I’ve come to hold the view that life is about piling up dots … piling up building blocks, including connectable anchoring and reference points … that can, over time, be connected, rearranged as necessary, and fleshed out to create the life, Dreams and Destiny we will ultimately own.
The dots may include pixilated data, knowledge, information, understanding, wisdom, attitudes, habits, relationships, values and principles. These dots create a matrix of a virtual YOU.
“Mining” for dots is a life-long enterprise. First and most of all, it involves engagement – with people, accessible media, teachers and coaches, as well as social and cultural norms and nuances. [Perhaps not so much Facebook, Twitter, soap operas and late night TV!] It involves experience as well as at least a rudimentary knowledge of both history and current events. Context is important; the WHY and HOW and WHERE STUFF FITS and HOW IT GOT THERE matters.
Acquisition of tools and skills – along with expertise in using them – for “mining” and connecting the dots – is critical. The more dots we have at our command and the more things to which we can say “There was NOTHING TO IT”, the better capacitized we will be for the duration.
Executive functions of Visioning, Validating and Vectoring are important in determining where to mine, what to keep, what to discard, what to defer, what goes where, what “dot matrix” relationships are emerging, and where and how to add value.
Sometimes “holes” in the matrix appear … like when an opportunity is lost, when things don’t fit, or rejections pile up. Unexpected opportunities and synergies may ALSO appear. Thus, where we end up may be a considerable distance from where we started out or thought we were going, such as:
Not all dots are the same denomination. Some are durable indefinitely (that can be both good news and bad news!). Some are perishable. Some are toxic. Some are large. Some are small. Some are only virtual. Some promise more than they deliver. Some are like Teflon – they stick to nothing. And some are like glue.
Finally, a collection of dots may not be pretty on the “cutting room floor” or on the back of a finely woven tapestry. But a critical mass of high quality dots tied together with an acute sense of purpose will yield a unique work of art with both intrinsic and extrinsic value that can turn out to be priceless.
“Life is made up of … small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement.”
Anna Quindlen
A Short Guide to a Happy Life
Finishing Thought: Pile up more dots and less gray cement! And don’t just settle for “Dippin’ Dots” and low hanging fruit; go for deep water and deep earth gems. While mining for DOTS, particularly seek out those “Points of Light” dots that resonate with broad spectrum generative and regenerative power … and don’t shy away from connecting them with others. Quartermaster
