Pixelate Your Life

I’ve come to believe that piling up as many DOTS as possible is the essence of a productive, prosperous and fulfilling life.  By “DOTS”, I mean any or all of the following: Knowledge, skills, experience, data, wisdom, understanding, connections, associations/affiliations, core values, principles and benchmark accomplishments. *  Some “DOTS” carry more weight than others.  But the true value of having as many meaningful DOTS in the matrix as possible is the productive connections they engender and the multi-dimensional possibilities they evoke in the dynamically unfolding pilgrimage we call “LIFE”. 

The more DOTS we have, the more “Pixilated” our palette of possibilities becomes, and the more vivid our Connect-the-DOTS VISION of our “place in the world” and our most propitious path to the future becomes.  

Motivational gurus and purveyors of self-help advice place a heavy emphasis on getting the VISION and PURPOSE and PASSION on the docket before we mainstream our efforts.  It’s great strategic advice.  But, without a critical mass of DOTS or “pixels” in the hopper, it’s not all that easy to carve out a sustainable, life-driving VISION, PURPOSE or PASSION.   And it’s especially difficult when 1) there are so many ungated/unrated choices from which to choose; 2) there are so many distractions and competing indulgences to navigate through and around; and 3) life in the “NOW” isn’t really all that compelling a driving force.  (Who among us doesn’t know where our next meal is going to come from or can’t “borrow” enough to get through the next week?  Besides, tomorrow is bound to be a better day, eh?, and we simply have to wait it out!) 

So, the accumulation of as many meaningful DOTS and “pixelations” as possible – emphasis on “meaningful” – remains the most critical element in “ramping life UP”.  

In his book “Living Without a Goal”, James Ogilvy asks the question: Why do we always have to be “going somewhere”?  Why do we think we have to “enslave” ourselves to Grand Goals for which we are never done preparing?  “So the present becomes tedious, a time of preparing.  You grow impatient with the pace of this present.  You resolve to work harder, to hasten the arrival of your future Goal.”  [We’ll take this question up later.]

In the book “Train Your Brain for Success” [John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ (2012) p. 181], Roger Seip introduces the Greek word, skopos.  Skopos is the root word for our modern word “scope”, meaning everything you can see or comprehend in a panoramic view of your personal universe.  But more than “seeing”, it has a kind of energized “belonging” or “owning” context.  “When you get a skopos, your feet move towards it.  When you get a skopos, your hands move toward it.  And then, eventually, you don’t have to push yourself [or be pushed] anymore, because your skopos vision drags you into it and pulls you along.” 

This reflection is reminiscent of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s “Finding Flow”.  Thus, a skopos … “primed” by all the DOTS and pixelations we’ve accumulated … “floats our boat” toward the Destiny we will ultimately come to inhabit. 

“Flow” has directionality.  And “where we’re going” is not about STUFF!  It’s more about BEING “IN TUNE” WITH THE UNIVERSE – more particularly, about being consonant with the universe OF YOU.

“Life is not about having a big house, a fancy car, a lot of money, or cool toys.  Life is about moving toward … [your skopos].  It’s not about ‘Did you get there yet?’  It’s about ‘Are you getting there?’”  Roger Seip

“It’s not so much a matter of where we are as it is in which direction we are heading.”  Oliver Wendell Holmes

While a life-driving VISION or a skopos or a worthy object of passion or a compelling driver of enthusiasm may not be all that clear early in the going, piling up DOTS  and increasing the density of “pixelations” with an ADVENTUROUS SPIRIT and EYES WIDE OPEN, will keep “getting us there” … wherever it is we’re supposed to be.  That may become clear only in retrospect.  But it WILL “become” whatever it is to become, as long as we keep “becoming”.  Quartermaster

* Some would include MONEY.  By any account, one would be hard pressed to leave money off the table in a discussion of a “productive, prosperous and fulfilling life” – not as a primary Goal, but as a natural product of judiciously applying everything we’ve got to everything we do.  

Nature Versus Nurture

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/first-children-are-smarter-but-why/280725/

In the study noted in the article above, investigators confirmed the postulation that first-children generally excel beyond the levels achieved by their younger siblings, and they asked “Why?”

A genetic basis for the difference (i.e., where some advantage would be conferred on first-borns by “Nature” … like the first-born gets the best genes) was considered a possible explanation, but there were too many confounding factors to make it a compelling hypothesis.    

After sifting everything down, the largest, most consistent and most compelling differentiation element between first-borns and later siblings was a change in PARENTING. 

“Hotz and Pantano settle close to Theory (6). Parents are more likely to make strict rules (about, e.g., TV-watching) and be intimately involved in the academic performance of their first children, according to survey data. They're also more likely to punish their first child's bad grades. Hotz and Pantano say moms and dads start tough and go soft to establish a "reputation" within their household for being strict—a reputation they hope will trickle down to the younger siblings who will be too respectful to misbehave later on.”

One has to allow that it happens with pets, as well.  The first dog is taken to “obedience school”, given all sorts of in-house and out-house training, given extra “play time”, and taught as many “tricks” as possible while the second dog is left to be “trained” by the first and its main purpose is to be a “companion”.  Besides, who has the time to train TWO dogs? 

An insurance agent in Appalachian Pennsylvania inquired of one of his clients how she had the time to deal with all 12 of her children.  “Well, the first one took 100% of my time and the next 11 couldn’t take any more!”

The question of what comprises GENIUS was taken up by National Geographic in its May 2017 issue.  The unsettling first observation made was that the gallery of geniuses past is almost exclusively populated by white males of European origin.  However, considering the fact that patterns of “culturation” and “nurturation” gave most favorable advantage to males of European origin … never mind that most of that culturation and nurturation came from mothers and wives of the same, one is compelled to factor culturation and nurturation – at least to some significant degree – into the overall formula for the emergence of genius.    NG further observes: “Around age six [girls] start to avoid activities said to be for children who are ‘really, really smart,’ [that’s negative nurturation]”, and asks:  “Can our planet afford to have any great thinkers become discouraged or intimidated and give up?”

Equipping minds is a relatively new enterprise dedicated to intense “brain training” as a vehicle for maximizing human potential.  [ http://equippingminds.com/ ]  With a mission to integrate a tidal wave of new research on brain development and neuroplasticity into learning, EM has demonstrated that a broad portfolio of brain functions, including memory, cognitive processing and IQ, can all be enhanced by intensive “nurturation”. 

So what’s the take-away message here?  If any of the above holds any water at all, then we should become very attentive to the “environment” in which we place our brains.  The bedrock platitude of computer culture is: “Garbage in, garbage out!”  At least we can hold to that guideline.  But brains are much more complicated – and much more malleable – both positively and negatively!   There is increasing evidence that brain capacity in all aspects can be increased by normal growth and development, by experience, by exercise and by education, including high-intensity training.  Conversely, it is conjectured that brain capacity can be decreased or derailed by inattention, by gratuitously indulgent activity (social media, TV, video games, etc.), by drugs and other dependencies, by decadent diet, by lack of exercise, by stress, or by physical or emotional or psychological challenges.    

While a magic formula for the creation of genius has yet to be found, and while current working hypotheses are still only “working hypotheses”, there are enough nuggets of possibility emerging from the fog to suggest that we CAN do and be better than we started out, as well as better than we currently ARE! 

One has to ask, then:  Why would anyone not take the maximum advantage possible of the most positive environmental influences to maximize their ability to excel in the world?  I’m off to the library and to do some genius-level networking, as soon as I water and fertilize the garden.  You come, too!  Quartermaster

Bring It

We occasionally need to take inventory of what we “bring to the table” to advance our personal stake and holdings in the world … to advance the enterprise(s) in which we are engaged … to advance the profession or industry with which we are associated … to advance our community and the world at large?

Here are a few things the world is desperately looking for – things the “IT” in “Bringing IT” might include:

Ideas … experience … energized engagement … sense of Mission / Purpose … affirmations … commitments to contribute … curiosity … creativity … solutions … persistence / perseverance … leadership … stretch goals … specialized hard skills … industry-standard “Soft Skills” … some depth of knowledge (e.g., about things other than video games, Jeopardy, cat videos, entertainers, and baseball statistics) … collaborative attitude … cooperative inclination … Standards of Excellence … exemplary work ethic … portfolio of notable achievements …

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“He was a young man marked for great things,

given his intellect, his work ethic

and his ability to relate to others.”

Michael Benson

President, Eastern Kentucky University

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Intellect we can’t change.  [Oh, but there’s emerging evidence that maybe we CAN!  http://equippingminds.com/ ]  However, “work ethic”, hard and soft skills, “ability to relate to others” and all the rest are things we  CAN improve to a point of excelling. 

If you were to bring to the table ONE ATTRIBUTE or ONE NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT or ONE ENHANCEMENT/ADVANCEMENT OFFERING this week or this month, what would it be? 

What have you got to work with?  Are you using everything you’ve got productively? 

Let’s bring everything we’ve got … and keep getting as much MORE of “IT” as we can muster!   Quartermaster