Are You An Owl, A Bird Or Both? And Why The Answer Doesn’t Matter

When are you actually going to bed? And when do you wake up? There’s always a big discussion when you talk about bio clocks, waking up early to use the day (e.g. for writing) or things like the B-society.

A German farmer’s saying goes like:

Der frühe Vogel fängt den Wurm. (The early bird catches the worm.)

Farmers still exist and with all the eco and sustainability trends going on there will be even more rather than less in the future, I’m assuming.

However, I’m writing as a „digital native“ here, so my focus should be on the perspective on all these digital information workers. Should it really? So, what’s the actual value of waking up early?

Value of waking up early

Let’s have a look what Pieter Levels, a pretty known self-called „digital nomad“ (Pieter, correct me if I’m wrong that you call yourself like that) arguments:

There’s no reason to think of waking up early as a quality.

He’s referring to the context that waking up early is perceived by the majority of society as a sign of quality.

While I agree with Pieter when he says that it’s „ridiculous“ to assume waking up early is a virtue you religiously need to stick to, I see the quality of waking up early in the connection with the surrounding (nature).

Learning Nature

As an always-connected city person, as far as I know Pieter is and I’m as well, you don’t really speak Nature. Yes, Nature is a language. And yes, cities have parks and green parts but I’m talking nature that you can feel, breath and live with(in), nature that you start to understand when you spend enough time in it, just like in your students exchange times in Germany to learn German. Potentially, you learn the language you are surrounded with: When surrounded by nerds, you learn nerd stuff. When surrounded by coders and write, you learn code and writing. When surrounded by Nature, you learn to read and write Nature.

Making nature your ally means you follow its rules, so to say. That includes: When the sun rises, you rise. When the sun goes down, you go to bed. You don’t have to follow – you can do whatever you want. But if you do, you are rewarded with a synchronization an iCloud-Sync can’t give you. Making nature your ally makes every participant of it (flora and fauna) an implicit ally.

Connecting to nature

Accordingly, what connection do you have when you don’t follow Mother Nature’s dictatorship (intentionally exaggerated)?

Who are you in sync with? With you own values? Sure. With people who use their time liberated from constraints like you? Definitely. How much a-synchronicity can you actually handle and don’t lose connection to people whose life-work’s clocks tick differently? I don’t know. Do you know? How archaic is it to to think that an alignment with nature (the natural ecosystem) is important for your inner ecosystem (internal balance)?

Digital liberty and natural constraints

In essence I’m feeling the total liberation of time on the one hand (thanks mainly to the internet and people getting more and more what it offers in terms of life-work options and paradigm shifts) and a longing for the rhythm of nature and following its melodies.

I’m wondering: How does a generally digital work-lifestyle with artificial (i.e. handmade) liberations, constructions (metaphorically) and constraints having a strong emphasis on a connection to technology go hand in hand an with a nature-centered approach in your work-lifestyle whose strong connection is built up through the raw tangibility of things. How is the outer world you’re work-living in a mirror of your inner world?

Thinking of Ghost In The Shell and leaving you with these thoughts.

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Is Being A Digital Nomad A Lie?

Hacker News: Is Being a Digital Nomad a Lie?

Hacker News: Is Being a Digital Nomad a Lie?

Pretext: Only if you believe (in) it, it can become a lie (that affects you). If you don’t mind and let it pass — like you do with a lot of things in life because you can’t save everything and everyone from the sickness of this world — then the discussion / trend / hype of being a Digital Nomad will only be a side-topic or not a topic at all — like bad commercials.

However, if you feel called by the term because you sense that it could be related to what you’re doing, you’re wanting to do it or dream of doing it, here’s my view and more extensive response than my initial comment on Facebook, a kind-of response to what Yann Girard initially wrote under the title „The digital nomad lie“ (originally found on Facebook).

Remote or location-independent

From my perception and conversations with people who apply this kind of lifestyle (fully or partly) the term „Digital Nomad“ is something they don’t like that much. To be a „Remote Worker“ comes closer to what identifies them, and I personally like being called „remote worker“ (working location-independent like that most of the time since 2008) more than being a nomad because it sounds more down to earth.

Read More

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Human Story Experience Design

“Human Story Experience Design” is a very constructed word, I admit. What it contains are reminders because words are often reminders.

Side note: When you write a word you remind yourself that you know the word. When you speak a word out loud, you remind yourself that it is part of vocabulary. This can be surprising from time to time. That’s why expressing is so important, and over-thinking so dangerous because thinking too much can result in you thinking you don’t know about that although the practical application would perfectly show it.

Originally it derived from the more common notion of “User Experience Design”, a nowadays heavily misused term. I could have left as it was. “User Experience Design” is something people get.

Why I changed it

A user’s experience is as general as saying a life experience. Do you get an idea when you hear it? Do you get excited? When you read “story experience” something happens. A story can be a lot — an adventure, a flat chat, a flight, reading a book. A user is that anonymous concept that makes me vomit when I listen to it or (occasionally say it) — it’s ugly.

A story is exciting. A user is boring. A story create curiosity. A user is flat white wall. A story is alive. A user only conceptually exists.

Also, I added “Human” to the term. This is the biggest reminder of what the design work I’m doing is all about because I could have left it as “story experience” or “story experience design”, and it would be more than appropriate. I didn’t because the majority of experiences visual and interaction designer create are for humans. If you look at some visuals, interfaces and interactions you wouldn’t believe someone (the creator) actually had intentions to make is usable or even a joy of use. That’s why the “human” element in the term I coined and in general is so important.

A first definition

Human Story Experience Design is a designed, well-constructed, solid and consistent experience in which a story is communicated through one to various media having in mind that it’s human persons who are interacting with it.

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