Two months ago, I sketched an article about how I used to be into conspiracy theories and how I became a skeptic after that. I had most of my ideas laid out when I started questioning myself, pondering such an article’s usefulness. I was skeptical about my story of how I embraced Skepticism #verymeta. I settled that conspiracy theories drain energy they do not deserve and that it was better to focus on why it is better to have Healthy Skepticism. Not only concerning UFO’s but on our daily lives in general. I was trying to give a more positive angle to it — something I have been trying to do for each of my posts since my rant about movie adaptations.

If you are interested in my opinion about the topic, here is a TL;DR:

Conspiracy theories are fantasies that try to over-simplify complicated subjects to achieve a feeling of control via understanding. They often have distorted reflections of genuine issues that get neglected in pursuit of the fantasies mentioned above. In other words, the real “mainstream” version of our reality is more complex and scary than any conspiracy theory.

As always, let’s start defining this thing:

skep·ti·cism

Wikipedia defines it as “a questioning attitude or doubt towards one or more putative instances of knowledge which are asserted to be mere belief or dogma.” For some people, this might sound like an insufferable attitude, which might be true if you take it as “let’s doubt of everything that is presented as a fact.” If you do, you might fall into the radical branches of philosophical Skepticism, which holds that there is no way to achieve certainty about anything. That is ok if that is your thing, though. That is why I use the adjective “Healthy” along with Skepticism; to distance myself from the rabbit hole of philosophy.

When I was a kid, Skepticism was somewhat of a dirty word. After all, I grew up in a country that did not confirm its secularity until I was 10-years-old. The skeptic label meant that somebody is trying to ruin everyone else’s party with questions that nobody is asking. What was born out of curiosity, was understood as an impertinence.

I like to believe that my shameful period reading conspiracies and pseudo-scientific crap online was mostly out of that curiosity. I loved the myths and stories behind some of them. After all, I was into popular science since I was a kid, and I have always loved astronomy (thanks for everything, Carl Sagan). However — like my dark lapsus exemplifies — natural curiosity might be a significant factor in the path of critical thinking, but it is not enough by itself.

It is literally my job

I am no scientist — very far from it — but I need to adopt a doubting stance in my everyday work. I am an Experience Designer, and I need to assume that everything I propose might be mistaken. If I do not have evidence to back up an idea, I should be prepared to see it fail.

This “business skepticism” is also useful to doubt the intentions of my clients and users. Yes, I should not believe the words of the people bringing the money. I should not take what they say at face value. Mainly because what they think they want might not be what they need. It can sound unfair from an outsider’s perspective, but it has been a critical innovation concept for decades.

A famous and apocryphal quote by business-genius and well-known anti-Semitic asshole, Henry Ford, says: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” That is why we are two decades into the 21st century, and we do not have flying cars yet; we might think we want them, but in reality, we need safer and more efficient vehicles — which might include taking the wheel away from humans at some point.

But most importantly, I must regularly check on myself. We humans, are solipsistic by nature. We often believe some things are ok because it makes sense for us. Still, when we reach other consciousness outside our heads, we recognize that other people might see things differently. Since I was a little kid, I have been using computers, but I did not have an internet connection at home until my last year of school. My experience is not shared by everyone. What I think is easy and straightforward might be challenging and confusing for other people.

And on top of that, we also have biases. Meaning that even in our road to be impartial, we might be skewed in our decisions without noticing it. And that is when you trust in the people around you for support.

Moreover, like most things in the real world, there are no absolute truths and several ways to measure how “correct” you are. We keep on learning because we want to understand things better and deliver a better outcome, not for the sake of knowledge (and because they are paying us for it).

It has always been

As you can see, this type of learning-based Skepticism — even when it is practiced outside of the corporate world — is miles away from the “acktually” meme. That person that does not want to miss an opportunity to let you know how wrong you are. The mansplaining type of person that will bury you with facts and logic. Actually, that is not right.

On the contrary, the purpose of being a skeptic is to suspend judgement. As we stated before, Skepticism — on its original philosophical definition — quite literally means that you aim to not affirm anything.

However, Skepticism is not about doubting all things. We are not Greek philosophers that can spend their entire lives dedicated to doing that. Skepticism, well… modern Healthy Skepticism, is about learning and understanding the things surrounding you, which might influence your life. It is about having a significant amount of the puzzle pieces to interpret the picture. This, while understanding that the puzzle has no borders and that you can always find more parts that can change your interpretation of the image.

You probably are content enough with the current understanding of how soaps work, or how shoes are important, even to the point of making assertions (shoes are good but do not wear them inside your home, that’s my hot take). And some things might be out of your control to even care, like Dark matter or if cricket players are using performance-enhancing drugs. I understand why people might be concerned about those two subjects. Still, I want to save brainpower to figure out different things.

Kids are dumb

We all go through our lives, doing stupid things and learning from them. There is a moment in our lives when we believe we know everything, and that is our teenage years. That is why each person on planet Earth knows and understands that teenagers are stupid. Is just the reality of things.

We grow when we learn. We usually do not search for that knowledge. It comes in the form of a fork inside an electrical outlet or paying for a time-share. When we assume that the puzzle is complete, that we understand the whole lot; that is when we stop learning. Curiosity dies, and we do not grow.

Learning is tiresome, as it means having an open mind and considering all the different points of view. Nobody wants to keep challenging themselves over soap and shoes all of their lives. Yet, we love to stick to our opinion about these significant and meaningful ideas. Like we like to forget about school calculus just because we already got our grade, and it was hard, and we do not want to go through that all over again, ever [please use another topic if you actually kept using calculus through your adult life, thanks].

When we do not want to think about these significant and meaningful ideas, they are propagated as dogma. It regularly happens with politics. People making decisions that might impact us in different and radical ways; that sounds like something you need to pay notice all the time! However, the complexity and obscurity of how these issues are often handled make it really hard for the lay-person to sustain a learning stance. We just select a friendly face and decide that we agree on everything that the friendly face’s team decides.

I often see that protests are a perfect example of this apathy for thinking. Protests are disruptive and political by nature. People hate disruption and to (really) think about politics. That is why protesters are often demonized. However, when the protests are far from home, the optic switches, and they become freedom fighters. They do not test our patience, and we usually do not have stakes on the situation, so we are open to what they have to say at the surface level. The protestors overseas are a simple idea. The protestors in our backyard are a complicated circumstance. Therefore, to avoid thinking beyond, we make our judgement right away:

Protestors are wrong, no matter what they are protesting for. If they were fighting for something fair, they could do it without protest. We will not consider the issue any further.

Case closed. We learned nothing about the situation. We are not smarter.

Politics is the last thing on earth we should approach with apathy. And considering the scope of political decisions, politics demands us to think about other human beings’ experience. When was the last time you changed your mind on something you considered was correct, or you realized you made a false judgement? Maybe you found out that the issue was way more complicated than you assumed and affected people differently. Now, consider that the same thing might happen to something you perceive to be a truth.

Or maybe you have never been mistaken, or you were before but not anymore, making you a genius. Call me a skeptic, but I have another hypothesis.

Adults are dumb too!

This post started with how conspiracy theories are foolish and misguided. But now I am saying that it is dutiful to listen to all perspectives. Does that include crazy folks?

The fact is that many points of view are poppycock, created by the same ignorant point of view that refuses to learn — an infinite loop of ignorance. A conspiracy theory is shifting from believing in a mainstream idea to believe in an obscure dogma. There is no critical thinking associated. That is why, on top of being open to learning, you need to learn to smell and avoid the BS. This is why curiosity is not enough! If somebody claims something extraordinary, some extraordinary evidence is required (thanks again, Sagan). In the spirit of other posts in my blog, if you want to learn how to learn, a good starting point is identifying logical fallacies. Nonetheless, you should not ignore an issue just because the person trying to persuade you that it is important does not know how to build an argument.

Flat-earthers and anti-vaxxers are plain wrong, and they do not deserve your energy. However, learning how wrong they are, might help you better understand how our world works. Although the basics about the earth’s shape should be in the same category as soap and shoes in this day and age. And it might be tempting to debate people about these stupid topics, but you should always remember Brandolini’s law.

The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.

Yes, debating. Most times, the learning process is not just to listen but to ask questions and challenge ideas. Sometimes, this method does not give you more information but confirms that the previous pieces of the puzzle were in the right place. You might also comprehend your ideas are weak, and your puzzle is still full of holes — without making the opposite right. That is the nature of a healthy debate and exchange of information. Yet, and this is important, never debate somebody if you do not care about them and their opinions.

If you really care about the person you are arguing with, you will attempt to understand their perspective. And if you want to change their minds, you will make an effort to evaluate how they process information. Changing minds requires empathy, and empathy requires understanding what others experience. That is why your super smart arguments on Facebook go nowhere. Information requires context to make sense, or it will be rejected. They need to be served with some fat so the body can absorb it. You might be correct in your arguments, and you might be approaching a conversation with an open mind, but if you do not figure out how they see the world, you will not find how to alter their view of the world.

Unless they are Nazis or something. Fuck those people and their view of the world.

Still a dirty word

While writing this post, I read a book that urged people to find their own voice and write. Overall, it was a good book, and I found it inspiring (which I rarely do).

Sadly, in the end, the writer went on a rant about Skepticism. She says:

I read in Harper’s Magazine a few years ago an article by a highly educated man wherein he told with what conscientious pains he had brought up all his children to be skeptical of everything, never to believe anything in life or religion or their own feelings without submitting it to many rational doubts, to have a persistent, thoroughly skeptical, doubting attitude toward everything. In other words to weazen and kill in themselves all spontaneous love, passion, enthusiasm, all creative power. I think he might as well have taken them out in the backyard and killed them with an ax.

For her, critical thinking education equals filicide because skeptical people lose all of their creativity. That rubbed me the wrong way, for obvious reasons. Maybe I should have expected something like that when she painted Christopher Columbus as a role to follow because of his initiative. A man who was considered a monster even by his contemporaries and responsible for an enterprise that killed millions of native Americans.

She believes that our internal voice was sacred by nature and that we should follow it with passion and ignore any interrogation. That we should protect “our own truths” from internal and external inquest. It might be a nice perspective to have if you really want to finish the first draft of that vampire fan-fiction you have been trying to write, but that is all.

In reality, that internal voice is a result of our environment. It is healthy to understand what nurtures that inner voice. Go ahead with the vampire fan-fiction, but do not make that surprised Pikachu face when everybody finds it derivative.

As a whole, I find her advice horrible to give to anyone that operates inside a society. That is the tightest of echo-chambers, which feeds the unavoidable conclusion that the right answer for everything lies inside you and that you should disregard the opinion and experience of others. The idea of having “our own truths” is what ends up in things like denying the expert’s advice and having to deal with incontrollable pandemics. And if humans were not skeptics of the world they created and the religions they follow, we would still have legal slavery, male-only suffrage, and leech-based medicine.

Questions are the origin of creativity. New ideas are created every day because people doubted the effectiveness of the establishment.

I Am Really Convinced About Being a Skeptic was originally published in unsafespace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

TL;DR

Because it is a great and unique way to build empathy. Also, it is cool, and you don’t need a reason to enjoy things.

I do not know if you have had one of those moments when you see how many books and courses and tutorials you have in your backlog; all of them waiting to help you to learn new useful skills, advance on your career, or whatever thing might satisfy your need for self-actualization. As I confront those moments and examine my priorities in an attempt to be more productive, there is one activity that I cannot leave aside when cleaning my day: Reading fiction.

The long-hanging fruits are always the same. I have stopped playing videogames for months. I have restricted my TV consumption (I decided life was too short to watch Tiger King). I still play music almost every day, but that does not count because it is like a body function by now. However, I refuse to put reading fiction in that same category of mindless entertainment, which nowadays is so beloved and hated at the same time — one of the frequent absurdities of late-capitalism.

I wanted to understand why I have this mindset. Not only to use it as an excuse but to determine whether I am just an insufferable book lover who puts Literary Fiction on a pedestal. The one that will let you know the book was better than the film. I wanted to explore my own reasons instead of googling what’s the consensus.

It might be easy to use the credit that people give to books when they consider them a higher form of entertainment. Even in the modern golden age of Television, when we compare high-quality “prestige” TV against cheap “airport” genre-fiction, the books seem to get the upper hand. Nevertheless, there is a structural aspect that gives indigestible offal like The DaVinci Code, a theoretical advantage over modern gems like The Wire.

Do not close this in anger just yet! I am not saying that one is better than the other. That might be a great clickbaity title, but I do not think they should be compared because they work under different levels and expectations.

Why it is different

As I said on my blog before, as consumers, we often ignore how the medium changes the core experience. On film and TV, we connect with the characters via the actors’ performance. They are not us, they are human beings existing right there on the screen. As spectators, we connect with actors the same way we connect with other people. Reading is a different experience. There is no intermediary between you and the characters in the book, as you are the one who interprets the situation.

The point of view of a story can change, as well as the distance between the reader and the characters. A book can be written in first-person, where we as readers find ourselves inside the head of another character. Yet, they can behave with distance and become unreliable narrators, even making us doubt their thoughts. On the contrary, we can find a story told in second-person when the narrator speaks directly to us and defines us as a different person, but in doing so, it makes us officially part of the story and bring us closer to it.

Even in the “objective author” narration (the least personal type of narrative), when the story is told as it is perceived without access to people’s minds and thoughts, we are closer to the action. It is very different from watching an actor perform. As I said, the reader makes the interpretation, which means finding an equilibrium between what the author can give, and what the readers can recreate in their heads. The author needs to be clear, but they need to provide enough space and let the reader construct their ideas. They do this by evoking feelings, senses and memories, instead of specific concepts.

That is the central notion behind the axiom “show, don’t tell.” If you read about the “hot air that feels dense when passing through the nostrils and wakes up every cell of the skin when you leave the shade,” it is more relatable than “it was a hot day.” It is because the reader can probably remember when they experienced similar weather, and create a personal connection to the text. We are then experiencing the story, even if we are not reading the characters’ thoughts. And this is happening in a limited and one-dimensional channel of communication. The simplicity of the medium brings these results because it relies so much on the reader. Of course, only great authors can make an enjoyable task out of this exchange. And sometimes, a hot day is just a hot day, and it doesn’t have to be personal because it will not bring a thing to the story.

I consider that bringing intermediaries to that relationship between text and reader, like narrators, might impair the experience. I personally feel that reading the words directly in your mind has an immense role in all of this. When you listen to an audiobook, there’s already some interpretation by a voice actor. There is a change in the rhythm of how you process ideas. I love non-fiction audiobooks, but I dislike them as a medium for fiction. I don’t have the patience for a narrator trying to deal with several character inflections. I think it is just another case of the wrong medium since I would prefer to hear storytellers doing their thing, with stories created for that purpose.

Why it matters

Ok, so we established that reading is lit and all the cool boys and girls do it. But is this enough to keep it as a priority on our hyper-productive days?

Thanks to the intimate connection between text and reader, reading might leave us with something besides a good time. It can actually help us to develop empathy. When we read, we find ourselves in such closeness with the characters that we can perceive their condition under a different optic than we usually might, even in the real world. Fiction invites us to see beyond face value, something completely opposite to what the current 24-hours news cycle encourages with actual real people. We are so oversaturated by information that our brains have no alternative but consider the humans behind those stories as mere stereotypes. It is impossible to analyze the situation beyond that.

When we read fiction, we open ourselves to think beyond what is happening at the surface. We want to learn willingly. We want to know what drives a character to be how they are and what justifies their actions. If we do not get that, we dismiss the characters as caricatures or not realistic enough. We are always searching for those inner contradictions of the characters, those “consistent inconsistencies” that are present in us, less-than-perfect beings. We want to know if there is the capacity to change — they do not even have to change to have a satisfactory arch — you just need to see them turn in the right direction.

Yes, I am saying that sometimes we give more credit to fictional characters than to real people. And that is why experiencing this is so important. How else are we going to get exposed to these kinds of circumstances where we realize there is more to learn? Usually, we only start looking at a situation in a critical way when it happens to a loved one or to us. Unemployment will be due to laziness until it hits us, and now the markets, politicians and China are to blame. A broken heart only needs a rebound until we lose what gives our existence meaning, and everything else seems dull and grey.

This willingness to learn the driving force behind fictional characters is not only limited to charming and likeable people. We appreciate villains that are complex and are driven by misguided feelings or harsh situations. It does not mean that we are trying to justify their actions; we just want to learn how somebody can end up in that kind of situation. How often do we have that same perspective in the real world?

Why it does not always work

Ok, so we established that reading also makes you better than the rest. But you might not be convinced that reading Twilight is better than watching a documentary.

First, let me say that in the spirit of this “cult of productivity” scenario in which we want to spend most of the day doing something fruitful, you will still need time to rest and focus on other things. It is very well known that productivity suffers not because we are not working enough on a task, but because the time we use working is not well spent. We should not cut leisure moments but instead, get rid of the distractions that mess with the rhythm of work.

Also, if we spend those small windows of opportunity to relax in activities similar to what we do in our “productive time,” we might feel that we are not resting. For lack of a better term, the need to switch “gears” or “mental lanes” seems like a real necessity. This will tell us that if you are learning and absorbing new information through the day, you should reconsider watching that documentary and instead do something more mechanical. And if you have been reading all day, you should disregard the advice of this post and do something different.

Previously I mentioned The DaVinci Code or Twilight as examples of books, which means they should also have the potential to create this deeply personal connection, right? I can only talk for The DaVinci Code, but after finishing it (and realizing it was a rip-off of Holy Blood Holy Grail), I felt that nothing I have discussed here ended up happening. And it is not only because it is objectively a poorly written book — I actually enjoyed that cliffhanger-ridden hot-mess while it lasted — , but because it is part of a type of literature that rarely covers what I’m discussing here.

Genre Fiction means that a work of fiction is created to fit into a specific category. Romance, science fiction, horror, western, fantasy, those are examples of genres. Literary Fiction, on the contrary, is not defined by genre expectations. The assumption is that Genre Fiction is based mostly around the plot, while Literary Fiction is all about characters. Because of that, Literary Fiction usually deals with complex topics and the characters are highly developed.

That is the main reason why it is evident that not every single piece of fiction will grant empathy superpowers. Not all books will give you enough to try and understand the characters. Their situations might be irrelevant or too rooted in fantasy to relate. However, do not reject all Genre Fiction just yet.

The widespread consensus is that Genre Fiction is less elevated than Literary Fiction. I do not care about that because some of my favourite books ever are Genre Fiction. And in reality, the line dividing them is really blurry. Some of the best literature is “textbook” Genre Fiction, and some Literary Fiction can easily fit into a genre. For example, 1984 is clearly a science fiction work, same for Infinite Jest and The Handmaid’s Tale. Some people consider Love in the Time of Cholera a romance novel, while nobody can deny Blood Meridian is a western. Furthermore, not all Literary Fiction is devoid of plot.

Coda

After reaching my conclusion and looking for online confirmation, I came up with this article from Harvard Business Review. They support the “case for reading fiction” with a study that concludes that avid readers can deal better with ambiguity and do not feel the urgency of “cognitive closure.” This means they do not rush into conclusions and are more open to change their minds at the onset of new information.

This makes me think that this horrible culture of over-productivity does not focus enough on the effects of what we consume. I like to think of fiction as the fats in our food, there is such an overabundance and variety of it that it generally gets a bad rep, but they are vital to our function as humans, and we are not getting enough of “the good ones.”

Go and consume a big fat piece of great fiction. It will make you good.

Why reading fiction matters was originally published in unsafespace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hace un par de años tuve la oportunidad de trabajar con un gran equipo de Diseño. Entre algunas de sus prácticas tenían reuniones de “Design Share Out” en las que todos, Diseñadores, Directores, Contenido o Marketing, podían exponerle al equipo avances en sus proyectos, algún artículo que les pareciera relevante para el conocimiento general, noticias sobre software nuevo, entre otras cosas. Empecé a entender un poco el concepto de cultura de equipo.

Durante algunas semanas el Director nos propuso responder 2 preguntas para nuestra reunión de estatus: ¿Cuál es su objetivo personal para la semana? y ¿cuál es su objetivo profesional? Yo, entraba un poco en pánico al inicio de las reuniones por varios factores: el orden aleatorio para responder, tener que hablar en inglés con personas que sabían español (solía preocuparme mucho que “descubrieran mis errores de gramática”)️ y por querer compartir algo profundamente interesante. ¿El objetivo laboral para la semana? fácil, ése se respondía sin problema; pero el personal… era de las primeras veces que tenía que compartir éso frente a un equipo de trabajo.

Con el tiempo y la práctica el pánico bajó, y al final, entendí que ése tipo de ejercicios, realmente nos ayudan a acercarnos un poco a los demás. Nos sacan de ése piloto automático y medio robótico de reporte de horas, de decir qué hice ayer, qué voy a hacer hoy o qué obstáculos tengo y nos conecta con los humanos que tenemos al lado.

Mi historia en el Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Para empezar éste ejercicio de “unir dos pasiones” El Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) y el Diseño de Experiencia de Usuario (UX), voy a enmarcar el artículo bajo las preguntas que mencioné:

1. ¿Cuál es mi objetivo personal?: Estudiar el caso del Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Femenino en Colombia y entender cómo puedo ayudar a mejorar la experiencia de las mujeres que deciden intentarlo por primera vez.
2. ¿Cuál es mi objetivo profesional?: Poner en práctica un Proceso de Investigación UX (mientras escribo mis primeros artículos para documentarlo) 🙃

Proceso de Diseño

Trabajando como diseñadores, al empezar un proyecto idealmente seguimos un proceso para enmarcar la situación o el problema que queremos estudiar. En éste caso me centraré en: Las Mujeres en el Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Problema:

Baja tasa de retención de nuevas practicantes de BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) en Colombia

Objetivo:

Conocer mejor el contexto de las mujeres que inician en el BJJ y entender:

1. Las razones comúnes por las que empiezan
2. Las razones comúnes por las que lo abandonan

Primeros pasos: La Entrevista

La entrevista, es una buena alternativa para identificar ésos momentos difíciles (pain points) o momentos de felicidad (moments of delight) durante la experiencia que una persona tiene al utilizar un producto o servicio. Así, todas las partes interesadas (diseñadores, investigadores, desarrolladores, producto, negocio, etc.) podemos: 1. entender el contexto de los usuarios y 2. conocer qué partes de la experiencia se podrían mejorar o hacer menos complicadas.

A continuación seguiré con un — recurso no tan ortodoxo — la autoentrevista. Ésto será un “monólogo” en el que seré la entrevistadora (Diseñadora UX) y la entrevistada (Cinta Marrón de Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu)

¿Cuál es mi primer recuerdo con las Artes Marciales?

No tengo presente haber sentido interés por las Artes Marciales durante mi niñez o mi juventud. El momento en el que estuve más cerca de un tatami (el piso o mat que se usa para entrenar), fue a mis 6 o 7 años, cuando acompañaba a mi tía a recoger a mi primo de sus clases de Karate. Recuerdo un cuarto muy grande con niños haciendo ejercicios raros y nosotros mirando desde una puerta sin poder pasar.

¿Por qué decidí empezar a entrenar BJJ?

Hace 8 años, durante mis primeras experiencias trabajando en una oficina, decidí que necesitaba hacer ejercicio. Pregunté con mis amigos y terminé inscribiéndome en una Academia de Artes Marciales Mixtas.

¡Me enamoré de todo! El tatami gigante que tenían, las bolsas de boxeo, la jaula (octágono), guantes, tobilleras, vendas, patadas y puños. Probé todas las clases: Boxeo, Muay Thai, Lucha, Acondicionamiento, MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) y tenía un promedio de 2 a 3 clases diarías en un bloque seguido de 3 horas. ¡Enloquecí! Todo me encantaba, excepto por una extraña clase de gente en pijama revolcándose en el piso: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Entonces, llegó un nuevo profesor. Carlos Quintero, Cinturón Púrpura. Recuerdo que nos enseñó una de las sumisiones más populares, la llave de brazo o armbar. ¡Y ése día, brillé! Entendí todo el enredo de pasos para lograr la hermosa coreografía de romper brazos. Y Charlie lo notó. Al finalizar la clase me dijo:

“Marce, el próximo año te vamos a llevar a Argentina para que participes en las eliminatorias al torneo en Abu Dhabi”

“Todo me encantaba, excepto por una extraña clase de gente en pijama revolcándose en el piso: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu”

¿Recuerdas algún momento en particular, en el que hayas querido renunciar?

¡Muchos! Y para responder éso recurriré a el sistema de graduación del BJJ: Cinta blanca, azul, púrpura y marrón (dentro de unos años contaré sobre la cinta negra)

Cinta Blanca

Sin duda los días y meses más retadores de todos. Como cinta blanca tuve todas las dudas posibles. Practicamente viví en un estado de confusión permanente (algo que no ha cambiado mucho) ¿Qué es un “tatami”? ¿Es cierto que no se puede lavar el cinturón? ¿Es cierto que quitándome y poniéndome el citurón 10 veces seguidas iba a aprender? ¿No estamos muy cerca de nuestro compañero? ¿Qué es un drill? ¿Cómo así que existe la memoria muscular, será que es mejor que mi memoria regular? Podría resumirlo todo en: FRUSTRACIÓN. Estuve cerca de renunciar al verme con tan poco control sobre la situación, por no encontrar fuentes para aprender con mis ancestrales hábitos de estudio: profesor, puprite, tablero y cuaderno con notas perfectamente organizadas. Por no saber si existía algo como “Fundamentos del BJJ — Tomo 1” y por entender que finalmente iba tropezar muchas veces. Muchas.

Cinta Azul

Para éste momento ya había dejado de practicar cualquier otro tipo de técnicas de combate. Me convertí en la sombra de mi profe Charlie y empecé a visitar más seguido su academia; tanto, que terminé por cambiarme de barrio para facilitar un poco más los deleitantes trayectos en Bogotá. Tuve mi primer viaje fuera del país para asistir a un Camp de Jiu-Jitsu Femenino en México. Y empezamos un proyecto de BJJ para mujeres en Colombia con mi amiga Lili: BJJ Sisters.

Sin embargo, la frustración volvió al ver cómo mis compañeros lograban entender las técnicas tan rápido, cómo hablaban de personalidades del BJJ, torneos y sumisiones que yo “debería saber” Recuerdo varios días en los que salía de la clase llorando.

Me cuesta un poco entender qué hacía que siguiera ahí. A veces pienso que frases como: ”si vas a entrar al tatami, deja tu ego afuera” son necesarias y en ocasiones reveladoras; sobre todo, cuando tienes a una persona pasándote guardia con todo su peso perféctamente aplicado. Pero también recuerdo mi Cinta Azul como el momento en el que quería ganarlo todo: los torneos locales, los internacionales, los seguidores en Instagram por ser una de las pioneras del BJJ en el país, y sobre todo eso… los títulos por ser “la primera y la mejor” en algo.

Cinta Púrpura

Ya estaba tan involucrada que hizo falta muy poco para ésta vez dejarlo todo y dedicarme al BJJ, literalmente. De hecho ¡lo hice! (al menos por 8 horas) Alguna mañana de 2015, le escribí al profesor de mi profesor, Juanmi, Cinta Negra en Sanborondón, Ecuador. Le conté que iba a renunciar a mi trabajo, que iba a aceptar su oferta y me convertiría en profesora en su academia, dictando clase sólo para mujeres.

¡No si antes terminar mi tratamiento de ortodoncia!

Pero 8 horas después, regresando a casa después de un día de trabajo en el que no hice más que pensar en los siguientes pasos, recibí una llamada de la Directora de HR en Zemoga, la empresa en la que trabajo actualmente:

“Marce, estamos muy contentos de llamarte ésta vez con una oferta formal que encontrarás en tu correo”

Fui Cinta Púrpura por más de 4 años y aunque participé en varios torneos, gané, perdí, dejé de entrenar por meses, retomé y logré alcanzar mi Cinta Marrón, sin duda uno de los mayores logros fue volver a darme la oportunidad de construir una Comunidad para Jiujiteras en Colombia con Nata: Nossa Luta.

Cinta Marrón

Aquí estoy. Con apenas meses de tener el cinturón y con la honestidad de aceptar que posiblemente son más las veces que he dicho “Soy cinturón marrón” comparado al número de veces que he ido a clase. Varias cosas pasan por mi mente; pero la más importante, es entender que ya el propósito de bajar de peso, levantarme del escritorio y hacer algo de ejercicio pasó. Que más allá de los cinturones, las medallas, los seguidores o las ciudades a las que la vida me vaya llevando, el BJJ siempre estará ahí para mí. Y que posiblemente es hora de devolver lo que éste hermoso Arte Marcial me ha regalado, ayudándolo a crecer y ofreciéndolo como herramienta de Defensa Personal, disciplina, perserverancia y amor para otras mujeres.

— Fin de la autoentrevista —

Proximos pasos: ¡Más entrevistas!

Como lo comentaba anteriormente, éste tipo de entrevistas involucran tanto a las partes interesadas como a los usuarios. Por suerte, contamos con una base sólida de mujeres practicantes de BJJ en Colombia y sé que muchas hemos pasado por intentos fallidos de dictar clases exclusivas para mujeres en las academias, o de traer amigas que no se convencieron del todo.

Dentro de los próximos pasos para ésta investigación estarán compartir éste artículo y escoger al grupo de mujeres que entrevistaré para la próxima entrega.

Éso es todo por ahora, gracias por leer!

🦄

UX y Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was originally published in unsafespace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I have a lot of reasons to write. One of them is to improve my communication skills; other is because I enjoy it (weird, I know). At the same time, one of the reasons to do it is because it forces you to learn. Writing might be a good learning exercise by itself, as I mentioned previously in my blog. However, what pushes you to test your knowledge is to try to make sense of what you are absorbing. It might sound contrarian, even irresponsible, but there is no better way to assess your knowledge that when you try to teach it. Like the famous quote says:

“If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.”

Some boy

So teaching makes us more conscious of what we know and what we do not know. The main possible challenge trying to execute this “learning by teaching” might be that you do not know any six-year-olds, or anybody willing to learn under your terms. However, there is a place where there are no six-year-olds, but most people behave like one: The internet.

There are multiple formats and an insane amount of platforms on the internet to publish yourself: videos, podcasts, live streaming, blogs, etcetera. Yet, exposing yourself to the internet is a harsh experience because you’re running against the numbers. You will find a lot of people smarter than you, and a lot of people that will like to take you down. Publishing what you think you know on the internet might not have the same level of responsibility as with middle childhood education. But be aware, it will be more caustic.

What if instead of re-examining your learnings to teach an oblivious person, you publish what you have learned directly on the internet, open to an audience of both uninformed and experts. I like to call this “learning by exposition.”

There is an approach called “learning by exposure,” in which the person learning gets a taste of how things are done directly by the experts. However, in “learning by exposition,” you take the role of the expert, and the exposition is not from others but from you to others. It is designed mostly to cement yourself into the “conscious competence” area, to leave the “conscious incompetence” ghost behind once and for all, and to set the main building blocks into “unconscious competence.”

Not only can most learning experiences benefit from this type of exposition, but it is also a matter of getting a taste of the inevitable. All the things that we learn are going to get eventually “tested” by the real world, so why not to do it as early and granular as possible? In this day and age of pseudo-autodidacts* and learning-by-youtube, it is easy to avoid feedback and get trapped in eco-chambers.

*I call it pseudo because for me being an autodidact is learning by experimenting or trial-and-error. Not reading a book, watching a video, or following a tutorial that somebody created with the explicit objective of teaching somebody like you.

Here are some things to have in mind when considering this approach:

You are the expert now

You might not have the pretension of posing as an expert. However, with the inherent dryness of digital communications, everything you share might be taken as if you want to.

The challenge is to be granular enough to be able to understand something with certitude while avoiding the rabbit holes of precise knowledge. When you are learning, it is common to realize that everything is filled with exceptions and asterisks leading to footnotes that lead to other texts, and that ad infinitum. You should not try to bite more than you can chew, you don’t want to get overwhelmed or fall hard into the “valley of despair” of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Make a promise

If you want to play the game in hard-mode, you can publicly commit to a one-time delivery date or a periodical output. You might have heard that it is terrible to tell everybody about your plans because they will fail, and I agree with that. Though you are not promising over what you want to achieve, only what you want to share, and it might be a great tool to help you focus on what is relevant.

I do not see these exercises as parts of a gradual approach, but they can be periodical. You are supposed to expose yourself every time, prove how well you are consolidating the knowledge you are acquiring. Each delivery should be self-sufficient. The purpose of this activity is not to create habits or to display a picture of progress for your audience. If you fail to meet a deadline, double-down on your promise. Don’t normalize the failure to deliver. Keep the pressure on!

Profit

Once you have shared your knowledge with the world, the best outcome you can expect is people giving you feedback. I read somewhere that receiving feedback is like getting free money because it is people letting you know how you can be better. This might be considered naive because we all are well aware of how toxic some corners of the internet might be.

Nevertheless, that is the whole benefit of creating educational content for the web. If you’re teaching somebody offline, you will try to find holes in your knowledge. Yet, if something escapes you, you and your student will be equally unaware. The internet will burst that bubble and will let you know what you are missing. The challenge is to identify good criticism from toxicity.

Know your audience

It is worth to mention that you do not need to plan for an actual six-year-old. This whole methodology might start as a self-centred attempt to improve yourself, but it should be empathetic and unselfish. If you do not think first how your piece might help another person, you will fail in every objective of the exercise.

It should be natural to feel empathetic with a novice audience because we all went through that phase. How can you help the clueless person you were before you started learning? Did you find a new angle or uncover hidden clues that might help somebody like your past-self?

If you think something is too obvious to be said. The worst scenario is that someone will spend a few extra seconds reading about something expected. The best case is that it will be a revelation for somebody else. Remember the “Daily lucky 10,000” from xkcd and think about how it might be possible for somebody learning.

How does this look?

YouTube might be the best place to find successful cases for this approach. I can recognize different content creators that want to share their knowledge online. They kept mastering their craft in front of their audience. Like I said before, it is never meant to show progress, but it is self-evident in most cases, thanks to the access to the archive of old videos.

And more apparent, my blog. Initially, my content is designed to improve my writing. Now that I’m getting more grey hairs on my beard and people are asking me for my advice more often, I enjoy testing my ideas and seeing if they make sense or if I should stop bolstering them.

I do not think I can get any more meta than this.

If you like film Hollywood film franchises, this article among “Thou shall take notes” and “Sketchy reasons to sketch” might be considered my trilogy of dubious advice on learning.

Learning by Exposition was originally published in unsafespace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Somos un grupo de tres ex-colegas de trabajo y banda. Nos vimos obligados a encontrar una manera de compartir ideas más allá de los usuales cafés post-almuerzo o cervezas después de ensayos. Todo por una importante razón: ahora vivimos en ciudades diferentes.

Qué mejor — y horrible — manera de llevar ésta labor creativa al siguiente nivel, que incluir en ella al resto del mundo. Esta vez, en la actividad no tendremos eclairs de postre para acompañar el café o salchichas alemanas para la cerveza, pero (esperamos) que sí incluya un nuevo público y sus reacciones.

Antes de comenzar con la poco segura actividad de publicar ideas en internet, queremos contar quiénes somos ¡Incluyendo nuestros “headcharts”! Creemos que son una gran herramienta para explicarnos ante el mundo con pocas palabras. También, un excelente ejercicio para conocernos a nosotros mismos y encontrar ésas cosas dentro de nuestras cabezas que vale la pena compartir (gracias por la idea, Chris Do)

Sin más preambulos, nos presentamos:

Jorge

Jorge es un Diseñador de Productos Digitales nacido en Medellín, Colombia. Actualmente residiendo en Toronto, Canadá con su esposa Pauline y su gato Otto. Le gusta tocar música y tener debates imaginarios mientras toma largas duchas. Su amor por la lectura — de ficción y no-ficción — solo es igualado por su eterno hábito de quedarse dormido mientras lo hace. A Jorge lo motiva escribir sobre temas que no conoce muy bien para probarse a sí mismo que puede fingir que sí los conoce. Mientras Marcela y Camilo aún trabajan para la misma empresa donde los tres se conocieron, Jorge decidió traicionar al grupo, dejando éste lugar de trabajo para vivir y laborar lejos de su país natal.

Marcela

Marcela es una Diseñadora UX/UI nacida en Bogotá pero viviendo en Medellín, Colombia. Vive con Rocky Balboa: el hermoso y extraño resultado de una historia de amor entre una Pug y un Bulldog Francés. Marcela ama todo lo que tiene que ver con Lettering y Rotulación; aparte de ser una fan enamorada, también es aprendíz y ésta combinación ha dado para que su casa esté llena de materiales, libros sobre teoría, técnicas e historia del oficio. Otro de sus amores es el Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, que practica hace 8 años. Actualmente está trabajando con un grupo de mujeres en un plan, para difundir el Arte Suave como herramienta para salvar el mundo. La motivación de Marcela para escribir viene de las profundas y sobre todo extrañas conversaciones que tiene con sus amigos Camilo y Yorch (Jorge) diariamente vía Slack.

Camilo

A Camilo le incomoda escribir sobre si mismo en tercera persona, pero odia ser el raro entonces… es un Desarrollador Web Font End de Bogotá, quien cuida a dos gatos a tiempo completo y a sus dos hijas un cuarto del tiempo. Le gusta hacer un montón de cosas entre ellas tocar y grabar música, dibujar, montar bici y patinar (pre-COVID) y sacar algo de tiempo para programar también. Le encanta inventarse escenarios extraños e “ideas de negocio” que le presenta a Yorch principalmente a modo de comedia. También esta intentando construir un universo multimedial habitado por gatos antropomórficos que manipulan la energía porque… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

👁

Y éso es todo por ahora.

Gracias por leer!

Hola a todos! was originally published in unsafespace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We are a group of three former colleagues and band buddies. We had to find a way to share ideas beyond the usual coffee breaks after lunch or the beers after a rehearsal, for one main reason: we now live in different cities.

What better — and horrible — way to take this shared creative endeavor to the next level that including the rest of the world in it. This time, the activity might not include eclairs on the side for the coffee or german sausages for the beers, but (we hope) it will include a new audience and some feedback.

Before we begin with the unsafe activity of sharing ideas with the internet, we want to share a little bit about who we are, including our “head charts”! They are a cool way to talk a little bit more about us without too many words, and also, a great exercise to get to know ourselves and find what’s happening inside our heads that’s worth sharing (thanks for the idea, Chris Do)

Without further ado, this is who we are:

Jorge

Jorge is a Digital Product Designer born in Medellín, Colombia. Currently residing in Toronto, Canada with his wife Pauline and his cat Otto. He likes to play music and to hold mental debates over long showers. His love for reading — both fiction and non-fiction — is only rivaled by his life-long habit of falling asleep while he’s doing it. Jorge’s motivation is to write about things he doesn’t know well just to prove himself that he can feign knowing about them. While Marcela and Camilo still work for the same company where they all three met, Jorge, betrayed the group and left this workplace to live and work far away from his home country.

Marcela

Marcela is a UX/UI Designer born in Bogotá but based in Medellín Colombia. She lives with Rocky Balboa: the beautiful and strange result of a love story between a Pug and a French Bulldog. Marcela loves all about Lettering and Sign Painting. She is not only a devoted fan but also an apprentice, you can find lots of materials, books about theory, techniques, and history of the trade all over her place. She has been practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for the last 8 years and currently, she’s trying to untangle a plan with a group of ladies to save the world spreading the benefits of the Gentle Art. Marcela’s motivation to write comes from profound and mostly weird conversations from the day to day via Slack with her friends Camilo and Yorch (Jorge)

Camilo

Camilo feels uncomfortable writing about himself in the third person, but hates to be the odd one out so… he is a Front End Web Developer from Bogotá who cares for two cats full time and two girls 1/4 time. He likes doing a bunch of things including playing and recording music, drawing, cycling, and skating (pre-COVID) and he finds some time to do some programming as well. He loves coming up with weird scenarios and “business ideas” he pitches to Yorch, mostly for comedic purposes. He’s also trying to build a multimedia universe inhabited by energy wielding anthropomorphic cats because… why not? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

👁

And that’s all for now.

Thanks for reading!

Hello everyone! was originally published in unsafespace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.