We are outlining what makes up Life; how to navigate emotions, cope with problems and nurture our aspirations.

📹 Intro video: Carl Sagan — Pale Blue Dot

🏆 Your progress 🌏 🏄‍♂️

After you’re done reading: check the ⬇️ bottom of the page — you’ll find next parts of this series that cover diverse set of related topics!

📣 Coming soon!

I’m continually refactoring this series.

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Author’s experience

Data Sculptor, Architect of Systems and Products.

Founded startups in the fields of Education and Sports and led teams of up to ten people.

Worked, as a Systems Architect, Frontend, and Backend Developer, for a product company, a digital agency, and as a remote freelancer.

For more information, check my Personal Website.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve looked at the World as a playground where anything is possible. I was ecstatic about the upcoming phases of my life where I could contribute to it and show the world how I see it. It is about that, I think — about showing how you feel the World while interacting with others, to ease suffering and ease into the truth of the individual and the community at large.

🎷 Background song

It is a matter of, continually, finding a way to express your inner battles. That sets us free, from the unbearing desperation of having it unexpressed, sitting deep in ourselves.

A man can express himself through sports, writing, music, talking with others, smiling, frowning, feeling his waves of thoughts, through technology, or any other endeavor.

What I found out, in a crude and basic form, is that life is a succession of paths we take, and, even though they don’t feel connected, if we continue with introspection and ferocious will to solve the mysteries — the paths will come together in the future and it will all make sense.

The constraints of life dictate initial rules, but those rules can and are, continually, being bent

If we experiment and make everything we can with what we have, we’ll get the opportunity in the future to further explore our human soul, mind, and body.

Fear and doubt in ourselves, are the indicators of what we need to explore — to be at peace with ourselves and the World.

Transferring our experience to others further liberates us and encourages others to follow their own path, in the magnitude they find possible.

Your life is — yours to take

The biological and environmental makeup did what they did, with your relationship towards yourself, your family, friends, projects you’ve started…

Some of the ideas crashed and burned. Some of them you’ve picked up years down the road again and morphed them into something that makes more sense.

You have the right and responsibility to live it on your terms. We are all eager to see how your unique life perspective, with all bolts and twitches pans out.

The belief I always had is if I do what I feel makes sense, I will understand things more clearly. It is an never-ending journey worth taking. The only thing I can control is my effort and sensitivity.

The hope, that I have, is that my writing will resonate with you — now or down the road, in the degree that makes sense for you.

The Internet is here, now, and it allows people across the World, from cities and villages to collaborate, learn from each other, find other perspectives so we can have our lives enriched and full of possibilities.

You and the World

One way to live would be — to systematically try out anything you feel pulled to. And write down your experiences with it. Repeat for other things. Add, remove things as you go on.

There is a palette of activities that go hand in hand with all your positive and negative things.

I’ve come-up with a game few years ago. And it shows the relationship of you towards other people and topics in the world.

You are the blue one in the middle, the world is the outer circle. We’ve implemented this on a WhoHack hackathon in Rijeka, Croatia. Onetius — BarFight game.

Journaling to better understand what you are and what you want

Source

It is important to write all the time. Better said, to document.

People will grade you by your current state (last thing they’ve seen) and the high, and low, points. They don’t know about your inner-battles, magnitude of problems you are facing in your art, job, psychology or anything else.

Journaling you do is the collection of your experiences. The extreme points of your emotional states will be translated into high, or low, points, of your writing.

You could be in a rot for few months or years of your life. So, it is helpful to construct a map of yourself, at your best, to have it as a net, that can catch you when you could fall deeper.

On the other hand, if you’re up for the greatest art you could deliver, falling through, or having no net below you, will give you more confusion and, with time, more purified truths about life.

Depending on what you’re capable of at the moment, and your plans moving forward, adjust your actions accordingly.

Ego

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Ego could be helpful to attract people to yourself. People will start challenging you from every direction, and if you live it with dignity and courage and have something to teach — it seems like a positive way of channeling it.

Ego, like everything else, is there for a reason. As with most things, it is primarily here to protect the person at hand. It could be destructive or constructive, depending on the situation and the person.

Recognize your patterns. Decide what you wish to keep and what needs to go.

Attention Deficit Disorder

It has become increasingly popular for people with different levels and types of disorders to wind up on pills. For some cases, that could be valid; but it seems a big number of them can be avoided with proper nurturing of the mind, body, and soul.

Maybe you are just focusing on non-interesting things. Find what you value the most, play with it, see how you react.

Breathing and training could also help. Check the next part of this series (Self-Aware Software Artisan: Your Health).

For any serious form of it — contact a doctor.

Anxiety

In a fast-moving world, with all the information floating around, and people functioning in a significantly different way, you could get stranded in the middle ground of being overwhelmed.

Breath is one of the most important things you can control.

In any stressful situation — focus on your breathing.

Train your body, train your mind, and practice a breathing technique — every day.

Music matters

Different music for different situations.

Music needs to resonate with you for you to get healing from it.

Lo-Fi, Metal, Rock, Soul, …, everything in the right time.

Contextual music, example:

• Anxiety: Lo-Fi, Synthwave,
• Progressing the groove: Rock,
• Over-stressful life: Black Sabbath.

Feeling depressed

As our life can be smooth, there are periods where it can get rough.

• Try to understand your life from the beginning, up to this point.
• Write down every corner you’ve taken, truthfully.
• Forgive yourself and others for the bad things.
• Take responsibility for the past, present, and future. It is the cornerstone of your life.

Find others who are passing through similar patterns and that look to resurrect themselves and build a better future.

Black Sabbath has a good line:

I used to count in millions then,
But now I only count in one.

Step by step.

Even though you are passing through the hard times — always search for the light. Search for it by doing activities that you find nurturing to yourself, even though you don’t have the will for it. Find it, it will compound through time and balance your shadow. As you go through weeks and months, decrease amount of bad activities, and increase the positive ones.

Talk with friends.

If you recognize someone is not your friend, don’t hold it against them. Move on. Work on yourself, believe in yourself and nurture appreciation for yourself. Good friends will come, but the first step needs to be you believing in yourself.

Ideas laid out in the Self-Aware Software Artisan: Health could be helpful.

For any deeper levels, don’t shy away from talking to professionals.

If you take anything in life for granted, take this — it can get better for you. And it will, through time, if you observe yourself and put in the work. Be patient.

Addictions

Addiction could be:

• towards the ingestion of food, from sweets to healthy eating,
• cigarettes, alcohol,
• gaming,
• other drugs,
• working and
• anything else.

It is important not to stigmatize anyone with any addiction.

It is necessary to lay out what are the potential reasons for any addiction.

For some things, you could go cold-turkey; while others, depending on the involvement —could kill you.

Replace bad activities with the good ones. Do it in a progressive way, you don’t need to be a maniac to do a cold turkey, but scale it through time. Again, depending on the situation at hand.

Use Habitus to track your status and effects on your health. It also offers a Journal feature for you to pour your soul out and a Emotion tracker if you wish to resonate with it in that way.

So, write it down and/or talk with the professional, know that you can solve the puzzle you have in front of yourself.

You are not what others think of you

Nobody knows what is happening in your mind and body. It goes both ways — you don’t know what are other people made of.

Our culture progresses; things and views get de-stigmatized and more understood. Something that is on the edge can be at the center in the near future.

Listen to others, but think for yourself.

Don’t be a bozo.

Friendships

Most of the people didn’t have a supporting upbringing, their parents encouraging them, thus people grow up with less of the faith in themselves. And the effect of that, on life, is staggering.

Be there for your people, believe in them and show them that you believe in them. That’s the first gift friends can give each other.

Don’t text your friends. Call them each week, month — just to see if everything is going fine. Share all the new things you’ve learned, give a helping hand when possible and expect the same from them.

Self-Aware Software Artisan: Team could be interesting to you.

Socialize

Use Whatodoo to find events near you.

Life is an ever-evolving interplay of everything

Source

Human beings are not one-dimensional — being right or wrong, good or bad. But rather a complex system of fears, needs, and aspirations being challenged by mortality.

Each step, thought, look and feeling is an interplay of everything that ever existed. Thus, you, your friends, your job, is a culmination of a palette of previous experiences.

Constrained by the medium, we cannot crunch-out the perfect set of actions you could take to be at the exact place you need to be to be satisfied. Rather, what we can do is, explore the variables in our system we will outline below to allow you to, through time, sense what is more relevant to you and take the appropriate action on it.

Our life is a set of changes of emotional states, that manifest themselves through psychical and relationship effects.

Life is not a straight line, or a unbearable pursuit of the perfection that cripples us of taking any step at all, but rather a ever evolving understanding of the world around and inside us. So, the jobs we take, endeavors we partake in, are the continuation of our past, with a salt of differentiation based on the observed conclusions of our status.

I think we are here to continually explore our fears and make art out of it. This art teaches others, which in turn do the same to us. The fear, at the core of it, is what we love, as it holds the potential to set us free. And through this freeing, we live.

So, our purpose is, day in — day out, to observe what we are and take actions based on that. That could mean changing jobs, relationships with your job, friends, etc.

Technology is one part of our life. To many of us, technology ringed a bell and attracted us, as it allows us to work through a number of industries while talking similar language — a language of technology.

So, where we focus is — self-discovery, to find what you love through technology.

That could mean being, at times, in hard spots, but you know that you will eventually pay the bills with what you love, and that is miles better than crunching tasks that you have no emotional connection to.

Decide on the activity and give it the best you have

Never slack off on anything. If you are going to do anything, do it properly.

If you don’t have the will to do it, maybe it isn’t for you; or maybe — you have other things that are perplexed enough to disturb the normal flow of your mind to solve the problems at hand.

Observe yourself, through time, you will get back to the open space that is tailored for you, where you excel.

Knowing who, what and where you are

If you are in second or third-world countries, you need to take that into account. Or even in the first world countries.

Everything has its upsides and downsides. But know what they are, and how much are they.

You need to stand out, write articles, teach people around you. Show the world what you know and how you feel, that will set you and others free. It will inspire others, and connect you with like-minded people.

Continue to explore, share again, inspire again, attract more open, focused, and capable people.

Stand out from your environment, when you have something you find valuable. Cherish it and defend it enough to expose its true nature. See how people react to it. If it doesn’t vibe with them — maybe it’s not the right environment, or maybe you should question your idea or make it easier to understand.

Don’t be afraid of what you could become. And know that it is that — COULD — it is up to you to see what you will do with your mind and body.

Work hard, work smart, work as you think it makes sense. You will find a way to connect seemingly unconnected parts of you. But know that they are in no way unconnected. If you don’t see it now, you will see it connect later — if you follow intuition.

Allow yourself to do the mistakes

“You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs”.

Calculating your status

• How much do you do for others,
• how much do you do for yourself.

All of these parts can be filtered by History, Present, Future.

Balance before mentioned items.

Have fun

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🏆 Your progress 🌏 🏄‍♂️

1. Intro

2. You — A Human Being — ✺ You are here.

3. Your Health — 👈 Next up!

4. Question Everything

5. Deep work

6. Joining a Software Company

7. Starting a Software Company

8. Team Artisanship

9. Product Artisanship

10. Code Artisanship

11. Finishing up

Cover image source