Which are the driving forces in your life? For me, right now, two stand out.

Giving care

In my sexual practice there is a certain set of activities that give me extra value. What unite them is a focus on physical care. Caressing, holding, penetrating. Running my fingers over the person’s skin. Tying them up. I derive physical pleasure from these activities, but it’s the pleasure that I give to my lovers that is the real value for me.

In my professional practice I also give care, but in a more abstract way. I help make products and services useful, valuable and efficient. That work is all for the benefit of those who use the products. I get a ridiculous amount of energy from conversations with persons whose lives I have helped make a bit better via my work.

So, for me giving care is a very egoistic thing. Might that be why one sometimes say “to take care”?

Changing my mind

There is something magical about persons with deep knowledge of things I know very little about. Medical physics. Google Data Studio. Existentialism. There is also so much I can learn from experienced persons in my professional realm – many of my colleagues as well as Teresa Torres, Marty Cagan, and the leaders of IDEO, to name just a few.

Also very exciting is to take on a wicked problem and try to solve it with design methods. The process of creating prototypes and validating them with those who might use the product always gives me so many surprises – my initial ideas are never the best ones.

In short I love to be intellectually challenged and to disprove my theses.

Several other aspects of my life give me joy and help me live life well. But these two – giving care and changing my mind – are extra valuable right now.