Photo taken during summer holiday in Spain 2022 with friends. I struggled to find a suitable thumbnail for this article, so there you go: a random holiday photo of mine 🙂 🙂

In this article, I would like to share an observation/reflection that I made whilst drafting my plans for 2023. The start of making plans for the future is always to reflect on the past. And not just the past. It goes further than that. You have to reflect on who you are and who you want to be. That is why I started my reflection process by analysing my personality. I used a few only tests on openpsychometrics.org. This is a website that hosts a range of open-source assessment tools. It’s very cool and I recommend anyone to try a few tests. Although the results of these tests should never be taken too close to the heart, they do provide a great starting point for personal reflections.

Reflection on my personality

I won’t discuss all the test results here in detail, but I can give you a rough idea of what I learned from it. First of all, I scored high on things that relate to being analytical, pragmatic, rational etcetera. Next to that were things like being curious, investigative, open to new experiences, etcetera. Finally, there were the social and artistic aspects that stood out in a certain way in the test results.

And again, the test results should only be used as a starting point for reflection. You might agree with some results and disagree with others. That’s okay. It is just a tool to help you think about who you are and where you want to go.

Anyway, the above-mentioned points will serve as touchpoints for the structure that I will use to deepen my relationship with the world around me (gosh, I sound like an alien or a robot, don’t I). But what I mean is that, instead of only reading headlines and watching 30-second recaps, I seek to find a deep understanding and a deep connection with the world around me. And I think I have figured out how I like to do that. Or how I’ve always done it.

It’s based on these personality traits of mine. That means that this structure/approach is quite personal. It’s not meant to be to be replicated. But I do recommend everyone to analyse yourself and figure out how you want to interact with the world around you.

1. Study

The first step of my process is to study something. If I’m interested in something, I like to find the top 5 best books about this topic and read them. That gives me a feeling that I have a solid theoretical background in any topic. Because 99% of the world has not read any book about that specific topic (this applies to every single topic out there). I always feel weary to have an opinion about something if I have not studied it. Even after I have studied something, I still feel weary about having opinions haha. But I think that’s the privilege of being a straight-white-male. You can get away with not really having a strong opinion on anything. Anyway, after I have studied a topic, I like to get my hands dirty to deepen my understanding.

2. Create

After having created a proper theoretical foundation by studying the topic, I like to put theory into practice. Getting your hands dirty and actually getting involved with the material teaches you so much about the nuances and the details. Bringing theory into practice also allows you to interact with other people in the same space. And that brings me to the final point of my structured way of deepening my relationship with the world around me.

3. Sharing

Simply by doing projects, and making things, you not only repeat/test your theoretical knowledge, but you also put yourself out there. And once your projects are out there in the wild, you will unintentionally also find like-minded people on your path. And simply by interacting with people from the same space you’ll be able to learn a lot. These other people will inspire you, watching them will help you reflect on your own knowledge and thus they will help you accelerate your learning. For example, when I started creating generative art pieces and shared them on Instagram, I gathered a lot of likes and comments from people that were also making generative art. Interacting with these people inspires me every single day to learn more, understand better, and discover more!

And a big part of the sharing process is of course also reflecting. Sharing means gathering feedback and the urge to share helps me to accelerate my making process. It helps me to finalise all of my half-baked ideas and projects. But the reflection part is really important because that’s where the learning resides.

End notes

Most of the things that I write will seem extremely intuitive to most of you. ‘Why is he writing all of this out and posting it on his blog?’ you might ask, ‘everyone goes through life like this, right?’. Well yes, I believe that is true to some degree. But I just enjoy writing these things out to solidify them in my mind. Actually… you can see the act of writing and sharing this article as steps 2 & 3 of the described process. So writing and sharing these things helps me to better understand how and why I do certain things 🙂 So it’s a very self-centered act. But I hope it might inspire or help someone at some point in their lives as well 🙂