Living as an iterative process

More than a few times I have heard about a person striving for a goal and achieving it only to experience an unexpected empty feeling. It seems like nothing ultimately satisfies.

I like to think of this as a strength of the human condition. As I learn and grow the goals I achieve grow accordingly. I engage with life as an iterative process of learning, synthesizing, planning, creating and evaluating.

Learning answers the question, what is out there, what is possible? Every child begins with learning. Seeing what is possible and engaging in imitation that leads to skills acquisition. The process of learning must be continuous and lifelong to sustain continuous growth.

Synthesis is where skills, information and desire combine to give a unique, individualized picture of the possible. Often the facts are static but the possible re-combinations that fit individual desires are countless in their permutations. This is where a goal is created in the mind.

Planning is the how to get there. In this step it is often discovered that dependencies require returning to the learning stage to acquire skills identified as necessary before moving on to creating.

Creating can be the most exciting part of the process where all the previous steps begin to move from ideation to phenomenal. This stage is where inadequate planning or gaps in learning can lead to non-optimal outcomes.

The next, not the final, there is no final in an iterative process, stage is evaluation. Every outcome is a platform for beginning the next iteration. Evaluation can be compared to prepping the ground of a construction site. A lot of work goes into clearing and levelling before any building becomes visible.

These stages are not perfectly linear for a single project let alone for a whole life. There are often starts and stops, rabbit trails, and needed retrenching. The point is continuous movement.