Patterns: The Key to Discovering Your Calling
“To understand is to perceive patterns” — Isaiah Berlin
A lot of us feel like we're wasting our lives when we constantly start and stop hobbies. When will we ever discover our calling after all? In this episode, I argue that following your interests, even if you quit tons of them over time, will eventually lead you to your ultimate calling through the patterned nature of learning and the interweaving connectivity of the universe.
CREDITS:
Podcast creator: Jordan Taylor
TRANSCRIPT:
My name is Jordan Taylor, and welcome to the If Then podcast. Our brains our a conglomerate of if/then statements, like in computer code, and oftentimes new lines of code are hard to write in our mind when we’re trying new things, for example if I want to play piano, then I need to read music. Sitting down and coding that particular if then statement could take years of dedication, but when we do sit down and create new then statements for a complicated if, it feels freaking amazing. This podcast is your weekly motivation, and mine, to get uncomfortable and write some neurological code.
“To understand is to perceive patterns” -- Isaiah Berlin
When I walked into the family living room that Christmas Eve, there was a silent duel in front of me. The glimmering lights of the Christmas tree, an inappropriate background for the scene. I was surprised as two friends, with 32 ancient weapons of their choosing, battled on the coffee table, and I couldn't look away. I was mesmerized as the man from India, Marcus, a visiting family friend, took his weapons and with ease, artfully dismantled his opponent sitting across from him--anticipating his moves, instinctively knowing when to strike and when to wait, when to set up, where to be. And it was all so baffling and wonderful. Marcus leapt his knight over some pawns. His opponent's eyes lit up like the Christmas tree as Marcus left his Queen totally exposed, and his opponent, accordingly, moved his bishop to the proper attacking square, putting the Queen in abject danger. Next move, it would be captured. What was he thinking? Marcus had no where to go. Or did he? The knight then swooped in and diverted his opponent's attack with an even more costly one, it had been a setup the entire time... He forked the pesky bishop and priceless king, a double attack, a powerful check. The king had to run for his life leaving the once attacking bishop utterly helpless, now unprotected and ruthlessly slashed from the board--Marcus's Queen perfectly safe the entire time. And then Marcus's pieces began coalescing and forming, joining forces, and moving in unison like a patterned swirl as his opponent's defenses were picked apart one by one--like they didn't even exist, like he had no pieces on the board. And then in 7 more moves it was over. Checkmate. And I had no idea what had happened. And his opponent didn't either. It was all so dazzling and fast. I just stood there in awe at the magic Marcus had displayed. And I wanted that too. I had no idea how to play chess, but I wanted what he had. I would do anything to understand.
See, don't get me wrong, I knew how to play chess already, but I didn't know how to play chess. Yes, I knew the rules: My uncle had taught me the basics when I was a kid, but I didn't know strategy. After that magical Christmas Eve encounter with the game, however, I had to understand it.
Christmas morning, when I woke up the next day, I made a chess.com account and started the journey. Every single day for a year I consumed myself with videos and free online lessons explaining the game: the ideas, the value of each piece, each piece's strength and weakness, how all the pieces coexist, how they exist separately, how to recognize evolving positions, how to compare my position to my opponent's, the logic of a trade, but most importantly through it all, I was learning the pattern of chess. With each game I played, I started to realize something. Even though there are literally more options on a chess board than there are stars in the known universe, and that's not an exaggeration, each game didn't exist in a vacuum. Even though every single game I was playing had never been seen before in the 1,000+ year history of the game, I could use other games to understand mine. I realized that the way you win is by recognizing, within the infinite complexity of the game, the patterns within that make each game quantifiable. By doing this, out of the literal billions of options that were put in front of me each game, I was amazed how I could somehow hone in and find the best move--the best move even a computer could find.
With each game I played, a position would emerge, and I would recognize it, and then search in the proverbial Chess filing cabinet in my brain for a positional pattern I had seen reacurring in the past that was maybe similar to this one. Some patterns, I realized, were more related than others--some almost looked identical, some were distant cousins, still others seemed different entirely; however, the more I played, and the more patterns I logged in the filing cabinet, I realized that they were somehow all related. I realized that more times than not, while in games, I could reference my brain's Chess cabinet of positional patterns, and even if I wasn't making the most brilliant decisions each move, I was still making good ones by recognizing a rough pattern and then comparing that pattern to other positional patterns that I had seen in my other games, and then using the knowledge of past outcomes, I would feel an instinctive course of action. By doing this, I started to consistently win against opponents with much higher ratings than myself. The game just started to unfold in front of me, and I could see.
Even though, 5 years later, Marcus still hasn't made it back to Tennessee again for another visit, it wasn't all for nothing. The study of chess taught me an incredibly valuable lesson: learning is recognizing patterns within your interests and that gives you experience, and experience gives you instincts. And instincts guide you.
I often wonder at the bewildering complexity and the miraculous refinement of the creative process. For instance, when making an episode of this podcast, much like chess, it's infinitely complex. Billions and billions of options appear as I select and write each specifically chosen word, eventually forming concrete sentences and paragraphs that evolve into more abstract flow and feel, then combining individual musical notes into strategic melodies to add to the ensemble, and finally selecting the sound effects and their loudness and pan to create a deeper immersion in the overall experience. The confusing thing to me, however, is that with little experience podcasting, I find that, oftentimes, when a complex creative decision needs to be made, the answer to the never-before-seen "chess position" is so clear cut that it's instinctual. Even though there's a brand new IF that's never existed in my universe, I can write the proper THEN almost automatically, even with billions of options to choose from. And I have no experience in this medium. It seems miraculous. Somehow, for example, when creating the music for a scene, a very abstract part of the podcasting process--what it should sound like, how it should make people feel, what notes should be put together to accomplish that feel while achieve a pace in the overall arc of the podcast--it comes together for me instinctively in a matter of minutes, while the infinite options might overwhelm most people. How did I instinctively know what starting notes I should use for this very explication, and then know what order those notes should go in, how they should build, how the melody should form with new sounds, how it should keep building, and then how the volume should raise at the end to maximize the effect, and then right when it's about to be too much, it fades, as the point was made. Again, the confusing thing is that I have these instincts for podcasting, with virtually no experience podcasting. Somehow, I just know how to do it, and I wasn't taught. It almost feels like I'm not even making decisions in the infinite complexity of it all, the answers just appear to me, and I write them down. I didn't understand why. I had just created the filing cabinet for Podcasting patterns in my brain. How was it filling up so quickly?
See, the thing that I realized was, even though I had no direct experience podcasting, my brain was building off the patterns I had archived in my brain in other related ventures. Opening the drawers and sifting through old patterns of old and current hobbies--some files of patterns I hadn't looked at in years--to hold to the light and see if I could find anything useful to help me to recognize new patterns for my new venture, podcasting. When creating the music for my episodes, for example, I looked through the filing cabinets titled Acoustic Guitar, a hobby I've had since I was a teenager. After grabbing some patterns from there, I wanted to create a story arc throughout an episode with the music. To help with that, I went to another cabinet titled: Album Creation--a massive project I undertook 8 years ago, where I made a complete story arc through 12 songs, titling it Long Drive. I found a lot of useful patterns going through those files. I finally went through my largest cabinet titled Video Creation. 10+ years of patterns were on file regarding the use of downloaded music for the video creation process--patterns were found on timing and feel and how to use music to support emotion in a video. Even if the patterns were slightly different than podcasting in all these files, they were surely similar enough to be of use.
When I finally took everything I had collected, I created an entirely new filing cabinet, called Podcasting, and my collection gave me a head start in discovering the existence of new patterns in this new venture. I was able to quickly use these imperfect but salvageable patterns as a reference when I came across a complex, creative decision that needed to be made. Even though I might not have been making the absolute greatest decisions in each instance, I wasn't making the chess "computer moves," I was still making good ones generally, and getting close enough to the right answer that the episodes actually sounded pretty good. As I trekked through episodes of the If Then Podcast, with my reference patterns as my guide, solid podcasting patterns emerged and were logged away for accurate later use. Yes, these patterns were different than anything I had seen before, but they were expected to look as they did given the related patterns I was using as a reference from past experiences, and, quickly, I had a grasp on what made a podcast work.
As I filed away new discovered patterns with each creative decision made, I realized that the podcasting cabinet I was adding to was actually, when I stepped back, just a drawer of a broader cabinet titled: Creativity, and that all the other cabinets I had grabbed from as references were just drawers a part of this broader cabinet too. All this time, they were all interrelated, without my even knowing. They were all a part of a much larger pattern, and when stepped back even further, I could see that Creativity was only, itself, one small drawer in an even larger cabinet called "The Human Experience," and inside that massive cabinet was many drawers the same size as Creativity: "Home Improvements," for example--"Exercise," "Family Dynamics," "Finances." And then when I stepped back even further, I could see that the Human Experience cabinet was only a small drawer itself within a gigantic cabinet titled "The Universe." And its patterns were unthinkable and seemingly built from all the patterns in all the drawers within its massive entity. And then I realized that it was all interconnected. Every single filed pattern was connected in some way to every other pattern, no matter how distant it seemed. The file Video Editing within the Creativity drawer, for example, was connected to the "Drywalling" file in the Home Improvements drawer. Rough cutting the footage, and rough cutting the drywall, fading the scene out, and fading the drywall mud to a seamless edge. It was all related. Every file in every drawer weaved in and out in and the beginning couldn't be found, and there was no ending. It was eternal.
According to the American theoretical physicist, Richard Feynman, "Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry."
By archiving patterns for hobbies that might seem totally random, and that you might quit in a few months, like I quit chess, you're not wasting your time. You're not just simply gaining experience in that venture, you're unraveling the universe by discovering its interwoven patterns all while helping your future self in the endeavor whose thread you ultimately choose to follow the furthest, and you'll discover that threaded endeavor's pattern somehow, and beautifully, interwoven through your life's random hobbies and interests, and you'll have a deeper understanding, a more grounded appreciation, a head start, and somehow experience, in your future calling.
Feed your brain as many patterns in as many hobbies as you can muster. Don't be frustrated that you haven't discovered your calling yet, rather understand that, hidden in the weaves of those hobbies' threads, is the thread leading you to your future.
So I'll leave you with this: "To understand is to perceive patterns" -- Isaiah Berlin
Thank you so much for listening to season 2 episode 5 of the If Then Podcast, and hey, if you enjoy the podcast and want to be entered to win AirPods Max with an If Then Podcast engraving at the end of season 2 which is soon coming to a close, give me a 5-star review, screenshot this podcast, and share it on your instagram tagging @ifthenpodcast in your post or story. We're at 98 shares currently, and if we get to 200 by the end of season, one of you will win AirPods Max. Look I don't know if we'll make it, but I'll gladly keep these AirPods Max if not, but steal them from me, okay? Sharing this podcast and leaving reviews is the main way that other people like yourself discover it. It's the main way it grows. So thank you so much for reviewing and sharing. We’re almost at 565 reviews on Spotify and 260 on Apple Podcasts. And don’t forget, while we're building to that 200 mark for the AirPods Max giveaway, I’ve also been giving away 2 free 1 month Audible gift cards every week to two of you who share on Instagram. Last week, Natalie (@natalieannecreative) and David (@devoteddavid) won a free credit for an audiobook of their choice. If you shared the last episode, you can also share this one too to be entered to win again. Thank you so much for listening, my name is Jordan Taylor, and what if/then will you write today?
