During our lives, many turning moments occur in which we feel that we are being pushed towards renewal.
What does it mean to renew?
Renewal implies leaving behind what has become obsolete and has stopped providing the results that previously satisfied us.
This process occurs frequently naturally in all areas of life, just as it happens (on another scale) in nature, both in the plant world and in the animal world.
To think about it, we tend to resist change – mainly the one that is mandatory – because that path is never painless…. But when you have an attentive conscience, the act of embracing that experience takes on a special relevance and forces us to pay close attention to what is not seen with the naked eye.
Start from zero
As I mentioned in the past (in our Facebook group), life led me down the path of renewal and I had no choice but to start making the necessary adjustments to be reborn and reinvent myself in many instances … and one of them, that For me it is one of the most important, has been the creation of this website that you now visit.
I designed, developed, and launched my first website – www.38uh.com – in August 2006, more than 14 years ago, at a time when web technology was very different from what we have today.
For obvious reasons, my digital home was very outdated, to the point that I had serious technical problems keeping it up to date, but mainly in relation to the realization of two of my highest priority objectives:
- To have a dynamic and participatory blog that would serve as a platform to disseminate my professional services and write about the issues I want to share with the Hispanic world.
- Create an online Transpersonal Numerology school that was integrated into the website style.
So the challenge was to “start from scratch”, but from a more conscious review of the new goals that I had to set for myself.
Home consciousness
When a trip of this magnitude is undertaken, unexpected detours will occur no matter how much you plan what you want and how you want to achieve it.
However – beyond the difficulties inherent in a process that involves creativity, design, and digital technology processes in equal parts – I understood that I was not designing a website for my professional activity … and this is the feeling that I encourage myself to share constructively with you.
In fact, as the design progressed, I became aware that I was building my website as if I was building the new home that would replace the one that went out of fashion, the one that became a “vintage” site and stopped be functional.
This feeling was cleared up when I compared my process to some of the home remodeling TV shows on Discovery H&H.
In particular, I love to watch a show called “Couple Remodeling,” where Chip and Joanna Gaines (a married couple from Waco, Texas) specialize in remodeling old houses that may be over 100 years old.
Demolish first, rebuild later
In addition to the sympathy that Chip exudes, I am impressed by his wife’s sensitivity and delicacy when it comes to designing new concepts on structures that you would not give a penny for. It’s amazing!
During the beginning of a renovation, the first thing that usually happens is the demolition, which involves completely stripping the house to remove the old rags, the rotten supports, the cracked shell and leave the bare skeleton standing that barely supports the old appearance of a house that was once relevant.
This first step captured my attention, as it made me reflect on the memories that remain embedded in the homes where people have lived for decades because even if they have removed their precarious dignity from the house, those memories are still there (all objects have a sort of “ram memory”).
What will the memories of the house feel during that process?
Will those memories ever be completely extinguished?
Will they perceive the loss of their original identity, will they leave behind what they always were, or will they resist change?
Honor the memory of the house
During the process of demolishing these old houses, Joanna’s sensitive gaze may be caught by an old piece of wood streaked by gray scars of the passage of time, by an old but elegant window from the beginning of the last century, by an ancient but functional fireplace or maybe a piece of old, colorful wallpaper.
From here, an alchemical process is triggered that transforms forgotten memories into an act of gratitude that “resets the house’s ram memory” and prepares it for a new beginning .
That piece that attracted the designer’s attention is carefully collected, restored to its original state and placed in a relevant place in the new house to honor and perpetuate the memory of what was but did not disappear, but instead became the Reminder of a new beginning.
When the new owners put their feet for the first time in the renovated house and focus their grateful gaze on that ancient object, silent tears of gratitude usually flow that (literally) clear and open the way to the beginning of a new life.
From there, the old memories of the house will not hinder the lives of its new inhabitants, since they have been given a prominent position, a kind of formal invitation to live with the new family.
Building on renewed foundations
When I opened my heart to the perception of how old memories operate, I understood that I was not building a new website.
Rather, I felt that I was building a new home on the foundations of one that lasted almost 15 years and that although it was obsolete (I even changed the name), I wanted to honor its memory and continue using part of the old color palette that I conceived in its beginnings … but beyond the aesthetic, I preserved and gave better writing and localization to many of the texts that I published in the past so that they would continue to support my readers and have continuity in the future.
With my heart wide open, I had a unifying feeling that I want to share :
- Designing and building a personal web page, more than a technological process, is to communicate a feeling that is carried inside, which sometimes struggles to leave and other times needs to be contained.
- It is a path that involves a revealing intimate dialogue with yourself since what will be published is what you carry inside.
- It is managed as personal as writing a book, in which you only show the pages you have written to whom you estimate and value.
- During the process, many ideas occur to you but you save them to publish them later, only there, exclusively, because an author who takes care of what he writes and how he publishes it … knows very well that his website reflects his personal vision of life and identifies you to your audience.
- Preparing the content that the new website will have is an act of love because it is like setting a table to invite others to eat with you the food that you prepared for them because you know what they like.
The legacy of your learnings
These reflections led me to feel that we are always building our presence on the foundations of experience and teaching acquired over time.
Building a more modern house, starting a new relationship, or undertaking a new project, for example, are activities that require using all the learning and experience that we have accumulated, whatever the type.
Even if we are going to demolish what is obsolete, the new that we build will inexorably rise on the foundations that we have preserved.
