Life Discovery: Significant Insights Analysis

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#2 —The “Mandala” and "Pair of Themes"
#2 —The “Mandala” and "Pair of Themes"

Oliver Ding

The first season of my 2022 started with a diagram called Mandala.

⁠

Significant Insight

The Mandala Diagram Network was developed with the Personas approach. Each time, I select a professional persona and develop a Mandala diagram to represent the persona’s mental model in general.

All Mandala diagrams are based on the Hubhood meta-diagram. I use

one Twitter thread⁠

to publish these Mandala diagrams.

Dec 21, 2021 — The Founder’s Mandala

Dec 23, 2021 — The Creator’s Mandala

Dec 24, 2021 — The Curator’s Mandala

Jan 1, 2022 — The Strategist’s Mandala

Jan 3, 2022 — The Designer’s Mandala

Jan 4, 2022 — Sailor’s Mandala

Jan 24, 2022 — Shaman’s Mandala

Since all Mandala diagrams are based on the Hubhood meta-diagram, they share the same structure.

⁠

The above diagram is the Hubhood meta-diagram. The Hubhood meta-diagram was formed by four thematic spaces and four connected hubs. There are many ways to develop a Mandala diagram from the Hubhood meta-diagram. There are five challenges during the developing process:

Challenge 1: Identify Four Thematic Spaces for a Particular Task

Challenge 2: Arrange these Four Thematic Spaces with a particular logic

Challenge 3: Identify Four Connected Hubs between Four Thematic Spaces

Challenge 4: Identify a pair of themes for each connected hub

Challenge 5: Name the new Mandala diagram which is the final product

⁠

The above diagram is called Sailor’s Mandala which was designed with the following two dimensions:

Individual Psychological Intervention

Social Practice Acceleration

Based on the above two dimensions, I identified four thematic spaces:

Psychological: Cognition and Emotion

Social Practice: Opportunity and Resource

It also connects to four frameworks:

⁠

I discovered a notion called “Pairs of Themes” from designing several Mandala diagrams. Eventually, I wrote a long list of “Pairs of Themes” on Jan 25, 2022. You can find more details

here⁠

In Feb 2022, I used some pairs of themes to write articles. Finally, I wrote an article titled

Knowledge Discovery: The “Double Theme” Strategy⁠

on April 2, 2022.

I didn’t use “Significant Insights” to talk about the notion of “Pairs of Themes” or “Double Theme”. I just recognized it and used it.

⁠

Method

The method for this task was developed with the following heuristic tool on

April 25, 2022⁠

⁠

The above model is called the Relevance of Zone which considers Other as an important social context for the long-term development of thoughts. You can find more details

here⁠

Based on the model, we can generate the following questions:

Other: Who is the Significant Other for this insight?

Thing: What’s the insight about? Why do I pay attention to it?

Think: How did I get this insight? Is there a technique behind the process?

Self: Where did I capture this insight?

Self: When did I capture this insight?

Activity: Is this insight part of an activity? What’s the activity?

Activity: Has this insight led to a new action or a new activity?

The following section will use these questions to guide our reflection.

⁠

Analysis

Other: Who is the Significant Other for this insight?

The Mandala Diagram Network was formed by the following Mandala diagrams. Some diagrams were inspired by others.

Dec 21, 2021 — The Founder’s Mandala - (inspired by

Product Field⁠

)

Dec 23, 2021 — The Creator’s Mandala

Dec 24, 2021 — The Curator’s Mandala

Jan 1, 2022 — The Strategist’s Mandala

Jan 3, 2022 — The Designer’s Mandala (inspired by

Frederick van Amstel⁠

’s paper about

design⁠

)

Jan 4, 2022 — Sailor’s Mandala (inspired by

a friend⁠

who is the founder of an adult life development program)

Jan 24, 2022 — Shaman’s Mandala (inspired by

a friend who is a data scientist⁠

)

While I am an advisor of the adult life development program, I didn’t work with the data scientist on a collaborative project in the past year.

In June, one friend of mine started an online adult development program. The program was designed with three components: 1) Life Purpose Awareness, 2) Personal OKR Practice, 3) Peer Review and Feedback. The major part of the program is a monthly peer-support group on several social media platforms.

However, the Shaman’s Mandala is inspired by the data scientist. In the original article titled

Thematic Space: A “Strategy-as-Curation”Weekend⁠

, I mentioned the context of the weekend:

The last article was inspired by a 91-minute talk with a friend of mine on Jan 18, 2022. He is a data scientist, a programmer and a mathematical thinker. He recently moved to the direction of innovative mathematical thinking. This is a big decision for him. He wanted to know more about the journey of independent research and the topic of
epistemic development⁠
in general. So, he called me for this talk.

I briefly introduced my journey of knowledge curation in 2021. He asked several
deep questions⁠
about creative decisions behind the journey. However, we didn’t have enough time to talk about Life Strategy for Indie Creators.

We had the talk on Tuesday (Jan 18). The next few days I was busy launching my toolkits. On Friday (Jan 21), I edited a 57-page document titled Strategy-as-Curation and sent it to my friend. The document started with the
Anticipatory Activity System⁠
framework and my rough plan about expanding the framework to the Strategy-as-Curation project. However, the plan only takes three pages. The rest of the document collects my emails with other friends and my diagrams.

Then, two Knowledge Sparks emerged. I realized that I should officially announce my “Mandala” thematic space. This led to a series of creative moments last weekend.

So, the data scientist inspired me to think about the topic of Life Strategy for Indie Creators. This theme was the primary focus of my thoughts in the week.

Thing: What’s the insight about? Why do I pay attention to it?

The Mandala Diagram Network is a sub-project of the D as Diagramming project. On Dec 28, 2021, I edited the Table of Contents for a possible book:

Diagram Blending: Building Diagram Networks⁠

During the past years, I designed several Meta-diagrams and used them for my own work. In 2021, I run the D as Diagramming project and used these meta-diagrams to design some new frameworks for various topics. The result is awesome! I realized that it is not only about meta-diagrams, but it is about a new practice of diagramming: Diagram Blending and Diagram Networks.

Originally, I only used meta-diagrams as connectors to build Diagram Networks. Later, I realized that there more than one way to find connections between diagrams. The approach behind the Mandala Diagram Network is Personas.

⁠

⁠

I used Part Three to curated my articles and diagrams from the perspective of Personas. See the above screenshot. The article was published on Dec 28, 2021. Later, I designed more Mandala diagrams.

Also, the content of the Shaman’s mandala diagram is about Life Development of Indie Creators.

The last article was inspired by a 91-minute talk with a friend of mine on Jan 18, 2022. He is a data scientist, a programmer and a mathematical thinker.

He recently moved to the direction of innovative mathematical thinking. This is a big decision for him. He wanted to know more about the journey of independent research and the topic of
epistemic development⁠
in general. So, he called me for this talk.

...

We had the talk on Tuesday (Jan 18). The next few days I was busy launching my toolkits. On Friday (Jan 21), I edited a 57-page document titled Strategy-as-Curation and sent it to my friend. The document started with the
Anticipatory Activity System⁠
framework and my rough plan about expanding the framework to the Strategy-as-Curation project. However, the plan only takes three pages. The rest of the document collects my emails with other friends and my diagrams.

...

However, what I want to deal with is not theory development for this movement. I want to have a good talk with my friend about life strategy for indie creators. He expects some useful practical principles, techniques, inspirations, solutions, instruments, etc.

I reviewed the Strategy-as-Curation document and I realized that I need a new Mandala which could present core theoretical concepts of the Ecological Practice approach with several operational heuristics together. Then, I can develop a new toolkit with the diagram.

Also, I realized that it is possible to use a new method to deal with the “Life” issue. From the perspective of Curativity Theory, I need to find two containers in order to respond to this challenge. First, I found the series of Mandala diagrams to be pretty good as abstract containers because each Mandala diagram represents a mindset from a professional perspective. Second, I found the metaphor of
Mind as Play⁠
could lead to a concrete container. I could design a Psychodrama-like participatory play called the Mandala Club. The play invites several professionals to join the event and each person shares his own version of the Mandala diagram. Then, all participants connect these Mandala diagrams with the primary theme of Life Strategy and related themes. Finally, each participant discovers pairs of themes for their own life strategy and makes a personal mandala diagram.

Though I wanted to respond to my friend’s need on the topic of life strategy for indie creators, the topic of life development is one of my favorite topics.

Think: How did I get this insight? Is there a technique behind the process?

The Slow Cognition project aims to study Developing Tacit Knowledge with the concept of Thematic Space and its canvas. Inspired by

Experience Sampling Method⁠

, I deliberately collected my own experience of my thoughts about some ideas as Experience Samples for the project.

I’d like to use Creative Attachance to describe the technique behind this process. After designing several Mandala diagrams, I detached my mind from designing a particular diagram and attached my mind to the whole of the Mandala diagram Network. In Part Two of the original article, I used the Shaman’s Mandala as an example to describe the process of designing a new Mandala diagram.

We can also use Writing as Thinking to describe the born of the insight of “Parts of Themes”. The Mandala diagram network was based on the Hubhood meta-diagram. These diagrams are formed by four thematic spaces and four connected hubs. I used “Pairs of Themes” to design each connected hubs. See the screenshot below.

⁠

⁠

In the end of the article, I made a list of Pairs of Themes. I just wrote down all ideas I could write at that moment.

There is a technique behind the insight “Mandala Club”: I used the “Double Container” principle from the Curativity Theory to guide my thoughts. I also used the metaphor of “Mind as Play” to create the idea of “Psychodrama-like Participatory Play”.

As mentioned above, I also realized that it is possible to use a new method to deal with the “Life” issue.

From the perspective of Curativity Theory, I need to find two containers in order to respond to this challenge.

First, I found the series of Mandala diagrams to be pretty good as abstract containers because each Mandala diagram represents a mindset from a professional perspective.

Second, I found the metaphor of
Mind as Play⁠
could lead to a concrete container. I could design a
Psychodrama⁠
-like Participatory Play called the Mandala Club. The play invites several professionals to join the event and each person shares his own version of the Mandala diagram.

Then, all participants connect these Mandala diagrams with the primary theme “Life Strategy” and related themes. Finally, each participant discovers pairs of themes for their own life strategy and makes a personal mandala diagram.

I also used the technique “Deep Analogy” to connect the insight of “Psychodrama-like Participatory Play” and the Mandala diagrams.

In
The Dynamics of Tacit Knowledge⁠
, I mentioned a technique for turning potential knowledge into actual knowledge: Deep Analogy. The most important key of deep analogy is the mapping between two containers. For present discussion, one is a set of Mandala diagrams, and the other one is a
Psychodrama⁠
-like Participatory Play.

The shared key between two containers is Personas. The above seven Mandala diagrams were developed by Personas. I selected a persona first, then developed a Mandala diagram for representing the persona’s mental model. A
Psychodrama⁠
-like Participatory Play requires several actors. Each actor represents a persona.

The seven Mandala diagrams were designed for different purposes or inspired by different triggers. Now, I curate these real events into an imagined journey.

Self: Where did I capture this insight?

I captured the insight of “Shaman’s Mandala” in my car on Jan 23, 2022.

I captured the insight of “Psychodrama-like Participatory Play” at the front yard of my house.

At around 3:00 p.m., I played basketball with kids. Then, kids moved to bicycling. I watched them and thought about the idea of a
Psychodrama⁠
-like Participatory Play.

I captured the insight of “Pairs of Themes” in my bedroom when I was writing the article.

Self: When did I capture this insight?

The draft of the Shaman’s Mandala was designed on Jan 23, 2022.

At around 3:00 p.m., I started working on the Mandala diagram project. I printed out six Mandala diagrams and my other frameworks.

⁠

At around 3:30 p.m., I drove my son to a classmate’s home for their learning project. I sat in my car and continuously worked on the project. I read a book which mentions Aristotle’s Four Causes, but I found that it doesn’t offer details. So I searched online and read an article on Medium.

⁠

However, I did not work on designing a new Mandala diagram about Aristotle’s Four Causes.

I changed my mind. I made the draft of the Shaman’s Mandala with two A4 sheets and one pencil.

Activity: Is this insight part of an activity? What’s the activity?

It is part of several projects. Each project can be considered as an activity.

⁠

⁠

I shared these insights in the article

Thematic Space: A “Strategy-as-Curation” Weekend⁠

. See the above screenshot. You can pay attention to the sub-title of the article.

This article is part of the Slow Cognition project and its focus is Thematic Space and Developing Tacit Knowledge. I used the article as an example of Temporal Slicing of a Thematic Space because the article records my ideas within one weekend.

The insight can be considered as part of the D as Diagramming project too. As mentioned above, the Mandala diagrams is based on the hubhood meta-diagrams.

The content of the Shaman’s mandala diagram is about the topic of “Life Strategy for Indie Creators” which is part of the Life Strategy project.

Activity: Has this insight led to a new action or a new activity?

The article led to the following three related articles:

Feb 3, 2022 -

Thematic Space: The “Strategy” thematic space⁠

⁠

Feb 17, 2022 -

Mapping Thematic Space #6: The “Life” thematic space⁠

⁠

April 2, 2022 -

Knowledge Discovery: The “Double Theme” Strategy⁠

⁠

In Feb 2022, I designed

the Life Discovery Toolkit (v1)⁠

and

the Life Discovery Canvas (v1)⁠

. On March, I worked on the AAS4LT framework (Anticipatory Activity System for Life Transitions).

⁠

The Life Discovery Project and the AAS4LT Project can be considered as two sub-projects of the Life Strategy Project.

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#2 —The “Mandala” and "Pair of Themes"#2 —The “Mandala” and "Pair of Themes"

Significant Insight

Method

Analysis

Other: Who is the Significant Other for this insight?

Thing: What’s the insight about? Why do I pay attention to it?

Think: How did I get this insight? Is there a technique behind the process?

Self: Where did I capture this insight?

Self: When did I capture this insight?

Activity: Is this insight part of an activity? What’s the activity?

Activity: Has this insight led to a new action or a new activity?

#2 —The “Mandala” and "Pair of Themes"
#2 —The “Mandala” and "Pair of Themes"