The more you know, the more you left unknown, consciously. That means that for every little thing you know, there are many you don’t, some of which you become conscious of once you start knowing the first thing. That is, knowing something means you start knowing the fact that you don’t know some other things.

For each question, an answer. For each answer, several questions. For each zone revealed in knowledge fields, many species of flora and fauna are seen; few are known, the rest are now known to be unknown. We don’t know many things; we don’t even know how many things we don’t know, but we are absolutely sure we don’t know many things. But what about knowing the unknown?

We know there are many things we don’t know. We know which are some of those many things (like whether or not there is life outside earth), but we don’t know many of the many things we don’t know; we know some of what we don’t know by knowing the question, the X’s name. But the rest are invisible X’s: We don’t know the fact that we don’t know them!

Picture a really big box containing everything (nothing is outside of it). In the box is an eye with a certain field of vision. Many things are on the box; there are black things and white things, but the box’ walls are black, so no black things can easily be seen.

The eye is special: It radiates some light, to be able to see better. Its field of vision is filled with a dim light, making white things clearly visible, and black things present (the eye can see there are black things, but their shapes mix with each other making it imposible to count them in any way). The eye, thanks to the light, can distinguish details on white things due to the shadows casted by to eye’s light. Yet in black things no shadow is cast, so no detail is visible.

In the box are white and black things. Many are visible to the eye. So much more are not. Some white and black things are in the field of vision, making the eye aware of their presence; many white and black things are not in the eye’s field of vision, making the eye unaware of their existence.

The eye can only see what’s in front of it. The rest exist, but the eye doesn’t know it.

The eye in the human race or a single person. We are aware of a large quantity of knowledge. We know a lot of it, white things, but are still wondering about the black things, trying to make the light cast shadows or paint them white. We want details, and we find details, but at the same time the eye opens more and more, making us capable of seeing a wider universe, more things, white and black ones, that were hidden outside our minds.

Society thinks like a single person. Each of us knows some things and ignore others. Society works that way if you understand the combined mind: Many more things are known, and even stored in paper, computers to prevent the loss of the knowledge, but still many things remain ignored.

You can think, and realize, that you know many things. So many you can’t count them. Now think about the things you don’t know, and realize you’ll never know it all. Why? Because time exists, and it doesn’t seem to be infinity’s brother. Many things are known and unknown. “Many” meaning “infinite”. We can’t count them, and are unsure of a quantity, or the existence of it. For now, they reamin infinite, like the universe. Meaning not that it is infinite, but that borders are irrelevant once you realize all of it will never be explored.

The infinity of things: Knowledge

Following a past article (We are much like Venn diagrams), in which we ended with a few conclusions, I’m writing this to complete those ideas with more ideas; this time aiming not to the relationships themselves, but to the inner part of a relationship, and how people organize their own information, just to know which things they’re going to share.

So, basically, this is all about sharing. We can gather information from anywhere, anyone,anything. That information can be turned into what we call knowledge. This knowledge can be translated into information to other people, so that when you share your knowledge, you share information. They may or may not turn that information into knowledge. But the key here is to know what information are we willing to share with others?

Let’s start where we left off in the last article. First, we people can be seen as Venn diagrams, which are supposed to be a representation of a set of things. We are calling these things knowledge, or information: Anything related us is in there. Each person is a diagram, and each person might or not share some pieces of knowledge with others. Can you picture it?

This use of the word share means that both people have the same knowledge, or information; opposite to share as an action in which one of them gives the information to the other person. Get it? I believe the rest of the article uses the word “share” the latter way.

We are also like a cell, with a nucleus keeping the most important things (information, knowledge). But, as a set of things, with an inner compartment, could we have more compartments like this? Or better, compartments within compartments? I believe so, as I believe that just as we classify people in order of closeness (se the past article mentioned above), we classify information in order of which things can we share, and with whom.

We are excavation fields

We are a field, in which other people can dig to find the treasure (your information). In a way, all our information is hidden. If we are a field, we could say we have our own representative (like a field-keeper), who is able to determine which people have permissions to go further into the field.

So the field can have layers. The outer layers contain the information we share with anyone, even strangers; this information might be our own actions themselves, if seen as information by others. A layer deeper you can only go with an invitation or a password. Is like a wall is keeping unrelated people out. Unrelated to you, of course, because once someone gets to be somehow related to you, he/she gets the password, and can then go into the first wall, without permission from you.

First inner layer

You dont really have to worry about people having a password if they are actually related to you. That’s because the first layer, even having all the things “in plain sight” (already dug up), is where you keep the “minimal information”; things like your first name, last name, birthday, work email, work phone, and that sort of things you wouldn’t mind (almost) anyone to know about you.

Second inner layer

People can only access your second layer with a special key made by you. You have the ability to create keys, and to destroy keys. Your keys. To this layer, friends and family may enter. Each person you have a relationship with can enter this part of the field. They all can dig up your information, your knowledge.

But they don’t have a “dig it all up” pass. Remember your representative? He/she will keep the people from digging “sensitive” information that might be there. You could fill a deeper layer with that information, but sometimes you don’t care that much. The representative (you, in a metaphoric way), will keep other from digging “too deep” on that layer, when you’re not comfortable letting some people doing so.

On the other hand, letting people into that layer gives them the ability to dig that deep, even when then you try to prevent it. Most of the time you will have control on what information you’ll share with people. Some times you won’t: People in that layer might outwit the representative (say, your conscious self), and dig deeper than you’d like them to, even in that layer.

Third inner layer and more…

Even when you have probably thought about how we tend to share information, but to keep most of it from curious eyes (and most people), you surely know some information, even so personal you wouldn’t think about sharing it with anybody, is kept somewhere. In most cases the third layer is filled with such information.

Secrets, emotions, feelings, deep thoughts about people, about yourself. These things are there, and the only way for others to step into that layer, is to have an expressed permission from you (so to speak). If they needed a key to get into the second layer, the now need you to open the door, with them blindfolded, and you leading them and digging for them only the information you want them to see.

For most people, family can enter this room. For others, just best friends. For a tiny group, both family and best friends. In some cases, though, you let some people in, with no warnings, because you feel comfortable with that: With these people wandering around the field, digging up your information.

Sounds weird, but sometimes you even create a fourth inner layer, in which you keep the most precious thoughts, ideas, feelings, conceptions, and anything you don’t want anyone to know. More than a layer, it might as well be a chest, with a hundred digits combination only you know, and keep elsewhere.

In a relationship, people exchange keys

I really have no experience on the matter (hey, I’m still a 16 years old guy), so in reality I don’t know if people actually exchange house/apartment keys. The thing is that reality doesn’t matter: The idea behind that is to give free pass to the person to be able to be in your life, without your constant presence.

Get the point? By giving your knowledge field’s keys to a person, you’re giving them permission to dig out your information (thoughts, opinions, emotions, feelings), with confidence. You trust the person enough to let them pass, “worry-less”.

In the end, I think anyone should know they can take the key away. PErhaps you knew it. PErhaps you just get lost reading. I tend to exaggerate analogies, to a point I don’t know if I’m making any sense. So I ask you: Does any of this makes sense to you? Are we a field, with buried information that others can dig up, by visiting and asking for permission?

What kind of information are we willing to share with others?

A Venn diagram is a way to represent a set of things. Picture a circle, with a name (commonly a capital letter), filled with things, elements. They can vary from being letters or numbers to words and strings. They can be anything, and the set itself is formed because all those elements have something in common.

Say there’s a set named “Alphabet”, the elements being a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y and z. What do they have in common? I think that’s pretty obvious. Now imagine a person, as a whole, could be its own set, its own Venn diagram. The name would be the person’s name and the elements any knowledge, thought, emotion, feeling the person have. The diagram is filled day after day with new things. Nothing leaves the diagram. You grow as a person, and from that you, as a Venn diagram, grow, too.

Venn diagrams society

When I say this I mean to say that we ca picture people as a whole as one big Venn diagram. If you ask for the elements I could mention countries, states, points of view, genders, and many, many other properties. All those elements, as you might have thought, are diagrams themselves; sets of elements. The most important sets are, in the end, people. A set for every one, which together can create bigger sets of people. Are you following me?

We’ve seen this from the top down, now let’s do it the other way around.

This circles represent people. The dots inside represent every little thing related to the inner person each of them are. Like thoughts, ideas, emotions, deductions, feelings, anything related to them. But they are separated. What does that mean? They are strangers that have nothing in common.

They might be people, so they are on the diagram for that.

They might be on the same country.

They might speak the same language.

But nothing else. Nothing inside them is shared. Not a single experience, or thought, or idea, or anything. Because, if they did, the diagram should look like this:

Little things are shared. This things are thoughts, ideas and everything I’ve mentioned above, right? With that being so, we could say these two are somewhat alike. The two people share interests, experiences and many other things we can truly get from an abstract idea of a diagram. Yet, we can tell they share something.

I thought of this months ago, but I wanted to take it further. As I’m deeply interested in knowledge and how it works, and how it’s used, I had to tell myself those dots, those elements, were not thoughts or emotions; they were pieces of knowledge.

Sharing knowledge, in an intrinsic way

What I mean for that is that, if I know something, and someone knows that too, we’re sharing that piece of knowledge, right? It seems to be exactly the same as the original thought of people sharing thoughts and emotions and experiences. It’s not. Why? If I think of the diagrams as people, rather than people being transformed in diagrams, I start thinking about the duality of the idea: People can be Venn diagrams, as long as they don’t stop being people. And what are people? Thinking animals that live in society, and tend to befriend others, sharing information, and therefore knowledge, with others. People share knowledge.

Now, the diagram is a living thing. A thing that moves and accommodates itself, communicate with others and stores knowledge of all kinds, if related to itself.

Think of it as a cell, with an outer membrane, that separates the things inside the cell from the outside. It’s a living thing, that stores little things, now knowledge about itself. But a cell (at least an eukaryotic cell) have a nucleus, in which it stores DNA, the most precious thing for a cell to exist. Not to continue existing, but to exist on the first place, as a cell. The nucleus is like a compartment, in which these other things are stored.

What do we have now?

A person can be seen as a VEnn diagram, which can overlap other Venn diagrams. The diagram itself is not the representation of the person, so it’s treated as a living thing itself, that moves and interacts with other diagrams in the plane, just as if it were a cell. The cell itself contains lots of little things; things that let the cell function (this things are the same as the diagram’s elements). The cell also have a compartment, in which it stores the most important things: DNA.

Picturing it on the plane:

We see here person A and person B. The diagrams overlap, which means they are sharing information: knowledge about each other. Treat this overlapping is way: the dot you see in the image is a piece of information B gives to A. That knowledge is about B, and in A, it will be stored as B-related information. “I like ice cream” would be shared and on the other person it would read “Mathias likes ice cream”.

Are you following? It’s a matter of perspective. When I see knowledge about myself, it’s about me. If the knowledge is about another person, it’s about that person. The other person would see this exactly the other way around. “This is mine” can be said by anyone, meaning all sort of different things: It means something belong to someone, to the person speaking; if the person changes, the complete meaning changes, as now it’s not yours, but mine.

Relationships: How we share things with others, and which things we share.

To how we share, I could name a past article, about “How much do you share with other?“, if you’re interested. From this point of view, we share like that, our diagrams overlap, in a way, something is shared. The sharing mechanism makes from a piece of knowledge (“I like ice cream”), a copy of it (which changes to “Mathias likes ice cream”), to be “sent” to the other person.

Now, how do we share this things? Image the Venn diagram for each person had levels (which can be sub-groups, and therefore digrams, themselves). The center level is the nucleus, each level closer to the surface is made of things, the more closer to the surface, the more unimportant to the person.

You see? like this:

To be continued…

To let you rest from all this explanation, I’ll stop this week’s article here. It’s not you need to rest, but you need to think, and I need to prepare the rest of it in a better way, to let you understand what I’ve found about knowledge, relationships, and how we share this knowledge within this relationships. On the mean time, just think. Thinking is a characteristic only we have, according to our present knowledge, so use it. From this article what are you thinking? Does this enlightened you in some way? Or you got lost in the way? Any doubts you think I, or others, would be able to solve?

We are much like Venn diagrams (You know, a set of things)

A relationship is any kind of bond between to things, in this case (and probably the rest of this blog’s article), relating people. When you ask a stranger for the time, you’re creating a connection. With a friend, you have a bond, too. The same with family and any kind of acquaintance.

Of course, those bonds are different, as all of them are from a “different level”. Each relationship can be stored on a level: family, close friends, friends, acquaintances, strangers… Even that “significant other” could represent a totally different level of connection. Normally we arrange those levels in that order, family being the closest thing to you, and the significant other between family and close friends, or a level below that. That arrangement may vary, but regardless of that, we tend to share our lives more with the first, and least with the latter. I call that closeness.

More sharing translates into more closeness

The more close you are to someone, the more things about your live you share with that person. By that means, being very close to your family and two friends, makes you share more with those people. Being a less close to other friends, makes you share less. Being the least close to other acquaintances makes you share the least necessary to coexist (say, the least you share to a coworker or a classmate who are not your friends).

Strangers occupy a special level relating what and how much you share with them. It completely depends on the person. Even having no kind to previous bond with such people, strangers, you might see it in (mainly) two ways:

1. The person has no connection with you, so you’re free to share anything related to you (even if you choose not to).

People who think like this can talk to strangers in a supermarket, a train station, or basically anywhere, about them, sharing more than they would with an acquaintance.

2. The person has no connection with you, so you feel anything but comfortable sharing things with them

This happens when people are not comfortable with themselves just to share it with anybody. I believe that the first point is the most common, but my sighting might just apply to my surroundings (actually…). If the second point (this one), applies to you, don’t worry, it’s not “abnormal” or anything. You’re just shy. This somehow leads me to…

Confidence: It’s all about where you can find it

When a stranger asks you for the time in your watch, in a anxious way (like looking everywhere, moving weird), it gives you no confidence, which might cause you to not share that information with the person, or just to be cautious about the person (in case he/she could do something harmful to you; survival instincts). On the other hand, you might not care about the stranger being anxious, because you’re already confident of yourself, and are just minding your own business.

Let me try something clearer: Picture yourself in a coffee shop, laughing with friends or family, perhaps celebrating something or just catching up. You’re laughing, you’re confident, because their presence gives you confidence. And with that confidence, you didn’t see a threat in an anxious weird guy asking you to look down to your phone for the time. The existence of the threat is irrelevant to the fact that you felt it or not. Being alone, perhaps you didn’t have such confidence, and you did felt (even a little) threatened.

It’s not that you had to feel that way, but that if you lacked the sufficient confidence (in that precise moment), you might felt that. It doesn’t need to happen to everybody, or every time, it just happens when you’re lacking of confidence and the presence of no one around gives it to you.

In a few words, the more confident, the more you share, and vice versa. But be careful, as even when known people usually give some confidence…

Some people give even more (unwanted) confidence

Some people are just fountains of confidence, that are ment to make people around them feel confident, even if that person if a stranger. I advise you to be careful. These kind of people might sound like the good guys helping others, but see it this way: The more comfortable you are with someone, the more you share. And these people are likely to know about that ability to give confidence. They might use it.

Comfortability level relates to how much you share with others

The presence of someone, regardless of who that might be, or in which level of closeness he/she is to you, might give you confidence. Perhaps you’re about to give a speech and your mother decided to stop by and listen to you. Her presence may have a comforting effect in you: She makes you feel comfortable. That obviously translates in you giving your speech in a better way.

But in a smaller scale, it’s the same, yet without the actual duty to deliver the speech (in most cases). You’re at a store and a smiling attendant starts to help you. Other people smiling always makes you feel comfortable (a normal, sincere, smile; some are just creepy and have the opposite effect). So a smiling attendant would make you feel comfortable. It’s again a matter of threats: A person is more likely to see a possible threat in a tattooed, serious guy, than in a smiling, joyful attendant. Both could be serial killers, but appearances are what matter.

In a few words, the more comfortable, the more you share.

In the end, comfortability is not the same as confidence

Comfortability is just to feel right, to feel good, and well, comfortable. Confidence is to believe you’re right, that you’re doing right. See? Comfortability is about feelings, while confidence is about thoughts. Of course you might feel more or less confident, but those feeling are always derived from the thought of something that is making you lose the confidence.

You might feel confident about yourself, and even about others, and yet not feel comfortable. Picture you and your best friend are talking about some topic you’re not comfortable with. Your friend gives you confidence, that added to yours, probably makes you talk (something like) freely. Yet, you’re not feeling comfortable with the topic. Not completely comfortable.

Why? Because even when confidence and comfortability are not the same, they are related: One leads to the other. The whole reason the presence of someone is making you comfortable is because that person gives you confidence. You can’t expect to be fully comfortable with anything if you’re lacking confidence.

To conclude…

It’s always good, from my perspective, to know more. And with this, I know more about how we share, and hopefully you too (I’m not saying any of this is an absolute truth). We share with others, with everybody. We share even with strangers. But we share differently. It depends on the person, related to their position regarding their closeness level (to you). But it also depends on you: In how much comfortable and confident you are. You, as a person, have a “normal” level of confidence, which changes with other people around. That might lead to more or less comfortability, which translates into more or less things you share with a person you’re talking with.

ow, strangers are a different story. How do you treat them? Do you share freely with strangers, or are you careful about what or how much you share with strangers? And with other people? Are you cautious about how much and what you share? Share your thoughts reading these questions! (If you’re comfortable doing so).

How much do you share with others?

Have you ever heard that a person who feels taller than others loves itself more? You may call that person egocentric or whatever you like, but it’s a fact, that somehow your perception of your stature has a direct relation to your self-esteem. It doesn’t matter if you’re little or 7 feet tall, the perception is what matters.

Have you ever met a person who is obviously smaller than others, but who feels taller? High self-esteem. Or a person taller than other but who feels smaller? Low self-esteem. The “normal” thing would be to feel exactly as you are. You are taller, you feel taller, and the same if you’re small. The thing is that that way your stature would be ironically telling your actual self-esteem. No one likes to feel smaller than others, even if the person is smaller.

Let’s say we now see people as they feel themselves. High self-esteem people as taller ones, and low self-esteem people as smaller ones. You know, the more your self-esteem, the taller you are in this fictional world we’re picturing. Now…

Put yourself in a body of water

Picture this: an empty cube. Large enough for you to stand inside, and for your eyes to be exactly at half the height of the cube. Fill half the cube with water. That’ll be our water body.

That way, the water is touching your eyes. What are you seeing? The surface of the water, and if it moves (as it should), you’d be seeing underwater and above the water from time to time. You know, the water moves and at some point it covers your eyes, as at some points it doesn’t.

Manipulating concepts: What if your self-esteem was higher? What if it was lower?

You picture yourself in the cube, and your eyes exactly in the point where water and air touch. Now picture yourself as if you had more self-esteem, like “a head” more, if you know what I mean. Your eyes now can see the upper world: In this case, whatever is drawn on the inner sides of the cube that are above the water. But, the water is too reflective, and as so, you can’t see what’s below the water level.

Now, picture yourself with less self-esteem, that meaning, with your eyes below the water level. In this case, you can see what’s there, below the water, drawn in the inner sides of the cube, too, but not what’s outside, above the water level.

The cause is basically the fact that being the surface of the water reflective, bring less light to the water below the surface, makes the surface be shiny enough to feel like a separated entity: It’s not the water, but a layer, a veil that covers and hides one side from the under (the upper and under sides).

Happy and sad times, getting bigger, getting smaller

I’m making an analogy here. When your self-esteem is high, your “self” in this imaginary cube world we created gets bigger, and vice versa. Now, self-esteem can be seen as a life-long characteristic, or as a dynamic characteristic. When seen as the latter, you see that self-esteem changes from time to time, making you “love” yourself more at some points in your life than others.

What does that means? That, for example, when you regret doing something, you love yourself less, because you did something wrong. It doesn’t matter now how much less, so moving on…

When you feel happy, your self-esteem is higher than when you feel sad. That means that if something makes you sad, your self-esteem goes down. Meaning, for your “self” on the cube world, that it will get smaller. Directly derived from that, the water level will be above your eyes, and you would only be able to see underwater.

The upper and under worlds

You can only see underwater if you’re, well, underwater. There light only reaches in little quantities, and in the inner walls (the cube’s) are drawn thoughts, in a way that, with such a poor light, seem like sad thoughts. On the up side (above the water level), more thoughts are drawn in the inner walls, but being outside of the water, light is anything but poor, and those thoughts seem to be happy thoughts.

Add to it, that underwater is harder to see further away than above the water level. It’s more difficult to see through water (a liquid), than through air (a gas), because light gets “stuck” in water molecules (like the surface), making it seem like the light goes slower, or with less energy. The thing is, that while the light source is above the water level, that zone will be clear, while underwater will be a little darker.

Happiness, sadness and perception: the analogy

The states of happiness and sadness are exactly the upper-world and the underworld in this imaginary cubic world (and by upper and under world I mean under and above the water level). Your height represents your self-esteem, and it is, in a daily basis, directly derived from your current state of happiness and sadness. If you’re happy, you get more self-esteem, and your “self” on that world gets taller, and eventually gets to see what’s above the water level.

What’s above is nothing more than happy thoughts, or what you think are happy thoughts (which is what matters: Your perception of those thoughts). When you’re feeling down, your self-esteem goes down, and so does your “self” on that world, making you only see the underwater thoughts, which are sad thoughts (as you see them).

The thing, after all, is that from your state depends your well-being, your self-esteem, and from it, your perception of life, of your own thoughts. They might be different being happy from being sad, but some (if not most) just feel that way. Feeling sad will make you see sad things, while feeling happy will make forget about those sad things. At least, that’s how I see it. Can you see underwater when your self-esteem is above the level? Are you happy being underwater? Or would you like to float above it?

Perception of reality: happy times, sad times and self-esteem.

When we are happy, we think clearly, or at least we feel so. We may not see some bad things “as they are”, but we do see good things, and in general, we feel “normal” and feel life “fluid”. On the meantime, as everything is “normal”, thoughts are clean and you feel good, creativity comes naturally, and ideas, thoughts and general creation too. When we are sad, none of this actually happens.

It depends on how sad you are at the moment, but in general, if you’re an “average person” (say, who gets equally sad and happy moments, and is not somehow depressed or something affecting those emotions), when you get sad, is for a reason. Maybe a friend insulted you, maybe you didn’t win at something you were sure you would, or maybe the friend that insulted you for not winning just died. Those are just examples of what could make you sad. Now, regarding that reason, thoughts come in the way.

When we are happy, as I said, life feels “fluid”, as you think what you want to think. When you are sad, unwanted thoughts come in the way, and make you think in things you don’t want to think about. Like, for example, the bad thing that caused your sadness, or just other bad things, just because we are masochists sometimes.

Creativity doesn’t come naturally when I’m sad

If you remember correctly, my articles are based on empirical knowledge (information I gather basically from observing others and myself), so this may not be (and should not be) the same for everybody. Yet it is for me, and you may be affected by this too. So the point is…

I can’t be creative while sad. The reason is that when I’m sad, I over-think everything. I think and think about why I’m sad, and about other sad things. I think I’m an “average person”, and I can tolerate many things, yet I can be sad, just as anyone else. The thing is that sad, I can’t think straight. Life doesn’t feel “fluid”, as unwanted thoughts come in the way. Just as writing is difficult with interruptions, being creative is difficult being sad.

Thinking and feeling

Sadness and happiness are emotions. We, as humans, think and feel, somehow separately. How I feel doesn’t really must affect what I think, but surely how I think. Happy people usually write happy things, and sad people sad things. People is affected by their emotions, even when creativity is the center of it all.

Thoughts are anything but emotions. The emotions may control the “fabric” of these thoughts to some degree, and even the reading of them (see Lines of thoughts, if you’re interested), but not the thoughts themselves. They are separated entities, and as so, you may feel super happy about winning some argument, while thinking about how you cheated and told a lie. The thought itself can form a feeling (guilt?), but the main emotion is not related to the thought; none caused the other.

People tend to rationalize feelings. You usually feel bad because something happened, that made you feel that way. With that information, you could (you do) think that rationalizing the emotion, and understanding why you feel bad, to then “downplay” the reason to not feel bad, will actually work. Yet it doesn’t actually work, because, as I said, emotions and thoughts are different things, even if you “make a copy” of an emotion, and “translate it” into a thought, to then “edit” it erasing the sadness effect, the original emotion won’t change.

It does get better

Emotions do disappear, or transform, with time, only, as far as I know. If you’re at least 5 years old, you could make a long list of how many times you’ve been sad. You could also make a list of how many times you’ve been happy. It’s not about comparing both lists, but to realize nothing lasts forever. Even if that thought is sad itself, it tells you a bad feeling will eventually go away.

So, creativity and my thoughts/emotions

The creative process can be seriously interrupted by a sad mind, which is normal. The reason, as I told, is that bad emotions make the fabric of thoughts to create bad ones, even if unrelated to the moment. In my case, the bad thoughts themselves don’t interrupt my creative process, but the way I handle those thoughts.

I shut down.

Usually I’m thinking a lot, about anything I want to think. When I’m sad, I think a lot, too, but about things I don’t want to. That makes my mind a mess, as in the first case I can organize my thoughts to an end, yet in the second, I can’t. So my solution, is to just shut down my mind, and stop thinking, or at least stop trying to think in this organized way I like so much. That is what interrupts my creative process.

Why does it matter to you how I handle this?

It should give you a picture of a way to handle bad thoughts, bad emotions, a reason a person (I) may stop thinking, the way emotions and thoughts are not completely (but yet) correlated and, in a few words: Another thing to think about this week.

Think about yourself, about something that bothers you, about bad feelings, about how you handle them, how you should handle them, how people think, act, and feel. Think about yourself as a machine that can always break down, but can always be repaired.

How are you feeling right now? Are you sad about something? Are you happy? How is your creative process going? Can you think of 5 different uses for a paperclip? More? None? Share a piece of your mind below in the comments.

Why I can’t be creative while feeling sad (And why you should care about it)

If there is something that always gets me knock out of writing, drawing, and anything that has something to do with creativity is in fact, the lack of creativity. It’s not that I lack of creativity, but that at the moment, there no inspiration, and no creativity, as an energy value, not as a adjective, if that makes sense.

The fact is we’re all creative, yet not always we feel it, nor we act creatively. That’s the reason I came up with this: II was soooo bored and found myself with such a lack of inspiration, that it occurred to me, after a while, that the only way out of it was to need to answer a question.

The fact is, that even when philosophers thought more about questions that about answering those questions, answering is mush easier that formulating a question. Here is why:

Wen you have a question, you already have a topic, you already have a goal, and you already have initial information (even the tiniest information gathered from the question itself, if the topic is unknown).

When you have nothing, and must create a question, a problem, to then find answers of just something to say about it… You have nothing. And it’s way more difficult to, from nothing, create a question, than from something create an answer.

Question and answers, why are they so important?

The thing with a question, is that it can have thousands of possible answers. Maybe not right answers, but logical ones. I could ask “what color is the sky?”, and you could answer: red, blue, green, orange, purple, rainbow… Thousands of colors, right… Even green is a possible answer. Why? Because it’s a color. The logic there is that you’re asking for a color, and the sky might be green at some point. I don’t care answering if it actually can be green, but that green is a color, therefore, it’s a possible answer.

Why can’t the sky be green? Why can’t people believe the sky is, or could be green? Why is blue not green? Why people like the sky being blue? Do they like it? Could the sky be red and people would still like it?

Believe it or not, much more questions can be formulated from this. What you need to see is that those are formulated from an answer: “The sky is green”, which was the answer to a question: “What color is the sky?”. So, basically from a question I could simply find an answer, from which I could formulate several other more interesting questions (I believe). A question, from an answer to another question, in fewer words.

Every answer creates two more questions

It’s not an accurate statement. Yet it has a simple meaning: no matter how much you answer, more questions will arise, because, at the end, what matter are the questions themselves, not the answers. The questions matter, precisely to be able to find answers, to think about the question, create an idea, generate answers and finally create another question.

It’s all about knowledge, about finding knowledge.

Has this anything to do with creativity?

Yes it does. Creativity is creation. It doesn’t matter how we create, but to in fact, create. There are many ways to express ourselves, and therefore, create in the process. Painting, drawing, writing; those are the most common examples when it comes to creativity. But, what could you write about, draw, or paint? It’s all about inspiration, plus, a thought or an idea.

But why a thought or an idea? Because you can just see a beautiful bench and start drawing it, or painting it, or writing about it… But how could you write, or paint, or draw? You must know something about it, and that initial knowledge comes from seeing the bench (see Knowledge: from observation to ideas).

But some times, when you’re out of inspiration, you need a creativity boost. My advise to you is to think about questions! Questions can solve the tiniest problem, because you have answers to answer them (I saw it…). It’s way harder to come up with something out of nowhere, than to answer a question a million times and think about why you answered that way. Study your answers, study people answers, and you’ll find knowledge, ideas, thoughts. That’s enough inspiration for me, is it for you?

Try it sometime, think of a question, a simple one, that ask for information, answer it with anything you could, logically, not necessarily true in reality. Is it easy to come up with an idea after seeing your answers? After asking, answering and reformulating? Do you think the whole process is worth it? And by the way, would you like an article with useful questions for that matter?

Creativity boost! Answer: questions!

A nice person is that who respects, who’s tolerant and accepts the existence of other people. Are you any different from that? If you are, in any way, a little intolerant, or sometimes you wish others weren’t around you (like that creepy fellow on the bus, that annoying neighbor of yours or a dumb politician in charge), you should at least (out of respect) be respectful, in any way you can. Even lying.

When you lie, you should follow some rules that won’t make you a good liar, but will make you a respectful, decent, liar (maybe on the inside wishing you could tell the harsh truth).

These rules are:

1. Don’t make fun of them, be realistic with your lie.

It’s not about telling a good lie. It’s about not enraging them by telling a lie that bad. It’s about making a lie sound realistic. Saying you fell from a 10th floor is not realistic, saying you fell from a 7th floor is, if you tell how bad your injuries are.

Again, it’s not about being a good liar, but about being a decent one. Don’t tell people you’re a famous lawyer if they haven’t heard your name even once. Don’t tell them about your 5 luxury cars, if they haven’t seen a rolex, a tie, a yacht, or something.

It’s about not making fun of them. Tell a realistic lie, based on what they know and don’t know about you or the object in question (the lie is most likely not about you, I hope).

2. Let them reply to it, by making the lie “replyable”.

As the lie is supposedly true, you should never stop people who want to reply, or say something about it. Even if it’s the most realistic lie and there’s no way they could tell it is one, they would sense something’s wrong if you don’t let them talk, and share their thoughts.

But it’s not only what you say after the lie, but how you say it. A lie is a lie, and as such it’s not supposed to be a general rule, a universal truth. Even supposedly being a truth, you know it’s not, and by making it a universal truth can make people think they can’t reply, argue, against it.

Make your lie fit a normal statement, with no generalizations, and take into account that..

3. It’s not an statement: let them talk within the lie.

Sounds bad, but your lie is not supposed to be an statement. A decent liar doesn’t say harsh words, dry thoughts. A decent liar creates a discussion, makes people talk about an idea, the lie, so that they feel good. On the mean-time, you know you made your effort to not be rude or disrespectful.

Because respect is what’s important. That being so, and following the very first point…

4. Do not let them know it’s a lie, but accept it is, once they realize.

Letting them know it’s a lie while you tell it or immediately after is just as rude and disrespectful as making your lie sound like a 5 year old’s. A decent liar’s lie must sound realistic so that people don’t feel tricked, outwitted, played, or else. You must make the other feel good or not make them feel a thing. Once you make them feel bad about your lie, you’re making a mistake. You’re not being a decent liar.

5. Let them know it was a lie, once the lie is no longer needed.

At the end, a liar is a liar. A lie is a lie. You should, being a decent liar, a respectful liar, a liar after all, feel bad about your lie. IT’s never about being a good lair. It’s about not making fun of other people. And by getting away with a lie, you are.

Either way, if you already told a lie, and did all of the above, you are almost a decent liar. The only thing left, is to claim your lie, tell you lied, reveal the truth, and make sure others understand why, how and what you did.

Then, and only then, I, and yourself, will be able to call you a decent liar.

5 Rules to become a decent liar

This is something curious I thought about several days ago. I know, and I figure you know too, that senses trigger memories sometimes. You can see a face and remember a person, or by smelling a perfume, hearing a voice… You can trigger memories from specific smell, sounds, senses… If they relate to your life in some way.

There are different kind of senses, and a different times we pay attention to them in different proportions. Some times we listen more carefully than we smell, or touch more than we taste, or well, you get the idea. Referring only to sounds and smells, I noted something odd…

You can remember things, as well as you can remember moments. But those memories are different; one refers to space, and the other to time. Can you recreate in your head the last memory you have of your best-friend’s home? Now, that is different from recreating the last time you were there. In the first you recreate the empty space (empty as no people are there in your head), in the second you see the people and not the space (you do, but not that much).

No, what kind of memories does smells and sounds trigger? Both. At first I thought smells could only trigger space memories (which means to remember a place, or something, a thing, a person), and sounds a time memory (again, I’m talking about dimensions, this means time passing, a moment).I was wrong.

Kind of sense translates in kind of memory

It depends on the kind of the specific sense to tell what kind of memory it will trigger. Sensing a perfume you’ve only smelled once before, will trigger that moment’s memory. Instead, if you know that perfume to be used only by one person (as you’ve sense her/him wear it more than once), it’ll trigger the person’s memory.

In other words, you sense something, and you store that sense (a smell, a sound, a texture, a taste, a view) in your memory, apart from the “complete memory”, that means, the memory of the moment, the things around, the people, and those things; specific things apart from sense, memory triggers, but yet, linked. Then, when you sense that again, (the smell or the others), your mind sees the link and retrieves the “complete” memory linked to the sense.

Number of occurrences dictates kind of memory.

If that sensing, of smell or sound, happened once, your mind will store it as time triggers: you’ll most likely remember the moment more than the actual things. The actions, what was happening more than what was there, or how were things physically.

If the sensing happened several times, your mind will now most likely associate it more to a thing, which you can describe, so that the sense is most likely to be linked to the description of the thing, and not an specific moment or time.

I don’t think I was have any way to actually prove this. That’s not my work with these articles. I share my “findings” (no investigation on it) to make you think. I believe this to be true, but the important part is: Do you believe it or not? Why? Can this be applicable to other senses? How? Express yourself!

Remembering with sounds and smells

Knowledge is everywhere. Knowledge is information, and it can be gathered from literally anywhere. This information, this knowledge, can be obtained anywhere you look at, or use any other sense. That’s why it’s said that observation is a way to get information by the use of the senses and sometimes (introspection, or some sort), the use of out own minds.

So, being knowledge everywhere, could it be important to understand how it works? where does it come from? Obviously the answer is yes.

Knowledge works in three stages. I won’t tell you how it works, how it’s formed, but I can tell you that there’s an initial information, gathered from observation, a processing stage, in which an idea is formed, linking thoughts, pieces of information, and a final stage, the processed idea.

1. The initial information: raw knowledge.

The first information we get from our environment are things like “the sky is blue”, “the building is high”, “the car is fast”. Those are quick appreciations of the things and people around. When we notice something physical in someone: dark hair, blue eyes, soft skin, dry hair. Anything physical goes in here, because those are immediate appreciations.

On the other hand, that’s empirical knowledge: knowledge you gather from direct observation. When we talk about what’s on a book, say a school textbook, we are talking about pre-processed thoughts. Those are ideas that other people got by looking at the empirical knowledge they gathered and processing the information. That’s when education falls a little. We usually understand things better when we got those results, but, on the other hand, no one could do all those experiments and find those results in one life.

So, empirical knowledge gathered by you is part of the main stage. Also, what you gather from readings, of any kind, from explanations, or anything, goes here too, if, and this is important, you haven’t processed the pre-built ideas. Reading a book is fine, but if you don’t think about the ideas there present and the implications of those ideas, you are not processing, and therefore, that will remain as information, and not as a self-created idea.

2. The processing thoughts: possibilities.

When you thought about the skies being blue and the ocean being also blue… Perhaps you told to yourself “Hey! both the ocean and the skies are blue, could there be some connection?”. That question is a “thought in process”. It’s the idea of an idea; it’s the essence of what might become a real, logical, idea. But, it’s still a question.

It’s the option. The thought that there might be some more information you don’t know about: the connection between the two things, for example. The idea of an idea, the possible knowledge of more knowledge, if that makes any sense.

3. The final stage: real ideas.

As you might have thought, here goes the real ideas, the finished thoughts. Once you finally relate two or more things, the relation between them becomes new knowledge. You acquire this new knowledge by constructing it, basing yourself on the first stage’s knowledge, the raw knowledge,, or empirical if you want.

This kind of knowledge, of thought, is the one which is written upon, most of the time. Once you clarify your thoughts, and raw knowledge, and tie one thing to another, you construct knowledge, so that this new knowledge becomes part of your whole knowledge database, so to say.

All the laws of physics, all text that is found on school books, or even in most cases what people call knowledge, is this: processed thoughts. Even if knowledge takes even the raw observations. Knowledge is everything, therefore is everywhere. Or isn’t it? Do you agree to this idea? Or you believe observations are not knowledge? What do you think knowledge is? Or is formed? Share your thoughts!

Knowledge: from observation to ideas