Why we got started with the Design Narrative

A year ago I hadn't dreamed of the life I am living today, to be able to pursue a dream, on track to be doing what ever I'd want! On course to becoming a designer. If I could break down my thought process when I would be in a totally new situation, or if I'd see an artwork or anything else that intrigues the status quo, it would be this, awed, intrigued, curious, analytical, the want to try it out for myself. As a kid I was told what to do and what not to do, to be curious but to have your limitations, to be instructed what is good and what is bad, a filter based on someone else's perspective. I grew up with these filters in my head, to plop experiences as good or bad, to judge everything, every person, every activity I came across, was offered or had a chance to experience. That automatically gave birth to the thought, what if I could do what ever I wanted, to try out something new, to invoke a sense of experimentation.

As an adult I've learned that experiences are a library of emotions, thoughts, and feeling and that experiences shouldn't be judged. Learn from them, enjoy them and move on to other experiences. Drawing parallels from this thought into having a career that puts one in a specific role/job title for the rest of his or her life, such contradictory thoughts. Now I know that job titles and roles don't necessarily define you as a person, they are indicative of only the work you are responsible for and you could be responsible for a million things, why limit yourself?

A popular school of thought is to limit yourself to doing just one thing, follow one particular career or to pursue one particular interest. I imbibed that thought and lived a life people around me wanted, a life oblivious to my curiosities but directed as per instructions from external sources. what happened to all those thoughts and curiosities I was talking about earlier? The questions for which you'd have to find answers everyday, the curious ones that shape your thoughts, your understanding of your surroundings, your personality, your being. I remember not enjoying my music lessons as a kid, I just couldn't do it. No thank you, certain things you intuitively know you don't want to do or pursue. In my early 20s I began to realize that I am a visual person with an aptitude for conceiving visual Ideas. I started exploring visual communication, of all forms, photography, drawing, writing, anything I could express myself in. People started appreciating my photography skills, writing skills, all I was trying to do is to explore and express. Expression Of thoughts, not giving a lot of importance to the tools you use to express them. It's an approach artists take to manifest an Idea into reality, I belonged there but not fully there because I am not all about expressions without interaction. There needs to be a reaction to my expression and I love to get an insight into that. I wanted to create expressions that invoked thoughts and demanded actions in return.

Learning in it's purest form is not judgmental rather experiential, experimental. It should ideally be modeled around feelings rather than focused on the mind, learning is a full body skill and mostly all of ones learning is attributed solely to the mind. Learning is as much a physical process as it is mental.

Have I been doing learning right?

Does learning invoke fun, a sense of experimentation and openness to new experiences? I have always been a slow learner, all through my life. As a kid, as an adolescent and as an adult. What has changed is my apathy towards myself, I know I am slow, that makes my learning thorough, I like to experience what I learn, to experiment with a new insight in another context. People now say that I'm a creative thinker, all I do or want to do is to feed my curious mind, make something of supposed value and then to observe the reactions from people in general.

I was previously according to common references a Mechanical engineer with experience in Project Management, now according to the common reference, I am pursuing design. In actuality, I'm learning curiously, experimentally and experientially to find solutions to common problems that companies or individuals face.

Opening my eyes to a new method of learning, Ideate. Create. Liberate. Engaging in ideation, giving it a go and then failing and then learning from it and repeating, creating and then you solve the problem to the best of your capability and then boom you feel good about what you're able to do. You are able to overcome the challenge you set for yourself, liberation! This became my go to experience and subconsciously I started making a problem journal of sorts(now I have an actual book for it).

I believe that this is a chance given to me to bring this idea into the forefront, to free us some space in our heads to jump out and start experimenting with life, our own ideas.

Me and Shreyas started the Design Narrative to have a log of these experiences and learnings so we could refer to later in the day, it is also designed to be a library of experiences that we could make available to anyone looking to get out of their comfort zone, following their own curious minds, letting them know that they aren't alone.

This I believe is a second chance ]and I don't want it to lose it to oblivion rather lose it to rapid mind expansion, innovation and a cause that would benefit me and help catalyze a world of infinite possibilities through learning, finding problems, exploring experiences and making a log of these varied thoughts and perspectives.

With the Design Narrative we hope to form a library of experiences and perspectives from the doers, the learners, the starters, the go-getters, we discuss everything from getting started to failing, to put into perspective the world we live in, in terms of design, creative problem solving, a sneak peek into what's up with our world and what's brewing and how we as individuals could help brew a better world for us all through design and innovation.

Let's have real conversations on how design experiences come to be.