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Hello again Inceptional Peoples!
As your intrepid reporter on issues of quality learning and consciousness raising materials, I do keep my eyes open for entertainments that uplift and inform. You might not usually be looking for your entertainment media to do that for you, but it is a fact that what you expose the mind to regularly can have an impact on consciousness quality and awareness. As we’ve often heard, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Now, that may be a bit of a simplification, but the basic concept does hold true. With that in mind, I thought I’d tell you about a documentary series I just came across this week.
The Abstract on Abstract
Netflix recently released a series called Abstract: The Art of Design. This eight part series documents the lives and creative work of eight incredibly successful designers from different disciplines. Each episode is stylishly filmed and edited, and is compelling to watch, even if you aren’t professionally involved with any elements of design.
“Creative design of all types effects and affects us all every day, whether or not we realize it.”
Great documentary film making is always engrossing, but because there is nothing in our lives that isn’t touched by multiple design features, this series effectively illustrates the importance and social value of many major design forms. This is well presented in the series as we see the creativity and work that goes into corporate logos, concert visuals, vehicles, shoes, photography, and even the critical nature of typesetting, made painfully acute when shown in the the context of how it may have inappropriately swung the 2000 presidential election in the US.
Creative design of all types effects and affects us all every day, whether or not we realize it. This carefully presented series brings that home, and that realization alone makes the series worth watching, even if you’ve never given much thought to the impact of a font, or the emotional quality of a photograph. Additionally, there’s a subtle, yet even more valuable element to the Abstract series that justifies giving it a look next time you plop down on the couch and think, “What am I going to watch?”
One More Good Reason to Watch This Docu-thingy
The Energetic Quality Level (or EQL) of the Abstract series is 786.
Newbie Note: For newcomers to this blog, there’s more information on EQL verifications and the science behind these mysterious numbers, in the Trump & Friends Part 1 post.
786 is a very solid consciousness quality level that indicates a thorough neutrality and integrity in the presentation (which is pretty much what you want in a documentary), as well as a sense of value for the people and subject matter in the series. Individual episodes vary slightly in EQL, but the series is very consistent, and verges on a compassionate valuing of the experience and history of the designers. These are incredibly accomplished, world renowned people, but people just the same. The series creators manage to balance a sense of awe for the creative output capacity of the designers, while still focusing on their humanity. The effect is quite emotional at times, and connects you to the designers in ways that you’d never be able to experience without effective presentation.
When is the last time you saw quality film making, a novel and honest approach to real life story telling, a strong sense of the history of an art form, and the near thrill of a behind the scenes look into how designs are created - and the minds that dream them up? Not in some time, if ever, right?
Bjarke Ingels - A Study in Intention, and Another Reason to See Abstract
I wouldn’t be doing my job thoroughly if I didn’t take this opportunity to point out a human, being Inceptional. Inceptionality, (yes, I am repurposing this word, get used to it) is the core of what we promote here at Inception Publishing. Being inceptional is best summed up as being fully present and focused through intention driven thought and action, that is also guided by truthfulness. In Abstract: The Art of Design there is one episode on architecture, specifically the designs of the highly intentional Bjarke Ingels. This guy is a supreme example of focused intention that we can all learn from, whether or not you are an architecture aficionado.
Ingels is a Danish architect whose firm, BIG, has completely steam-rolled the architecture world in the last ten years in a way that has never been seen before. Bjarke Ingels and his cohorts have not only succeeded in shaking things up in a realm of design that tends to resist being shook, but that also typically takes decades before any one architect is recognized and lauded by many (and usually despised by some). Ingels has managed to accomplish world wide recognition in ten years by defining a set of specified intentions for his professional life that have allowed him to get more excellent and lauded work done in a decade than most do in a lifetime.
Ingels ideally portrays the ingredients of consciousness needed for professional success, and dramatic accomplishment. His EQL is 857, (and 316 per David Hawkins’ scale) which illustrates for us how a drive for accomplishment, mixed with a clear sense of intention for himself and others, and spiced up with a refusal to limit imagination, can become great art, and spectacular structures. This is consciousness clarity played out in a highly demanding field of endeavor. I have absolutely no idea what personal development work Ingels has or has not done in his 42 years of life, but that is fundamentally irrelevant. What is critical is his drive to have focused, intentional thought, and a desire to support others in one’s creative endeavors. As long as he’s keeps up this kind of conscious clarity, there is no reason to think he and his colleagues will not reshape our sense of what great architecture can be.
The Specific Takeaway From Abstract
I know there are a zillion books, courses, classes, and belief systems out there you can dive into today and learn from. I know there are wise people from many backgrounds that have constructed complex methods and systems to relieve fears, and learn ‘the secret’ to a happy and fulfilled life. I also know, there are relatively few valuable states of thought and being that will get you to the life you may periodically allow yourself to dream of. Elevated levels of consciousness and fulfillment can be drastically simpler than most of us imagine.
- Get intentional.
- Dive into what seems scary.
- Be radically truthful, especially when it’s uncomfortable.
- Accept yourself and others unconditionally.
- Choose with purpose and clarity.
This is the inceptional life that Ingels, as well as others in the Abstract series, have discovered. These people aren’t astonishingly exceptional, but they are regularly inceptional. Inceptionalism is what makes the difference, whether you are building skyscrapers for the world to see, or creating something that only you will appreciate.
Just a thought for the day.
