Design attitude

Relationships is not only among people. We relate with our surrounding environments, our trivial things, our pasts, our dreams. We relate with every single particle and abstract that exist in the whole universe. It's in this logic that we can say all problems we face are relationship problems.

I usually considered a problem something to be categorized according to my interests. The most interesting ones were classified as the most importants, and to this type of problems I would devote most of my efforts. A problem followed by a certain type of relationship would be either in this group OR in other groups. In other words, I had a static and fixed matrix in my mind where, according to specific characteristics, I would categorize problems. It worked cost effectively, time efficiently and perfectly fine for busy and efficient people like me. The concept of AND which may suggest you may encounter the same problem in differents dimensions simultaneously did not fit well in my matrix. This was the decision making process I used to take to choose among alternative solutions. Somehow, I blindly believed solutions were somewhere there; I only needed to find them out. We people naturally disregard the power of an empty mind that allows us to create and re-invent things.

One day I made a very tough decision. Actually I am still under training and still it is hard to change my habits. But well, yes. I got rid of my matrix and put an empty white paper in my mind instead. The empty space was the foundation where I could write about the new thing I come up with, draw about it, describe, erase and re-describe my relationship with it. The empty space allowed me to continuously set and reshape an ever dynamic and evolving relationship. The emptiness was indeed a judgment-free zone where I could actually see and create what was not there, what is possible. It becomes a pure art of designing, and its best tool is an empty mind, ready for seeing, doing, experiencing, creating and re-creating what is not there. It is hard to start from nothing. But it is from nothing you start creating something.