Cognitive Map is an app I envisioned developing.
It is like a self-reflection app, allowing you to write down what you experienced and what you think this experience prompt you to think or do. This is the format of entry for this app.
Event: briefly talk about the event that happened, ex attending a workshop, read an article….
Thoughts: what this event or experiment made you think about
Questions/Solution: What question do you have and how might you answer this question
Next: what are you planning to do next
Connection: how might this event be influenced or prompt by previous events
Tag: How would you like to label this entry (movie, career development, self-care…)
Now here is an example of a user — Jane — using the cognitive map for a day.
Waking Up 5:00 — Reading an Article
At 5 o’clock, Jane woke up. Out of habit and almost did it without thinking, she grabbed her phone and looked at WeChat, a social media In China. She checked a group chat of Moonshot academy in Beijing(A newly founded Student-Centered high school in Beijing by 21-year-old Jason) and spent her internship for her gap year between High School and College). Now, she is not at Moonshot because she needs to see a doctor in Shenzhen. She felt lonely sometimes here in Shenzhen because she missed working with Moonshot and being a community member. She doesn’t have a friend here in Shenzhen; they are all in college or high school. Maybe that’s why she wants to check social media, to feel a sense of connectedness. She saw that there is an article being shared in the group chat of Moonshot academy. It is an article reported by a prestigious News company in China about Moonshot Academy. It strikes her that such an idea of creating a student-centered school from a 21 years old teenager can actually gather attention, and now after a year, it has already become a reality and is being reported by one of the most prestigious news companies. Yesterday, she experienced a lot of difficulties when preparing for the ACT test because she is thinking about transferring to another college. She felt that is a waste of time. When thinking about all her friends who have already lived their lives at their dream college, she felt really disappointed.
A sentence in the passage grabbed her attention. It is about how Jason(the CEO of Moonshot) chose the name “Moonshot” for the school. Jason had always been inspired and encouraged by the speech Kenney, the 35th president of America, gave to Rice University: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.” Jason loved this spirit, and he named Moonshot Academy according to this name.
Jane thought：
He actually treated difficulties as part of the necessity of doing something great. Difficulties are part of the equation of doing anything. That is such a great mindset! I want to learn and make that mindset part of my life.
Another paragraph in the passage that struck her was “Jason has a big vision of the education program. He doesn’t just want to make a good school. That couldn’t help a lot of people. He wants to do something that can transform the education system as a whole on a global scale so more people can have the education that would influence their life. Making the Moonshot Academy is just his first step. Just as Tesla, the ultimate goal of Tesla is actually making the world more sustainable with all renewable energies. However, it would not be that exciting if they are just coming up with batteries. So Elon Musk chose to make the car Tesla to make people excited. According to Jason, Moonshot Academy is the Tesla.”
After reading this, she finds it is so important to think a lot. Jason would only come up with these conclusions after extensive thinking and analysis.
She thought,
If I have an idea and really want to make this idea into reality, I need to see far ahead and understand its long-term goals. I also need to be familiar with the bigger world, with the big trend, the new innovation, and technology, and find inspiration and resources from the experiences of other people. Jason has once told me that I need to think more independently deeply. He told me that what other people tell me might not be the real answer, only through a lot of thinking. You get nearer to your answer.
She pulled out her cognition map (the app on her phone) and talked into her phone, and it automatically both recorded her voice and translated her voices into typed words.
Time
5:06–5:30 (Automatically known by the app)
Event
Reading the Article in Wechat
What Happened
how Jason chose the name “Moonshot” for the school.
“We choose to go to the moon
Tesla and Thinking
Thoughts
The idea of creating a student-centered school from a 21 years old young adult can actually gather attention and now after a year, it has already become reality and is being reported by one of the most prestigious news companies.
He actually treated difficulties as part of the necessity of doing something great. Difficulties is part of the equation of doing anything. That is such a great mindset! I want to learn and make that mindset part of my life.
If I have an idea and really want to make this idea into reality, I need to see far ahead and understand its long term goals. I also need to be familiar with the bigger world, with the big trend, the new innovation and technology, and find inspiration and resources from experiences of other people. Jason has once told me that I need to think more independently deeply. He told me that what other people tell me might not be the real answer. Only through a lot of thinking. You get nearer to your answer. `
Questions/Solution
1. What is the future of my Cognition Map?
Next
1. Overcome difficulties in my ACT preparation
2. be familiar with the bigger world, with the big trend, the new innovation and technology, and find inspiration and resources from experiences of other people
3. think more independently deeply
Connection
1. ACT preparation (Event)
2. Moonshot (Organization)
3. Tesla (Organization)
4. Kennedy (People)
5. Jason (People)
Tag
1. Independent Thinking
2. Overcome difficulties
Planning Out the Day 5:30–6:00
About 5:30 am, she promised herself to make a plan every morning for 20 minutes. She always has trouble understanding the time she has got, the tasks she needs to finish, and how to fit the tasks into suitable time slots. She thought the reason why she had a lot of trouble understanding them is that she is a really visual person. She needs to see the time, see the progress bar of her tasks in order to get a sense of them. So she came up with the method of making plans every day for 20 mins. She has tried different methods of visualizing time and tasks like the app TickTick, Monday.com, and writing in a notebook. And she still hasn’t found the best one yet. Today, she created something different.
She put tasks into sticky notes and put these sticky notes into a suitable time slot that she drew in her notebook.
She put this method into her Cognition Map with the Topic Time management. She sees all previous experiences that are related to time management. The methods she has explored, the story of her missing her flight, and the story that she successfully finished a project with great time management.
Here is what the Map has shown her.
Reading 6am-7am
It’s about 6:00, since last week, she wants herself to form a habit of reading for 1 hour a day in the morning. While other people are asleep, she can have this quiet time all to herself and read whatever she likes and what to explore.
She always felt a sense of lostness and confusion these days with her Cognitive Map. But she doesn’t know why. What is missing? Missing the environment where she can talk with a lot of people? Missing a sense of purpose and constructive steps? Missing resources for her to think more deeply about the app?
Suddenly, an event comes to her mind, it was three days ago, when she was researching on different school websites on the possible majors she wanted to take. Behavior Decision Science, a major from Brown university about questions like how people, institutions, and nations make judgments and decisions; normative questions about rationality, such as what constitutes the best judgments and decisions; and prescriptive questions, such as how the process of decision making can be improved to make actual decisions closer to optimal ones. She remembered how excited she felt when she came across this. This is just fitting so perfectly with her Map! How people decide what to do. And to make their decision more tied in with their goals.
She walked to her laptop; while opening it, she thought, why don’t I start reading and learning some research articles about Behavior Decision Science now, she doesn’t need to wait until she goes to college to start getting a sense of what it is. She searched and found an article from JSTOR called “Theories of Decision-Making in Economics and Behavioral Science”. It cost 10$. She had some hesitation about whether to pay for it. But she felt that all the investment now on her exploration of her ideas and to study is worth it!! So she bought it. She started to read it
Here is what she has learnt and felt:
The science field has already been exploring how a human or organization makes decisions for a long time.
Every human organism lives in an environment that generates millions of bits of new information each second, but the bottleneck of the perceptual apparatus certainly does not admit more than 1,000 bits per second, and probably much less — -”That fit with my understanding of how the Map would broaden a person’s perspective!!” (she thought)
A choice usually comes from a combination of a person’s goal and values(they can be simple or complex, consistent or contradictory) and some facts about the environment (it could be real or through a person’s own observation, or it can be supposed or reported by others)
How the Computer has been programmed to simulating a human’s process of giving out choice
Computers can learn from past data and do analyzation of current situations. they can propose a course of action, assessing the state of the environment
While reading it, she felt wonder and also a sense of fear. Especially when she learned that computers could learn, that means that if given the Computer a vast resource of data of how a human thinks about a certain thing and how a certain thing can lead to a possible conclusion. The Computer certainly can learn way faster than a human. Maybe that means the Computer can be a better storyteller, a better life designer, a more creative life designer than humans themselves. Humans don’t even use so much of their time to learn. What if the Computer learns to do design thinking? What if the Computer can even give better advice to you than your mentor or the research committee because the Computer has studied so many people’s choices and their stories. Data becomes so important to a computer. I think what makes it scary is that humans don’t need to think. Besides making human connections, thinking and creating is like one of the best weapons and tools of humans that have supported us to do so many things that other species seem not to be possible. What if the Computer learns to think and create? If I am doing the job of collecting all those data. Like how a human experiences personal growth, how they interpret things and how they come up with a solution, and how they decide. If I give it to AI, am I going to give AI more of an advantage of competition over humans? Because the AI would be the guy who knows all the perspectives about a certain issue, all the stories concerning how people find their true self, all the solutions people have ever used to solve communication problems. That reminds me of a Youtube Video that I had watched about Elon Musk the day before yesterday when I was thinking about Brain-Computer Interface. Elon Musk says that his Neurolink Company is trying to come up with a BCI technology for a human that can make humans be more competitive in a world with all the AI, which can learn and assimilate knowledge faster than humans. Suddenly, I felt how helpful it is now; however, on the day when I was watching the video, I felt, “oh whatever”, now I see more of its value.
When I entered all these thoughts into my map, the suggestion of previous related experience came up. It was just two days ago; I had such a positive notion of technology.
Here is what I wrote two days ago:
I have always felt that society is moving toward a state where everything will come back to humanities, to purpose, to meaning, to love, through the improvements of technology which facilitates the speed of spreading ideas, making it easier and easier to reach our goals, any kind of goals. It makes us humans speed up the process of discerning problems to solve the problems. It makes the world more transparent. Through technology, it would make certain men more powerful, more able to control. It would also make other people more capable of defending themselves. Every human thrives through love, peace, care, and respect. That makes the people with love win, and the people with hate lose. Just like all those people who created strong influence are the people who have a beautiful mission: Mark Zarkerburg: Create human connection. Jason: make good education more widespread…. Hopefully, the technology will make things fairer.
It is funny how fast my viewpoints have changed. I just believed technology could be so beneficial two days ago, and now I fear it so much. All these thinkings and fear come through my mind. I feel like that the topic “The future of Decision Making and Computers” becomes a magnet that is driving me toward it and trying to figure it out. However, I also doubt if it is a priority of concern that I need to worry about? Is it too far off from the main topic？ Or I just need to be more focused on the current situation. Maybe the Computer is not yet that advance to do the jobs I am concerned about. I need to think about both threats and benefits. So I jotted down some notes of how the Cognition Map can help a person: It can help humans to form a habit of constantly using design and creative thinking to solve problems and constantly think about a problem from different perspectives. Also, another great benefit of my map is to increase the speed of interpersonal learning. Where currently, we don’t have so many such tools. The ones closest to it are meetings, friends groups, Biographies, self broadcasting （Like vlogs, youtube Channels). However, we don’t usually exchange our life lessons frequently, nor is it a culture to exchange life stories of ourselves. It is very rare when groups of teenagers talk about how they want to design their life or talk about how to improve themselves. We also don’t really change our perspectives enough; this map would actually help a person to learn to change perspectives, group improving, and really understand each other.
I still think the world is going to be better, but there is more work to do to make sure it is going for the better. There are development stages too. The world might go bad for a few years and improve for a few years and go bad again. I think that now because the world is changing so fast, a portion of people who got rich earlier have more abilities to enjoy more freedom of distributing their time, they can get access to important technology development and be part of the big trend of the technology revolution. During this huge revolution, a person’s way of doing things, way of communicating, way of learning have changed profoundly. However, there is still a large portion of people who didn’t become rich, and they are still living and receiving education in a really traditional way. They never heard of BCI, never heard of the so many resources you are able to find online. I cannot imagine how hard it is for them to adjust to the world after the technology revolution. They can only be the person who passively adjusts, the become what the world asked them to become. It becomes so hard for them to become the leader of the new era because they have started so far behind that it becomes so hard for them to catch up. However, it will not become the way it is if we work to design a way that can balance it. Oh, that leads me to think about education. Suppose we use technology and education to make the earlier year of a person to all receive almost the same best quality education. This gap would be leveled up. Haha, that added another understanding into my education story. (She put this thought into her “Education” track in Cognition Map, the “Education” track is a themed Map that showed every thought she has on the topics of education, every question she has, every exploration she made, every people involved in it. As the owner of the Map, she can choose to share the map with people she likes. It would be people with the same interest, mentors, colleagues, parents. These people can make comments or give suggestions, or simply just show supports)
Go to Gym 7–8:30 am
It is 7:00am and I am going for a run. On my way walking toward the gym, I record all my thoughts into my maps. I have so many thoughts in just 2 hours. The map automatically transforms the voice recording into words. While walking, I give them tags.
Date/Time
6:00–7:00 (Automatically known by the app)
Event
Reading Theories of Decision-Making in Economics and Behavioral Science
What Happened
what she had learnt and felt:
● The science field has already been exploring how a human or organization makes decisions for a long time.
● Every human organism lives in an environment that generates millions of bits of new information each second, but the bottleneck of the perceptual apparatus certainly does not admit more than 1,000 bits per second, and probably much less — -”That fit with my understanding of how the Map would broaden a person’s perspective!!” (she thought)
● A choice usually comes from a combination of a person’s goal and values(they can be simple or complex, consistent or contradictory) and some facts about the environment (it could be real or through a person’s own observation, or it can be supposed, or reported by others)
● How the Computer has been programed to simulating a human’s process of giving out choice
● Computers can learn from vast data and do analysation of current situations. they can propose course of action, assessing the state of the environment
Thoughts
- she felt wonder, and also a sense of fear. Especially when she learned that computers can learn. That means that if given the computer a vast resource of data of how a human thinks about a certain thing and how a certain thing can lead to possible conclusion. The computer certainly can learn way faster than a human. Maybe that means the computer can be a better storyteller, a better life designer, a more creative life designer than humans themselves. Humans don’t even use so much of their time to learn. What if the computer learns to do design thinking? What if the computer can even give better advice to you than your mentor or the research committee because the computer has studied so many people’s choices and their stories. Data becomes so important to a computer. I think what makes it scary is that humans don’t need to think. Beside making human connection, thinking and creating is like one of the best weapons and tools of humans that have supported us to do so many things that other species seem not to be possible. What if the computer learns to think and create? If I am doing the job of collecting all those data. Like how a human grows up, how they interpret things and how they come up with a solution and how they decide. If I give it to AI, am I going to give AI more of an advantage of competition over humans? Because the AI would be the guy who knows all the perspectives about a certain issue, all the stories concerning how people find their true self, all the solutions people have ever used to solve communication problems. That reminds me of an Youtube Video that I have watched about Elon Musk the day before yesterday when I was thinking about Brain Computer Interface, Elon Musk says that his Neurolink Company is trying to come up with a BCI technology for human that can make human to be more competitive in a world with all the AI who can learn and assimilate knowledge faster than human. Suddenly, I felt how helpful it is now, however, on the day when I was watching the video, I felt, “oh whatever” now I see more of its value.
- It can help humans to form a habit of constantly using design and creative thinking to solve problems and constantly think about a problem from different perspectives. Also another great benefit of my map is to increase the speed of interpersonal learning. Where currently we don’t have so many of such tools. The ones closest to it are meetings, friends groups, Biographies, self broadcasting （Like vlog, youtube Channels). However, we don’t usually exchange our life lessons at a frequent pace nor is it a culture to exchange stories of ourselves. It is very rare when groups of teenagers talk about how they want to design their life, or talk about how to improve themselves. We also don’t really change our perspectives enough, this map would actually help a person to learn to change perspectives, group improving and really understand each other.
Questions/Solution
1. What is the future of my Cognition Map?
2. How can I get more familiar with all the related topics about Cognition Map?
Next
1. Read an relating topic to the Cognition Map everyday
Connection
1. Benefit of Technology (previous event)
2. Neuralink (Organization)
3. Theories of Decision-Making in Economics and Behavioral Science (Article)
Tag
1. Future of technology and AI
2. Cognition Map
Suddenly, I thought: what if in the immediate future, I can just think about things and it goes directly into my cognition map? It can save me a lot of time for to record through typing or voice record. What if I don’t have my phone around me, or I am a little bit lazy, then these thoughts would become vague or lost. I thought, maybe technology has already matured enough to do that — — converting thoughts into language/image or other presentable forms without need to type or speak. I searched on Youtube about “BCI” because that is one of the closest key words I can think of about this topic. I watched a video about Facebook’s new project — -A device that can interpret your mind and thoughts and turn it into communicable terms in computers, so you can send an email while you are taking a shower. Write a poem in nature without phone or pen or paper beside you. This makes me feel amazed and in such wonder. I have always felt my brain is full of thoughts, voice, image, movies, that I find it really hard to keep track of them all. If a technology like this can come out, I can see my beautiful and complex world in my brain more clearly than I do now. Maybe I can know myself better. I can see that a lot of people don’t see the value of having such a technology, I remember once this type of idea was introduced in a workshop in Moonshot, a lot of people asked “why would we want something to record everything about ourselves?” However, I see the value. It fit so will with the mission of my map.
Date/Time
7:00–7:15 (Automatically known by the app)
Event
BCI and more effective Life recording
What Happened
Facebook has already started developing a device that can convert your thoughts into language.
Thoughts
It is a valuable thing
Questions/Solution
1. How can my map connect to this technology in the future
2. How would Mark Zarckerberg think about this Map
Next
1. Understand more about BCI
2. Keep myself updated on related topics
Connection
1. Recording events (previous event)
2. Facebook (Organization)
3. Youtube (Organization)
4. Virginia Woolfs and her thinking process (Article)
Tag
1. Thinking
2. Cognition Map
While running on the treadmill, I searched some videos on Youtube about Silicon Valley. I really want to go to Stanford for my college because I felt that can help my Map a lot and there is also a place for a lot of innovations in Education. I learned that in Silicon Valley, there are a lot of start-ups and people with great ideas trying to making it into reality. Some Startups thrived and some fails, a Youtube suggestion video about the book Bad Blood and an explanation of the Company Theranos has attracted a lot of my attention. I felt a sense of excitement that Silicon Valley can be a great place for startups and the beginning of new adventures. It is going to be easy to find people who want to work together and get investments. However, the whole thing also felt aloof and unfamiliar to me. I don’t have any friends there. I am away from China, where my idea of having a Cognition Map start. In a place where everyone is making startups, everyone is smart, competitive, and are all grown-ups who are dealing with a lot of issues in business, economics is kind of intimidating. I am afraid of getting a sense of cohesion power here. However, I also felt that I am going to make connections, I am going to meet a group of friends and people who I will feel I am at home. Also, I want to be in an environment where I am interacting with children, teenagers a lot. I think the children inherently arouse a sense of hope and beautifulness in people around them. Maybe that’s why all the people who are working at MSA are so motivated and so nice. Because there are children here. They are helping the children find more opportunities. I want to surround myself with people who are nice, who are warm-hearted, who are willing to bring out power from other people.
Date/Time
7:20–8:00 (Automatically known by the app)
Event
Running and Watching Videos about Silicon Valley
What Happened
In Silicon Valley, there are a lot of start-ups and people with great ideas trying to make it into reality. Some Startups thrived and some fell, a Youtube suggestion video about the book Bad Blood and explanation of the Company Theranos has attracted a lot of my attention.
Thoughts
I felt a sense of excitement that Silicon Valley can be a great place for startups and beginning new adventures that it is going to be easy to find people who want to work together and get investments. However, the whole thing also felt aloof and unfamiliar to me. I don’t have any friends there. I am away from China, where my idea of having a Cognition Map start. In a place where all people are startups, everyone is smart, competitive, and are all grown-ups who are dealing with a lot of issues in business, economics. I am afraid of getting a sense of cohesion power here. However, I also felt that I am going to make connections, I am going to meet a group of friends and people who I will feel I am at home. Also, I want to be in an environment where I interact with children, teenagers a lot. I think the children inherently arouse a sense of hope and beautifulness in people around them. Maybe that’s why all the people who are working at MSA are so motivated and so nice. Because there are children here. They are helping the children find more opportunities. I want to surround myself with people who are nice, who are warm-hearted, who are willing to bring out power from other people.
Questions/Solution
Next
1. I want to be in an environment where I interact with children, teenagers a lot. I think the children inherently arouse a sense of hope and beautifulness in people around them. Maybe that’s why all the people who are working at MSA are so motivated and so nice. Because there are children here. They are helping the children find more opportunities. I want to surround myself with people who are nice, who are warm-hearted, who are willing to bring out power from other people.
Connection
1. Youtube (Organization)
2. Gym (Organization)
Tag
1. Place to develop
2. Startups
*The “Next” dimension in the Cognition can tell a person where they want to go (Know who you are, where you want to go). It can be a direction of life, a goal, a todo task, an action plan
After she finished Running, she went home at 8:30, ate breakfast, and worked on the ACT a little bit.
On the train to Guangzhou, Think about Test Prep Organization 12:00–2:00
At 12:00 pm, she left for the train to go to Guangzhou to see a doctor for treatment. On the train ride, she thought about all these things that she really wants to do. However, she has to take the ACT test. She could have been at Moonshot Academy and worked with all these passionate people on the thing she is so passionate about. She would help out the You Matter Always group that is founded by a high schooler in Beijing that is aiming to create support groups among teenagers for mental health and psychology. They have expressed to her that “I really wish you can join us,” And she replied, “I am a little bit busy these days. I will look into my schedule.” She remembered a call that she got yesterday night from an organization for college counseling and test prep in Beijing. The teacher told her that she need to take 18 hours of Science, 12 hours of Math, 20 hours of reading, and 20 hours of grammar in order to have a great grade. The teacher said that I could join a package that is 80 hours in total and that only cost about 80,000 RMB, which saves me 20,000 RMB if I do not join the package. Suddenly, I felt a sense of frustration and disappointment to see such an industry laying out like this. They don’t make me do work that can help me bring out my best self (self-Exploration, Understanding of the world, Interests). But they do work and earn money in a way that will maximize my hours spend on it and earn money from it. There is more frustration that comes. I felt curious, where do all these frustrations come from? I haven’t had these frustrations for a long while. She typed into the Map the keyword “Testing prep” “Study abroad organization” in her search box, a list of about 15 events pops out. Some contain her conversation with a counselor, some about her experience of choosing an organization. She realized that she doesn’t like how these organizations talk about College and the growth of children. They use language such as “We help a child to success and becomes elite by accepting to the top school” “GPA, the most important thing in children’s high school years,” “Taking these classes makes your child on the road to becoming an elite” I don’t like how they are saying it because it feels to me not true to human nature. In Moonshot Academy, they will never say anything like this; they always look for the things that are the truest to a child. They have the children explore what is meaningful to them. They give them time and resources for them to try and explore, to do projects they like, to do initiatives they really care about, but not do it for it increases their chances of being accepted to colleges.
😀
However, she later realized that it is useless to blame these testing industries, and it is of no use to blame that she is facing this dilemma of wanting to do those things of exploring her app, joining the organization, while also wanting to transfer to the College that she likes, as if these she is not responsible for her own situation. If I have actually managed my time well and worked 100% when I am working on any task, I would be in charge in a lot of situations.
Health Treatment 2:00–4:00pm
At 2:00 pm, I arrived at the doctors’ place. Again, I see how important health is to a person. On my journey of treatment, I have visited many clinics. All the doctors say to me, if I came to ask for treatment when I was 14, my problem would be way easier to cure. I see that there must be so many people who are suffering from this illness. They don’t know what to do, who to ask for. What if my cognitive Map on this health topic can be shared with all the people who are concerned about the same topic. How much easier it would be to find resources and prevent them at the right time. She pulled out her cognitive Map, and it looked like this…
(picture of the Map…)
She posts this Map into the Sphere (a place where people can look at each other’s shared Maps) where other people can check out maps of their interest it by entering keywords such as “mental health” “Spine-health ….(Three days later, Jane received a notice that tells her that her Map has been read by 20 people and 1 of them writes a comment: “Thank you so much, I noticed that my 10 years old daughter’s back is not balanced and I took her to the hospital and she was diagnosed to be scoliosis. Can you tell me the contact information of Dr Wu? Hope he can treat my daughter.”
Train Back to Home-Experience as a women 5:00–6:00
At 5 o’clock, on the train back to Shenzhen, I think about an Essay topic that Vivian (my Reading and Writing Teacher) has asked me to write an essay about “My experience as women and some difficulties women faced in their life” after we read “A Room of One’s Own” and “Yellow Wall-Paper’’ I know that since I was in middle school, I have a special feeling about being a woman. I felt angry at some situations women faced. I have tried to understand it and to find a way to change it. I have written essays on this topic and joined March for women and some women’s rights clubs in my school. However, since Senior year of my high school until now, I have tried to ignore those problems, to tried to keep myself away from the news of women issues, from feminist, I try to ignore the differences between women and man. Now I also feel a sense of resistance when trying to recall those experiences. But why am I resisting this topic? What happened to me? I searched for the keywords ``woman” in my cognitive map app. And this is what came out.
(a list of things and event that makes me think about the experience of being a woman)
I clicked open each of them and read them carefully. Oh, I see! Maybe I started to resist exploring women issues and women topics because that was a hard and painful experience. I was in constant conflict with myself and even tried to make myself look different. It is also because I realized how unwise the method is to combat the unfairness and uncomfortable experience of being a woman by depriving myself of some women’s characteristics. I thought, instead of immersing myself in so many news and stories about unfair treatment and getting frustrated and angry, I can first apart myself from these issues and use all the resources that is available for me currently(which is a lot already) and improve myself and become more capable and use my ability and success to influence other that encourage women to have various of personalities, preference, and that they can be not only beautiful but also capable. Now, I learned that I need to be more accepting of whatever I feel or experience. I need to face them fearlessly and learn from them. Writing this essay can be a good practice for me to face my past experiences and befriend them as part of me and be open-minded in exploring.
These past notes have given me so many resources and inspirations, and I started to write my essay. While writing them, I realized that there are so many women in the world, each of them has her own unique story about being a woman. Her confusion, her dilemma, her gratefulness, and her frustration of being a woman. She must have her own realization and enlightenment moment after a long journey. Why don’t I take a look at them? I searched “Experience of Women ‘’ in the Sphere. I also tagged some of my friends who I know did deep thinking about this topic if they are willing to share with me the “Women ‘’ track in their Cognition Map.
Confusion About Cognition Map, Ask for help 6:00–7:00
Six o’clock in the evening, on the taxi that takes her from the train station to a cinema where she would meet with her friend to watch a movie. She started to feel stagnant in the development of her Cognition Map. She also felt the loneliness of doing this map alone. She really wishes to have a group of friends with whom she can share her thoughts and have discussions. However, some people told her to hold onto her ideas and not to share them with a lot of people. They said It is important to keep it secret; you can share it with more people after you have already finished developing it. But she felt like without the discussion with a group of people, this product is stagnant, and with her own wisdom, she cannot support the intricacy of this product. This dilemma has been confusing her lately. And she has posted this confusion to her map and submitted it anonymously to the sphere and hope someone could answer her questions.
She also searches “patent” into the search box; about six stories from other people’s Cognition Map pop out. She reads them and thinks a little bit, and comes up with her own solution. She puts that updated solution into her “Cognition Map” track. Maybe some people can give her some insights or recommend some resources that help her refine her solution. In the app Cognition Map, users can sign up to be each other’s supporters to one or multiple tracks. So when the owner of the track updated anything into the track, it would automatically update on the app of the owner’s supporters. The supporters are usually people who care about the owner of the Map and expressed their interest in receiving an update on the track they are on. The supporter would give advice, provide resources or just simply show support or care for the owner. The owner usually chooses the supporters as people he/she trusts, like friends, parents, or specialists in certain fields or mentors. In my Cognition Map development track, my supporters are my parents. One of them is my best friend, two of them are colleagues from Moonshot; another is my life mentor, another is a person who works in the technology field.
The next thought that comes to her is that no matter what, it is very important to have a group of people who is enthusiastic about the same mission and willing to work together. She thought about how Moonshot Academy(where she has her internship) is just such an environment that acts like a magnet and attracts enthusiastic people with the same mission and dream, and how Jason, the CEO of the Moonshot Academy, attract so many people to sail on the same boat and work to achieve the same dream. She really wants to learn from him about how to gather a group of people that work on the same thing. So she @ Jason and typed: “I am developing my Map recently, and I realized how important it is to have a group of people to all be involved in this messy and creative design process because good ideas grow from this type of environment. I’m curious about how did you attract all these amazing people to work with you on this really amazing mission? How do you talk to people that makes them excited about your project and started working with you?” About five minutes later, she received a portion of the Cognition Map from Jason.
That is his journey of how he started having his idea and how he started to talk with people, and how he came up with a story that will make people feel excited. How he even travels to find interesting people to join the company. He probably extracted this map that can specifically answer my question by first pulling out his “Moonshot Academy” track and then searching the keyword “Teams” in it. There are questions, thoughts, dilemmas, and descriptions of events in this map concerning specifically how he forms his team. A lot of them are very detailed and specific. Of course, he has locked some events that he doesn’t feel comfortable sharing with me. These are all information and explorations that weren’t recorded by Jason through retrospect; he recorded it in real-time. The information is more real and valuable than an interview because these are the real thoughts that come to his mind at that specific moment, a real understanding of his situation at that specific moment, instead of a recalled memory that is being pulled to the brain when asked by an interviewer. This would certainly inspire so many thoughts for Jane. She replied with a lot of thanks to him and decided to read and examine it closely tomorrow because the taxi has almost arrived at the Movie theatre.
Movies 7:30–9:30pm — Explore interests Together
She went to the shopping mall where she is going to see the movie Midnight Paris with her friend Tom. They meet up with each other and eat dinner together. While they were eating dinner, Tom pulled out the map called “Happy Movie Trip of Jane and Tom”. They started to work on this map together last month because they realized that they all love movies and decided to create a map together so they can explore together, sharing happiness, and see what new exploration about movies each other has found. Through this month, they explored a lot of movie genres, styles of different directors, and some filming techniques.
“Look,” Tom said, “we have already watched 4 of the movies directed by Li An; today is our first day to explore Woody Allen!”
Jane: “Yeah! I am so excited. But wait, how did we decide to choose to explore Woody Allen after Li An?”
“Oh, I forget, but I will look….. (Tom looked into the connection in Movie Map).
Because last time we watched Life of Pi (directed by Li An) and we wanted to explore more directors who are especially great at using a movie to explore philosophy and social problems and we post this wish into the sphere, and your friend Jacob who wants to be a director recommended Woody Allen to us.”
“Wow, that means if we really like Woody Allen, we need to thank Jacob”
“Yeah! Haha”
After they watched the movie, they departed. On the subway home, Jane typed out what she felt about this movie onto the map. After about 5 minutes, she posted her thought onto the map; she saw Tom also posted his. Reading Tom’s posts, she thought, Wow, I didn’t notice …..in the movie. En, it’s interesting that he thought about this topic after watching the movies. A question that Tom raised also interested her. “Both Woody Allen and Li An went to New York University, and what is it about New York or NYU that gives them so many great resources to become such great directors?” That’s an interesting question, Jane thought about it a little bit, and this question is actually really relevant to her. She has been thinking about which college to apply to for a long time. She doesn’t know if she should choose the college according to if she likes the college or if she likes the city it is in. She still doesn’t know the influence a city has on a person. She wonders why New York, the city has so many charms to a lot of people who do fashion and movies. Why do a lot of people who want to do education or technology come to Shenzhen. Why people who do startups go to Silicon Valley, she has been thinking about applying to New York University; maybe through exploring this question, she can see what does a city means to a person. She added this question into her personal map with the topic “College” She also sends this question to her “future director” friend Jacob who really wants to go to New York.
Review 10–10:30 pm
Jane went home at 10 pm and did relaxing exercises for sleep for about 30 minutes. She wants to review what happened today. It felt like a lot had happened, but she didn’t really remember what she did in the morning and in the afternoon. She doesn’t want to read screens anymore, so she turns on this APP and plays the recording back to her. The parts she recorded using her voice would be played to her, and the parts where she typed would also be spoken to her through AI voice. She realized that she has thought of so many things today and gone through a lot of problems. Reviewing what happened today allows her to give a short summary of today and continue enjoying the world tomorrow.
Conclusion
So this is what a day of using the cognitive map looks like for Jane, an undergraduate student who has an idea of designing software. It is an app great for people who are exploring new things and who want to figure out what to do next and gain insights from friends or people interested in the same things.
