&quot;Why the heck do I have to chase storms?&quot; Recently, I omitted answering this frequently asked question. 
 
The answer first raises another question: is it smart to lead people into the storm? 
 
I can already see the smartest out there walking into an actual storm trying to find the next tale. So, since we don&#39;t have a manual yet: &quot;Do NOT walk into an actual thunderstorm outside. Do NOT risk being struck by lightning. Do NOT try to find the center of a tornado (at least if you haven&#39;t watched <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twister_(1996_film)" target="_blank">Twister</a> before - photo above!).&quot;

Now, let me elaborate on the storm at ORRO WORLD. First of all, the motive of going inside is one that arises out of deep spiritual thought. The storm is meant as an equivalent to everything that whirls inside of us: detrimental thinking, unpleasant feelings, the body itching, aching, crying... you name it! Going inside the storm means to listen to that whirling, to get in closer contact with it, to connect with oneself and everything that is present. Unfortunately, the truth is: escape is often preferred over presence. 
 
So, what does escape look like? To escape from the uncomfortable whirls means to escape from the inner storm. In the broader sense it means to escape from oneself. Simply avoiding the storm won&#39;t make it stop either. On the contrary, it will keep doing so until we can&#39;t avoid it no longer. But looking for quick escape is an attempt in vain. Because when we try to escape, we invest energy into the mere act of doing so WHILE having to deal with the whirling. 
 
Actually, do we need to be busy with two things at the same time? I feel it is my duty to make people real listeners, so they grasp healing on a different level: going inside the storm allows us to transform ourselves from within. 
 
If we want to get to know ourselves better, if we want to go a new way of healing and if we want to be autonomous beings, this, at least, is the approach we can choose. We all have the capacity of self-healing. One that is immediately accessible and highly effective. The message behind &quot;chasing storms&quot; is thus easy: we want to make you practise to go into your whirling over and over again. The more you practise the easier it will be to continue this path. Escape is an illusion. 
 
Is it hard to be present with the storm? It seems easier to escape and it appears often like the next best solution. Even more tricky: escape escapes us! For example, when we have a headache we don&#39;t notice how quickly we grab for the escape-pill. Obviously, we do notice that we&#39;re taking the pill BUT not how quickly we did so. In this world of constant distraction we are so used to the game of escape. It became rare to acknowledge and listen to feelings of discomfort. The thinking mind makes it even harder by distracting us from what&#39;s whirling. It happens all the time. But once we are able to listen to it, it can only take minutes to shift from whirling to well-being. This is the transformation we would like to offer. This is why you get to chase storms. This is the no-escape game you are free to play.

So, keep playing! 
&nbsp;

When storms whirl, why chase them? - A frequently asked question and maybe the most important one. At least if you're a cow!

07: FAQ - Moo!

Long before the dawn of the majestic tree at the center of ORRO, our project&#39;s idea was the little cute creature to teach people about a conscious smartphone usage. Clearly, the Tamagotchi influenced our original motive, hence the name &quot;Smagotcha&quot;. But with time going by, we wanted a world of gardens to take over, with a tree at its center. 
 
Progressing from creature to world, our designer Mette was willing to start anew. Many hours and Skype calls went by in which we discussed the details. Many ideas flooded in and before I could realize what ultimately drove me to agree on some of our designer&#39;s wild suggestions, a whole world was born with plants and planets, floors and skies, and finally: a leave-stripped tree towering in the center of the world: &quot;UILO&quot; 
 
Why the name UILO? Sounds like &quot;willow&quot;, right? But there is sad story behind it and I would love to share it with you, to reveal one of the happiest moments of my life. UILO is the linguistical concentrate of the willow tree. In our digital world of sound and silence UILO is the cryptic reincarnation of the weeping willow tree that once stood in a German park, peaceful and majestic, giving shelter on a sunny but mild spring day. 
 
At the end of February 2019, Jana who started the project with me ventured into a blessed experience with me. For the first time of our lives we took the risk of a daydream. An excerpt from my beloved diary: 
 
Jana and I decided to take a magical trip. With a few blankets we marched towards a park close by. After about 40 minutes we began to notice that everything around us looked different. The water surface of a pond looked supernatural. We searched for a spot where we could roll out our blankets and sat down under a big beautiful weeping willow (photo above) from which we could see the shimmering lake with its geese and ducks paddeling around. The weather kept changing. Sometimes the sun came out. Sometimes blows of wind moved thin layers of clouds weakening the power of the sun. On top of us the willow tree played with its many delicate branches, like fingers. Its leaves rustled in the wind. I lay down on my back and looked up into the massive crown. The thick stump was mighty and high. I closed my eyes. I took five deep breaths and said: &bdquo;I feel connected to everything.&ldquo;

A few days after, I took my routine walk in the park as usual. I was shocked to find a bunch of forest workers cutting my new friend, the willow, into pieces. I had to learn that a storm disrooted the tree. It felt like an omen preparing Jana and me for a new world. The park workers were people with Down-Syndrome who were so generous to give me a piece of the willow&#39;s trunk that now decorates the top of my piano. 
 
Time is due that we start to play that piece. 
&nbsp;

A story about a weeping willow tree that changed worlds.

06: When Willow Wept

On the 22.02.2022 we finally released ORRO WORLD in the app stores and silently celebrated our first palindrome release. I remember it was beginning of 2022 and I was sitting in a Spanish canyon meditating on a car tyre when suddenly, I became aware of this magical date and in an instant I knew what to do next. 
 
I call it&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrome" target="_blank">Palindrome</a> release because ORRO and the release date have a lot in common: One can read both word and date from left to right and backwards. Even better: ORRO consists of the two letters &quot;O&quot; and &quot;R&quot;, which technically comes down to the number 2 once more. Therefore, I regard the number &quot;2&quot; as very important for this project. 
 
Also, we chose the name ORRO because of two reasons: 
 
1) ORRO is a mirrorworld: Although still in development you can already see something is hiding under the garden that you entered. You can already see that there are other plants secretly growing below. How we want to put the other side into action? There are great ideas out there but a decision wants to be made with care. One thing is for sure: More content will be added. 
 
2) ORRO derives from the Basque language and translates to &quot;roaring&quot; such as the lions roar. Often, people do not feel allowed to express anger because our society suppresses it. With the name ORRO we want to point at this important outlet of human nature. For example when the impulses that seek expression are not acted upon, they often remain in ourselves in the shape of thoughts and emotions: Meditation can be a practise of observing such inner roar. 
 
After over 3 years of app development it was an important step to go out for the first time. For us it is about creating something together, about doing something that we love. Success must be a side product of our efforts and should never be stressed. That being said, we are still developing ORRO and within the next few weeks updates will be made. 
 
Stay tuned!

Meditation can be like a wake up call. The sound of "2" gave me direction heading towards the palindrome release of ORRO WORLD

05: Two, too!

Once, I started with an idea so people can be more conscious with their cell phones.

Now, close your eyes (but keep reading) and imagine yourself in my situation: In 2018, I entered this hostel lobby in Vietnam and then time stretched like chewing gum... In that slow-moving instance I saw all these hostel guests like they were glued to their phones and I simply couldn&#39;t see it no different!

An excerpt from my beloved diary:

Somewhere, deep inside of me, there was this expectation, a kind of inscription, like a code on my DNS providing commonsense knowledge, that travelling human beings want to get to know each other, that they want to be close to each other. Instead I found them only watching screens and they smirked while doing so, slowly chewing their Pho, holding their phones, not appearing to be in contact with the real world. The colorful statements about multicultural encounters, altruism and mindfulness... they were placed throughout the hostel&hellip; they seemed like an infinite joke.

It was a joke, wasn&#39;t it? How dependent were those who constantly ran around with their devices like a self-protection or gun they carry? I found it very disappointing. Now, should I pull my fellows out of their unconscious patterns and how am I able to achieve this? Why do they hide? Why are they afraid of intimacy with each other? Can they only be intimate with their phones? So, they sat there. Next to and across each other, holding plastics, metal and electro chips right in front of their faces. At that time, I didn&rsquo;t know that the more pressing problem was not intimacy with others but one specific kind of intimacy with themselves, the same one that was lacking in me, too...

I started travelling in 2010, when the smartphone was still fresh. Many travellers owned brick phones. I used to walk into hostel lobbies to meet strangers and talk to them without any virtual bricks in between. It was fairly easy to approach them with a feeling of being welcome into their personal sphere and vice verca. Many times, the next conversation was already waiting around a real concrete corner. I enjoyed the feeling and didn&rsquo;t only miss being connected in such ways when I was in Vietnam. I kept encountering this phenomenon more and more throughout my ten years of travelling.&nbsp;

From my hostel experience I learnt a few important things. First, I all too quickly blamed the smartphone for being distracting, addictive and ultimately giving me a hard time to socialize. Second, the fact quickly evaded me that I used my smartphone on a daily basis while making use of all its benefits. So, this is exactly the dilemma that many of us are facing.

We blame our smartphones and at the same time reap the benefits of it. We hate it and we love it.

Few of us are able to acknowledge that toxic love-hate relationship after exchanging wedding vows. But I truly believe we all could be more aware of how we deal with our married ones. I am 100% sure that our observations and intuitions are not flawed. The research that I find and the feedback that I get keeps confirming it: The smartphone has been the first powerful psychological shield. One&nbsp; that is keeping us safe - on the other hand hexing us into loneliness. We smartphone ourselves into isolation. It&rsquo;s easy to get in and much harder to get out. Let me suggest a remedy: Become aware of the moment you pull out your phone next time. Then ask yourself one simple question: &quot;What motivated me to focus on a phone?&quot; 

Before I started working on Smagotcha, I took care that, from time to time, I enjoyed liberty from my device. So, I bought a paper calendar or a basic alarm clock so I could leave my phone outside of my room during nights. Some time later, I realized how much more convenient my calendar and alarm clock apps were. Later, when I was already in the midst of my project, I could see myself being pulled into it more and more: On top of smartphone-organizing my private life, I had to smartphone-navigate an ever growing online team. I felt like I became quite addicted to it.&nbsp;

What for, again? 
 
To make people more aware smartphone users.

I believe that our phones are great tools. But they are ubiquitous and can be demanding. They may be glued to us and they may have a will of their own. The smartphone wasn&rsquo;t the first challenge and chance in our digital lives. It might be replaced in the future with new tools such as facebook&#39;s &quot;Metaverse&quot; lining up for us to turn us into either masters or slaves of digital citizens.&nbsp;

For me mindfulness and tech belong together if we want to start healthy relationships and become self-governed masters of digital worlds. 

Stay tuned!

 
<a href="https://href.li/?https://www.instagram.com/jcgotting/" target="_blank">Thanks for the image: Missed connections, JC G&ouml;tting</a>

Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and be faithful to your phone through sickness and adversity, as well as health and prosperity, forsaking all others, so long as you both shall live?

04: Yes, I will

Every team has a beginning, and ours didn&#39;t just happen overnight. At the end of 2018 I officially registered Smagotcha at my university in order to earn credits. By then, I had already put a lot of thought into how to make it work. Sometimes, what I initially thought would work proved false and many aspects continually needed to change. Many weeks and months had passed and it was a real challenge to assemble a proper team without being able to offer financial compensation. The best I could offer was a common vision and a work space that encourages genuine listening to one another.

In summer 2018 I had asked a friend of mine, Jana, if she wanted to join to help with the website and the logo design. As the second founder, she&#39;s been there from the very beginning and there have been many ways how she supports the project. She&nbsp;managed to acquire our first scholarship, she designs our moodboards and online content, and recently started administering our Instagram channels.

Soon after, I started looking for a programmer to code the app. I sent out tons of emails and asked many different people. After months of searching I had a tinder date and it was her who finally recommended Zsombor. Experienced in programming for smartphone applications for iOS, it turned out he loves both computer games and mindfulness. I must have been quite desperate&hellip; but what a lucky date!&nbsp;

Mette followed our team in a time when it became clear that we would need a 3D designer. She was able to envision and model the substance of ORRO: The world that must evolve throughout the mindfulness game. With her many years of experience in working with 3D she has guided other teams in their creative processes. Mette lives in Denmark and is our third co-founder.

Finally, it felt like four elements completed a core team. That is Zsombor, Mette, Jana and me.

As things evolved, I started writing our first few meditation stories. Here, my friend Brad helped enormously. Having worked for the governement as an English instructor, he was our text corrector as well as text creator for our website and social media channels. On top of this, he&rsquo;s been a great advisor of my personal journey. Brad is an experienced actor for theater and one of the last 100 finalists of MarsOne.

My sister Kathi joined us in her last year of the Dutch &ldquo;International Marketing&rdquo; program to maintain and support us with the social media channels like Instagram and Tiktok. As our youngest peer she applies her knowledge in the best way she can. Soon, she will start a six months study-abroad-experience in Mexico. 
 
In the same year of 2019 two important members of Smagotcha added some more tinder to the fire. First, our lead musician Frederik Raumann. He creates dreamy atmospheres for our guided meditation tracks and decorates them with a pinch of emotional magic. He studied music and media in Germany, D&uuml;sseldorf with &quot;Jazz Piano&quot; as his major subject and teaches the piano to youngsters. Second, our sound designer Suhyun Park, who creates environmental soundscapes. Let&rsquo;s call her Su! All of us, Freddy, Su and I, studied Music and Media in Duesseldorf in Germany. We all enjoyed the same courses in Media Composition, Visual Music and Music Informatics. Recently, Su went back home to Korea where she is now writing her bachelor thesis. Meanwhile, I took over her job. See you soon, Su!

In 2020 I myself have worked on the bachelor. With a team of twelve we managed to finalize the first test release of ORRO. A colorful paintpot garden with a few German poetic stories of each a minute, plus a paper with the title: &quot;Pause perception of westernized users within digital entertainment media&quot;, was written. Having had helping hands, we talk about another former fellow student Sebastian Heidelberg, who advised with the gameplay and optimized our first garden with us. While my thesis went at full speed, the business had to stay on track, too. Daniela Grego, an applicant for my room that I use to subrent, got inspired by Smagotcha. We went through several rounds of repeated briefings on how to organize our young startup and likewise she made us aware of the key roles in agile work environments. 

2021 was the the year of rebranding. The website was brought to life including this shiny new blog. Counting a collaboration of seven people, including my former flatmate Buket Elci, the team has managed to do the vision statement, corporate and website design including all imagery, videos, texts and the final website development. That was a great learning experience! 

Now, who else is to join? This year is the year of ORRO&#39;s first release. We are surely going to make mistakes and learn a lot. You dare to jump into cold water with us? There are still the waters of marketing, UX research and game development. All these fields feel a bit like ice bathing. Maybe you could support us with a towel or two. Keeps the fire running, too!

Stay tuned!

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Who else wants to join our team? Wanna add more tinder? Keep our fire running!

03: From Tinder to Teams

I am sitting in a room. Air goes in and out. I feel the touch of myself on the mattress. Cross-legged, my hands are dwelling on my lap. It is calm. My eyes are shut. 
 
The first minutes when I start to meditate I experience blurry sensations. I am not really aware of what I am thinking or that I am thinking. It takes me some time to get accustomed to what I do. Because I surely do something. At least meditation is not about not doing anything. Something honorable is happening: Gradually, I am creating this moment in which the setting of sensual awareness can deepen. 
 
I am getting there. Already, my body feels more relaxed. I start to become aware of how relevant it is to keep it a hundred percent still, without any movement. It is exactly that which connects me to the present. Starting to feel centered, I occasionally double-check which muscles could be even more relaxed. Often it is somewhere in my face, either between my eyes or my jaw. It is simple to acknowledge it. It is the acknowledgement itself that almost immediately softens my muscles. And after a while my face goes back to its originally tense state. And after a while, I will notice something. 
 
I might become sleepy, and sometimes I fall asleep, sometimes for just a short moment, sometimes I can feel my head nodding away before I manage to pull it back up again. Sometimes I am so sleepy that it must look like I&rsquo;m constantly nodding in agreement, saying silently yes to something that must be invisible in front of me, and that can&rsquo;t be so bad, can it? Sometimes though, it is possible to look at my sleepiness, like looking into its eye. I am then observing sleepiness and this completely changes everything. 

I become fully present and awake. 

Becoming aware of a thing transforms the very thing. This is the superpower that many meditation experts are talking about. The ability to transform things only exists in the moment. It can be unleashed when you become aware of the thing that is unaware. 

I am leaving the room now! The world out there wants to connect my gum feet with a kind of grey concrete love.

Meditation diary entry #1. Here, I share my insights with you.

02: I Am Sitting In A Room

Smagotcha has been on a slow path since 2018. So far we have gathered a bunch of people - students and professionals alike - who assist with their coding, concepts and creations. And although working online has had it backdraws, its benefits certainly came in handy in times of a pretty pandemic period.

Our scattered team is creating ORRO WORLD: a three dimensional listening experience for the smartphone, in which we become mindful explorers on a journey towards silence. Amidst the mindfulness apps that show a level of quality we want to bring quality into the level. This gamified meditation adventure is not an unexplored field though. Out there are a bunch of approaches where spiritual practice already meets technology and games. What makes us different? Keep reading.

In the center of our digital world of gardens stands a majestic tree, who, once upon a time, lost its voice in a blasting storm. When the players face it and go into its very center, they will not only find the tree&#39;s voice but also the &quot;I&quot;, meaning the central spot of the storm or the &quot;I of the storm&quot;. The storm symbolizes the storm inside. In this way it is a representation of all things roaring, day in, day out, whether it is the itch at our backs or the never-stopping noise of an urban area. Finally, someone might scratch herself and ask: &ldquo;How the heck do I get out of here?&rdquo; The answer is out there: Learn to listen. Because then you get out TO the noise, despite the noise. By the way, &quot;orro&quot; is a word coming from the Basque language which means &ldquo;roaring&rdquo;. 
 
We don&rsquo;t know where exactly this adventure is heading. With ORRO we opened a 3D-playground of possibilities. What we do know is that we we will publish a basic version first: A small set of four fabulous self-help stories, surprises included. A first set of flourishing gardens will come with a different topic to teach breathing, thinking and feeling, or hold on... you thought you were already mastering this? Then it&#39;s time to play and listen, for example you can download our app for free. 
 
We want our players to grow and learn, not to self-optimize, but to become aware of the great life we are already living. Right now.

My name is Chris. I graduated at a German insurance company and after, I travelled a lot, hitchhiking the mind during my twenties. Until 2021, I studied at a German conservatory to achieve a bachelor degree in music: Focus on classical piano and immersive audiovisual media. I call myself a creative sensitive. I gather the team around Smagotcha. Currently, around ten people are participating in the project. I am the author of ORRO&#39;s first meditation stories. 

In this blog, I continue writing about the development of ORRO world, the Smagotcha team and all the little visions that make my life transformative.&nbsp; 
 
Stay tuned! 
 
&nbsp;

So far we have gathered a bunch of people. And although working online has had it backdraws, its benefits certainly came in handy in a pretty pandemic period.

Blog Gotcha!

07: FAQ - Moo!