For the last couple years I have been planning and thinking about how to share my research with a wider audience which bridges diverse communities including healers, robotics researchers, dancers, martial artists, yogis, neuroscientists, psychologists, and really all of us who are curious about exploring and sharing our human experience. It’s a grand vision and it is hard to know how to get started, since there is so much to say, and I can make so few assumptions about background knowledge of any particular reader. But I am excited about the prospect of sharing ideas between communities because there is so much knowledge that just needs to be translated into the language each community understands.
So, here I sit with a very daunting cliff in front of me — a new shiny blog with no posts. How to start?? That is the question asked at the beginning of every new adventure — be it a journey across country, packing for a move (we are doing that too!), starting a new research project, or writing. I tried to start this blog once before, two years ago, and got bogged down trying to write all my thoughts before I could start posting them. Writers Block. This time I’m not going to wait until I have all the pieces in place — rather, I’m just getting started. Here it is — my first post, and I’m writing another one next week (on something?).
Getting Started. Just Do It! It sounds so easy, yet it is so difficult. We all have changes and new things we want to do, but never seem to get started on. Or we get started and then stop. What holds us back? Time, attention, jobs, and money — a thousand things can appear to stand in the way. But these things are all superficial — our actions are ultimately determined by what we chose to do with ourselves. We can choose to do anything we are physically capable of doing, as long as we can perceive the option and accept the consequences of our actions.
Perception is the first step of the autonomous decision cycle (perceive — think — act), and is easy to see with respect to the external world, but also applies to our internal landscape. Since at any moment we have infinite choice, the ones we see as available to us are largely defined by our concept of who we are and what we do. In changing our concept of ourselves, we also change the options and choices we see as available.
So, as I start my blog I am “Getting Started” by transforming my vision of whom I am. In the past I have thought of myself as someone who wants to write a blog, someday. Now I am a writer who has an active blog that I work on every week. This shift makes all the difference because now, in the moment when I have to choose what to do next with my time, the way I view my options and the consequences of my choices has changed.
Having started by transforming my concept of myself and changing my set of choices, what comes next? We will find out one week at a time, as I don’t yet know how this will evolve. I hope for this blog to be a bit of everything. Some posts will be like this one — introspective articulation of my current experience with the intention of sharing the physiological tools and tricks I’ve found useful in my life. Other posts will be more technical discussion of robotics, or reviews of scientific papers or books I have just read that are inspiring new thoughts for me. Many posts will be dedicated to fleshing out my research into human (and robotic) motion as the basis for understanding how intelligence works. And most importantly I hope to share the deep joy, wonder, mystery and love I find in the simple fact of Being Human — It’s good to be here! Life is fun!
