Roadblocks
They're Only Half The Problem
Did you get here because some amazing friend said - go take a read? Want to make sure that you don’t miss out again? There’s a button for that!
I was fifteen when my Maths teacher gave me a book to read. I devoured it. I somehow lost the original copy, but a few years later I found myself in a second-hand book store in Norwich, England … and there it was. No hesitation. The book was purchased and has been with me ever since. (Well relatively speaking, it is actually in a Californian storage unit in one of three bankers boxes that hold my entire physical collection. But that’s a different story.)
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
~ Einstein … I think!
True. Here are more things that don’t always help;
Looking through ‘different lenses’
Putting ‘new filters on the glasses’
Viewing things from a ‘different angle’
It’s as clear as if it was written on a wall …
… solutions occasionally arrive as if through observation from an alternate dimension.
Maybe the Tesseract is the solution we need?
“Either this is madness or it is Hell.” “It is neither,” calmly replied the voice of the Sphere, “it is Knowledge; it is Three Dimensions: open your eye once again and try to look steadily.”
~ Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Edwin Abbott Abbott (‘sic’ - but that is yet another different story) was an English educator, theologian and mathematician, best known for publishing Flatland in 1884. It is both a satirical review of Victorian culture and a mathematical treatise exploring dimensions. It also highlights the difficulty of understanding that which we have no experience of, particularly when your mind is closed.
Don’t be put off, I was given (and read) the book at 15, it can’t be that hard!
My point is that we all hit roadblocks at one time or another. Your differentiation comes from how you get around it. It might require new glasses, filters or maybe even some ‘out of the box’ thinking … it doesn’t always need extra dimensions.
But when it does, know that it is only half the battle. Now you need to get others on board.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
~ Upton Sinclair
And that’s the problem I have been trying to solve on a number of fronts this past few weeks.
Bonus Tesseract Links
The Band TesseracT - Live In Lockdown (No dated musical references here!)
The Tesseract in Marvel Comics (Samuel J)
The Rotating Tesseract (Mind-Bending Video)
The Maths of A Tesseract (Quora)
As always my thanks and appreciation for your continued support, comments and attention. Please like the post, share through your social channels of choice and forward the email to colleagues, friends and family that want to join us on this journey and don’t forget to send me your thoughts. Inspired? Why not comment on the post itself (like here).
Comments don’t support images - but thought this was very relevant ....
https://john.philpin.com/2020/06/12/this-weeks-newsletter.html
John, our synchronicity is alarming, dear friend. My prime copy of Flatland remains in Oakland (CA) storage. And yes, it is the quintessential book for Thinking Differently. A few thoughts from my new home in the other Flatland* (Illinois):
• Upon first reading, many years ago, I was charmed by the intelligence of shapes, and have often considered the role played by the shape of our words in the ultimate success (or not) of our efforts to communicate.
• The most compelling concepts, still applicable, concern the difficulties of explaining anything to those who see their worlds quite differently than we view our world – and I’ve often believed we need bi-directional translators (i.e., United Nations) inside each corporation.
Following up on that idea, quick anecdote: for several semesters, I was adjunct faculty for an international MBA program in San Francisco – 60-70 students from around the world in each cohort. One of my teams was struggling to complete a project because each was from a different country, with different native languages, and four of the five spoke very little English.
They were unhappy about their circumstance, convinced they would fail, until I reassured them that their experience in this project will be invaluable in business, because I’ve worked with executive teams (all male, Caucasian, English speaking) that could not talk to each other.
One other observation re: Flatland – please remind your followers to brace themselves re: Edward Abbott’s very provincial sexism that emerges throughout the otherwise delightful book – I’d recommend, for instance, skipping Chapter 4 (Concerning the Women)...
Your references to Flatland reminded me of another small but powerful book that is very relevant to any discussion of Thinking Differently: "My Stroke of Insight" by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a well-known neuro-scientist and co-founder of the National Association of Mental Illness (NAMI). She documents her own (tragic) experience of suffering a massive stroke, and her remarkable journey back. Check out, specifically, her notions of “One Step to the Right” which is a provocative metaphor, and a simple path through an otherwise difficult time.
*PS: I have a friend, here in Illinois, who actually describes himself as a Flatlander, and the comparisons are correct: in fact, there is a contempt here for intellectualism (blamed on the residents of both coasts who, from this vantage, cause most of the problems), as well as a deep suspicion of and resistance to computers. Sure, they love their phones, but office automation? No thanks, we’ll shuffle, copy, misfile, re-write and re-shuffle 18 copies of the same document, thank you very much. I’m possibly the only fellow in my neighborhood who understands the 3rd dimension, most others are perfectly content with 2-dimensionality: if you can’t fix it with a backhoe, it’s probably not that big of a problem.
I’m the fellow (when I’m not sheltering-in-place) who, therefore, is “stepping to the right” constantly, all in the effort to better understand the world seen through their lens.
Looking forward,
Stuart