Wireframed
The ideas that keep nudging you in the middle of the night are the ones you need to pursue. Wireframed is such an idea I had. It's where I'm putting my 10,000 hours (writing it). Everyday, I'm feeling a greater sense of urgency to get it done.
Note to User
Do you consider yourself an explorer? An adventurer? Are you willing to try an experiment?
Wireframed is a thought experiment.
Establishing an objective viewpoint requires that you put aside everything you know. No implicit bias. No prejudgement. No assumptions.
Where you are today is based on your biases, which stem from your beliefs.
Wireframed will challenge your biases. If you choose, it provides a path to reprogram your beliefs and recalibrate your life.
Life is an interactive non-fiction adventure.
As an interface for life, are we simply encoding experiences based on our past. In our effort to connect memories, we craft stories that are not entirely true. The further the distance (in time), the more we bend the truth to appease the present.
The reflection of an experience can't change what happened. We can never undo what's done. We can only add more experiences to fill in what is hopefully a more complete picture. But we must remain OPEN to new experiences, perspectives, and beliefs.
Life doesn't happen to us, it happens for us.
At our best, we are in growth mode. With a growth mindset, we are a self-aware program with an unfixed set point.
At our worst, we are in fixed mode. Static and unchanging, we resist the impermanence of life. For the most part, this is a matter of perspective.
Every setback provides an opportunity for growth.
Example bias: I'm not good at math.
Reality: You haven't been taught how math works. You don't allocate time to the practice of math. You leave the math up to others.
Reprogramming: Set aside time each each week to study math. There are thousands of great videos to show you. If you know someone who is good at math, ask if they'll show you how they go about it.
The Wireframed Hypothesis. Building off the Simulation hypothesis, if our reality was simulated, how can we best serve the coder behind the screen? If you viewed everything as simply a program, might you be better equipped to deal with it all?
"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." – Wayne Dyer
Wireframed is based on my own observations of seeing the world through the eyes of a programmer. If I coded a program and described as it the best (self-actualized) version of myself, how would I go about it? Wireframed uses basic concepts from computer science as an analogy to better understand our own lives. I use the analogy of writing, running, and debugging 'code' to live a more vibrant life.
This is a work of creative nonfiction (the protagonist being a fictional character named Simon Strong). I provide the reader with an option to 'role play' the programs in their own lives via CTAs (calls to action). It any point in your 'adventure,' you can jump to the the module of your choice. The call to action is your to chose. Each call to action (CTA) has 3 levels you can choose depending on your skill level.
Part biographical, part spiritual, part therapy, part how-to, I hope you have as much fun reading Wireframed as I had writing it. I prefer to think of Wireframed (and life) as a role playing adventure, when you are playing the role of your life.
Like a Github for the real world, Wireframed is a ever expanding manual for the human program. I encourage to visit the links at the end of each chapter to share your experiences, contribute to the collective wisdom, and find more ways to deepen your own practice. Through user feedback, please consider this work open source, as the collective wisdom of all the readers far exceeds that of the author. It can only improve with feedback from readers like you.
Think of Wireframed as an ever evolving documentation for a program called human being. It's a repository like GitHub for human intelligence. An ever expanding library of open source code we can use to lead better lives. If you prefer, think of it as a wiki for our human program.
Bugs in our programming show up as hardships, emotions, failures, setbacks, and generally anything that disrupts our natural state of peace.
Each module (chapter) explores a different aspect of the human condition/program. They are the result of years of reflective writings, a lifelong study in human development, and my own unique mashup of mindfulness, yoga, existentialism, and a lifelong passion for technology.
Wireframed is written in the first person, my intent being that engaged reader become the narrator themselves. I've discovered there's more power in both writing and reading I statements.
The structure of Wireframed
Each module contains the following features:
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A quote
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A program name (quick reference)
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A question
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An overview of the module
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A real world example
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A call-to-action Our protagonist Simon Strong exist as an example of the real-world scenarios that might trigger a particular program (module) to run.
Applying Wireframed to your own life
A personal example... I receive an email from a disappointed client. Before the Wireframed perspective, I would have taken it personally, felt a lower self worth, and perhaps even lashed back at the client in defense (as he was accusing me in part as being the cause of discontent). In general, I would have felt pretty crappy about myself. But from the WF frame perspective, I see problem as nothing more than an 'error' in the code. It's a clue that a bug has entered the program, indicated by the negative emotions I felt. Rather than get pulled into the drama, I pull up module called disappointed and run it to remove the bug. I felt better almost instantly. This is the power of having a library of code to run when needed. Like a coder in an ever changing operating system, I know debugging is an ongoing part of being a program in a simulation someone else created.
A Real World Role Playing Adventure
An enjoyable aspect of Wireframed is that it contains elements of the Choose Your Own Adventure series. These were the few books I read as a child, and one of the earliest interactive games to reach a mass market. Success in the real world requires us to click on the right response. When we have a drop down menu of relevant choices, our decision becomes easier. Instead of feeling powerless in not knowing what to do in a situation, as a coder - the knowing will be revealed as we run the program. Debugging is learn-by-doing. Experience teaches us what we need to know. In time, we gain the ability to debug any issue that arises - and Wireframed can provide you with a library of code to integrate into your own program. YouTube has already empowered confidence in an entire generation. It's become an ever expanding repository of knowledge. Need to know how to string a ukulele? There's lesson for that. Need to fix a leaking toilet, drain a hot water heater, make kale chips? There's likely someone who has the code you need. Even if I do hire someone else to do the task, becoming more knowledgeable of the choices available allows me to hire with greater confidence and judge the necessary skills of the individual to hire. In all likelihood, someone else has has faced the problem (bug) before, and resolved it. In Wireframed, one of my prime objectives is to accelerate your discovery of the patch you need to run your program bug free.
Themes
In the bibliography you can find some sources of insight. Wireframed was written by a seeker and I don't claim (nor can others), originality of the ideas contained within. What I've done is bring them into a new analogy, which allowed me to confront them in new ways. To reveal the entire source code of Wireframed would have required a more diligent logbook from day one. I am not sure when day one actually was, but I have a sense it was much earlier in life. I'll continue to add to the bibliography as the sources reveal themselves.
Reader Engagement
The collective wisdom of the readers will most certainly exceeds that of the author. In an effort to capture as much of it as possible, every page contains space for comments. I strongly encourage you to share your own insights! Just as wikipedia hyperlinks words that contain pages, so does Wireframed. For this reason, you will find immense value in the cloud edition of Wireframed.
If life is an adventure, you might as well enjoy the journey. Your conscious mind is like your home computer. It runs programs based on processes that have already been written. Your unconscious mind is like the google datastore of unstructured data. Sift through terabytes of unstructured information. When we encode an experience, connections between active neurons become stronger, and this specific pattern of brain activity constitutes the engram. Later, as we try to remember the experience, a retrieval cue will induce another pattern of activity in the brain. — Daniel L. Schacter, Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind, and the Past Ready Player One?
Bibliography
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