nothing about. It was even recommended that I should take a job in a call centre and stop doing what I’m doing, steering me away from the very thing I was deriving so much pleasure and enjoyment from.
Me in a call centre? Not that there’s anything wrong with call centres. But just that there is something extremely wrong with someone like me being in a call centre.
When we want to know what’s best for a person the right thing we should always do is ask first what they think. When we don’t, what it means is you don’t really care what they think and you are assuming your thoughts and intentions are more important than theirs.
I’m just glad I knew the perfect thing to say at the perfect time. Flow has a way of doing that to you. Clearly, this is the case now since many things I’m saying are being picked up by others.
When someone wants to shit on your work or do their best to try and get you to stop, that’s when you know you are doing the right thing. Make sure you always do the right thing. Never listen to fools who think they know best and try to impose their own thoughts, rules or views on you, then tell you what they think you should do, or not do, with your life. These are the people who have no idea what it’s like to be you, and definitely never in their entire lives experienced a flow state, which is also a telling sign of someone who has never achieved true happiness. I’m just happy I eventually developed the wit to listen to my bullshit detector.
SO FOLLOW YOUR INTUITION
Never what anyone else says. Only you know what’s truly right and best for you. And if anyone ever tries to suggest otherwise, move away and go to where supports your nature. So if you ever see someone being weird, strange or acting highly unusual, it’s quite possible they are not developing schizophrenia, but trying to become what they were always destined to be. When someone is being creative, don’t make fun of them, get out of their way and certainly never try stopping them. The best thing you can do is leave them alone to it and let them explore this to find themselves. Sit back instead. And let’s see watch to see what come up with.
“When a writer begins to overcome her Resistance – in other words, when she actually starts to write – she may find that those close to her begin acting strange. They may become moody or sullen, they may get sick; they may cause the awakening writer of “changing,” of “not being the person she was.” The closer these people are to the awakening writer, the more bizarrely they will act and the more emotion they will put behind their actions. They are trying to sabotage her. – STEVEN PRESSFIELD, THE WAR OF ART.
b. Every piece of work in my experience has merely only ever been a seed in the process that needs to be planted, then nourished, in order that it may grow into becoming something better. Therefore, you can only learn how to say better what exactly it is you are trying to say after you’ve at least tried saying it once. The more you do this, the better you get at refining and editing, the more that will eventually come through and out of you.
Many times in a flow state you will be able to do and say things unheard of before from you. And this is easily explainable. For reasons such as you are unaware of your actions, because you are performing them inside an unconscious thinking state of mind where new thoughts and ideas arise in consciousness from what seems like out of nowhere.
The worst version then will be in these moments when you are still in it and the ideas have just come to you, when you are still far too close to it. As you can say things in a state of flow which might be new and will take some reflective time to process so it won’t make sense to anyone else yet during this phase. As you will only know later yourself how to articulate these thoughts or ideas better not during, but following these episodes of flow.
Therefore distance from the work and time is essential to allow for this inner expansion of your mind to rise up and elevate your thinking to the next level. As after each episode of flow a stronger concept of the self will emerge. In other words: who you are prior to going into flow is not who comes back out at the other side of flow. You come back with increased complexity.
To get a sense of what I mean, it was best for me to use that piece of my earliest attempt at writing as an example. This attainment of flow radically altered my experience in consciousness, helping me towards achieving things in my life that were and perhaps would have still been impossible prior to that point in time of having my first ever flow experience.
I’ve therefore extracted that piece of writing which I originally wrote on Saturday 7th November 2015, one week after arriving back home from a conference in Germany where my flow training commenced from. This piece of writing, at the time, seemed to have worried some people about me as if I was beginning to lose my mind, when in fact what it actually was that is easy for me to see now, I was trying to express an inner experience I was having but without the vocabulary of being able to articulate it. I have ADHD and a touch of autism my whole life so my communication skills were always an extremely challenging barrier for me. Being uneducated never helped. And that was because I lacked the ability to concentrate well enough in order to learn anything. My use of English grammar was almost nonexistent before this date back in 2015.
And all of these positive changes that started to happen in my life only happened in the following months proceeding publishing this highly unusual, first attempt, at writing. I think it’s worth noting that I have a memory of writing this. And why I remember this so vividly was from the fact it was done in a state of complete unconscious blissfulness. I can remember being in a very busy environment with people and noise all around me. Yet I could not lift my head for hours to even notice anyone was there.
It was a tremendous sense of complete focus and pure concentration and eliminating every distraction from my environment.
These moments I can recall from memory was the first time in my entire life when I was completely lost in the task. And it felt deeply euphoric. To the point where time felt like it was flying away from me. There was a feeling of excitement as I was trying to keep up writing words on paper in time with how fast my thoughts were flowing. This was my first ever flow experience.
And while it made no sense to anyone else at the time, and rightly so, because I was still months away from it making sense to me. It would be months before I would discover the reason these things were happening to me and what I’ve been able to do is from being in these flow states.
The reason why I wish to share this story now though is to show you the incredible power that mastering this state has brought. I failed every subject in school. I struggled academically for 27-years of my life. I couldn’t read. And my writing skills were atrocious. I went my entire life with undiagnosed ADHD and autism. Then almost overnight, everything started to change. I had this tremendous experience where everything was altered. And as a result, this has enabled me to not only overcome my biggest obstacle to life, but it also turned it into my greatest strength.
So in order for me to fully break this down for you, and in order for it to make sense of what it was I was trying to mean but clearly without the necessary vocabulary skills yet to do so, and fast forward 10-years since this start point, I can now demonstrate the difference having discovered flow and how it has significantly improved my life, physically and mentally.
And it’s important that I start with why. Because that was quite literally was the moment when it first started to happen.
I have deliberately published the original piece from November 2015 (as an April fools to trick you into reading this) to demonstrate my inability to use grammar in the past, to show you how my mind used to work and be, but to also highlight not just its out of the ordinaryness, but to finally be able to present the meaning behind what it was trying to mean, and how flow has made my brain better, contributing to the development of my mind and how it has helped me now to become a writer.
If anything at all seems bizarre, take note of the date, and be sure to read everything else in order to get a sense of how my mind was working 10-years ago compared to the difference of how it works now today.
10-YEARS ON: FROM FIRST EXPERIENCING FLOW [10,000 HOURS LATER]
A few points that I notice now from it were the question of if our why was different would that make everything different with it? And I believe that to still be true. As in, why do we do everything we do?
During this time I was spending a lot of time running around all day trying to make YouTube videos and it seemed like it was a matter of life and death. That the world was going to end if I didn’t upload this video before midnight. And it felt like it really mattered.
So I went to a conference in search of answers to help with my problem, which was: why can’t I get this thing to make money for me? And following whatever done the trick that seemed to inspire me beyond my current level of thinking, nothing about what I was hoping to find was learned and what I ended up discovering was nothing like I could have ever expected.
But what I was doing felt like it wasn’t making sense anymore. I even started to cry because I felt like I had wasted years of my life. I should have chosen a different subject. I should have gone to university, were some of the thoughts I was having and I was beginning to have serious doubts about the direction of my life. Everything that seemed like it was making sense prior to that moment all of sudden stopped and no longer did. And even though I didn’t know why, it was definitely a gut feeling trying to tell me something. Because I was chasing myself, running around in circles, working non-stop, yet nothing was getting any better.
It was almost like an intuition telling me something from an ability that I myself was not yet even capable of understanding.
I was staring out the window, feeling lost, in tears, not knowing what to do with myself.
However, what is interesting to note now about that piece is it was hinting at productivity saying you will no longer be able to get a hold of me (meaning being less distracted). And the very event I had just returned home from during this time, its goal was hoping people would go away and start becoming wildly productive. So in this sense, it was trying to make sense. Because this was the start of a wildly productive time and experience.
Initially, I started running x3 per day. And I can remember this being the most magical time. It was like having unlimited energy. I was running back and forth to the graveyard everyday, as a means to inspire me to live better, to realise that you don’t have much time left. That one day, you will also be here, among the dead, and all of this, everything, there will never be another chance to do any of this ever again. These kinds of thoughts were inspiring me into all kinds of creative and productive activities.
But, not having yet become a learn-ed person made it very difficult to articulate these ideas clearly to express.
I seem to have realized that we were spending far too much time doing things that don’t matter. All of our time is either spent distracted or always engaged with passive activities. Spending time drinking alcohol and staring into these screens I was becoming aware is a complete waste of our time and precious resources. It was beginning to wake up, or at least starting to, and the beginning of finally living better by engaging with far more productive activities to increase my physical and mental self.
If you read Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism, which I have now several times, you get a sense that I was trying to hint back then at the very argument he makes in his book. But as I had yet to start my self education process, I was never able to articulate fully what I was trying to say. Until now.
This was an attempt to measure how much of our time we can easily let slip by and lose ourselves to apps, how digital noise was, and is, still in the process of taking over many people’s minds, and lives. It was an intuitive grasp being felt that I wasn’t particularly happy about how much time I was spending using these things. Because I was spending far too much time using them. I wasn’t being productive. I was scrolling and depleting my attention, which at that time I was not so good at directing anyway. There were certainly no books to be seen anywhere during this time, except for a couple of personal development books.
So what I can clearly see now inside the contents of this post was the admittance that we are living in a distracted world and letting ourselves be pulled like puppets in the direction technology wants us to be in each day. We are not using our minds actively, but rather giving them away to algorithms that keep us hooked.
It actually even makes a lot of sense to me now what it was I was trying to say and I even agree with it still.
Would you be happy 26-years from now knowing you have spent a couple of years of your one and only lifetime looking into the screen of your phone on an app? To not always be present and not living well or your life to the fullest?
It is a fact now that the reason so many people are becoming so unwell is because they are stuck to their screens, missing their physical life going on happening around them. They are not fully engaged with themselves, and instead give themselves over to meaningless distractions, and therefore lose themselves in the process.
So this was an argument that still stands and makes more sense after a decade in flow has now allowed me to be able to express these ideas from a far more educated perspective.
And I do still think yes anybody who watches Gogglebox on TV hasn’t got a fucking life.
I also mentioned that this could be a possible health hazard we are not even aware of yet. And, fast forward 10-years from my assumption then, this turned out to be true. It is now a fact. Yet some people at this time called me crazy for saying such things. Okay, I agree it was written in an unconventional ADHD, autistic style. But that was before flow helped me learn how to learn.
But the idea behind it still makes sense.
So I was just getting started and had a desperate desire to know why I was failing and went looking for answers. What I wasn’t expecting to discover was flow. And what I did not realise was that this point in time was in fact to be the start of a 10-year trajectory. As in the following months I made a decision that if I am serious about getting good at this, then I need to see this as the starting point now, even though I had spent months convincing myself this should have been the finish line.
After many years of effort, it hurt to realise that this wasn’t even the start.
That was when I first started to have flow experiences and started to feel that failure is impossible. Then I told myself I was going to put myself through the 10,000 hour process. And this year right now marks the 10-year anniversary of being engaged with and committed to this process of deliberate practice.
The point: people once thought I was crazy. People thought I was a bit mental. Having ADHD and autism might make people say things which they really shouldn’t say about people who have that. But I was never crazy. I had ADHD and autism. And when people fail to recognize the symptoms they simply misunderstand someone who lives with these conditions, rather than try to help them by learning more about why they are the way they are, much easier is it to just make fun of them, or perhaps say they might have a touch of schizophrenia.
So self doubt can come from anywhere. And no harder place for it to come from than a person who has (now had) neurodevelopmental disorders, when trying to be themselves which they cannot help be anything but, then are told they are not right in the head, or there is something wrong with them, causing them to feel more isolated within the group than they already feel for knowing deep down they are not like others and always wondered why they are this way for.
But maybe it’s not all their fault. We can’t blame others for their ignorance to acknowledge these conditions. But, we should whenever they say bad things about us, all for having a condition of the mind which cannot be helped.
Life is going to be hard at times and you may struggle with serious self doubts about yourself. Why aren’t I like the others? Is what they are saying about me true? Should I commit suicide?
What’s worse about this picture is that it is you, the very person who is being made fun of by others, who now suspects maybe there is something wrong with them, who is in fact not broken at all. There is nothing wrong with you. And anyone who ever makes you feel like that are the wrong people to have in your life. You need to remove yourself from any group who causes you to have these self doubts about yourself. It’s not your fault. And there is nothing wrong with you at all.
Yet people might attack you, call you names, or say things like you are not right in the head, or normal. And this can feel devastating for the person who also has these doubts and has always wondered about themselves why they are this way, yet has no choice but to live in a world stuck with these conditions. To not only know you are not like other people, but to then be told you are freak, or sick, simply for not being able to be more like, who? The worst kinds of people in the world to be like.
So here’s what I’ve come to learn about life:
Being normal is the worst fucking thing you could ever happen to you. So promise me you will always be anything but normal. And the best advice I can give you is no matter whatever happens to you, no matter how difficult life can be, push yourself. Always push yourself. And give yourself at least a decade. I’m telling you now, what you will discover about yourself will astonish you beyond the point of complete amazement. It’s funny how the whole game can change overnight when you’re thinking right.
But even this what you are reading now is two versions of several drafts. And they are the result of that shit you read before clicking the link to come here. So I will continue to improve this over time the same way until I can produce the best version.
For anyone else who has come here not from the link in the post I’m referring to, I’ve also published it underneath. It was written 10-years ago. And it’s very clear to see the difference flow has made to my life when you compare this writing you just read to my previous ADHD writing before it was cured, from flow.
Enjoy!
And if anything doesn’t make sense, refer back to the top of this and read it again.
SATURDAY 7TH NOVEMBER 2015: MY FIRST EVER FLOW EXPERIENCE
[Why?] = Everything! “Everything” we decide to do has a “Why” Therefore “Everything” is what equals = our “Why!” But Why is “Everything” Everything? I’ve started having difficulty with “Why” recently and have become keen to want to try and discover more about Why Everything is what it is…
[Why?] is Everything!
What if “Everything” had a different “Why”? Would that make “Everything” different? Why is it that “Why” is what it is?
I’m very confused about this whole Why thing at the moment and I think I really need to go away and examine it. I’m going away to work on a new Project and experiment for a while with this. During this Project you won’t be able to get a hold of me on anything other than my telephone after 6pm in the evening.
I have to figure out Why I’m learning what I’m learning and where all this learning leads to. I recently stopped and asked myself “Where do you see yourself in 5 Years time?” And got terrified because I couldn’t answer my own question and at this moment in Time I cannot see where I’ll be. This time 3-5 Years ago I thought I would be somewhere else by now and I’m not which means somewhere along these lines I’ve made massive errors in judgement. I do not want for the next 3-5 Years to be this way. I will still continue to use this app for business purposes. However I do feel now that this app has been helpful but also a major cause of these errors in judgement and we do need to be careful before we continue to go any further.
I worked this out today and thought it might be useful to share it with other people who also allow for this app to be a part of their everyday lives now. You might find it interesting. I found it frightening >
For each day that goes by and for each hour of each of those days logged into this app, even though for 90% of the time spent within it is for educational purposes only (reading and sharing useful information)
If we take 1 Hour and multiply that x 7 Days = 7 Hours
And if we times that x 4 Weeks = 28 Hours and that almost =
a full working week per / month inside an app!
And if we take those 28 Hours now and multiply them x 12 Months =
336 Hours and that = 14 Days per Year or
a fortnight of every year of just being logged into this app! And that’s from allowing only 1 Hours usage of it per Day and that =
Well, I’m 27 Years of age now. Let’s say I continue this behaviour for another 26 Years then that will mean that by the time I’m aged 53 Years Old I will have spent an entire Year of my life inside this app. And this equation only equates for 1 Hour Per Day and that Hour is for educational purposes only.
So now after realising that this is the case I think it’s important to question “is this behaviour ok?” I’m starting to think that its not ok at all to behave this way. And what makes this situation more ironic now is that I just spent 2 Years of my life devoted to creating an online business and living inside the internet to finally achieve that goal and now find myself at a point of wanting to leave the internet! Maybe that’s what brought me to this realisation, or my experience in Berlin, or both? Either way, something has changed. I’m still trying to understand why I’ve started asking myself all these questions for?
But I do know that I’m not happy about the idea that 26 Years from now, some of us could spend a couple of years of our lives inside this app and I’m still talking about using it for educational purposes for 1 Hour each Day only. I can’t imagine how it would feel to look back in 26 Years Time reflecting on all those Years of our life sat looking at other people’s baby pictures for 2-3 Full Years of them! What is the point to that? Why is it that we now do that for? Is that ok that we do that? I’m not so sure now.
And the more I begin to question how valuable a resource Time is, I ask myself “Is that a resourceful way to spend valuable Time?” And I think the answer is no.
Why have people started to watch tv of people watching tv? That’s a very strange behaviour!
This is going to be my last post here for a while now. As a reminder to myself what not to do any longer and in the off chance someone else is also struggling to understand too, why we now do what we now do and also is reconsidering what’s the point to it all? Is there a point? Maybe there isn’t? Maybe I’m wrong? But I am concerned about that possible fact and also if it’s possible this being a health hazard we are not yet aware of? The amount of Time we allow Technology to consume our lives!
Why do we do things that seem important today but are no longer important tomorrow? Why do we repeat the process over and over if all it ever leads to is no longer important? Why don’t we try to figure out how to do something today which is important today but it’s also going to be important tomorrow too? And the day after.
I said to my wife yesterday about how I’m now subscribed to so many resources online that I’m becoming increasing overwhelmed just by what to keep up with on a day to day basis, never mind trying to gather all the information from each resource and try to process it all each day that it hits my inbox, on the hour every hour throughout the day, everyday, and that I’ve reached a point now were I’m afraid if I continue to keep trying to learn at the rate I’m currently going, I’m going to turn myself into an idiot!
I have to stop and question all this now, sit back and figure out what is it I’m trying to do with it all. Where does learning all this information lead to. If anywhere? Why is it I want to learn all this information for? I’m not going to graduate from university with a degree from it. I’m not going to receive a Masters by doing it. I won’t receive a title such as Phd no matter how many years of continuing to do it. What is the outcome of it all? I should already have the answer to that but I’ve only just realised I don’t! At some point we have to stop and ask “Where is this leading to? Why are we doing this for?” Because if we don’t answer those questions early, I think it could very easy for us to continue doing the same thing over and over for years and years and still be no further than where we where at the start.
There was more to this article but I’ve decided to run with the shorter version. I might write the longer version at a later date. It has like 100 questions that have no answers to them and that is what my next Project is… To go away and find out what the answers are to my questions?
Robert Henke in Berlin said something like this about people making music with computers in the age that we live in… “It’s amazing! It is exciting! One click and a Max For Live Device” basically, for non-music tech people means, how we can go from playing any instrument or any sound in the world now that people would have paid £10,000.00s years ago to be able to do what we can now do simply just by clicking a button on a mouse in front of a computer screen. It’s quite unbelievable actually and how under appreciated something amazing like will be and just seen as normal practice, how you can change anything with just a click! People will grow up thinking that’s just normal. That’s quite remarkable. But unfortunately it is going to be just seen a normal average thing that isn’t all that amazing! When really people should be Wowed! by the fact Wow! I can do all that with just a click? No. I don’t think anyone will grow up and say that unfortunately. However, Robert went on to say after “But this is also a danger! Because it’s also very easy to get lost!”
So I went to Berlin to find inspiration and new ideas in music but somehow came home with that idea, changed the context to which it was originally stated in and applied it to this and have somehow ended up with with a different outlook on what once seemed important but now doesn’t seem that important at all and now I’ve started to question “Everything”
Yes it’s amazing. Yes this is exciting! One click and we can access “Everything” on our computers/devices all day everyday “But this is a danger!” in the sense that it’s possible in 26 Years from now we could easily have spent a couple of full years of our lives “lost” inside these apps. “Is this Ok? “Why do it?”