Time Travel

Full disclosure…I had “time travel stuff” before Rick Sanchez of Rick and Morty made it famous. Rather than a Portal Gun shooting a green goo you walk through; my Time Travel Stuff and process requires, neuroplasticity.

It’s a process I use when engaging in the master planning and sometimes when designing.

In preparation, two questions are always on the forefront: What if? and Why not? And, question what everyone else takes at face value.

While uncomfortable for some, it’s this ability that enables me to redefine what’s possible. The more you question and uncover, the more constraints that get piled on the stronger the outcome.

Constraints are an important part of this emotion journey, the earlier you can get them in your mind to solve, the longer your solution will sustain critique.

You also must unlearn what you have learned and adopt a see far approach to everything. Lifting your roots of what is comfortable and placing you in a future where anything can happen. Freeing your mind to time travel and “the flow state” connects all things to all things possible. What is dismissed in one moment, comes back as a stronger idea in another, and so on.

This requires a creative mind that is non-stop, fueled by intense curiosity. There is no pause button and no way to power it down. It’s exhausting, but it is also the source of some crazy fun activities and conversations. The few I have met that can do this are freaks, with brains hardwired in a unique way, and that gift can often strain relationships. I have found this stress and tension useful, it pushes me to be more creative and solve what others have passed over.

It’s a process that requires solitude, reflection, exhaustion and strong focus. Time travel has a rhythm that flows between periods of high, sometimes manic, activity and slow times that can feel like slumps. Each period is necessary and can’t be skipped just like the natural seasons are interdependent and necessary.

Rare is the case when I have had clients willing to tolerate, support and enjoy the experience of this form of time travel…I mean, in my +42years in architecture I can count them on one hand.

To reimagine where people live, work and play is to risk risking everything, for a vision no one else can see.

It’s a spiritual moment when it comes together, the ability to believe in something only you have experienced, then set about creating the steps to explain it, to give it life.

The return trip to explain this vision is revealing. You see very clearly in the eyes of those that “see it” and those that don’t. I have found that those that “see it”, see it right away, jump on board and become strong supporters. Those that don’t are often blocked by politics, experience, fear, or the need to control the situation, by saying “no” or casting doubt…or my favorite…the one that says nothing (the most dangerous of all time travel critics). It’s really the only power they have and they will wield it often, without reason…it’s like saying no, or nothing, gives them credibility.

This is very hard to explain, and some minds will never understand. It can only be experienced firsthand.

The future, fans from the present, in a series of tributaries, the time traveler must know everything and experience any possible outcome. It’s seeing patterns and ideas before they become obvious to everyone else.

This allows you to be ready with any possible solution when questions arise. A daunting task, but doable, despite many skeptics. If anyone could do it, they would, but they can’t…and those that can’t become biggest critics that the time traveler must work to overcome.

Creativity is about human expression and communicating deeply. It’s impossible to give what you don’t have, and you can only take someone as far as you have gone yourself. So see far, then go far.

To experience time travel is to see through the eyes of a child and never lose a sense of wonder.

For me, life is about mystery, adventure, and growing young. Everything else is simply existing, and not true living.