The risk, of course, is that boundaries can become barriers, and the danger of barriers is our unwillingness to overcome them. Yet, human history sparkles with moments when the curious-minded transcend a barrier once thought impossible. Perhaps an personal anecdote will suffice.
Many years ago, still a college student, a friend invited me to his family home in Truro – it was summertime, so we went to the beach with our books and sandwiches. I was reading "The Tao of Physics," my early introduction to the more expansive universe in which the distinctions between particles and waves disappears, so that a particle might also be a wave, and waves might also be understood as particles.
The boundary (thank you, D. Adams) defining the ocean and solid land existed right beneath my feet that day, as the waves splashed ashore, blending with the sand, until I no longer viewed them separately, but as particles becoming waves, and waves soaked into the particles.
If we allow ourselves to retreat into rigid, unquestioned boundaries, they become barriers, and we no longer remain open to the surprise of Thinking Differently. Thanks, John, for the cautionary note.
The risk, of course, is that boundaries can become barriers, and the danger of barriers is our unwillingness to overcome them. Yet, human history sparkles with moments when the curious-minded transcend a barrier once thought impossible. Perhaps an personal anecdote will suffice.
Many years ago, still a college student, a friend invited me to his family home in Truro – it was summertime, so we went to the beach with our books and sandwiches. I was reading "The Tao of Physics," my early introduction to the more expansive universe in which the distinctions between particles and waves disappears, so that a particle might also be a wave, and waves might also be understood as particles.
The boundary (thank you, D. Adams) defining the ocean and solid land existed right beneath my feet that day, as the waves splashed ashore, blending with the sand, until I no longer viewed them separately, but as particles becoming waves, and waves soaked into the particles.
If we allow ourselves to retreat into rigid, unquestioned boundaries, they become barriers, and we no longer remain open to the surprise of Thinking Differently. Thanks, John, for the cautionary note.