Concept Map

For this assignment I struggled the most with figuring out which topic I wanted to make the center of my concept map. I came up with the idea of doing judgments because it is something that connects to a number of different things such as point of view, things one has experienced etc. I started off with the main things I thought judgments come from and continued to go through the layers that came afterwards. For example, judgements are subconscious and can come from jealousy, it has to do with attitudes and also perceptions. I used color to determine the relationships between the layers of connections that link ideas. The next layer of ideas I labeled red and yellow. Each thought pattern that comes out of each idea is unique to but still has the relationships to each of the corresponding colors.

I was able to link color to relationships and connect them all together in the end. I thought this exercise was really interesting and help me realize the importance of use of color and shape in terms of gaining an understanding of relationships around ideas. Although it started out as a fairly quick exercise, it turned out to be a lesson as to how the brain functions. I was able to visualize this idea I had on paper and communicate what I was seeing through color and shapes.

Mind Map 1

First Mind Map: For my first mind map, I had a lot of troubling figuring out what my center idea would be. Everytime I would think of something I would get stuck and I would think I wasn’t going deep enough into the project. I decided it would be most beneficial for me to write about the characteristics I want to live by. I was hoping to achieve a greater understanding as to the kind of person I want to be and what I want other people to recognize in me. I struggled in the beginning to come up with a specific way to articulate my plan.

I started off naming the qualities that I thought were important in a fellow human being. After a while of naming off the important qualities such as “honesty” and “courage” and similar characteristics that I thought were most important, I started to loose track of my thoughts and I found it extremely hard to continue to list qualities. I took a twenty minute break and I added color and pictures that helped me sprout a few more ideas. I wrote these ideas coming off of the pictures I had drawn. I felt like overall, my mindmap was helpful for me to actually see on paper these qualities that I want to posses.

Second Mind Map: For the second mind map I decided to use the word courage, since it was the one quality I wanted to focus on. I realized after looking at the first map, courage was vague and in order to better understand it I wanted to list things that I believe are acts of courage or just courageous in general.

I started off flowing with words. I spent way too much time working on the details of a tree but it got my mind working and by the time I had finished drawing the branches I was full of inspiration. After about ten words I slowed down and started letting my brain spew out random words that I associated with courage. It was hard for me to let go and I found myself thinking too much about it. When I felt like there wasn’t possibly anymore I could write, I took a break and came back and started coloring and drawing more pictures. It helped me relax and I ended up coming up with so much more information it was hard to fit it all on the page. Once I finally was able to overcome my own control issues I was able to tap into my brain and make an entire

Conclusion: I discovered that even things that initially didn’t make sense to write down actually do have something to do with the subject. I guess our brains work in mysterious ways and I am very happy to have had this experience.