World
The "World of Activity" Approach
by Oliver Ding
On December 4, 2024, I used the theme of "World of Activity" to name a knowledge map that curated my creations related to Activity-focused frameworks.
However, I also used the theme for Creative Life Theory and other frameworks.
Back in 2023, it was part of Creative Life Theory, positioned as a central concept within the Creative Course Framework. Later, I began to use it as an independent concept across various projects. For instance, at the end of 2024, I included it in a book draft titled Frame for Work: Knowledge Frameworks, Predictive Models, and World of Activity.
In June 2025, I formally detached the theme from the Creative Course Framework and redefined World of Activity as a general term for further theoretical development. From the perspective of the Ecological Practice Approach, “World of Activity” is understood as a broad life container — a space in which we can observe the structure and developmental patterns of life activities. It also functions as a thematic space where related knowledge elements can be curated together.
Following this direction, I created the World of Activity Toolkit (v1.0, 2025) on June 16, curating several newly developed knowledge frameworks into a unified structure. (See diagram below.) More details are available in GO Theory: Chronos Space, Aion Space, and World of Activity.
The World of Activity approach represents a comprehensive toolkit containing multiple analytical modules for examining human experience and development.
Its central model, the "World of Activity" Model (v1, 2025), represents the “Flow — Focus — Center — Circle” schema.
Flow represents the movement of everyday life experience — the continuous stream of activities, encounters, and engagements that constitute our lived reality. Think of Flow as the raw material of experience: attending classes, meeting friends, working on projects, having conversations, traveling, and creating. It’s the basic level of “what happens” in life.
Focus marks the emergence of mental concentration that creates thematic coherence. The key difference from Flow is that Focus involves the emergence of a thematic space that channels attention toward specific domains of meaning. When scattered activities begin to coalesce around particular themes or interests, Focus emerges. For example, when various creative activities (poetry writing, logo design, journal editing) begin to organize around a shared theme of creative expression.
Center represents the creative center we work with continuously. While Focus emphasizes intention and attention, Center involves sustained action and ongoing curation. Centers are the stable organizing principles that give structure to experience over time. They represent not just what we pay attention to, but what we actively develop, maintain, and build our activities around. A poetry society, a professional specialization, or a theoretical framework can each function as a Center.
Circle encompasses the network of connected creative centers — the broader social and cultural contexts that link individual Worlds of Activity to collective enterprises. Circles represent how our personal Centers connect with others’ Centers, forming communities, movements, and cultural phenomena.
This schema reveals how human experience organizes itself from basic Flow through increasingly complex levels of integration, culminating in Circles that connect individual development to broader cultural contributions.
The diagram below shows eight theoretical companions of the World of Activity approach.
While the diagram above was created on August 4, the original idea was born early during my trip to Fuzhou. In a post dated July 5, I noted four theoretical approaches that could provide resources for the World of Activity approach. Likewise, the World of Activity approach could offer insights for those other four theoretical approaches.
In this way, the World of Activity sits at the center of my major theoretical creations, acting as a creative hub.
More details can be found in Four Looks at the World of Activity Approach.
v1.0; 625 words - September 4, 2025