Alright, so I’ve been meaning to talk about this “Benjamin Ruano” thing for a bit. Not the person, mind you, but the whole approach, the method, or whatever you want to call it that’s been floating around some corners of the internet. I kept seeing the name pop up in discussions about, well, trying to get complex stuff done without losing your mind. Seemed intriguing, you know? Always on the lookout for a better way to skin a cat, as they say.
My First Brush With It
So, I decided, why not give it a whirl? I dug around, tried to find the core principles. It wasn’t like there was a big shiny manual. It was more like piecing together bits from different forum posts and old articles. The whole idea, as far as I could tell, was about breaking things down in a very… particular way. Lots of emphasis on what they called ‘holistic pre-visualization’ and ‘iterative resonance’. Fancy words, eh?
I figured I’d try it on a personal project I’d been putting off – cataloging my old vinyl collection. Seemed like a good test case. Lots of items, lots of potential data points, and a real need for some kind of order.
Getting Down to Brass Tacks
So, I started. The first step, according to the “Ruano” enthusiasts, was to not touch anything. Just sit and ‘absorb the chaotic potential’. I sat there for a good hour, staring at dusty record sleeves. Felt a bit daft, to be honest. My wife walked in, asked if I was alright. “Just absorbing,” I told her. She just nodded slowly and backed out of the room.
Then came the ‘dynamic attribute mapping’. This involved creating this incredibly complex mind map, linking artists to genres, to moods, to release years, to… well, you get the idea. Here’s what my process looked like for a bit:
- Stare at record.
- Consult the half-baked notes I made on “Ruano Principles.”
- Try to draw a new branch on the mind map without it looking like a spider had a seizure.
- Get frustrated.
- Repeat.
It felt like I was building a ship in a bottle, but the instructions were written in riddles. So much process! I spent a whole weekend just on the ‘preparatory phase’. My collection was still a mess, but boy, did I have a complicated chart.
Where I Landed With It
Look, I’m not gonna say the Benjamin Ruano way of thinking is complete hogwash. Maybe for certain kinds of minds, or certain kinds of super-abstract problems, it clicks. But for organizing my LPs? It was like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I eventually just went back to my old method: A-Z by artist, then by year. Took me an afternoon, and it worked just fine.
It reminds me of this one time, years ago, I got convinced to try this weird ergonomic keyboard. Cost a fortune. It was split in the middle, tilted at all sorts of angles. Supposed to be revolutionary for typing speed and comfort. All it did was make me type like I had mittens on and give me a sore neck. I gave it a week, then went back to my trusty old clunker. Sometimes, the tried-and-true stuff is true for a reason.
So, that was my little experiment with the Benjamin Ruano philosophy. An interesting detour, for sure. But I think I’ll stick to what gets the job done without needing a PhD in chart-making. Maybe it’s just me, but simple usually wins in my book.
