Connections ...

Our minds make connections when we learn something new – understanding comes from making lots of connections about a thing – then we ask, or at least I have always asked – ‘I wonder if those same kinds of connections will work over here, or over there?’ The right way of seeing something – the right kinds of connections we make about it – the more likely we are able to ‘overlay’ them onto a different topic/subject/problem.

For this reason, it seems a good idea to me (as taught to me by my late father) to view things in as many ways and from as many different angles as possible. I think that by doing this, we develop a kind of holistic view of things, that we can use to look at other things – and like anything else we practice a lot – it eventually becomes a habit.

I remember first learning the alphabet – before I went to school – but with a singular difference - my father taught it to me backwards; when I went to school, I learned it forwards – which still seems like the wrong way to me. The point though is that I have at least two ways of viewing the alphabet – and so it began my lifelong habit of trying to see things from more than one perspective.

I think we all do this in some way or other. We all have some things we know a lot about – or have expertise in; if we think about ‘how we think about our specialization’ – we can then try thinking about other things – things we know less about – in the same king of way.

I am saying the same thing over and over – but in slightly different ways; in the hope that everyone will get the picture.

Best wishes: JBW