Each human being solves the riddle of how to act and react on their life journey in their own very particular way. This resolution is tied to what the person sees and how they see it, to what they feel and how they feel it, to how they interpret and what they incorporate, and how, from the experiences they have had since the womb and in the following years. The different layers of experience may, at some point, cloud thinking and ricochet off one or another relevant memory, taking away from the person the full conditions to make lucid, uncontaminated contact with reality.

Less biased, or uncontaminated, perception will depend on knowing oneself in order to ground choices. For that to happen, that is, for me to direct my voluntary attention to a certain thought, feeling or action, I need to know the origin and impact of the different thoughts, feelings and actions that move through my brain.

The intricate choreography that associates thoughts, feelings, fantasies and judgments with objective reality, communication, decision-making and relationships with people points to the importance of a development process that begins with self-knowledge. Thus, any process of change presupposes making flexible (or updating) content entrenched in the frame of reference. Updating, therefore, presupposes knowing.

What do we see lucidly, what do we disqualify, what do we distort? Among others, these questions guide the understanding of what characterizes us uniquely, distinguishes us from others and gives us a particular perception of life: our QR Code. The full name of the QR Code is Quick Response Code. Although it is only now being noticed and adopted on a large scale, it was created in 1994 by Denso Wave (a Toyota Group company) in Japan. It is a two-dimensional graphic that can be read by most cellphone cameras and contains information that directs the user to certain content. We can say, then, that the QR Code details the frame of reference of products or services.

Understanding our frame of reference and that of our traveling companions lets us grasp the information and experiences that act as filters or distortions of objective reality. The frame of reference is a general set (perceptual, conceptual, affective and of action) that a person uses to define the self, other people and the world, in a structural and dynamic way. In particular, it is the structure within which the individual answers questions such as “How do I know I exist?” and “Who am I?”, “Who are other people?”, “Why do they communicate the way they do?”, “Why do they do what they do?”.

A first important observation is that much of the experience or information we live through or come into contact with will be compared with what has already been lived or known and, afterward, disqualified or incorporated into the existing references.

A first layer of distortion and interpretation is the values that guide decision processes or influence the direction of actions or relationships. It is easy to recall recent episodes in which one of the remembered values was evoked and what the respective impacts were on the resulting thoughts, feelings and actions. In the next layer lie resources that will mark out each person’s relationship with the others around them, their position in those relationships and the place the person, from the QR’s point of view, occupies in the world they inhabit.

Aspects related to health, family, community, sexuality, physical characteristics, decoding (meanings attributed to words), race, ethnic heritage, history, geography, cultural heritage, birth order, birth experiences, intrauterine experiences and talents generate particular signals that filter objective reality and all events.

Each human being we observe, admire or reject will present themselves through the aspects of their frame of reference. And each of us will observe, conclude, agree or not, love or not, relate constructively or not through the aspects of our QR.

At all times it is possible to update our frame of reference and gradually eliminate the blocks to lucidity. Dialogues that include a respectful look at our journey open new windows of perception, which allow decisions.

Our gaze can open and capture a broader horizon, perhaps closer to objective reality.

I like to think that people do what they do from decisions, some conscious, many originating in earlier experiences that are often not even remembered. I like to think that each of us can change our own course so as to experience new and limpid perceptions.