OP1b-Interests and Skills

More and more I find nearly everything I encounter interesting. Everything is connected so nothing is completely irrelevant to whatever specific paths I walk. Secondly, and perhaps this is the same reason from a different perspective, I appreciate and respect extreme diversity and am often curious as to how something that may make no sense to me can be important to someone else.

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

Certain areas draw my curiosity and interest more than others, and I am discerning to a degree so I can focus on these areas and develop particular skills and knowledge. In the context of an academic learning environment, I seek to focus on specific areas of interest that I feel will lead me to being able to support myself by doing things I love. By supporting myself, I mean directly by growing or finding food and medicine and making useful things as well as engaging in the economy by providing goods and services for other people in exchange for money or other goods and services. By choosing to live in this way I believe I will be supporting local alternative economies, reducing the transport and handling costs of food from far away. I want to live in close integration with the natural systems and cycles of life on Earth in the Universe, and be aware of my connections.

In deciding what to include in the Interests mindmap I was thinking about which interests specifically would be good to develop to a degree I could support myself by doing interest-related work. Many of these interests have already led to work and experiences of various kinds, and many I have very little hands-on type experience, having learned about things by reading and talking to people. Through my experiences and intentions I have acquired some skills.

Of the skills shown in the mindmaps below, I would say I am beginner to intermediate in most of the areas. I feel greater ease and mastery of English, sewing and fine arts than other areas of interest. I included two mindmaps of my current skillflexes. One I made in my notebook during my brainstorming for my Life and Career Review, so it reflects the broad themes into which I was trying to sort my life experiences. The second one shows better organization and feels more accurate to me.  The themes I chose for my L+CR were too vague to organize my skills meaningfully, although it does show some interesting connections between seemingly unrelated things, and perhaps more accurately maps how my mind is connected even if it might not make as much sense to other people. "Journey" to me includes both physical travel skills such as bicycle repair as well as the more metaphysical journey of my personal development.